Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (Memories of the Eagle and the Jaguar #2)(9)
"Never is a long time, Dil Bahadur. Possibly life has a surprise in store for us," the lama replied, stepping with determination into the narrow tunnel.
CHAPTER THREE
Three Fabulous Eggs
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD, Alexander Cold was arriving in New York, accompanied by his grandmother Kate. The sun of the Amazon had burned the American boy the color of wood. He wore his hair Indian-style: a bowl cut with a shaved circle on the crown of his head, and in that circle was a new scar. He had his filthy backpack over his shoulder, and he carried a bottle of milky liquid. Kate Cold, as tanned as her grandson, was dressed in her usual khaki shorts and mud-caked shoes. Her gray hair—which she herself cut without looking in the mirror—gave her the look of a Mohican that had just been rudely awakened. She was tired, but her eyes glittered behind broken glasses held together with tape. Her luggage consisted of a tube about six feet long and an assortment of bundles of uncommon shapes and sizes.
"Do you have anything to declare?" the immigration officer inquired, throwing a disapproving look at Alex's strange haircut and at his grandmother's general appearance.
It was five in the morning, and the man was as tired as the air passengers who had just flown in from Brazil.
"Nothing. We're reporters for International Geographic. All we're carrying is equipment for our work," Kate Cold replied.
"Fruit? Vegetables? Food?"
"Just this 'water of health' to cure my mother," said Alex, showing the man the bottle he had hand-carried throughout the trip.
"Pay no attention to him, officer, this boy has a big imagination," Kate interrupted.
"What is that?" the official asked, pointing to the tube.
"A blowgun."
"A what?"
"That's a kind of hollow cane the Indians of the Amazon use to shoot darts poisoned with…" Alexander started to explain before his grandmother silenced him with a kick.
The man was distracted and didn't ask any further questions, so he never learned about the quiver containing the darts or the gourd holding the deadly curare poison, which were wrapped in other bundles.
"Anything more?"
Alexander looked in the pockets of his jacket and pulled out three glass balls.
"What are those?"
"I believe they're diamonds," the boy said and immediately received another sharp kick from his grandmother.
"Diamonds. That's a good one! What have you been smoking, boy?" the official exclaimed, laughing out loud as he stamped their passports and waved them on.
?
When they opened the door of Kate's apartment in New York City, a blast of fetid air struck Kate and Alexander in the face. The writer clapped a hand to her head. It wasn't the first time she'd gone on a trip and left the garbage in the kitchen. They stumbled inside, holding their noses. While Kate organized their luggage, her grandson opened the windows and took charge of the garbage, which had already sprouted flora and fauna. When at last they succeeded in finding a place for the blowgun in the tiny apartment, Kate collapsed feet-out on the sofa, and sighed. She was afraid that she was beginning to feel the weight of her sixty-some years.
Alexander took the round stones from his jacket and put them on the table. His grandmother gave them an indifferent glance. They looked like those glass paperweights tourists buy.
"They are diamonds, Kate," the boy informed her.
"Right! And I'm Marilyn Monroe," the writer answered.
"Who?"
"Awghh," she groaned, horrified at the generational abyss that separated her from her grandson.
"That must be someone from your time," Alexander suggested.
"This is my time! This is more my time than yours. At least I don't live on another planet, the way you do," his grandmother grumbled.
"No, really, they're diamonds, Kate," Alexander insisted.
"Fine, Alexander, they're diamonds."
"Could you call me Jaguar? That's my totemic animal. The diamonds don't belong to us, Kate. They belong to the People of the Mist. I promised Nadia we would use them to protect the Indians."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she mumbled, paying no attention to her grandson.
"We can use these to finance the foundation you and Professor Leblanc are planning to set up."
"I think that blow to your head shook a few screws loose, child," Kate replied, absentmindedly putting the crystal eggs into her jacket pocket.
In weeks to come, the writer would have reason to revise her opinion of her grandson.
?
Kate had the crystal eggs in her possession for two weeks, completely forgetting about them until she moved her jacket from a chair and one of the stones fell on her foot, crushing her toes. By that time her grandson, Alexander, was back at his parents' home in California. The writer limped around several days with bruised toes and the eggs in her pocket, sometimes unconsciously playing with them. One morning she went to get a cup of coffee at a shop on her block and left one of the "diamonds" on the table. The owner, an Italian she had known for more than twenty years, caught up with her at the next corner.
"Kate! You left this glass ball!" he shouted, tossing it to her over the heads of the other pedestrians.