The Explorers’ Gate (19 page)

“Ah!” said Loki. “Right on time. My esteemed tour guide has arrived.”

“This kid's awesome!” said Brent.

David Drake was the first to bound down the staircase.

But I immediately recognized the shaggy-haired boy slumping down the steps behind him.

Jonas Blauvelt.

The winner of the Park Smarts trivia contest.

The sixteen-year-old kid who wrote the book on Central Park.

Literally
.

Suddenly, it all made sense.

This was why Mr. Drake had sponsored the Park Smarts trivia contest. He wanted to find the perfect kid to lead his team to a perfect victory in the final leg of the Crown Quest. He wanted somebody with Dutch ancestors who knew Central Park better than the back
or
front of his own hand.

“Come on, Jonas,” said Drake. “Hustle. You want to see your mom and dad for breakfast tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Blauvelt mumbled.

It sounded to me like Loki and company had kidnapped
his
parents, too.

Blauvelt looked sad—and not just because he was wearing a plaid green shirt or because his red cone cap was anchored under his chin birthday-party style with a tight elastic strap.

I think he missed his mom and dad. I could relate.

“That short fellow there is Loki,” Mr. Drake told Blauvelt. “You're playing for his team.”

“Fine,” said Blauvelt. “Whatever.”

Loki stepped forward, shot out his hand. “Welcome to my team, Jonas.”

“Yeah,” added Brent, shooting out his hand, too. “You're playing with winners tonight!”

Blauvelt flopped out his hand like a limp fish and shook both their hands.

I got the feeling that Jonas Blauvelt wasn't used to being picked when any kind of team was choosing up sides. I could relate to that, too.

All at once, I heard the stomp of booted feet accompanied by the jangle of buckles, helmet straps, and backpacks.

“107
^th
Infantry, halt!”

Seven bronze doughboys from World War I had just marched onto the plaza. Three of the soldiers carried rifles with bayonets. One heroic-looking guy carried the slumped body of a wounded comrade. Another injured man had his head wrapped in bandages but still held a hand grenade in his fist.

The leader at the center of the wall of soldiers was helmetless with thick, swept-back hair and looked as fearless as any ruggedly handsome Hollywood movie star charging up a hill to single-handedly take out the enemy's whole army.

“Sergeant Billy Shaw reporting for duty!” he called out, his voice as strong and heroic as his chiseled face. “Because the outcome of this final round will determine Central Park's next kabouter king, the Witte Wieven have decreed that it shall be conducted under strict military supervision.”

“Okay, I know who you guys are,” Blauvelt said blandly.

Wow
. His first talking statues and he wasn't excited to see living, breathing bronze? He just thought this was the first question on a pop quiz.

“You're the memorial erected to honor the gallant service of the 107
^th
Infantry during World War I. You are currently located in a wooded thicket at East 67
^th
Street and Fifth Avenue.”

“Actually,” said Brent trying to sound smart, “they're
here
right now.”

Blauvelt rolled his eyes.

“But, what you may not know, Jonas,” I said, to prove I would not go down without a fight, “is that 580 soldiers from the 107
^th
were killed in World War I.”

“And 1,487 were wounded,” said Blauvelt, to one-up me.

So I one-upped his one-upmanship. “Four of them received the Congressional Medal of Honor.”

“I knew that, too,” said Blauvelt.

“And whose hands sculpted mine?” Sergeant Shaw demanded, raising his rifle to his chest.

“Karl Illava,” said Blauvelt before I could. “1896–1954.”

Blauvelt definitely had his facts and dates down cold.

“Is that all?” asked the soldier.

Blauvelt sighed. “It's enough, okay? Next question.”

“Actually,” I piped up. “There's more.”

“Give it up, Van Wyckie,” sneered Brent. “Our guy's
way
smarter than you.”

“That might be true,” I said sweetly. “So, maybe he just forgot that the sculptor, Karl Illava, used his own hands as models for the soldiers' hands?”

Proving my point, all seven doughboys held up their hands. They looked exactly alike.

