The Curse of the King

“And thus,” Cass announced, “Routhouni picked its name.”

“Cass, please …” Aly said.

Cass began narrating like a TV host. “Our car develops a moist coating as it enters the rim of the Routhouni. It is said that the people here are a bit snotty, tough around the edges but soft at the core.”

“Ha! Is funny boy!” the driver exclaimed.

Cass gestured grandly out the window. “Exotic giant black hairs, waving upward from the ground and dotted with festive greenish globs, greet visiting tourists as they plunge upward into the—”

“Ew, Cass—just ew!” Aly said. “Can we leave him by the side of the road?”

On the outskirts of town, goats roamed in vast, sparse fields. Old men in ragged coats stared at us, their backs bent and their hands clinging to gnarled wooden canes. Black-clad old ladies sat knitting in front of rickety shacks, and a donkey ignored our driver’s horn, just staring at us in the middle of the street. I felt strangely paranoid. I clutched the backpack tightly.

As we drove slowly through a flock of squawking chickens, I read the English section of a big, multilingual road sign:

YOU ARE APROCHING ROUTHOUNI

THE PRID OF THE PELOPONNESE!!!

“Prid?” Cass said.

“I think they mean ‘pride,’” Aly answered.

Where on earth were we?

“Maybe we should have brought Dad along,” I said. “This is pretty remote.”

“We want the Massa to think we’re alone,” Aly said. “That was the plan. If we need to, we can call him.”

I nodded. Dad had promised to hire a chopper if necessary, if anything were to go wrong. Which seemed weird, considering that “going right” meant being captured.

I tried to imagine Brother Dimitrios and his gang actually traveling to this place. I couldn’t imagine anyone in his right mind traveling here.

We rounded a bend, following a narrow alley lined with whitewashed buildings. The car began swerving around potholes, bouncing like crazy. “Who paved this road,” Aly grumbled, “Plato?”

“Is funny girl!” the driver barked.

He slowed to ten kilometers an hour as we crept toward the town center. I knew we were getting close by the sound of Greek music and the smell of fried food. Soon the dark, tiny street opened up into a big cobblestoned circular plaza surrounded by storefronts. We paid the driver and got out. I don’t know what they were cooking, but I had to swallow back a mouthful of drool.

Did I say I was starving?

I was starving. I hadn’t eaten in five hours.

Most of the shops were shuttering for the evening, but the cafés and restaurants were jumping. People strolled across the plaza, slowly and aimlessly, arm in arm. Kids chased each other and played catch. In the restaurants, stray cats wove around people’s legs, looking for scraps, while entertainers in flowing costumes sang and played tambourines, guitars, and strange instruments that sounded like oboes. Old men sat silently outside the cafés at backgammon tables, sipping coffee and amber-colored drinks. An outdoor bar called America!! had two huge flat-screen TVs, one blaring a soccer game in Greek and the other an old rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond in English.

In the center was Zeus.

Or something Zeus-ish.

The statue glowered over the surroundings like a creepy, unwanted party guest. No one seemed to be paying it much notice. Its face and shoulders were peeling and pockmarked, like it had a skin disease. Its eyes were pointed in the direction of a flat-screen TV. Over time the eyeballs had eroded, so it looked like a grown-up Child of the Corn. In its raised hand was a big soccer ball–like thing, but I could barely see it under a dense crowd of birds.

“Behold, the Loculus of Pigeon Droppings,” Cass mumbled, as we slowly walked around the plaza. “Held aloft by Zeus, God of Couch Potatoes, now approaching his record two millionth consecutive hour of TV viewing.”

“Can’t you be serious for once?” Aly hissed.

I could feel the curious eyes of the café-dwelling old men. One of the musicians moved toward us through the crowd—a girl about our age, maybe a little older. The hem of her skirt was raggedy, but the fabric was a rich patchwork of reds, purples, and blues, spangled with bright baubles. Her ankles and wrists jangled with bracelets. As she caught my eye, she smiled and then said, “Deutsch? Svenska? Eenglees?”

“Uh, English,” I said. “American. No money. Sorry.”

One of the café waiters came running toward us, shouting at the beggar girl to chase her away. As she ran off, he gestured toward the café. “Come! Eat! Fish! Music! I give you good price!”

Now customers and coffee sippers were staring at the commotion. “This is bad,” I whispered. “We don’t want to attract public attention. This is not how you stage an abduction. Kidnappers need quiet.”

“Don’t look now,” Cass said, “but they’re here. Other side of the plaza. We’re six o’clock, they’re twelve. Just to the left of the big TV!”

The TV was no longer playing Everybody Loves Raymond but an old black-and-white episode of I Love Lucy. Sitting at a small round table were four men in brown monk robes.

The Massarene.

I couldn’t tell if they were the exact same goons who’d tried to kill us in Rhodes. We were too far away. Those pious robes hid a gang of thugs who would shoot at thirteen-year-old kids from helicopters.

“What do we do?” Aly asked.

“They tried to murder us once already!” Cass said.

“That was before the Massa knew who we were,” I said. “Remember, they need us.”

“So we just walk up to their tables?” Cass asked. “Like, ‘Yia sou, dudes! Can we offer you some baklava for dessert, or maybe a kidnapping?’”