What a Trip! (5 page)

The man shrugged. “Good luck with that. The rail line begins again in Allahabad, fifty miles from here. Good-bye.”

“But … but …” Passepartout stammered.

“No matter,” said Mr. Fogg. “We shall find another way to Allahabad. There must be some way to—”

Rrrooo!
A loud trumpeting sound interrupted him.

Mr. Fogg turned. “I say there must be some way—”

Rrrooo!

We turned and saw an elephant ride by. On his back was a small man dressed in a yellow robe and turban.

In a flash, Mr. Fogg unclasped his carpetbag and took out a wad of bills. “Excuse me, sir, I should like to purchase your elephant. Is two thousand pounds enough?”

Rrrooo!
This time it was the owner who was making the happy sound. He slid down from the elephant's back, snatched up the money, and gave Mr. Fogg the reins to his giant gray friend.

Passepartout scoured the village and found a young man named Jahib, an elephant driver who said he could take us to where the train tracks started up again.

“But it is best not to travel at night,” Jahib said. “We would do better to start in the morning—”

“Impossible,” said Fogg. “We must leave tonight.”

Jahib shrugged, climbed up the elephant's trunk to his head, and sat there. “As you wish. Let's go!”

In a matter of moments, we were all on board the huge elephant, whose name we found out was Kiouni—which Jahib pronounced Kee-OOO-nee. We were crammed into something called a howdah, which is a big open box on the elephant's back, sort of like a saddle.

Jahib patted Kiouni's head and—
rrrooo!
—Frankie, Sir Francis, Passepartout, Mr. Fogg, and I, with Jahib at the wheel, were on our way.

The jungle was thick, and Kiouni was forced to take a twisted path through it, tramping down the overgrowth with each thundering step.

“If we reach Allahabad tomorrow evening,” said Mr. Fogg, “we shall be less than a day overdue. Not bad.”

“The badness hasn't come yet,” said Jahib, suddenly raising his hand sharply, which I took to mean for us to keep quiet. The elephant stopped abruptly.

Everyone went quiet and listened.

Then we heard it. A kind of confused murmuring coming through the thick branches. The noise grew louder, and the murmuring more distinct. It seemed like human voices accompanied by instruments.

“Wait here,” said Jahib. He jumped to the ground and crept stealthily through the jungle trees. A moment later, he was back. “A procession is coming this way,” he whispered.

“A parade, like in Bombay?” I asked. “That was sort of fun. Well, until Passepartout lost his shoes …”

Jahib shook his head. “This is not quite the same thing. They must not see us. Hide!”

We did hide. Jahib led the elephant into a thicket of branches and vines. We all held our breath.

The voices and strange instruments drew nearer.

The head of the procession soon appeared. First came what looked like priests, dressed in long robes. Then the singers who chanted and droned a very scary song. Behind them was a kind of cart with large wheels, with spokes carved like serpents. On the cart stood a scary statue with four arms, a red body, and crazy hair.

“Kali!” Sir Francis muttered. “Goddess of death.”

Frankie turned to him. “You mean—”

“The villagers of Kalenger!” Sir Francis whispered.

I glanced at Frankie. Her face was pale. “You scared?”

She nodded. “Beyond scared.”

“Yeah, me three.”

Following the cart was a group of muscle men armed with swords. They were leading a woman dressed in jewels and gems, bracelets, earrings, and rings.

“She's sort of very pretty,” Frankie whispered.

The lady was wriggling and twisting in the grasp of the big guys around her. It didn't look good for her.

“She's sort of trying to get away, too,” I said.

At the end of the parade was another cart. Lying on it was an old man, all dressed in white and wearing a turban of gold silk dotted with pearls. He was not moving very much. Okay, at all. If you know what I mean.

“Neat outfit,” I said. “Too bad the guy can't enjoy it.”

“Hush!” said Mr. Fogg, not taking his eyes off the procession as it slowly wound under the trees and disappeared in the depths of the jungle. Soon it was gone.

“That,” said Sir Francis, “was a suttee. A human sacrifice. The villagers will take that poor woman's dead husband and set his body afire. And she will join him.”