“Is this part of the official Crown Quest?” demanded Mr. Drake. “If not, why should my clue cracker waste his brain cells on hands? This isn't a manicure competition. …”

Shaw marched over to Drake. “All those not directly involved in the Crown Quest are hereby ordered to evacuate.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” said Drake fidgeting with the pointy red cap that made him look like a well-to-do dunce. “I put this team together. I'd like to observe the competition.”

“And I wanted to date all the pretty girls in France,” said Shaw.

“But …”

“MOVE OUT!” bellowed the soldier to Shaw's left. Everything this guy said came out as a shout because his mouth had been sculpted in a wide-open circle. “YOU HEARD THE SERGEANT! EVACUATE THIS AREA! NOW!”

Drake stood his ground.

Rifles were raised.

“MOVE! NOW! GO!”

“Okay, okay!”

Drake scurried up the staircase to his waiting limo.

The car's tires screeched when it sped away.

“Now then,” said Sergeant Shaw, marching up and down in front of the six contestants, “due to the heightened significance of this evening's event, no kabouter or magical creature may venture outside the park's perimeter walls until after the crown is found.”

“Fine,” said Loki.

“Agreed,” said Willem.

“My men will now disperse to hidden locations throughout the park. Troop? A-ten-tion!”

The six soldiers, even the wounded ones, stood up straight and tall.

“Dis-perse!”

In a double-time trot, the soldiers took off in various directions.

“One of my men will be stationed at each of the two points you must locate using the clues you will soon be provided. Four of my men will act as decoys. When you find a correct location, you will be given a new clue to guide you to the next location.”

Garrett raised his hand.

“Sir?” snapped the Sergeant.

“How many locations do we have to find?”

“This third round will involve three riddles leading to three locations.”

“And the crown?” asked Loki. “Where, exactly, will we find the crown?”

“At the third location. There will be no soldier stationed there as you will see the kabouter crown itself.”

“Well, hurry up, tin man,” said bratty Brent. “Give us the first riddle, already.”

“At ease, mister Slicktenhorst. Your team will be held back eighteen full minutes, due to your poor showing in the first two rounds.”

“Poor showing?” said Loki. “That's rather judgmental, don't you think? Truth be told, we were robbed.”

“Tell it to someone who cares.” Sergeant Shaw pulled an envelope from a cartridge case hooked to his belt. “Here then, is your first clue: ‘Near the love that's like a red, red rose, due west of the trusted trees, down where you'd hold your nose, that's where the second clue shall be.'”

Garrett and Willem looked at me.

I nodded. I knew exactly where we had to go first.

“Team Willem?” said Shaw. “On your mark, get set …”

He raised his rifle, and fired it into the air.

“Go!”

“Come on, you guys!” I said as I raced for the arches of the Arcade. I wanted the shadows of the underpass to hide our ultimate direction so Loki, Blauvelt, and Brent couldn't just follow us.

When we'd been swallowed up by the darkness and were dashing up the steep steps at the far end of the underpass, Willem said, “Nikki, do you know where they are holding your father?”

“I have a pretty good idea, yeah.”

“Well, I propose we use our eighteen-minute head-start to go rescue him!”

“Yeah!” said Garrett.

“I thought about that, too,” I said, leading the way down the wide promenade of the Mall. “That might be a clever use of time. But it may not be wise.”

“How come?” asked Garrett.

“It's what Loki wants us to do. And he might be lying. So I say we knock out these first two locations, get the clue for the crown's hiding place, and then, if we still have time, go get my dad. We zig when he expects us to zag.”

“Interesting,” said Willem.

“Smart,” added Garrett.

“Come on,” I said.

“Uh, where are we going?” asked Garrett.

“South. ‘Near the love that's like a red, red rose.' That's from a poem by Robert Burns.”

“That dude with the feathered pen we met last night?”

“Exactly! Burns was Scotland's most renowned literary figure and wrote: ‘O my love's like a red, red rose that's newly sprung in June; O my love's like a melody that's sweetly play'd in tune.'”

“And they built him a statue anyway?” said Garrett.

“Yeah.”

We were halfway down the Mall.

“What about that next bit?” asked Willem, his stubby legs scissoring back and forth. “‘Due west of the trusted trees?'”

