The Serpent's Secret (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #1)(24)

“Well then, I would ask the elephant to drink up the sea!”

“And if the elephant refused to drink the sea?” Neel and I asked in one voice.

“Why then, I would go to the smallest animal I could find.”

“An ant?” I guessed.

“A gnat?” Neel supplied.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp bite on my arm. As I slapped the sting, something Neel had said in the market came to me.

“No, it’s the mosquito, right?”

Tuni pecked at a guava. “Oh yes, I would ask the mosquito to bite the elephant.”

“And if the mosquito refused—” Neel began to say, but now it was my turn to shush him. A light bulb went off in my head. Weren’t all of Baba’s animal stories about creatures fulfilling their destiny—their dharma? The moral always seemed to be that if you ever came across a tiger or a crocodile in the woods, you weren’t supposed to trust it. Because no matter how much they promised they weren’t going to eat you, they definitely would, because that was their nature. To eat people. Like a mosquito’s was to bite people. I’d never thought there was much use for Baba’s animal stories—I mean, it’s not like I was bumping into tigers and crocodiles on a weekly basis in the Willowbrook Mall. But boy, was I glad for them now.

I called to Tuni, “The mosquito wouldn’t refuse because that’s what mosquitoes like to do—that’s their nature—they bite, right?”

“Yessiree! The Princess Kiranmala will be performing nightly at seven and eleven in the royal forest tea salon!” the bird burbled into the stick, as if it were a microphone. “Catch the best puzzle-solving act this side of the transit corridor! And be sure not to miss our early-bird shrimp cutlets special!”

“So the mosquito—” I began, but Tuni interrupted me.

“Did you see what I did there?” He put his wing up to his mouth as if telling me a secret. “With the early-bird special? Early bird, get it?”

“Hilarious, I get it,” I agreed. “The early bird catches the worm, the whole thing.”

Tuntuni screeched in glee. “Early bird catches the worm! Good one! Going to have to remember that!”

Trying not to roll my eyes, I rushed on to solve the rest of Tuni’s riddle.

“So the mosquito would threaten to bite the elephant, and then the elephant would threaten to drink the sea, the sea would threaten to douse the fire, the fire threaten to burn the stick, the stick threaten to beat the cat …” I stopped to take a breath.

“The cat threaten to catch the mouse, the mouse threaten to bite the belly,” Neel supplied.

“And the king would then agree, after all, to arrest the barber,” we concluded together.

“Which proves what, boys and girls?” Tuni twirled the stick of bamboo in his mouth like a baton.

“That cooperation is a good thing?” I guessed.

“That kings should invest in mousetraps?” said Neel wildly.

Tuntuni collapsed with a wing over his eyes. “Oh, the tragedy of stupidity. And I had such high hopes for you two.”

I looked at the tiny bird, who had our fates in the palm of his yellow feathery hand. Er, wing. That’s when it struck me.

“That the smallest creature can be the mightiest?”

Tuni sat bolt upright. “Is that your final answer?”

“Uh …” I glanced at Neel, who nodded. “Yes, yes, it’s my final answer.”

“You’re sure you don’t want to dial a prince?”

“No, she doesn’t want to dial a prince,” snapped Neel.

“I’m sorry, I’ll need to hear it directly from the contestant,” Tuni said in a fake game-show-announcer voice.

“No, I don’t want to dial a prince.”

“You’re absolutely sure you want to lock it in?” the bird boomed into the bamboo stick/microphone. “This is for the whole kit and caboodle, you know.”

“Yes, yes, I want to lock it in!”

“Oh, just get on with it!” Neel sniped.

“Well then …” The bird paused to flap around in a wobbly circle. “You are right!”

Absurdly, even though we hadn’t actually won anything, Neel high-fived me and I jumped up and down, whooping.

“Okay, we’ve solved your riddle,” Neel said. “Now will you tell us how to find Kiran’s parents?”

The bird considered us, cocking his head this way and that. His bright eyes twinkled.

“If you can tell me why hummingbirds hum!”

“Oh, come on, Tuni …” Neel began, but I waved him quiet.

“Because they don’t know the words!”

Neel gave me an impressed, raised-eyebrow look and I shrugged. “What can I say, I’m a girl of many talents.”

Next time I saw him, I’d have to thank Niko for having such an endless collection of idiotic jokes.

“Enough of this. Just tell us where her parents are!” the prince demanded.

The bird looked offended, and so I quickly said, “Okay, how about I tell you a good one?”

“Egg-cellent!” the minister twittered. “Eggs-hilarating! Eggs-traordinary!”

I barely refrained from groaning and asked, “What kind of math do snowy owls like?”