Addison Cooke and the Treasure of the Incas Read online

  Aunt Delia took Addison by his wrists and looked him in the eyes. “There is only one of you, and only one of Molly. That makes each of you more rare and valuable than Incan gold. Do you understand why I’m upset?”

  Addison nodded.

  “I don’t make rules just to be mean. I make rules to prevent you from being—I don’t know—kidnapped.”

  Addison nodded again, seeing the sense in this.

  “We have to stick together, all right?”

  “All right,” said Addison. “Stick together. I promise.”

  • • •

  Addison and Molly shared a bunk bed in their room of Aunt Delia’s two-bedroom apartment. Molly’s half of the room was strewn with mismatched socks, grass-stained soccer shorts, and mud-caked sports jerseys. Addison’s half of the room was as pristine and immaculate as a NASA science lab.

  Roosting pigeons cooed on the window ledge, watching the afternoon descend into night. Rising wind and brooding gray clouds betrayed a gathering storm.

  “Why do we have to stay with Uncle Nigel this weekend?” Molly asked.

  Addison packed clothes and books into his backpack. “Because Aunt Delia’s working.”

  “But why do we have to stay with Uncle Nigel at the museum?”

  “Because Uncle Nigel’s working.”

  “Why are they always working?”

  “Like Aunt Delia said—to take care of us.”

  “By ignoring us?”

  “More or less,” said Addison.

  He carefully packed his microscope and calligraphy pens. He swiped a pocket notebook off his desk and tucked it in his jacket. His notebooks contained sketches of birds and mammals he observed in the park, as well as pressed leaves and beetles. Addison’s uncle always needled him on the first rule of archaeology: record everything.

  Molly collected socks from the floor and tossed them across the room, making three-point shots into her laundry hamper. “I don’t want them to get divorced. It will be like losing our parents a second time.”

  “It’s just a trial separation.” This was not Addison’s favorite topic. “We’ve never counted on adults before. We take care of ourselves, right?”

  Molly zipped up her backpack and sat on her bed. “Why is our family so weird?”

  “Because being weird is better than being ordinary.”

  Molly looked at Addison and frowned. She blew a wisp of hair from her eyes. Somehow, there was always one wisp that managed to escape her ponytail.

  Addison wedged a few more Incan books into his backpack, struggling to close the zipper. “Listen, Mo. What’s the most important thing in the world?”

  “Frank’s Pizza on 23rd and Lexington.”

  “True,” Addison admitted. “But the second-most important thing is a good attitude. We can’t control what happens to us. But we can control how we feel about it.”

  Molly considered this. Outside, the clouds burst. She looked out at the first rivulets of rain, tracing tracks down the window, dividing the world into pieces. The tapping drops grew to a drumroll, announcing the storm’s arrival with a crashing timpani of thunder.

  Chapter Two

  The Legend of

  Atahualpa

  AUNT DELIA DROPPED ADDISON and Molly off in front of the New York Museum of Archaeology. It was a sprawling marble building, backlit by lightning strikes in the glowering night sky. Trees bent under the lash of a whipping wind. Addison and Molly dashed through the heavy raindrops of the growing storm, splashing their way through puddles to the basement entrance.

  Aunt Delia and Uncle Nigel were museum curators, so Addison and Molly knew the wooded grounds by heart. They cut through a maze of hedges and ducked under an arched portico. Skimming rainwater from his face, Addison found the basement key hidden in a crack of loose mortar. He unlocked the creaking iron door and hauled it open with all his strength. He and Molly slipped inside from the howling rainstorm, the great door booming shut behind them.

  The New York Museum of Archaeology was Addison’s favorite place in the world. Great echoing halls filled with Egyptian mummies, Mongolian battle armor, a Viking warship, and the eastern wing of an Aztec temple. Deep down in the musty, snaking passageways of the basement archives was a secret underground world the public never saw. A labyrinth of vaults where millions of specimens were filed and stored. This was their uncle’s workplace.

