فصل 52

CHAPTER 52

THE GOLD SUITS

PETER, WITH TINK FLYING ALONGSIDE, landed in front of the big door leading to the dungeon. The door was ajar. Peter poked his head inside and, seeing nobody, stepped into the entry room. He held his breath and stood absolutely still: laughter came toward him from the corridor to his left. He turned toward the corridor to the right, but heard the sound of men’s voices coming from that direction. With nowhere else to go, he flew to the ceiling and flattened himself in the darkness next to a wooden beam. Tink tucked herself in beside him. Moments later, four soldiers, still laughing, passed directly beneath them and crossed into the right-hand corridor, their voices slowly fading.

Peter dropped quickly to the floor and trotted down the corridor to the left. He passed the storage room where the gold suits were locked up. He continued on to the monkey cell, then hesitated, weighing the risk of continuing until he reached the cell holding Leonard Aster and Bakari. But then he once again heard men’s voices—now coming from behind him—and decided to stay with his plan.

As he’d hoped, the monkey cage had no lock, only a latch. He opened it and, wrinkling his nose at the smell, stepped inside, pulling the door closed but not letting it latch. Immediately, he was surrounded by excited monkeys, hooting and shrieking.

You’re scaring them, said Tink, from Peter’s shoulder.

“Tell them it’s all right,” he said. “Tell them to be quiet.”

Tink flew down and spoke to the monkeys, making a strange combination of bell and monkey sounds. Whatever she said was effective; all of them quieted. A young monkey approached Peter, sniffed his leg, and made a noise.

She says you smell bad, said Tink.

“Shh,” said Peter, listening. The voices were getting closer.

“Listen, Tink,” he whispered, wriggling out of his robe. “Tell the monkeys that I’m about to open the door and that they should go outside and distract the soldiers.”

Why would they want to do that?

“I don’t know,” snapped Peter. The approaching voices and footsteps were very close now. “We need a distraction,” he whispered. “Make something up.”

All right.

As Tink spoke to the monkeys, Peter peered through the cage bars and saw soldiers approaching. As he’d hoped, they were the ones escorting the four boys—Slightly in the front, followed by Tootles, Curly, and Nibs. They stopped in front of the locked room containing the gold suits. Peter glanced down at Tink hovering among the monkeys and nodded. Then he pulled the cage door open.

Tink emitted a loud chime. Instantly, the monkeys, screeching like banshees, shot into the corridor and leapt onto the soldiers, climbing on their heads, clinging to their faces, yanking off their hats, and pawing through their hair. The soldiers dropped their weapons and frantically tried to free themselves of their furred, frenzied attackers; several stumbled and fell.

Peter held back, waiting. When the corridor was utter chaos, with the monkey-besieged soldiers paying no attention to the four boys, Peter darted out, grabbed the second boy in line—Tootles—and yanked him back into the monkey cage.

“Shh,” whispered Peter, cupping Tootles’s mouth before the boy could cry out. “Stay in here and keep out of sight until the soldiers are gone. I’m here to help.”

To Peter’s relief, Tootles nodded.

Peter tucked Tink into his shirt and watched for the right moment, then ducked into the still-chaotic corridor and slipped into line behind Slightly, motioning for the other boys to keep their mouths shut.

A minute or two passed while the soldiers struggled to rid themselves of the annoying monkeys, who finally scampered away down the corridor, screeching and hooting. The disheveled soldiers, clearly upset about the delay, hastily retrieved their hats and weapons. Peter pressed close against Slightly, keeping his face down. The soldiers didn’t notice the switch. Barking orders, they opened the door and shoved the boys inside, gesturing impatiently at the gold suits hanging along the far wall.

Peter, following Slightly’s lead, began putting on one of the suits. It was heavy, made of a gold-mesh fabric. It felt cool to the touch, and smooth against his skin.

“What did you tell the monkeys?” he whispered to Tink, as he tucked her inside the gold jacket.

I said the soldiers had bananas in their hair.

Peter slipped his feet into a pair of gold boots, then pulled on a gold-mesh head covering. The hood reduced his vision considerably, but now his face was obscured. He fell into line behind Slightly as the boys filed back out into the corridor, four small gold figures on their way to get the starstuff that would end the world.