The Explorers’ Gate

  He brushed a speck of pigeon poop off his coat. Sniffed proudly. “I see you have heard what they sing of me, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  Sometimes, it pays to memorize the whole guidebook.

  I strode to the summit of the pitcher’s mound and, hands on hips, made a fiery little speech.

  “Señor de San Martín, you once said, ‘Seamos libres, lo demás no importa nada.’ ‘Let us be free, the rest matters not.’”

  “Sí. I said this. Many, many times.”

  “That is why, to honor you three and your Pan-American ideals of liberty, New York City changed the name of the boulevard flowing uptown toward your statues from Sixth Avenue to the Avenue of the Americas!”

  “Is that why they did that?” gasped Martí. “We did not know this.”

  “You probably also didn’t know that Mr. Drake is using you guys because he wants to become the new king of New York City.”

  “But,” protested Bolívar, “he made certain promises.”

  “Isn’t that always the way of tyrants? They deceive the citizens in order to seize power. They lie to their generals to abuse your military might. They twist the words of you poets to suit their purposes!”

  The statues were nodding.

  “But what of this Prince Willem?” asked Bolívar. “Does he truly intend to melt us down to make bronze bells for his hats and shoes? For this is what Mr. Drake tells to us.”

  “More lies! The noble prince Willem seeks only to protect this sanctuary, this cherished slice of majesty, this other Eden, this precious green jewel set in the silver city.”

  Okay, I was paraphrasing the Shakespeare quote we had to memorize for ELA, New York’s English Language Arts test, but I figured why not go with the best?

  “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this Central Park!”

  All three liberators were biting their lips, determined to not let their surging emotions show.

  “Kind sirs, Garrett Vanderdonk and I ask only that you not slay us tonight. That you give us the chance to find the kabouter king crown. That we be allowed to fight on in our quest to keep this sanctuary free from all those who would dare enslave you!”

  Now all the mounted riders clutched their hands to their hearts, not just the wounded José Martí.

  “Sed fuertes en la guerra!” said General San Martín. “May you be strong at war!”

  Then, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Because the three horsemen of Central Park South turned their horses around and gallantly rode away.

  Chapter 33

  Garrett and I continued, without any further interruptions, up to his grandfather’s apartment on 85th Street.

  “You were totally awesome with those horse dudes, Nikki,” Garrett said for the ten-millionth time as we climbed the steps to the top floor.

  When we entered Grandpa Vanderdonk’s apartment, I saw books floating over end tables, rugs flipping up their edges, and a chair rocking back and forth without anybody sitting in it.

  That’s when I remembered I had taken off my red cap on the walk up Central Park West.

  Tugging it back on, I saw a small army of kabouters, in floppy red hats and coarse coats, scurrying about, tidying the apartment.

  “Ah! Nikki! Garrett! Good to see you both!” Grandpa Vanderdonk waddled in from the kitchen carrying a plate stacked high with melted cheese on toast tips. “Congratulations on your marvelous victory this evening! An eight-minute head start for the Crown Quest? Remarkable achievement. Most remarkable, indeed!” He glanced at his pocket watch. “The hour is late. Have you two been out celebrating with root-beer floats?”

  “Something like that,” said Garrett, shooting me a grin.

  “Oh, by the by,” said Grandpa, “the kabouter pastry chef just finished baking the most wondrous Appelsneeuwberg!”

  “That’s an Apple Snow Mountain,” explained Garrett. “Very tasty.”

  “You should eat up, Garrett. Tomorrow night is your big night.”

  “Don’t worry, Grandpa. When I’m done with Brent his last name will be Bloemkoolsoep. That’s …”

  “Cauliflower soup?” I said.

  “Yeah! Wow. You knew that, too?”

  “My mom used to make it. Not too often. Usually when dad was off at a Yankees game or something.” I turned to Grandpa Vanderdonk, who was attempting to extricate a gooey glob of cheese from his curly beard. “Mr. Vanderdonk, may I ask you a question?”

