Lost in the Jungle Read online

  A few weeks later, the rocket soared up through the atmosphere, dropping Cheryl into orbit. She’d been whipping around the globe ever since, and the geniuses had been spending most of their time tracking and programming her. The whole project was supposed to be a surprise for Hank, but they hadn’t gotten the chance to tell him yet. Which I didn’t mind, because when he did find out, I’d have to explain the whole e-mail thing.

  As for me, the ideas don’t flow out quite so fast. They trickle. But occasionally I’m struck with brain lightning, too. Almost nine months ago, we were on the remote Hawaiian island of Nihoa, dealing with a bazillionaire, an air-conditioning king, and a brilliant engineer. Long story. Anyway, I had this idea. Someone had been talking about energy, and the subject of electric eels came up, and I kind of blurted out that it might be cool to use them to power a house or even a car. Everyone laughed at me. Well, everyone except Hank. He said he thought there might be something to the notion. And that was it.

  But now he’d been spending time in Brazil, near the heart of the Amazon. Matt himself had just said that the Amazon was home to most of the world’s electric eels. Hank had rebuilt the biosphere and stocked it with an electric eel. And someone had just broken into our lab and taken apart both that room and the electric self-driving car.

  What if he was looking for eels inside?

  I hurried over to inspect the engine up close.

  “What are you doing?” Ava asked.

  I explained.

  This time Min laughed.

  “Come on, Jack,” Matt said. “This is serious.”

  “You can’t power a car with electric eels,” Ava said.

  Matt’s expression changed. He held his hand to his chin and glanced back up at the biosphere. “No, but . . .”

  In a near whisper, staring at my brother, Ava said, “You could learn from them.” She glanced at the car, then the biosphere. “Biomimicry?”

  “What’s that?” Min asked.

  “I know!” I shouted.

  “You don’t have to raise your hand, Jack,” Min said. “What is it?”

  “When inventors or engineers borrow tricks from nature. They study how a plant or insect or bird does something and then try to copy the idea in a machine.”

  “Maybe he’s been studying the way eels shock their prey to invent some new weapon or something,” Matt guessed.

  “Or a better battery,” I suggested.

  Ava pointed to the car. “One that could power an electric vehicle?”

  “People would pay millions for a better battery,” Matt said.

  Min corrected him. “Try hundreds of millions.”

  I pulled out my phone and started searching.

  “Jack,” Min said, “what are you doing?”

  “I’m looking up flights.”

  “Flights to where?”

  I figured that was obvious. “Hank’s in trouble, guys,” I said. “We have to warn him, but we have to find him first, and all the evidence points to one place. We’re going to Brazil.”

  3

  NEVER SIT ON AN OSCAR

  Five days later we were in the air, flying south. Min wasn’t able to come with us, but she begged us to send her constant updates. Also, Matt bought us the worst tickets possible. I don’t want to sound too spoiled or anything, but we’d once ridden in a private jet belonging to J. F. Clutterbuck, the billionaire inventor of the odorless sock. Once you experience that level of living, a normal plane is pretty disappointing. The soda doesn’t even taste as sweet. And we had to ride on four normal planes. There were nonstop flights, but my brother said they were too expensive. So we flew to Chicago first, then Charlotte. We waited there for six hours. Next was Miami, where we had to wait another five hours before finally flying south to Manaus, the unofficial capital of the Amazon.

  Before the trip, everything I’d known about Brazil came from some animated movies about a bunch of talking birds. So I needed to educate myself. I packed a few books from the library, grabbed a few more from this little bookstore around the corner from our apartment, and downloaded a bunch of documentaries, along with a movie called Monkey Boy, about a kid who crashes in the Amazon jungle. Matt told me it was silly and juvenile, but he totally watched it over my shoulder. He’d secretly watched a bunch of movies I’d recommended recently, including a trilogy called Sniper Assassin. Those were really cool, though. The sniper was so good that when people noticed the little red dot from his laser sight on their chests, they just gave up right away, and he didn’t even have to pull the trigger.

