We Dine With Cannibals Read Online Free PDF

Over.”
    â€œ
It’s a miracle!
” Sir Edmund’s voice boomed through the speaker. “
Go in, get a closer look!
”
    â€œIs he going to want us to clean down here?” Oliver asked nervously. “I hate cleaning.”

6
WE ARE NOT CLEANING UP

    THEY SHINED THEIR lights around the room.
    â€œWhoa,” Oliver said.
    â€œYou’re
sooo
good with words.” Celia rolled her eyes.
    Along the far wall, hundreds of thick bundles of colorful string were hanging on golden hooks, all the way from the floor to the ceiling. As they stepped closer, Oliver and Celia saw that the bundles were definitely not mops. Each thick cord of string had different colored strings hanging off of it, sometimes hundreds, and every string was filled with knots.
    Oliver looked all the way up to the ceiling, which was decorated with a giant golden key, studded with sapphires and rubies. “It’s that symbol,” Oliver said. “Mom’s symbol.”
    â€œThe Mnemones,” Celia sighed. “Of course. Why couldn’t we just break into a normal Inca ruin?”
    The Mnemones were the secret society their mother had told them about.
Mnemones,
for those of us who are not experts in phonics, sounds like “knee-moans,” because the first
m
is silent. The
k
in
knee
is silent too. There’s no good way to describe a secret society that doesn’t use silent letters.
    The Mnemones were an ancient society of scribes from the Library of Alexandria. Their symbol was a jeweled key with Greek writing beneath it. They were the scholars of the library, recording every book and prophecy and object in the ancient collection. They preserved all the knowledge in the world, examined it, studied it. They had known the Lost Library better than anyone.
    Their enemies were a mysterious Council made of the most powerful people in Alexandria, who wanted to control the library for themselves. Somehow, in the conflict between these two groups, the Great Library of Alexandria went from being great to being lost.
    Some scholars said it burned down. Some saidit was looted and then burned down. And some, like Oliver and Celia’s mother, believed that it had been hidden and not burned down at all.
    The Mnemones and the Council were now locked in an ancient and deadly race to find it again. That’s what had led the twins to Tibet, and that’s why their mother had not come home, and that’s why Sir Edmund had brought them to South America.
    He worked for the Council. He might even be its leader. They didn’t know why he wanted to find the library so badly, but he was not the type of explorer who would donate his discoveries to a museum. His plans were certainly as selfish as they were mysterious.
    Oliver and Celia couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to find an old library so badly, but they were caught up in the race now. Between their mother’s secret society, Sir Edmund’s Council, and Janice McDermott, the grave robber bent on revenge, Oliver and Celia Navel found themselves wishing the Lost Library had just burned down two thousand years ago. Then maybe they’d be left alone. Then maybe their mother would come home.
    Sir Edmund’s voice crackled over the speaker. “
What do you see? Celia? Oliver? I swear if you don’t speak soon, I will feed you to a llama!
” Oliver looked concerned.
    â€œRelax,” Celia said. “He can’t feed us to anything while we’re down here and he’s up there.”
    â€œDo llamas eat people?” Oliver wondered.
    â€œLlamas eat grass. How many nature shows have you watched?”
    â€œTons, but still … things are always weirder in the real world than on TV.”
    â€œWe just see a lot of moppy, stringy things,” said Celia into the walkie-talkie. She knew she couldn’t tell Sir Edmund about the symbol on the ceiling. She wondered if he already knew. He’d sent them