  “Why, certainly. After this evening’s adventures, you must be brimming with inquiries.”

  “It’s about my ancestors.”

  “Ah!”

  “We overheard Mr. Drake talking to Loki.”

  “Indeed?”

  “They talked about my ‘people’ as if they were something super special.”

  “Well, your mother certainly was. So are you.”

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘So are you!’”

  “No, I mean, what was so special about my mom?”

  “Well, many things, of course. Extraordinary woman. Remarkable, actually. Much like you. Loved Central Park. Wise beyond her years. An extremely good friend to the kabouters and the people of New Amsterdam.”

  “You mean New York?”

  “Hmm? Oh yes, of course. New York, too. Perhaps the best friend we Dutch have ever known here in the New World.”

  “Why? What did she do?”

  “More than any other.”

  Then it hit me. “Did my mother die to protect the kabouters?”

  Grandpa furrowed his brow. “I suppose, yes, you could say that. Yes, indeed.”

  “What about me?” I muttered.

  “Pardon?”

  “Did she think about me before she decided to die for them?”

  “Oh, of course. The thought of you is all that kept her going for many, many years.”

  “‘Many, many years’? Um, I was only like ten when she died.”

  “Yes, but …”

  I’d heard enough. “Never mind. I have to go home. I need to make sure my father is okay. I can’t afford to lose him, too.”

  “See you tomorrow!” said Garrett. “We should walk into the park as a team.”

  Distracted, I nodded. I was still thinking about my dad and my mom.

  “Let’s meet up at 72nd Street,” said Garrett. “The Women’s Gate. Right before dark.”

  “Sure,” I said as I slumped toward the door.

  Depressed as I was, I still wanted to keep helping the little people like my mother had. Guess it ran in the family.

  I walked the eight blocks south to West 77th Street.

  When I pushed open the front door to our apartment, I knocked over a pyramid of heavy beer cans.

  The light in the front room flicked on.

  “Nikki? Is that you?” My dad. He wasn’t slurring his words.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  “I was worried. It’s so late …”

  “I was at a friend’s house.”

  “Good, good.” He gestured toward the beer cans strewn across the floor. “A man came to see me tonight …”

  I pretended to be surprised. “Really? Who?”

  “I don’t know. I …” He stopped. “What’s that on your head?”

  Oops.

  I was still wearing my red ski hat. “This? Oh, it’s just something, you know, I picked up at a flea market. Thought it looked cool.”

  “Nikki?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “What’s going on in the park this Tuesday night?”

  Chapter 34

  I didn’t like the way my dad was looking at me.

  “Tuesday? Gee. I don’t know. A concert maybe? Fireworks?”

  “Sit down,” he said.

  I plowed my way through the beer cans. Sat on the sofa.

  “I want to show you something.”

  My father disappeared into his room. I tried to think fast. Could I escape out
a window if he locked me in my room to earn Slash’s fifty-thousand-dollar bonus? Bad idea. Our basement apartment only had hinged casement windows you couldn’t really climb through.

  My father came back carrying a brown grocery sack; the paper was smudged and wilted from being repeatedly curled up and down. He unrolled the top, reached into the bag, and pulled out a hat.

  A red knit ski cap.

  Red with a checkerboard of darker reds.

  “Your mother gave this to me,” he said. “A long, long time ago, right after we were married. She always wanted me to put it on. Laughed when I said I wouldn’t. I thought it would give me hat hair. You know …”

  He smooshed in his hair on the sides.

  I couldn’t help but laugh a little.

  Him either.

  “Guess I was pretty vain, huh?”

  “Well, Mom always said you were the handsomest prince in all the land.”

  Another smile. “Anyway, I never did wear the thing. Rolled it up, put it away. Your mother had one, too—looked a lot like yours. Where’d you say you found that hat?”

  “Some of mom’s old friends gave it to me.”

  “Mr. Vanderdonk?”

  “You know him?”