  Addison and Molly trotted through the dark corridors by feel, listening to the rising thunder rattling the cement walls above. They passed a long hallway crammed with crates of Ice Age bones for the Hall of Paleontology: saber-toothed tiger skulls with teeth curved like Arabian sickle swords, giant sloth femurs heavy as tree limbs, dire wolf claws sharp as switchblades. At last they spotted a light glowing from an office at the end of a dark passage.

  “Uncle Nigel, we’re here!” Molly called.

  • • •

  Professor Nigel Cooke chewed on the stem of his antique calabash pipe, curved like a bull’s horn. His eyes gleamed behind polished spectacles as he considered Addison and Molly. He was the sort of man who knew almost everything about the year 1493, and almost nothing about the year he was currently living in. Today he greeted Addison and Molly in ancient Greek.

  “Aspádzomai!”

  “Khaíre,” said Addison and Molly, heaving aside an elephant tusk so they could sit on the tattered leather couch by the filing cabinet.

  “Ti práttete?” Uncle Nigel asked.

  “Pretty good,” said Molly. “Although Addison made us miss the bus again.”

  “Molly!”

  “I bet your aunt was ecstatic.” Uncle Nigel laughed gently. Like Addison’s father, Uncle Nigel was from Surrey, England. He was Oxford-educated and spoke with a proper British accent. Addison loved his uncle’s speech, each word so crisp it was like biting off a piece of fresh celery.

  “‘Ecstatic’ is not the first word I would use to describe Aunt Delia,” said Addison.

  “Your aunt has a lot to worry about right now,” explained Uncle Nigel. “People don’t visit museums as often as they used to. So your aunt and I have to work incessantly, like Slinkies on an escalator. If we don’t find a great exhibit that will draw visitors back to the museum, our funding will be slashed and . . .” Uncle Nigel trailed off. Then, looking hard at Addison and Molly, he seemed to decide that honesty was the best policy. “Well, we could lose our jobs.”

  Addison and Molly weren’t sure how to respond. Molly busied herself picking bits of turf from her cleats. Addison drew in his notebook, sketching the Cherokee headdress he saw draped over the filing cabinet.

  “The point is,” continued Uncle Nigel, “your aunt is on a short fuse. And you’d be wise to be model children for her until we sail through this rough patch.”

  “I take your point,” said Addison.

  “Model children,” agreed Molly. A waft of Uncle Nigel’s tobacco smoke made her crinkle up her eyes and sneeze loudly.

  “Benedicite!” said Uncle Nigel, excusing her in Latin.

  “Gratias tibi,” said Molly, thanking him automatically.

  “Well, that’s enough serious talk,” said Uncle Nigel. “I just returned from a dig in the jungles of Bolivia and found the most improbable relic. An artifact that’s not even supposed to exist! I don’t suppose you’d like to see it?”

  “I don’t see why not,” said Addison, who could think of nothing better than a strange relic from a distant country.

  Uncle Nigel carefully repacked his pipe, using the desk magnifying glass he usually reserved for archeological specimens. As a professor he was absentminded in many tasks, but packing a pipe he treated with surgical precision. “You’re familiar with Incan history?”

  “That’s all Addison’s been reading about since you left for Bolivia,” answered Molly.

  “Then you must know how the Incan Empir
e fell.”

  “A bit,” said Addison.

  “I’d like to hear it,” said Molly.

  Uncle Nigel struck a match and carefully puffed his antique pipe to life. Aside from his clothes and spectacles, he really owned very little from this century. With thunder rumbling outside like a distant cannonade, Uncle Nigel cleared his throat and began.

  “Five hundred years ago, there lived the last king of the Incas . . .”

  “King Atahualpa,” Addison piped in.

  “Precisely,” Uncle Nigel nodded. “King Atahualpa battled with his own family for the right to his throne. It was a destructive war. By the time the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro invaded Peru, Atahualpa’s army was exhausted. Atahualpa tried to fight Pizarro alone, without the help of his family’s armies. But Pizarro easily conquered the divided Incas and threw Atahualpa in a great dungeon . . .”

  As Uncle Nigel talked, Addison’s eyes darted to the shadowy corners of the office, containing relics from every era of history. Ancient maps, papyrus scrolls, and decaying mummies. Blood-encrusted samurai swords from feudal Japan. Maasai spears decorated in ostrich feathers. The fossil skeleton of an extinct dodo bird. Even the ten-foot tusk of a narwhal, spiraled like a unicorn’s horn.

