I walked with Neel out of the stable, wondering what I would say to the king’s minister. He was probably some important, busy guy with a lot of government stuff to do. How was I going to get him to help me?
I turned to Neel, to ask him what the minister was like, but the expression on his face made the words dry up in my mouth.
“They’re totally BFFs, you know. Best friends since they were babies.”
“Huh?” I asked in my not-so-eloquent way.
“My brother and Mati.” Neel gestured over his shoulder to the still open doorway of the stable. As Mati came to close it, I could hear the prince chattering away to the stable hand, telling the girl all about his adventures in the far-off and exotic land of New Jersey.
“They have these things called Giant Gulpies and machines that serve fizzy drinks—with free refills all day!” Lal’s voice became more muffled as the heavy doors closed off the cozy scene.
“Mati seems nice. She reminds me of my best friend from home.”
“They can’t spend as much time together anymore.” Neel picked up a stick from the ground and cracked it angrily in two. “Not since … well, since our father gave Lal so many more responsibilities.”
Not knowing what else to say, I just mumbled, “Oh?”
We were walking away from the stables on a pebble path through a manicured lawn. On either side of us were fragrant fruit trees and flowers. I could smell orange blossoms, hibiscus, some heady jasmine, and a dozen other perfumey scents I couldn’t identify.
Neel kept talking, as if to himself. “Of course, in my father’s eyes, a stable master’s daughter isn’t anywhere good enough to hang out with the precious crown prince.”
That caught my attention. “Wait, didn’t Chhaya Devi say you were the crown prince? Anyway, isn’t Lal younger than you?”
“Yeah, well, that’s a long, complicated story.” Neel kicked at the ground, sending pebbles flying. “But it’s totally for the best. There’s no way I would want to be crown prince anyway.”
Curiouser and curiouser. Did Neel really not want to be crown prince or did their father just not want his oldest son to inherit the throne? Why would that be? Had Neel done something really bad—or did their dad think he was just too arrogant to rule the kingdom?
“My poor brother. He can’t stand disappointing our father, but he can’t stand disappointing Mati either. He doesn’t get that you can’t please everyone all the time.”
“I don’t think it’s such a bad thing to be a nice guy.”
“That attitude’s going to get him hurt some day,” Neel snapped.
I tried a different tack. “Is your dad strict like that with you too?”
“You could say that.” Neel laughed—a harsh, unhappy sound. “You could also say that as far as our father’s concerned, I’m invisible.”
“Oh, come on,” I scoffed. “Not really?”
“Yeah, really. I might as well be a ghost.” Neel pointed at a nearby coconut tree. “Like the one who lives in that tree trunk.”
“Please, you’re trying to tell me there’s really a ghost that lives in that tree?”
“Usually. Unless she’s out trying to impersonate a human woman and sneak into a real family again. Don’t ghosts live in coconut trees in your dimension?”
“No!” I still wasn’t sure whether to believe him, but quickened my pace just in case, to put more distance between myself and the tall brown trunk. “Are you just trying to scare me?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, just lay off. I don’t scare easily.”
Neel snorted. “Good, ’cause I don’t roll with scaredy-cats.”
“Whatever. Could we go meet this minister guy now?”
Neel didn’t say anything else, but loped off, leaving me to dash after him. To my surprise, he didn’t head toward the palace, but toward the edge of the forest. I hurried to follow, and almost crashed right into him when he stopped. He stood under a guava tree whose branches were heavy with fruit.
“Tuni!” he called. “Oh, Tuni Bhai! Come on, Brother Tuni, show yourself!”
There was a twittering and a chirping from above our heads, and then something hard and fast pelted down at us.
“Ow.” I rubbed my head. Something solid had hit me. Something solid that hurt!
Thunk. Neel rubbed his head too. “Stop it, Tuntuni!”
An adorable yellow bird with a bright red beak danced on the branch above our heads.
“Yeaaaaah, boy! I got you good!” The bird chewed on a piece of bamboo that bobbed up and down in his beak like a cartoon cigar.
“Come on, Tuni, chill out,” Neel protested. “This is the princess—”
“From the other dimension!” the bird chirped. “You don’t gotta tell me! I can smell the ordinariness on her from a kilometer away! Pee-yew!”
“Please don’t tell me this rude bird is your father’s minister.” At this, the bird tossed a few more unripe guavas, which we managed to duck.
“Don’t take the act too seriously,” Neel muttered. “He likes to keep everybody thinking he’s a few crackers short of a packet.”