“When will they do this terrible deed?” said Mr. Fogg.

“Tomorrow at dawn,” said Jahib. “At the temple of Pillaji, where all their ceremonies take place.”

Phileas Fogg wrinkled his brow. “I see,” he said. He pulled out his notebook and scribbled in it for a while, looking away for a second as if he were calculating some kind of math problem. Then he put the notebook away with a simple nod of his head.

“Suppose we save this woman?” he said.

Sir Francis nearly jumped out of his boots. “Save the woman, Fogg?”

Mr. Fogg nodded slightly. “I have some twelve hours to spare before I am officially late. I can devote those hours to this task.”

Passepartout nearly kissed his master. “My master! You are a man with a heart after all!”

“Sometimes,” Fogg replied. “When I have the time.”

Chapter 10

Creeping through the jungle quietly and carefully, we reached the temple at midnight. Jahib, wanting to rescue the woman as much as we did, led the way. Fogg was second, and Sir Francis third.

Passepartout, Frankie, and I brought up the rear.

“I believe my master has a heart, after all,” Passepartout whispered to us, his eyes twinkling.

“Let's hope it doesn't come spilling out all over the place,” I said. “These guys don't look like the friendliest people in the world.”

“They are quite ruthless,” Sir Francis agreed.

The procession wound its way to this enormous temple of black stone towers and arches, with torches hanging from the walls. Before the temple was a sort of open area like an oversize patio, except that in the center was a very tall bed piled high with flowers and sticks.

“The flowers make it look all fluffy and nice,” I said. “Makes me think of going to sleep.”

“Eternal sleep,” said Sir Francis. “That bed is where the sacrifice will take place.”

I gulped. “Suddenly, I'm not tired anymore.”

While we waited for the procession to finish, Jahib told us about the woman being drawn into the square by the guys with swords.

“Her name is Aouda,” he said, pronouncing her name Ahh-OOO-da. “She was educated in London as a child and speaks perfect English. When she came back to India, she was married against her wishes to the old rajah, who was a sort of nobleman. Marrying him made her a princess. But now, because the rajah has died, by the harsh rules of the villagers the princess must die also.”

I shivered. The thing was so wrong and creepy, I knew we were right to stop it. But the place was crawling with swords and spears and daggers and pointy things of all shapes and sizes carried by guys of mostly one shape and size—huge!

We got as close as we could but stopped a couple of hundred feet away from the square. The procession ended at the wooden stage when they brought the dead rajah up and laid him on top of the flowery bed.

Aouda was taken into the temple where the music and singing and dancing kept going, getting louder by the minute.

“This is all part of the suttee,” said Sir Francis. “It's rather like a party at first, then the sacrifice.”

Frankie shivered. “So what do we do now?”

“We need to get closer,” said Mr. Fogg. “But surely we will be spotted as outsiders. If we had a distraction, we might slip into the temple and rescue the princess.”

It sounded so cool to be rescuing a princess. I looked over at Frankie. She was looking at me. We were both thinking the same thing.

“Disguises!” she said.

“My thought, exactly,” I said. “Listen up, people. While Frankie and I distract the crowd, you see if you can free the princess. We'll all meet back at the elephant and scoot out of here, okay?”

“Let us all do our parts,” said Fogg. Everyone nodded. At the count of three, we all flew into action.

Frankie and I slid back through the trees to the elephant and whipped a few pieces of cloth out of the howdah saddle box. I wrapped one around my head like a turban and another around me like a robe. Frankie did the same. We were completely ready.

By the time we made it back to the temple, I couldn't see Passepartout, but I spotted Fogg and Sir Francis creeping around the edge of the crowd. Jahib was ready to charge in at a moment's notice with Kiouni.

Just then, a bunch of armed guards brought the princess out of the temple. They tied her down next to the old dead rajah on the flowery bed.

“Ready?” said Frankie.

I gulped. “As ready as I'll ever be. Let's go!”

Frankie and I jumped into the throng of singing, dancing, shouting people.

“Excuse me!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

The whole ceremony stopped. Everyone went quiet. They stopped all the chasing and the waving around of swords and gawked at Frankie and me strolling around the temple grounds as if it were a garden.