“Well, at the southern end of the Mall, near the Burns statue, if you look down at the pavers, you'll see names inscribed in the blocks, donors who contributed to the Central Park
Tree Trust
! Get it? They ‘trusted' trees. And, in the same area, there's a mosaic of a compass rose.”

“And due west?” asked Garrett. “Where does the compass's W tip point?”

“To a storm drain!”

“A sewer grate!” exclaimed Willem. “‘Down where you'd hold your nose!' Amazing! What would we do without you, Nikki?”

“Lose,” said Garrett. “Miserably.”

“Well, don't forget—they've got Jonas Blauvelt. He's probably already figured it out, too.” We reached the compass mosaic. I pointed to the drain.

There was a shimmering gold star sitting on top of it.

The instant Garrett grabbed it, somebody above us shouted, “Well done, boy-o!”

The three of us looked up. One of the doughboys, the man with his head wrapped with bandages, was sitting up in an elm tree. “Kindly replace the gold star, in case the other team also nuts out the first riddle. So—are you folks ready for your next clue?”

“We are!” said Willem.

“Very well: Go to where the Lake is frozen in July.”

“That's it?”

“That's it.”

“No rhyme?” said Garrett.

“Not this time,” said the soldier.

Willem fidgeted with his beard. “How can the Lake be frozen in July? It's impossible.”

“No, it's not,” I said.

“Uh,” said Garrett, “I think I have to go with Willem on this one, Nikki. I have never, ever seen the Lake frozen in the middle of the summer.”

“I know,” I said with a smile. “But the answer isn't the real lake! We need to go to the Loeb Boathouse café.”

We also needed to hurry.

By my watch, we had spent eight minutes of our eighteen-minute head start. To move faster, Garrett, who was superhumanly strong, piggybacked Willem, whose legs were kabouterly short.

“This way!” I led them up a winding path back toward the Lake and the Boathouse. Down in the distance, I could see silhouettes of Sergeant Shaw and our three challengers, still waiting at Bethesda Terrace for their starting gun.

We raced under the canopied entrance to the Boathouse restaurant.

“The frozen lake is out back.”

Scrambling around to a cluster of picnic tables set up on an outdoor plaza, we came to a sculpture: a four-foot tall, rectangular column of charcoal-colored stone, maybe two feet wide on each side, topped off by an impressionistic rendering of a very turbulent lake being navigated by two doll-sized rowers facing each other in a tiny boat.

“Aha!” said Willem. “A lake that remains frozen even in July because it is sculpted out of solid rock!”

“Look!” said Garrett. “There's another gold star!” It was taped to the side of the pedestal.

“WELL DONE!” yelled the soldier with the
O
of a mouth as he stepped out from the shadows.

“May we have our final clue, please?” I asked.

“We're kind of in a hurry,” added Garrett.

“Indeed,” said Willem.

“RIGHT. ‘PAST WHERE PENNIES BECOME ARCTIC FOXES, WHERE SCHOLARS ENTER YOU MUST EXIT AND FIND THE STREET THAT SMELLS OF A BARN THOUGH THE LARGEST HORSES BE FORGED OF BRONZE. FROM GEORGIA HE RIDES WHO DIED SIX DAYS AFTER HE WAS BORN. YOU WILL FIND THE KABOUTER CROWN WHERE RUNNING SHOES WALK IN GLORY, GLORY HALLELUJAH.'”

Garrett's jaw dropped. “Huh?”

Willem looked totally confused, not to mention somewhat dazed.

“Thanks,” I said to the soldier.

Because I knew exactly where the crown was hidden.

“Let's go, you guys!”

“Where to?” asked Garrett, hauling Willem on his back like a knapsack, ready to run.

“Well,” I said, glancing at my watch, “we still have about a minute left to our head start.”

“We should go locate your father!” said Willem.

“Yeah,” added Garrett. “Blauvelt won't be able to solve the riddles any faster than you did. Plus, Brent won't be able to carry Loki on his back because, A: Brent is a weakling, and B: Loki's so slimy he'd slide off.”

Willem nodded. “We should retain a minute or two advantage over our rivals! Where is your father?”

“North. Near the Runners' Gate—well, technically, it's called the Engineers' Gate.”