DISCLAIMER: If you recognize it, I don't own it.
If one was to open up a dictionary and search for the word oxymoron, the phrase "Saturday detention" would most likely not be there. That said, it should be. Saturdays were special. They were for not wearing uniforms and eating junk food and playing violent video games, not staying cooped up at school with nothing to do and people you didn't like. You simply couldn't contain a Saturday, even if you were a weekly member of the Metro Elementary detention class. And if that lesson had to be taught the hard way, so be it.
Had it not been school regulation to go over the rules, the teacher wouldn't have bothered. This lot had heard them all before. "No talking. No texting. No music. No Angry Birds or Candy Crush." She dronedon, not stopping to check if the students were listening. The large wad of gum and saliva that sailed past her head answered that question, anyway. "No spitballs."
The five children sitting at the desks in front of her groaned at the missed shot. Their leader, a boy dressed all in black with spiked wristbands and shaggy purple hair, eagerly prepared more ammunition.
The teacher stepped towards the door, checking the time and settingan alarm on her phone."You can have your lunches in three hours, and you can go home three hours after that. No one leaves this room unless something explodes. I'll be across the hall." Walking out of the classroom, she locked the door behind her.
Normally this was the time when the quintet slumped in their seats, bemoaning their wretched fate and fantasizing about a dramatic escape. Today, however, they remained sitting up straight. Their fingers clutched the edges of their desks as they kept their eyes and ears on the door, wetting their lips. Today, things were going to be different. They had a plan. There would be no fantasizing, only action.
The goth boy was the one to break the silence. "Everyone bring their passes?" he whispered, and his friends all nodded. "How about their bikes?"
"My mom dropped me off," little Sasha admitted, looking a bit embarrassed.
"You can ride on my handlebars," Jane told her.
The goth boy grinned. "Alright. Move out!"
They were lucky the school was only one story, and that it was unprecedentedly warm for mid-November. All they had to do was vault out the open window, crawl through the shrubbery to the front of the school and board the four bikes sitting in the parking lot. Donning their helmets, they sped out of the lot and into the bustle of downtown. They laughed as they sped through crosswalks and narrowly avoided little old ladies walking their dogs. The arcade, the movie theater and the ice cream parlor all sat enticingly in their path, but they all pedaled on by without a glance. Today, they were after a much sweeter treasure.
Cars were packed in the museum parking lot like sardines, and people filed in and out of the double doors at the top of the steps. A few tour guides stood around holding signs, but the young redhead with the all-knowing eyes and mischievous smile was nowhere to be seen.
Sanjay crossed his arms and cocked his head. "Maybe she's inside?"
Sasha ran forward - not to the front doors, but to a blank patch of wall nearby. She skipped a little as she ran at the hidden entryway, only to bump face-first into the wall which it appeared to be. "La Muerte?" she called out, knocking on the grey bricks. "La Muerte, it's us! The kids from the field trip last week! Do you remember us? I know you've got a lot of people to remember and stuff, but…"
No answer. Maybe she wasn't in the right spot. Hadn't the secret door been right around here?
"I meant inside inside, stupid!"
"Oh."
In the front hall, the chattering of the crowd formed a dull roar and it was nearly impossible to walk around without bumping into someone. Five kids weaving through the fleeting gaps went unnoticed by patrons and security alike. Ducking into the nearest hall, they found themselves wandering through an art gallery filled with portraits of bored-looking people in uncomfortable outfits and bowls of fruit in darkened rooms. "There's no way she'd be in here," Jane said. "It's too boring!"
A flowing flash of red in the corner of Sasha's eye sent her running off down a narrow, painting-less corridor. "I saw her! She went this way!" The rest of the children followed her lead, tearing around a corner and right through the wall of bright yellow RESTRICTED tape.
When they pushed open the metal door at the end of the hall and stepped through, they found the cream-colored walls replaced by gray concrete. Pictures and artifacts from a hodge-podge of time periods sat wrapped in plastic or brown paper, stacked on one of the many shelves if they were small enough. The only light came from the fluorescent bars flickering on the ceiling. From somewhere under the floor came the buzzing rattle of a heater that probably needed fixing.
"What's all this?" Joao asked the others as they began wandering around, peeking around shelves and statues in search of the goddess.
"Probably the super extra boring stuff," the goth boy said.
Sanjay walked by an uncovered painting that stood upright, then he scrambled backwards to see it again."Woah, check this one out!"