  “I knew him. Back, you know, back when …”

  Back when life was good, was what he wanted to say. Back when he met the love of his life on a softball diamond and all he had to worry about was hat hair.

  “Mr. Vanderdonk wants me to help him and some other, uh, people save Central Park,” I blurted out before thinking how crazy it probably sounded.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Sort of.”

  “I guess that’s why the man who brought me all this beer offered to pay me fifty thousand dollars to keep you out of the park, especially on Tuesday.”

  “They’re bad people, Dad. They …”

  He held up a hand. “I know, Nikki. People who try to bribe you usually are. You sleepy?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “Good. We need to clean this place up.” He picked a few cans of beer up off the floor. “Help me carry these to the kitchen.” He popped open a flip top. Foam spewed out. “We’re going to pour each and every one down the drain.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. And, when we’re finished with these, we’re going to empty out all the cans and bottles in the refrigerator. And Nikki?”

  “Yeah, Dad?”

  “You do whatever it takes to help Mr. Vanderdonk. It’s what your mother would’ve done. And when you do the things she loved to do, well, that means the best part of her is still alive and here with us.”

  Then he hugged me and we both cried the tears we’d been meaning to cry together for close to two years.

  My dad and I spent most of Monday cleaning up the apartment.

  Yes, I skipped school. Please don’t tell anybody.

  My dad drank cup after cup of black coffee. His hands trembled slightly when they gripped the vacuum or broom. He was sweating even though it was a cool spring day.

  But he did not drink a single beer.

  “One day at a time,” he said to me with a soft smile.

  I had never been so proud of my father.

  Even after all that coffee, though, he fell asleep on the couch a little after seven, right after we ate a sack of Shake Shack hamburgers and Concretes together. I tucked him in on the couch and sat in my favorite reading chair, watching him snore, peacefully, for about an hour before I set off to meet Garrett at the Women’s Gate at 72nd Street.

  Garrett was wearing his wrestling uniform: a sleeveless tank-top-and-shorts unitard made out of something extremely polyester and spandex. He also had on kneepads, elbow pads, and, underneath his red cap, one of those padded wrestling helmets that look like foam-rubber earmuffs.

  “Nice outfit,” I joked.

  “Thanks,” said Garrett, comically flexing his bloated arm muscles. “Brent Slicktenhorst doesn’t stand a chance! The guy’s never wrestled with anything tougher than the plastic casing on a new cell phone. Heck, he’s captain of the chess team. It’s the only sport he knows. Chess! It’s like playing with tiny dolls.”

  “I like chess.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. My mom and I used to play all the time.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  I smiled. “For what? Making fun of chess or me playing it?”

  Garrett grinned. “Both.”

  We came to the top of a grand staircase that gave us a great view of the lower level of Bethesda Terrace—a sort of Italian piazza of pinkish-orangish bricks—and the crown jewel of the whole park, the three-tiered Bethesda Fountain. The fountain is topped by an awesome statue called the Angel of the Waters, an eight-foot-tall woman with wings spreading out from the back of her choir robe (she looks like the Statue of Liberty’s more religious sister).

  Usually, the angel holds a lily in one hand (the symbol of purity) while extending her other hand to bless the water flowing out beneath her feet. Tonight, she was munching popcorn out of a red-and-white stadium box and screaming like a rabid wrestling fan.

  “Woo-hoo! Go, Garrett! You da man!”

  Prince Willem and Coach Krunk were waiting for us at the base of the fountain.

  “Welcome, Nikki! Garrett!” said Willem.

  “Hey, everybody,” said Garrett before dropping into a huffing set of deep knee bends.

  “You look well prepared for this evening’s activities.”

  “Hah!” said Coach Krunk, sounding irked.

  Garrett froze in mid-squat. “What? You don’t think I can take this guy, Coach?”

  “You skipped practice today!”

  “It’s the day of the match, Coach. I need to conserve my energy. Even though I don’t think it’ll take too much energy to whoop that!”

