CRUNCH! The waterlogged boat careened off a large boulder, and the engine, which had already been struggling, finally quit.
An eerie silence, punctuated only by the roar of the cascading falls, filled the air. Andy knew that this was it. There was no escape now. In seconds, he would tumble over the waterfall and it would all be over.
As the nose of the boat reached the edge of the precipice, Andy lunged for the nearest life preserver and prayed desperately that somehow, someway, he would survive. His last thought as the boat began to tip forward was Maybe the Key of Fate really is cursed.
It was supposed to be an “in-between” mission—a quick job before embarking on the search for the Golden Paw. The senior members of the Jungle Explorers’ Society thought Andy could use a little more experience—a little more time in the field before setting off on a mission that was sure to stretch his abilities. It should have been easy. All he had to do was recover a key Ned had long ago hidden in the jungle.
Of course, Andy hadn’t found out until the expedition was under way that the mysterious Key of Fate he was being sent to retrieve was rumored to be cursed. According to Jack McGraw, the leader of the expedition, great danger and calamity would befall anyone who possessed it. But still, Andy was the Keymaster, and securing the key was his responsibility.
What nobody in the Society had counted on was the fact that the key had fallen into the possession of a troop of angry gorillas, and that retrieving it would put several members of the Society in serious danger! Andy could still picture the look of terror on Jack McGraw’s face as he and the three other navigation experts had clung to the top of a palm tree, an angry rhino snorting beneath them.
Andy had known he had to save his friends!
“Hey! Leave them alone!” he’d shouted, trying to make his voice sound as loud and authoritative as possible. Apparently, it had been enough to get the rhino’s attention, for the great beast had turned and leveled its beady eyes directly at him.
As the rhino had snorted and pawed the ground with a huge hoof, preparing to attack, Andy had quickly pulled out his Zoomwriter fountain pen and pointed it at the beast.
The fountain pen, which was not only a rare and wonderful writing device but had also been modified to be a weapon, was Andy’s saving grace. It had been a gift from Andy’s grandfather, the great Ned Lostmore.
Andy had leveled his pen and aimed its explosive pulse at the rhino. It worked! The rhino flew backward. But the sound of the blast drew the attention of the nearby gorillas, who had been slowly gathering around the palm tree. The group had turned to Andy and begun howling and thumping their massive chests. Andy hadn’t wasted any time. He’d fired his Zoomwriter a second time.
But that time, he’d missed.
The next thing Andy had known, a stampede of angry gorillas was charging at him.
Andy had been so intent on his own survival that he hadn’t heard the shouts of instruction from his treed colleagues. Deep down, part of him had wondered if he should be running away. He was trying to qualify to become a full member of the Jungle Explorers’ Society. Weren’t they supposed to stand and fight? But at the time, he’d been too scared to consider the thought.
Fortunately for the young Keymaster, he had managed to hang on to the goal of the expedition, the pitted brass key he’d been sent to recover.
Just save the key, Andy remembered thinking as he ran away. That’s what’s most important. The others can take care of themselves.
Andy had just barely made it to the boat. As he shoved off from the dock and leapt aboard, he’d narrowly missed being grabbed by the fastest of the ferocious gorillas.
Now, as he tipped over Schweitzer Falls, Andy wondered how everything had gone so wrong, and how he could possibly survive this situation.
The answer to his prayers appeared out of nowhere. If Andy had had time to think, he would have thought that Abigail Awol—determined expression on her face and braided hair flying behind her like a banner as she gripped a long rope and flew toward him—looked like a heroine out of a movie. But instead, the only thought Andy had time for as Abigail grabbed him around the waist and yanked him to safety was relief at the fact that he’d somehow been spared. And that she couldn’t have come at a better time.
As the two scrabbled onto a nearby bank, Andy tried not to retch. Gathering himself, he turned to Abigail and offered her a shaky smile.
“That was really good timing,” he said.
Abigail laughed. “You’re telling me! You wouldn’t believe how fast I had to run to get to the falls before you did. I think I might have set some kind of world record!”
Andy edged toward the rocky bank and peered over the cliff. His boat had smashed to pieces on the rocks far, far below.
“It seems like saying thank you is hardly enough,” Andy said as he quickly stepped back from the edge. The sight of his shattered boat and the thought that he had very nearly been aboard it was making him feel nauseated. “You saved my life!”
“I’m sure you’d do the same,” Abigail replied with a shrug. “It’s what a Jungle Explorers’ Society member does, right?”
“Right,” Andy said. But even as he uttered the words, his heart sank. The fact that he’d been the one rescued and not doing the rescuing was sure to be noted by