“Do not harm that princess!” I shouted.

In the light of the torches the villagers carried, their eyes glowed like fiery flame. I quivered but went on.

“We are traveling on a world tour with Phileas Fogg, a gentleman of London!” I said. “We have only eighty days, which means we need to be on our way soon. So, we'll just be rescuing that princess—”

“Who, by the way, you shouldn't be burning,” added Frankie, “because it's just very wrong!”

The villagers were all so shocked that, for a second, it seemed as if they might actually let us do what we wanted.

Then the second was over.

“You are not in London now!” one villager shouted. “And you are trespassing on a private sacrifice!”

“Hmm,” I said. “You make a good point.”

“And my point,” growled another of the villagers with a humongous sword, “is aimed right at you!”

“Difficult to argue with,” said Frankie.

But just when the whole army seemed ready to charge us with swords, there came a terrible, ear-piercing scream from the flowery bed.

Everyone turned to see the old rajah—the old
dead
rajah—suddenly bounce up lightly from the stick pile, yell out, “Aye-yi-yi!” and hit the ground, running.

And running next to him was—Princess Aouda!

“Whoa, the guy moves fast for an old dead rajah,” I said.

He sure did. An instant later, he dashed by us, saying in a familiar French accent, “Let us be going—now!”

“It's not an old dead rajah!” said Frankie. “It's—Passepartout!”

“I had a plan of my own!” said the Frenchman. “I hope my master does not object?”

“Not at all,” said Phileas Fogg. “But I suggest we—”

“Get out of here!” I cried.

But we wouldn't have gotten out if not for Jahib.

Rrrooo!
Roaring at the top of his lungs, Kiouni thundered at full speed through the crowd of angry, sword-thrashing villagers and right up to us.

In an instant, Passepartout, the princess, Sir Francis, Mr. Fogg, Frankie, and I leaped on board and galloped away into the midnight jungle!

Chapter 11

It was only after about an hour of crashing through trees and leaves, everyone bouncing around the howdah, that Passepartout finally stopped chattering.

“It was a little plan of my own!” said the Frenchman, grinning from ear to ear. “I saw the crazy crowd and thought, they will not see me worming my way through them. They will not see me hide the old rajah under the flowers and take his place. And they did not!”

“Well done!” said Sir Francis shaking the servant's hand vigorously. “Well done, I say!”

“But all the credit goes to my master,” said Passepartout, calming down. “If not for him, we would have passed by without even trying to save the princess!”

Mr. Fogg nodded quietly. “Well, I had the time.”

“I wish to thank you,” said the princess, gazing at Fogg with these amazingly deep eyes. “But how can I ever repay you for such a deed as saving my life?”

“Not necessary, I assure you,” Fogg replied. “Now, Jahib, let's make haste to Allahabad. By my calculations, the train will be leaving there for Calcutta in exactly three hours. I would very much like to be on it.”

As Jahib drove the lumbering Kiouni through the jungle at an even swifter pace, Frankie nudged me.

“He doesn't even notice,” she said.

“Who doesn't notice what?” I asked.

“Fogg doesn't even see that Aouda likes him.”

“He doesn't?” I said. “I mean, she does?”

“Talk about being in a fog!” Frankie snapped. “It was his decision to rescue her from ultimate death, right? Well, now she's safe and free and grateful and … you fill in the blanks. I mean, look at her.”

Now, I'm not into all that romantic goop they shovel at you on television. I mean, ick. And I'm not sure if Fogg noticed Aouda or not. But I have to say, she did seem to be looking at Mr. Fogg a lot. And she was fairly good-looking. Plus, she was a princess.

Soon, we came out of the jungle to the small city of Allahabad, where the railway picked up again. A loud spurt of steam nearby told us that the train was there and ready to leave.

“Fine work, Jahib,” said Mr. Fogg, sliding down from Kiouni, the elephant. “You have kept us on time after all. As a reward, I should like you to keep Kiouni, as a present.”

“Mr. Fogg!” said Jahib. “Such a gift!”

Fogg bowed. “It is enough that you make Kiouni happy. He has been a great help in our efforts.”