  Anyway, on our final flight, strengthened by a few cups of milky, sugary coffee delivered in little Styrofoam cups and at least a dozen of these golf-ball-size gummy cheese rolls called pão de queijo, I devoured as much information about Brazil as I could. Ava was learning Portuguese through a language app on her phone, and Matt was fiddling with the computer code that controlled Cheryl, their satellite. They were busy. So if I studied hard, I could be our expert on Brazil. I carry a pocket-size notebook with me most of the time, so I opened that up and jotted down cool facts as I read.

  First of all, Brazil is huge—as large as the United States, not counting Alaska. Two hundred million people live down there, and there’s definitely more to it than soccer and samba. The country was colonized by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, and Hank wasn’t the first person to study its electric eels. A visiting German scientist named Alexander von Humboldt once drove forty horses into eel-infested waters to see what would happen. The eels jolted the poor beasts, and a bunch of them died. The only good part of the story is that Von Humboldt kept experimenting, shocking himself so frequently that he was sick for days.

  Today, Brazil is stocked with resources like oil and natural gas, and the Brazilian people spend more on beauty products than anyone else in the world. Even poor folks can get plastic surgery. Apparently they’re close talkers in Brazil, too, and very fond of hugs. Ava wasn’t going to like that. As for soccer, well, it’s more than a sport in Brazil. It’s more like a religion. Players and fans sob when they lose. They cry when they win.

  But we’re not going to that Brazil. Or not exactly, anyway. If Hank was off studying electric eels, then he was probably somewhere deep in the Amazon rainforest, and that was a world of its own. Before we left, I was looking forward to the trip. Hiking, sleeping in hammocks, watching cool monkeys swing from trees, laughing as my brother tripped over hidden roots and face-planted in the jungle. There was a chance I’d see one of my favorite animals, the sloth, up close. It sounded like the perfect vacation. But the more I read, the more that changed. Before long, I was petrified.

  The Amazon jungle is one of the most dangerous places on Earth. The river is stocked with alligator-like monsters called caimans, sharp-toothed piranhas, and candiru, menacing little fish that can swim up into your body if you pee in the water. The jungle itself is so thick in places that you have to hack yourself a path with a kind of sword called a “machete.” Okay, so maybe that part sounded kind of fun, but now imagine you’re doing that in the dark. In some spots, the tall trees form a roof over your head that blocks out almost all the light.

  Jaguars roam the forest floors. They swim, too, so you can’t even ditch them by jumping into the river and hoping you dodge the piranhas. Vampire bats might swoop down at night and sink their teeth into you when you’re sleeping. There are bugs that bite your lips. Bugs that burrow under your skin like it’s a sleeping bag. Bugs that make you go blind twenty years after they bite you. Bugs that squirt deadly chemicals. Even the ants are terrifying. One species is known to chew through the walls of your tent. Some shred your underpants.

  So, yeah. Not exactly a vacation spot.

  Four hours into the last flight, seated next to two snoring women with hair that smelled like potpourri, I started to panic. Forget the hammock and the funny monkeys. Now I was picturing myself racing through the jungle, half-blind and covered with bug bites, my underpants shredded by ants, and my entire soul wishing
we’d just stayed home in Brooklyn. I shut the last of the books and sat back. My row mate’s hair spray was really bothering me, and I was considering testing out a device I’d grabbed from the lab before we left. The little beauty was about the size of a small tube of toothpaste, and it was inspired by the nose vacuum, one of Hank’s greatest inventions. Basically, it sucked up unpleasant smells the way the nose vacuum cleaned up boogers. Hank called it “the Odoraser,” and I’d never actually tried it out. So I pretended to reach for the reading lamp over my head, held it above the woman’s hair, and sucked in the scent.

  For a few minutes, at least, the air was breathable.

  The man seated across the aisle from me reached over and tapped the cover of the book on the top of my stack, Surviving the Amazon. The lights in the plane were dim. I couldn’t see him clearly, but he had very round eyes and a short beard. “The Amazon; it’s not so bad,” he said.

