Aru Shah and the End of Time (Pandava Quartet #1)(70)

Beneath them, the tongue (gross) began to shake and quiver. Several stalactites—nope, thought Aru, giant teeth—crashed and fell, swallowing up the entrance.

“There has to be another exit!” shouted Aru.

“Try using the ball?”

Aru drew it out of her pocket and threw it on the ground, but nothing happened. Then again, nothing ever happened with her stupid ball.

Mini opened and closed her compact. “My mirror isn’t working either! It’s just showing my face—” She frowned. “Is that another zit? Aru, do you see anything—?”

“Focus, Mini! Maybe we can prop its jaws open or something?”

“With what? We don’t have anything big enough. Besides, look.” Mini pulled back her sleeve and bent her arm.

“What the heck are you doing?”

“Flexing my muscles!”

“I don’t see anything?”

“Exactly!” said Mini, tugging her hair. She started pacing. “Okay, we’re in a body. Most likely—given the fish breath—it’s some kind of giant demonic whale. So. Let’s think about anatomy and stuff.”

“Cool, I’ll just pull out my pocket anatomy book! Oh, wait! I don’t have one!”

“Do whales have uvulas?”

“How am I supposed to know if it’s a girl whale?”

“It’s the dangly punching-bag–looking thing in the back of your throat,” said Mini. “It makes you gag. If we could throw something at the whale’s, then it would have to throw us up!”

That was not a bad idea. Except it had a giant flaw. “You want to ride out on whale vomit?”

“I just want to ride out.”

“Good point.”

The girls raced toward the back of the throat. Here, the stench was even worse. Aru’s chin-length hair stuck to her face. Her shirt was soaked through with wet whale breath.

The neon sign flashed in the dark, suspended by back teeth that seemed to be growing longer by the second. Maybe that was where the uvula thing was. But when they got there, Aru couldn’t see anything that looked like a punching bag. Instead, the tongue sloped down into the whale’s throat. Aru could hear water sloshing angrily below. Worse, it was rising.

“There’s no uvula!” said Aru.

Mini groaned. “Finding Nemo was a lie!”

“Wait. You made a life-and-death choice based on Finding Nemo?”

“Well, uh…”

“MINI!”

“I was just trying to help!”

“And I’m just trying not to push you down this throat right now!”

The teeth pressed a little closer. At first, Aru had only seen rows upon rows of pale, crowded teeth. Now she saw something else. Something that glinted.

The heck are those? Behind-the-teeth braces?

Wait. Weapons!

This was where the devas had hidden them. Aru could now make out long swords, axes, maces, and arrows with strung bows, all jutting from the tangle of teeth.

“The weapons,” breathed Aru. “We have to find the right ones for us! That’s how we get out.”

“I don’t want to kill the whale….”

“We’re not going to kill the whale,” said Aru. “We’re just going to poke it a bit, so that it keeps its mouth open long enough for us to escape.”

Mini didn’t look convinced. “How do we know which ones are the right weapons for us?”

Aru started sprinting back toward the front of the whale’s mouth. “Whichever ones we can grab fastest!”

If Mini rolled her eyes or said something snarky, Aru didn’t notice. She measured the distance to the giant weapons above them. Maybe if she jumped, she could reach one of them. A sword with an emerald hilt glittered temptingly.

The whale’s jaws continued to close. Aru had no idea whether the sword was the right choice. She’d thought she’d find something based on her divine parent, but she didn’t see anything like Lord Indra’s thunderbolt in this collection. So a sword it was….

“Mini, give me a lift?”

“We’re never gonna get out of here,” moaned Mini.

Aru struggled for balance as she climbed up, but she refused to believe they weren’t getting out of here. They hadn’t gotten this far just to be killed by whale halitosis. That would be so embarrassing on a Wikipedia page.

Mini layered her palms, boosting Aru higher.

Aru reached for the hilt of the sword hanging above her. “Just…a little farther—”

A gust of hot air knocked her to the ground. Or tongue. Whatever it was.

Aru scrambled to her feet, but she kept getting thrown off-balance. The rotting wind turned fiercer.

“Aru!” called Mini behind her.

Aru spun around to see Mini trying to hold on to the floor. But the whale’s lungs were too strong. Her legs kicked out behind her, lifting into the air.

“It’s trying to inhale us!”

“Hold on!” called Aru. She crawled toward Mini, but it was like crawling over ice. Her palms slipped, causing her elbows to jam into the tongue-floor. The whale’s breath sucked at her. “I’m coming,” she croaked.

There was no way they were going to get those weapons. She knew it now. Behind her, the light shrank.