Everyone seemed to hold their breath as Sir Gobbet placed the paper crown on Neel’s head. As soon as he did, the crowd went wild.
But as everyone else was cheering and clapping, the strangest thing happened. One of those blue butterflies flew over to Neel and landed right on his shoulder. For a split second, he looked seriously different. Not just different; like someone else entirely. Neel’s skin got paler, his hair grew lighter, and his face got way older. He gave me a strange look, and I could have sworn he said something like, “Are you the elf maiden? Or a hobbit?”
“Who you calling a hobbit?” I snapped. But with those words, Neel shook his head and seemed to come back to himself again. The butterfly lifted off his shoulder and flew airily back into the sky.
What had just happened? It was like, for that half a second, the two of us had fallen into the wrong story. He was the wrong king, and this was not our world, but a world of elves and wizards, hobbits and kings. No one else seemed to have noticed, because they were so busy cheering for their new Raja. The girls with the flower garlands draped a few of them over Neel’s neck, and then some garlands over my neck, Mati’s, Naya’s, and even Gobbet’s too. The tickly smell made me sneeze, so I handed mine to Priya. Tuntuni flew around, dropping fragrant petals over everyone’s heads, and the musicians started their different, clashing songs again. A few people took up the tongue-waggling ulu-ulu call to mark the special occasion. Everyone looked really happy, except Neel. I took a step to go over to him, wanting to ask him if he’d experienced the same slipping into another story that I had, but Naya grabbed my arm.
“Even if His Rajaness Neel cannot go, I will go with Her Princess-ship back to New Jersey to rescue Prince Lalkamal!” the girl announced.
“No, Naya.” Mati shook her head. “We need all the rakkhosh who are on our side here right now. Especially you air clans. Tuntuni can go with Kiran.”
“But I’m needed here!” The yellow bird squawked, spitting a few remaining flower petals out of his beak. “To help rally the country with my eloquence! To lighten the mood with my humor! To kick that Minister Gupshup’s tuchus and get him out of the palace!”
“Dear birdie, we all must go where we’re needed,” Naya said.
The three of them were so busy arguing, and so firmly in this world, I was sure I must have imagined Neel’s temporary transformation into that other king from that other story. I must be tired, or underoxygenated, or suffering some kind of post-snake-fighting trauma. That was it. That must be it.
“Tuni, you’ll go with Kiran,” Mati said again. “She’ll need help. And we can’t afford anyone el … ah, I mean, you’re the right bird for the job.”
“You’ll be all right, Kiran?” I wasn’t sure, but it seemed like Neel’s eyes were scanning my face, like he was looking for something. But maybe I was imagining that too.
“I’ll be fine. Totally!” I pasted on a fake smile, acting all cheery even though I felt anything but. “We’ve all got to do our part for the resistance!”
Tuni and I had been at it for hours. Driving around in our auto rikshaw, calling ourselves hoarse. It was early evening, and the moon would soon make her appearance in the sky. The plan, which had been to get my moon mother’s attention before she rose for the night, wasn’t going exactly perfectly.
The others had left us long ago. As soon as Neel was crowned, everyone was in a hurry to get off the beach and on their way. The crowd had rushed around, packing up instruments, mounting skateboards, and the few chariots and horses they had with them.
“So how am I getting to New Jersey to rescue Lal? Will Bangoma and Bangomee help?” I’d asked. The giant, human-faced birds had once created a wormhole from New Jersey to the Kingdom Beyond just by flying faster and faster in circles. If they could do that for me again, then Tuni and I would be back in Parsippany in no time.
The only problem was, the giant birds made the wormhole last time not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because they were paid by Neel’s mom, the Rakkhoshi Queen. And the PSS didn’t have near enough money to hire them for as big a job as intergalactic wormhole creation.
“I don’t blame Bangoma and Bangomee. They have a lot of expenses, what with all those giant baby birds to feed,” Mati said.
I was disappointed. I’d liked the strange-looking magical birds. But more importantly, how was I going to travel to New Jersey without them?
“Please don’t tell me that I have to cross back through the transit corridor, then!” The transit corridor wasn’t an easy place for those without official papers, as I’d discovered on my first visit to the Kingdom Beyond. I’d had to face a riddling monster of a transit officer, who had almost eaten me rather than let me pass through.
“No, we can’t go through the transit corridor because Sesha’s obviously got that under watch, that snaky-pooper!” chirped Tuntuni from the handlebars of the auto rikshaw. The half-car–half-taxi–half-motorcycle–half-spaceship thing I’d driven here from New Jersey had some sort of magical spell on it that allowed it to travel safely in outer space, but it couldn’t make a wormhole from scratch.
“We don’t want to risk the Serpent King getting his hands on you again,” added Sir Gobbet.
“So what are we supposed to do?” I asked.
“Find your moon mother,” Neel suggested, looking a bit silly in his paper crown. He’d pushed it to the side to make it look cooler, but there’s not that much swagger anyone can pull off in a burger-joint-type crown. “She’s way powerful—she defeated Sesha once. Your birth mom connected us and let us talk when I was in the detention center. She should be able to help get you to New Jersey now.”
I bit my lip. I wasn’t that sure. My biological mother had helped us, it was true. But being a celestial body, she wasn’t like other mothers. Certainly nothing like my own warm Ma, who had adopted and then raised me on food and hugs and loving scoldings. My moon mother was the opposite: kind of aloof, cold, remote. As evil and involved as Sesha was in my life, the moon always seemed to hover above me, kind enough, but still always out of reach.
“What if I can’t find her?” I asked. “Or if she can’t help?”
“Don’t worry. Just let us know, Your Princess-ship, and we’ll come up with a new plan,” said Naya. “Send a gecko-gram.”
“A what?”
“It’s something I’ve been working on!” explained Naya, pulling out a notebook with a lot of hand-drawn diagrams in it. “Lizard-based communication! You see, their nervous systems are very primitive. But with this immunologic boost I’ve developed to their limbic system, and something I’m calling lizard-to-lizard twinning, they can recognize a limited number of sounds and relay them to each other.”
I stared at Naya’s notes, my mouth open. I couldn’t understand anything I was looking at, besides not really being able to follow what she was talking about. “You’ve invented lizard-powered cell phones?”
“Well, not exactly, but interestingly enough, some of the principles are similar,” Naya said. “I’ve also been developing an intergalactic communication device I’m calling chaa-chat. It uses the tannins in tea as a medium, and then translates sound waves through the saucer, but it’s not exactly functional quite yet. Still burning people’s mouths …”