  “No?” I looked down at the stack of books, then back at him. “It seems terrifying.”

  He waved his hands dismissively. “Don’t believe all that,” he said. “If you go, just find a good guide and do what he or she says.” The man reached down into the bag below the seat in front of him. “Oh, and wear these at night,” he added, handing me a small pouch. “I carry them with me for long flights, but I cannot sleep. You take them.”

  I opened the pouch. “Earplugs?”

  “Trust me. You’ll need them.”

  We finally landed in the late afternoon, and we limped off the plane like we’d just flown back from Venus. All the airport signs were in Portuguese, and Matt nearly tricked me into walking into the women’s bathroom. When we picked up our bags, it took us three hours to convince the security officials to let us through. Three kids traveling to a different country all on their own is strange enough, I guess, but when you peek into their suitcases and find that the gadgets outnumber the clothes, questions are asked. Thankfully, Ava had learned enough Portuguese on the plane to convince them that we weren’t smugglers or criminals.

  Outside the terminal, the air was warm and wet. A thin rain was falling. Taxis and cars cruised past. Some were parked at an angle, some parallel. A van drove right up onto the sidewalk to pick up a lady with huge sunglasses and long black hair. Matt had his hand to his forehead, staring back into the traffic at a big, white, rusted rectangular vehicle spewing gray smoke. “There’s our bus,” he said.

  “Our bus?”

  “We’re not taking the bus,” Ava said.

  My sister and I didn’t always agree, but this time I was with her. She waved to a passing taxi. The driver screeched to a stop and roared into reverse, forcing several oncoming cars to swerve out of the way. He leaned through the passenger window. “Onde você vai?”

  “He wants to know where we’re going,” Ava said.

  “Taxis are too expensive,” Matt snapped.

  Ava and I jumped in anyway. Matt grunted and followed us, forcing me into the middle seat.

  I hate the middle seat.

  The ride to the city might have been interesting. The driver spoke a little English, and he played tour guide, pointing at buildings and hills and telling stories. He was talking about the famous Amazon Theatre, an opera house built by the fabulously wealthy citizens of Manaus in the nineteenth century, when I fell asleep. The next time my eyes opened, a thick string of drool hung from the corner of my mouth and my stomach felt like it had been stuffed with gravel. Eating a dozen of those cheese bread puffs was not a good idea. A series of unpleasant smells was trying to escape from my body, but I sucked each one up with the Odoraser before they could knock out one of my siblings.

  The driver said we were turning onto Avenida Alberto Santos-Dumont. “The street is named after the Brazilian who invented flight,” he explained.

  “The Wright brothers invented flight,” Matt insisted.

  “No,” the driver countered. “Santos-Dumont was first.”

  I elbowed my brother. “We’re in his country,” I reminded him. “There’s no point arguing.”

  A few minutes later, the car slammed to a stop.

  Rain was splashing off the hood. “I thought this was the dry season,” Ava said.

  The driver laughed. “The dry season is still wet,” he said. “Just a little less wet.”

  When my brother had said he’d booked us rooms at a great hotel, I pictured chandeliers and marble floors. Clerks in tuxedos. Silk sheets on the beds and ultra-fast Wi-Fi in the rooms. Maybe one of those pitchers with lemon and cucumber water. But our hotel looked abandoned. The sidewalk in front was cracked and buckled in so many places that I had to zigzag just to get to the stone front steps. They were partially busted, too, and a dented silver bowl filled with muddy water sat to one side. Hopefully that wasn’t the hotel’s idea of free drinks.

  Ava and I grabbed the bags, and after paying our driver, Matt hurried past us to the front desk. The clerk wore a yellow and green soccer jersey. An unlit cigarette hung from his lips. Matt started arguing with him, and after a few minutes, Ava got up to help. She listened to the clerk, then turned to Matt. “He says the card was declined.”

  “Ask him to try again.”