  He flicked his head sideways to indicate Brent Slicktenhorst, who was decked out in his standard uniform: khaki pants, a blue blazer, button-down shirt, and preppy tie. He was not wearing a shiny-stretchy wrestling outfit. Loki stood beside Brent, hands clasped behind his back. They were both wearing pointy-coned red hats.

  They were both also smirking.

  Chapter 35

  “They’ve got something up their sleeves,” I said. “Or hidden under their hats!”

  “They better not,” said Willem earnestly. “It is expressly forbidden for the combatants to bring foreign objects into the ring.”

  I noticed a small wooden carrying case sitting on the ground near Loki’s feet—most likely a first-aid kit for when Garrett clobbered Brent.

  “Where are the two appointed champions?” boomed a deep voice.

  The jumbo-sized statue of Daniel Webster strode majestically across Bethesda Terrace. Daniel wasn’t the dictionary Webster; this Webster was the eloquent orator from the mid 1800s who firmly believed in “Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable”—the words inscribed on the base of his monument.

  “Wrestlers? Kindly identify yourselves!”

  “Here I am!” said Garrett.

  “Yo. Over here, chief,” said Brent.

  “Are you both prepared to serve as champions to your chosen kabouters?” asked Webster, the way a preacher asks questions at a wedding.

  “I am ready to defend Prince Willem’s people and his claim to the throne,” said Garrett, very formally.

  “Likewise,” said Brent. “Only, I’m down with Prince Loki!”

  Webster hooked his thumbs under his vest.

  “Where, then, are my monkeys?”

  The two bronze monkeys from the top of the Delacorte Music Clock scampered across the plaza toting a big bronze bell. They dropped it in front of the fountain and cocked back their arms, waiting for Webster to give them the signal to bang the starting bell.

  “Gentlemen?”

  Webster motioned for Garrett and Brent to move into the center of a circular pattern of terrace tiles near the entrance to the arched Arcade. Garrett towered over Brent by at least a foot. He was al
so twice as wide and looked four times stronger.

  “We will follow collegiate rules,” said Webster. “The victor and his team shall be awarded a ten-minute head start in the Crown Quest!”

  I quickly did the math.

  If, somehow, Brent won, Team Loki would earn the ten-minute bonus. Subtract the eight minutes we’d won for ninepin and Loki’s crew would have a two-minute jump on us for the race through Central Park to find the kabouter crown.

  If Garrett won, we’d have an incredible eighteen-minute lead for the final leg.

  “Champions?” droned Webster. “Shake hands!”

  The boys did.

  “Monkeys?” Webster raised his arm. “On your mark, get set …”

  “Wait!” shouted Loki.

  “Yes?” said Webster, arm locked in its upright position.

  “This is not a proper test!”

  “Pardon?” said Webster.

  Now Willem stepped forward. “What do you mean, cousin? This is the test as ordained by the presiding authority, the Wise Woman of the Pond.”

  “No, cousin,” said Loki, smiling slyly while stroking his chin beard. “According to the official transcript of the proceedings at the Pond, and I quote …” He snapped open a sheath of parchment. “‘One child from each team shall face off in a battle of courage and strength to see which prince possesses the fiercest defenders from the mortal realm.’”

  “That is why they are to wrestle,” said Willem. “It has always been so in the second round.”

  “Perhaps, cousin. Perhaps. But, just because it is the way it has always been done does not make it the right way to proceed.”

  “Have you no respect for tradition?”

  “Certainly. That’s why we bowled last night. Tonight, however, we must determine which of us possesses the fiercest defenders from the mortal realm. The question, dearest Willem, is not who commands the loyalty of the biggest galoot, the mightiest oaf, or the brawniest ox.”

  He gestured toward Garrett each time he said those snarky things.

  “If the brute strength of one solitary warrior is the true measure of this second test, then you and your beefy blockhead here win, hands down. In fact, I am willing to concede defeat in this arena and grant your side the ten minutes associated with the wrestling tournament!”