The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,58
Beyond?”
At the end of the room, the wormhole was spinning faster now, shooting off light around the room.
“Something like that,” shouted Shady Sadie. “It’s the idea that no matter how accurate or advanced our science is at predicting weather, say, there’s always something beyond our understanding. That’s the beauty of the universe. That’s the butterfly effect.”
“No matter how sure you are, things change!” K. P. Das clapped his hands as Bunty reared back, getting ready to leap at the whirring wormhole. “A butterfly might move a wing across the world and change your entire reality.”
I had no idea how the butterfly effect was going to help us stop this wedding, but it was too loud to ask. The noise of the whirling wormhole was so tremendous I couldn’t hear myself think, and the shooting lights flying out of it hurt my brain. Then Sadie pushed a button on her control panel, and the vortex of the wormhole cranked open like a mechanical eye. The room shook like a spaceship taking off.
“Now off with you!” said Einstein-ji. Or at least, I think that’s what he said. The force of the wind coming off the mechanical wormhole had blown away his words, even as it blew off his hat, making his crazy gray hair fly this way and that. He made a gesture with his hands like a book opening and pointed to my backpack, where I’d stored the copy of Thakurmar Jhuli. The last words I heard him say before we leaped into the wormhole were “Trust in the power of stories!”
The Smarty-Pants Science Corporation atom-smasher-slash-wormhole obviously had super-powerful GPS. Not only did it get us all intact to the Kingdom Beyond, but it deposited us exactly where we wanted to be—at the entrance to the cave complex that was the PSS resistance headquarters. We were greeted there by a very angry Sir Gobbet, followed by a sheepish-looking Buddhu and Bhootoom. Buddhu, I was surprised to see, was wearing Neel’s paper crown on his furry monkey head.
“You came to find me and left Buddhu in charge?” I whispered to Neel as I got off Bunty’s back. I mean, what was Neel thinking? The monkey prince could hardly be trusted to be in charge of his own hygiene.
“Not just him,” Neel argued as he petted Raat’s nose. He sounded a little defensive. “Bhootoom too.”
I rolled my eyes. The owl prince Bhootoom was even worse than Buddhu. He hardly talked, ate rodents, and could only fly backward. They were not exactly a crack team.
Apparently Sir Gobbet agreed, because within minutes of us coming through the wormhole, and Neel helping a limping Lal off of the pakkhiraj horse’s back, the minister ripped the paper crown off the monkey prince’s head and slammed it down on Lal’s perfect curls.
“There, we have a new Raja now!” announced the man unceremoniously.
“I graciously accept the honor,” said Lal.
Neel gently helped his brother sit down on a rock. “Better you than me, Bro,” he said, but his words were the opposite of the hurt expression on his face. I looked away, not wanting to see how upset Neel looked. I knew I was responsible for a lot of it, but I didn’t know how to undo what I’d done.
“Where are Mati and Naya?” I asked the monkey prince.
“Arré, top sekrit PSS meeting, yaar,” drawled Buddhu in his characteristic laid-back tone. “Beyond my pay grade, you know. Nice to see you, brother Lalkamal. Glad to see that little vacation in the tree trunk didn’t hurt you any, yaar!” Lal acknowledged Buddhu’s comment with a smiling nod.
“Thank goodness you are here, Raja Lalkamal!” Sir Gobbet sputtered. “And you too, Prince Neelkamal. You won’t believe what’s it’s been like since you’ve been gone.”
“I’ve been gone for a day.” Neel frowned. “What could have happened?”
“What could have happened, you asked? Oh, your princely brothers just hacked into the Thirteen Rivers satellite, interrupted the kingdom’s favorite soap opera, and started telling those terrible jokes on live national television!” Sir Gobbet wailed. “Just in the course of a day, they have lost the support of half the kingdom and turned the other half of the kingdom more in support of Sesha!”
“Arré, yaar, am I to be blamed if the people here aren’t sophisticated enough to appreciate my banana jokes?” Buddhu said while scratching an armpit.
I petted the monkey’s furry shoulder. “Not many people are.”
“And what about the leaving of banana peels all over the capital city?” Sir Gobbet demanded.