  She did, but the result was the same, and Matt’s face was turning red. He tried four different cards—I didn’t even know we had that many—before one finally worked, and then he sighed so dramatically that you would’ve thought he’d just been proven innocent of a crime. He handed me a key and grabbed his bags.

  “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Matt snapped.

  Our room was fine. Okay, I guess. The shower was clean, anyway. I dropped back onto the bed and was ready to test it for about fourteen hours, but a balled-up pair of socks bounced off my forehead.

  “Come on,” my brother said. “We’re only a few blocks from Saudade, the restaurant. We might as well get started.”

  I sat up, yawned, and stretched. He was right. But I was exhausted. “Can’t we wait until tomorrow? And were those socks even clean?”

  “No and no.”

  Ava stood next to Matt. “Come on, Jack. Do we need to remind you that Hank is in danger?”

  “Potentially in danger,” I noted.

  “Potential and actual are only the slightest nudge apart.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just get up.”

  Thankfully, they allowed me a few minutes to change. My T-shirt smelled like hair spray. Plus, Saudade was a five-star restaurant. This was serious business. I pulled out a short-sleeved button-down shirt, jeans, black high-tops, and a bow tie printed with tiny piranhas. (I may have done a little shopping before we left.) Matt kept yelling at me to hurry up, and Ava wondered how many times I was planning on retying my bow tie. “Until it’s perfect,” I answered.

  That required four attempts. After grabbing a waterproof jacket and briefly adjusting my hair, I followed my siblings out into the city. The rain had slowed, but only slightly, and the sidewalk was cracked and busted for blocks. Cars and taxis dodged and weaved around the potholes scattered across the street. Matt had memorized the route, and he led us onto a block crowded with restaurants and juice bars serving smoothies and puddings packed with the wonder berries of the Amazon, a little fruit called “açaí.” The windows were all closed and steamy from the heat and the rain. I was trying to peek inside one spot when my sister grabbed my arm. “Watch it!” she warned.

  A pack of kids who had to be a few years younger than Ava and me swarmed past us, all smiles and laughter. They were dressed in tattered T-shirts and tank tops and wore plain sandals on their feet. One kid pointed at my tie, then made a chomping motion. Imitating a piranha, I guessed. A few of them offered me high fives. Naturally, I accepted, and soon I was high-fiving the whole bunch of them. Matt and Ava were reluctant at first, but they joined in, too. I felt like a pop star, and by the time the kids had raced down the street and around the corner, my siblings were beaming, too.

  “That was so cool!” Ava said.

>   Matt shook his head. “You’d never see kids in New York do that. Right?”

  I shrugged. “I have a way with people.”

  Saudade, the restaurant, was only a few doors down, and the rain slowed as we approached. The front was pure, clean green, as if someone had painted it just the day before. A huge square window, miraculously free of fog, allowed a decent view of the inside. “It looks crowded,” I said.

  Inside, a woman with long and oddly straight black hair greeted us with a smile. A few dozen matchbooks were stacked neatly in a glass tray. They were exactly like the one we’d found in the lab.

  Ava spoke briefly in Portuguese before the woman held up a finger and walked to the back of the restaurant, toward the kitchen. “Where’s she going?”

  “To get the manager, I think,” Ava answered.

  Not a single table was empty, but we weren’t really there to eat, anyway. Three thin wooden chairs were lined up against the wall behind us. I yawned. I started to sit down when a man called out to me from across the room. “No, no, no! Not my Oscars!”

  A few dozen diners turned to face me. I stood straight and held up my hands. “Sorry. What?”

  The man was in his fifties and wearing a white apron stained brown and red and purple. His hair was a mix of gray and charcoal, his thick beard nearly white. His brown eyes looked almost too big for someone his size, and he had the thick forearms of a construction worker, not a chef. Still, his huge smile and large eyes somehow made him less frightening. “No, no, please, I’m sorry!” He held his palms out, toward me. “But you must understand, you cannot sit in my Oscars.”

  “Your Oscars?”

  “The chairs. Designed by Oscar Niemeyer—”