  “King Atahualpa bargained with Pizarro,” continued Uncle Nigel. “The king offered to fill his dungeon once over with gold, and twice over with silver, if Pizarro would set him free. Pizarro only wanted treasure, and so immediately agreed. The Incas prepared the enormous ransom: gold vases filled with emeralds, silver chalices overflowing with rubies, and intricately carved golden statues of animals, birds, and the Incan gods. It took sixty thousand Incas to haul the seven hundred and fifty tons of gold across the empire and into Peru.”

  “How much is seven hundred and fifty tons of gold?” asked Molly.

  Uncle Nigel drew on his pipe so the embers glowed. “Picture a hundred and fifty school buses filled with treasure.”

  PS 141 only had ten school buses. So Addison pictured a nearly endless line of school buses, heavy laden with gold, parked down the entire length of Central Park.

  “At the last moment,” Uncle Nigel went on, “Atahualpa’s bickering family failed him one more time. His brother’s army attacked Pizarro before the ransom could be delivered. So the Spanish conquistadors sacked the Incan army and called off the deal. Pizarro burned Atahualpa alive at the stake.”

  Molly grimaced. Then crinkled up her nose and sneezed again.

  “Lots of people were burned at the stake, Mo,” said Addison. “It was a popular way to kill people during the Spanish Inquisition.”

  Uncle Nigel nodded and wound up his tale. “The Incas never delivered their treasure. Instead, they locked it away in a secret chamber and hid three keys across the Incan Empire. Each key contains a clue leading to the next. Locals believe Atahualpa’s treasure is cursed . . . Fortune hunters have searched for it over the centuries, and none have returned alive. Legends say the treasure vault will open only for someone who has learned from King Atahualpa’s mistakes.”

  Uncle Nigel gazed pensively at the red glow of his pipe. He blew thin curls of blue smoke from his nostrils that wafted slowly up to the shadowed recesses of the ceiling rafters.

  “So what did you find on your dig in Bolivia?” Addison asked quietly.

  “Oh, only this,” replied Uncle Nigel, unlocking the safe behind his desk and removing a fragile wooden box. He pried open the mildewed lid and tilted it to the light.

  Addison’s jaw dropped in amazement. Molly’s followed suit. Inside the box lay an intricately carved stone, roughly the size of a large chess piece.

  “One of the three keys!” cried Addison.

  More thunder broke outside the museum. It shook the walls, as if giants upstairs were rearranging their furniture, and repeatedly changing their minds on where to set the couch.

  The wind howled so fiercely it could be heard even in the basement. Molly shivered. “Is it real?”

  Uncle Nigel allowed himself a smile. “I’m pretty sure it is Atahualpa’s first key,” he replied, his precise Oxford accent elegantly slicing the words into perfect squares. “Though the key is made of stone, so we can’t carbon-date it.”

  “More’s the pity,” said Addison.

  “Luckily,” continued Uncle Nigel, “whoever created the key dated it for us. The Spanish inscription says AD 1533 . . . the same year Atahualpa was murdered.”

  Addison flipped open his notebook. Using a method Uncle Nigel had taught him, he delicately flattened a blank page over the stone key and rubbed with the side of his pencil to trace an exact copy.

  “If the legend is true,” Uncle Nigel went on, “the riddle engraved on this first key leads to the second key. The second key leads to the third key. And the third key leads—”

  “To the lost treasure of the Incas.” Addison’s mind reeled, dizzy with the thought. Never in his life had he wanted his uncle’s job so badly.

  Uncle Nigel carefully retrieved the key from Addison’s grasp, cleaning it with a special brush from his desk. “Treasure hunters have searched in vain for the key for five hundred years,” he said. “If the legends are true, the remaining clues to the treasure are still undisturbed, and, well, now you can understand why I have so much work to do. Archaeology is five percent field research and ninety-five percent paperwork. I need to get back to my reports.”

  “But it’s dinnertime,” Molly protested. “And we’re starving.”

  “Plus, you deserve a celebration!” cried Addison. “Can we eat dinner in the prehistoric man diorama?”