“Tuni doesn’t want a cracker!” the bird rhymed, spitting seeds. “Especially from a royal slacker!”
“Tuni, sir … um, do you know where my parents are?” I asked as politely as I could.
“And why should I tell an unimaginative 2-D like you?”
“Come on, Tuni, strike us a deal—how can we convince you to tell us what we want?” Neel wheedled.
The bird considered the offer. “Okay, slacker, why don’t you convince your royal father to arrest the barber?”
“I don’t think the cuckoo thing is an act,” I whispered.
“Nah, he’s just a big poser,” Neel said. Then louder, “Why should I do that?”
“When I had a thorn in my foot last week, that dratted barber wouldn’t come—he made me wait and wait. Said he had human customers who came first.” The bird spit more guava seeds. “The nerve!”
“I don’t think my father would arrest the barber for that,” Neel said.
“Well then, how about I ask the palace mouse to bite his royal potbelly?” Tuni suggested.
“Why would the mouse do that?”
“Well, what if I asked the castle cat to chase the mouse?”
This was getting silly. “Where are my parents?” I interrupted.
But Neel shushed me with a gesture. “And if the cat refused to chase the mouse?”
“Why then”—Tuni was gaining steam—“I’d ask the stick to beat the cat.”
“And if the stick refused to beat the cat?”
“Why then, I’d ask the fire to burn the stick.”
Neel was apparently enjoying the game. He picked up one of the hard guavas that the bird had thrown and began to toss it in the air. But I wondered if he was playacting too, because there was a muscle twitching suspiciously in the prince’s cheek.
“And if the fire refused to burn the stick?” Neel asked the bird.
“Why then, I’d ask the sea to drown the fire!”
I was getting the hang of it. “Okay, so if the sea refused to put out the fire?” I asked. Neel gave me a glimmer of a grin, and I was startled by how nice it felt to be on the same team for once.
“Well then, I would ask the elephant to drink up the sea!”
“And if the elephant refused to drink the sea?” Neel and I asked in one voice.
“Why then, I would go to the smallest animal I could find.”
“An ant?” I guessed.
“A gnat?” Neel supplied.
Suddenly, I felt a sharp bite on my arm. As I slapped the sting, something Neel had said in the market came to me.
“No, it’s the mosquito, right?”
Tuni pecked at a guava. “Oh yes, I would ask the mosquito to bite the elephant.”
“And if the mosquito refused—” Neel began to say, but now it was my turn to shush him. A light bulb went off in my head. Weren’t all of Baba’s animal stories about creatures fulfilling their destiny—their dharma? The moral always seemed to be that if you ever came across a tiger or a crocodile in the woods, you weren’t supposed to trust it. Because no matter how much they promised they weren’t going to eat you, they definitely would, because that was their nature. To eat people. Like a mosquito’s was to bite people. I’d never thought there was much use for Baba’s animal stories—I mean, it’s not like I was bumping into tigers and crocodiles on a weekly basis in the Willowbrook Mall. But boy, was I glad for them now.
I called to Tuni, “The mosquito wouldn’t refuse because that’s what mosquitoes like to do—that’s their nature—they bite, right?”
“Yessiree! The Princess Kiranmala will be performing nightly at seven and eleven in the royal forest tea salon!” the bird burbled into the stick, as if it were a microphone. “Catch the best puzzle-solving act this side of the transit corridor! And be sure not to miss our early-bird shrimp cutlets special!”
“So the mosquito—” I began, but Tuni interrupted me.
“Did you see what I did there?” He put his wing up to his mouth as if telling me a secret. “With the early-bird special? Early bird, get it?”
“Hilarious, I get it,” I agreed. “The early bird catches the worm, the whole thing.”
Tuntuni screeched in glee. “Early bird catches the worm! Good one! Going to have to remember that!”
Trying not to roll my eyes, I rushed on to solve the rest of Tuni’s riddle.
“So the mosquito would threaten to bite the elephant, and then the elephant would threaten to drink the sea, the sea would threaten to douse the fire, the fire threaten to burn the stick, the stick threaten to beat the cat …” I stopped to take a breath.
“The cat threaten to catch the mouse, the mouse threaten to bite the belly,” Neel supplied.
“And the king would then agree, after all, to arrest the barber,” we concluded together.
“Which proves what, boys and girls?” Tuni twirled the stick of bamboo in his mouth like a baton.
“That cooperation is a good thing?” I guessed.
“That kings should invest in mousetraps?” said Neel wildly.
