“Hondo, you need to tell my mom we’re leaving,” I said.
Don’t judge. You would totally take the chicken way out, too, if you knew my mom.
“Yeah, right,” Hondo said. “I can’t go home. She’s already going to kill me for messing up the tour. Hell is definitely safer.”
“She’d for sure try to stop you from going,” Ren said to me. “Just write her a note.”
“Last time I did that, she nearly ripped out my eyelashes one at a time,” I said.
Brooks nodded. “You have to tell her, Zane.”
“No way,” I said. “Ren’s right. She’ll only try and stop me.” So I went with a firm plan B.
Let Ms. Cab tell her.
I borrowed a pen from Brooks’s pack and scribbled a shorter-the-better note on a receipt Hondo had in his pocket.
Tell my mom what’s up. We had to go see about some stuff. Be back soon. P.S. Don’t worry.
I gave it to Rosie and told her to deliver it to Ms. Cab. Rosie looked at me with her big brown eyes and groaned like she didn’t want the job, either.
“You can teleport anywhere,” I said. “Just drop the note in her box or something. Then disappear real quick-like.”
My dog rolled her eyes and vanished into a trail of black mist. If she could talk, I’m pretty sure she would’ve told me You’re a wuss, and you owe me a lifetime supply of chicken bones.
If I didn’t die on this quest, Mom was for sure going to murder me. I only hoped Rosie wouldn’t get distracted by a flamingo or a plastic shopping bag blowing in the wind.
We journeyed through the maze that was the jungle, the dense canopy of tangled trees blocking out the sunlight. I cleared a path with Fuego.
“Zane?” Brooks halted in her tracks and pointed at Ren, who stood frozen with her eyes glazed over. She wasn’t blinking, and her pupils were dilated so huge, the blue of her irises was almost gone.
“Ren?” I rushed over, hoping she wasn’t going to collapse or anything. But she just stood there like a statue. “She’s in one of her trances,” I said.
Hondo’s eyes bugged out. “She looks like a zombie.”
From every direction came chirps and screeches. The shadows around us seemed to grow darker. Brooks pushed past me, drawing closer to Ren. “How long will she stay like this?”
“How should I know?”
Rubbing his chin, Hondo studied her. “Maybe she’s like those monks who can make themselves look dead but really they’re just meditating.”
“Pretty sure she isn’t meditating,” I said.
“You think she’s going to bring more shadow monsters?” Hondo snapped his fingers in her face.
That would be a great way to ruin a perfectly nice hike to the underworld, I thought.
“She’s so defenseless,” Brooks said in a low voice. Then she reached into her pack for a water bottle.
“What are you doing?”
“She said to throw water on her face.”
“If she’s asleep. She never said anything about her seizures, trances, whatever they are. What if waking her is dangerous?” I asked. “Like, maybe she has to come out of it on her own?”
“Fine. I’ll carry her,” Hondo offered. “She looks like she weighs all of eighty pounds.”
Rosie materialized at the same moment. For once, she had perfect timing.