  “Maybe a picnic in the Roman court?” suggested Molly.

  “Then we could watch the rainstorm from the greenhouse in the rooftop garden,” offered Addison.

  “Or go Rollerblading in the Chinese pagoda!”

  “You know there’s no Rollerblading in the pagoda,” said Uncle Nigel, his eyes already fixed on his field notes. “And I’m sorry, guys, but I have too much work to have dinner with you.” He tossed his wallet to Addison, who caught it one-handed. “Go grab yourselves some food from the vending machine down the hallway.”

  “But, Uncle Nigel—”

  “I’m sorry. That’s final.”

  Molly and Addison shared a look. Addison shrugged, and they shuffled out.

  “You know the drill,” called Uncle Nigel. “Don’t visit the museum exhibits after dark. And whatever you do, don’t touch anything!”

  • • •

  Molly and Addison took their time at the vending machine, debating which snacks might possibly fill them up for dinner. All at once, the lights flickered out, plunging the museum into darkness.

  “I guess the storm knocked out the power,” said Addison, invisible in the blackened corridor.

  “You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes,” said Molly.

  “If I could see you, I’d smack you.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “That’s true,” admitted Addison.

  Molly punched a few buttons on the dead vending machine. “Great. Now the vending machine doesn’t work. We’re going to starve to death in this museum. In a few days, they can add us to the mummy exhibit.”

  Even in the pitch dark, Addison could sense Molly rolling her eyes.

  “This works in our favor, Molly. Let’s go find Uncle Nigel—he has no choice but to buy us real food now.”

  Yet, as Addison crept back through the catacombs, Molly clutched him by the sleeve. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.

  “Hear what?” Addison’s voice echoed up and down the hollow corridor.

  “Shhh. Listen!”

  Addison strained his ears over the grumbling thunder. And then he heard. The voices of men arguing in his uncle’s office. The men’s voices grew to angry shouts. And then Addison heard the violent clatter of furniture being smashed to pieces
.

  “C’mon,” whispered Addison. “Quickly!” He felt his way along the dark corridor, Molly keeping pace. Up ahead, flashlight beams cut the darkness in Uncle Nigel’s office. Addison had read enough about Native Americans to know to walk toe to heel when he needed absolute silence. He snuck up to the doorway and crouched low to listen.

  “Is anyone else in the museum, Dr. Cooke?” asked a rumbling voice so deep it seemed to shake dust from the rafters. Addison searched his memory, but he had never heard the voice before.

  “Yes, Professor Ragar,” Uncle Nigel’s voice answered, a little shakily. “There are eight armed night watchmen patrolling the museum. I’m sure they will find us soon.”

  “Four night watchmen,” corrected the man called Professor Ragar. “And we have already taken care of them.”

  “My god, you killed them?”

  “My men dearly wanted to. Begged me, they did. But for now, your watchmen are only unconscious.” The professor’s Russian accent was so thick you could cut it with a Cossack’s saber.

  “Then I guess it’s just us left in the museum tonight,” said Dr. Cooke.

  “Good,” Professor Ragar’s voice purred, raising the hairs on the back of Addison’s neck. “Dr. Cooke, I’ve tracked you all the way from Bolivia, at considerable expense, and I need everything tonight to run as smoothly as—how do you say?—a Swiss clock.”

  Addison crept silently into Uncle Nigel’s office on his hands and knees, sticking to the shadows. He ducked behind an ancient Greek sarcophagus. Molly followed, heart thumping, moving as quietly as she could. When they peeked over the lid of the marble tomb, Addison and Molly saw a sight that froze the breath in their lungs.

  Immense men in dark suits crowded the room. They held Uncle Nigel pinned down, his face pressed against his desk. Two upholstered Victorian chairs were smashed. Uncle Nigel’s spectacles lay shattered on the floor. Flashlights were trained on his trembling face.

  Professor Ragar stood in shadow. He wore an immaculately tailored gray suit with a matching gray ascot and a silver-tipped walking stick. Addison wasn’t sure if the suit fabric was herringbone or glen plaid, but whoever this strange man was, Addison had to admit his taste was impeccable.