Tuntuni collapsed with a wing over his eyes. “Oh, the tragedy of stupidity. And I had such high hopes for you two.”
I looked at the tiny bird, who had our fates in the palm of his yellow feathery hand. Er, wing. That’s when it struck me.
“That the smallest creature can be the mightiest?”
Tuni sat bolt upright. “Is that your final answer?”
“Uh …” I glanced at Neel, who nodded. “Yes, yes, it’s my final answer.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to dial a prince?”
“No, she doesn’t want to dial a prince,” snapped Neel.
“I’m sorry, I’ll need to hear it directly from the contestant,” Tuni said in a fake game-show-announcer voice.
“No, I don’t want to dial a prince.”
“You’re absolutely sure you want to lock it in?” the bird boomed into the bamboo stick/microphone. “This is for the whole kit and caboodle, you know.”
“Yes, yes, I want to lock it in!”
“Oh, just get on with it!” Neel sniped.
“Well then …” The bird paused to flap around in a wobbly circle. “You are right!”
Absurdly, even though we hadn’t actually won anything, Neel high-fived me and I jumped up and down, whooping.
“Okay, we’ve solved your riddle,” Neel said. “Now will you tell us how to find Kiran’s parents?”
The bird considered us, cocking his head this way and that. His bright eyes twinkled.
“If you can tell me why hummingbirds hum!”
“Oh, come on, Tuni …” Neel began, but I waved him quiet.
“Because they don’t know the words!”
Neel gave me an impressed, raised-eyebrow look and I shrugged. “What can I say, I’m a girl of many talents.”
Next time I saw him, I’d have to thank Niko for having such an endless collection of idiotic jokes.
“Enough of this. Just tell us where her parents are!” the prince demanded.
The bird looked offended, and so I quickly said, “Okay, how about I tell you a good one?”
“Egg-cellent!” the minister twittered. “Eggs-hilarating! Eggs-traordinary!”
I barely refrained from groaning and asked, “What kind of math do snowy owls like?”
“The prince has a brother that’s an owl, you know,” the bird chirped.
Neel rolled his eyes. “We don’t have all day. If you don’t know the answer, just say so!”
After a few minutes of twirling his stick-slash-cigar and mumbling “what kind of math,” “snowy owls like,” the bird gave up, and I supplied, “Owlgebra!”
Tuntuni and Neel looked at each other, perplexed. “I don’t get it,” Neel said flatly.
“Like algebra? Snowy owls like owl-gebra?”
“Must be a 2-D thing.” Tuntuni shook his head sympathetically.
Neel gave a patronizing thumbs-up. “Good try, though.”
I practically growled. “How can you guys not know what algebra is?”
“That’s okay, Princess. Not everyone can have a good sense of humor like me.” The bird tilted his little head. “But maybe you should stop wasting so much time. Your parents are missing, you know.”
“You don’t say?” My hands itched to strangle the bird. “You think you could tell us where they are?”
“Remember, I’m just the oracle for truth. I can’t help you interpret it,” the bird said rather mysteriously before he cleared his throat, puffed out his yellow chest, and began:
“Neelkamal and Kiranmala, heed my warning well
Your families will crumble, your life an empty shell
Unless you find the jewel in evil’s hidden room
Cross ruby seas full of love beneath the dark red moon
In a monster’s arms be cradled and cross the desert wide
In the Mountains of Illusions find a wise man by your side
On a diamond branch, a golden bird must sing a blessed song
Follow brother red and sister white, but not a moment too long
In your heart’s fountain, set the pearly waters free
Let golden branch grow from the silver tree
Only then will you ever find beauty that is true
The magic bird’s every song will shower bliss on you.”
“But …” Neel asked. “What does all that mean—the family crumbling? The ruby sea?”
“I already told you. I’m just the vessel. Any interpretation is far beyond my pay grade.”
“But you must be able to tell us something? Where to start looking for my family?” I begged.
Tuntuni relented, puffing out his chest again. “In the East of North of East, the Maya Pahar climbs. Stars are born in its clouds beyond the reach of time. Outside our understanding, the Maya Mountains hide. Bravery and wisdom can be your only guide.”
Then, as abruptly as he had spoken, the bird rudely belched, flapped his wings, and started to fly off the branch.
“Wait a minute!” I called. “The East of North of East—where’s that? How can I find these Maya Mountains?”
“What, d’ya want me to draw you a map?” the bird snapped, spitting a few more seeds before it flew away. “This ain’t Joisey, Princess, fuggedaboutit.”