When the others saw what he was looking at, they crowded around the canvas with him. Even under the shoddy lighting, the explosion of color glowed like the sunrise it depicted. The strokes of deep red and violet against pale orange swirled and blended with each other to form a sun that peeked eagerly out from behind a rustic, jagged skyline. The houses seemed to lean against one another, the ridges of their tiled roofs sharp against the background. Above them towereda large, wide oval of a building that curved upward like a bowl. Decorations affixed on either end gave it the vague appearance of a bull's head.
Jane suddenly gasped and pointed at a spot on the canvas. "Oh my gosh! Look!"
She was staring at thelower right corner of the picture. There, in gold paint, the artist had signed her name: Maria Sanchez. The letters were thin and slanted, and there was an extra flourish on the "z". It was as though an extra sense of pride had gone into writing her last name.
"What are you doing back here? Out!"
The kids whirled around, screaming and shielding their eyes from the sudden glare of the flashlight beam in their faces. A security guard was glaring at them, his thin face and long beard illuminated by the florescent light."Didn't you see the tape? No one's allowed back here. Administration rules."
One by one, the children recognized him. They relaxed, their gaping mouths turning to grins as they laughed with relief. "Don't you mean ancient rules?" Sanjay asked with a smirk.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"We know it's you, Xibalba!" the goth boy blurted out. "Don't you remember us?"
The guard stepped closer. As he shined his light on each of their faces, his eyes narrowed and his brows raised. "Oh. The Breakfast Club Babies."
"Huh?" they said in unison.
"Never mind."In one fluid motion, he clicked the flashlight off and clipped it back on his belt. "What are you kids doing here? You're supposed to spend the weekend killing your brain cells, you know."
"We were wondering if La Muerte was here," Joao asked. "We want to see the special room again and read another story. Do you know where she is?"
"It's her day off," Xibalba answered curtly. He turned his flashlight back on and started gesturing towards the door with it. "Too bad, so sad, now run along…"
"Did Maria really paint this?"
"What?"he asked, his beam of light falling on Sasha.
She pointed at the painting. "This."
Xibalba smiled a bit when he saw the picture. "Sunrise From the Casa de Sanchez, circa 1925. Oil on canvas. Hung in the family library for years. You can't see them too well, but some of those windows are actually musical notes. Probably from whatever her husband was working on that day. They shared a studio, you know…"
"Hey! I bet you know lots of stories, too!" Jane exclaimed.
Xibalba abruptly stopped his rambling. "I'm not a tour guide. And there's a reason for that, believe me."
Sasha stepped forward and grinned up at him. "I bet you'd be good at it. You can practice on us."
Xibalba slowly knelt down to her height and looked her square in the eye. "I do not. Like. Children."
Sasha backed away, but the goth boy knew a challenge when he saw one. "I bet you're lying," he piped up.
The god raised a bushy eyebrow. "Oh? You willing to bet on that?"
"You're on, mister!"
Straightening up, Xibalba surveyed the group for a moment. "Very well." Turning around, he walked towards the opposite wall. The concrete rippled like a curtain as he passed through it and vanished. A moment later, he stuck the upper half of his body back out. "You coming or what?"
The wall bent inwards when the children poked at it. When they followed Xibalba through, they found themselves walking down the same dark corridor La Muerte had first shown them. "That's weird," Joao remarked.
"Oh, so that's where this all starts to get weird," Xibalba said. "Talking to a god of death is a-okay, but you draw the line at a room with more than one way in. How shocking."
"If you're trying to get rid of us," Jane said, "it's not gonna work."
"I know. That's why I'm calling a friend." He put his fingers to his mouth and let out a shrill, piercing whistle. "Here, boy!"
A long, purple shape came zipping out of the shadows, blocking the children's path and hissing at them with its two heads. They all screamed and Sasha hid behind Jane, but none of them ran.
"Woah, is that really your murder snake?" the goth boy said after a few moments. "He's even cooler than I thought he'd be!"
"Alright, you win this round."
"Can I pet him?"
"No touchingQueso." Xibalba waved a hand, and the snake went slithering off ahead of them.
"Because he'll bite us?"
"No, because then you'll rightfully be able to say that an old man took you into a secret room and let you play with his snake. Then there's going to be all sorts of paperwork and body disposal. I believe you'll find this more preferable." Walking under an archway, he flipped a switch and lit up the room. "¡Aquí!"
The children shrieked with delight and scattered across the room, darting amongst the artwork, artifacts and decorations. They gasped at the intricate murals, tried on sombreros, laughed at the skeletons, played with the wooden dolls.
"Just don't break anything," Xibalba told them. "I'll never hear the end of it." He snapped his fingers, and a green glow enveloped his body as it grew and reshaped itself. His uniform turned to inky robes, and ragged black wings blossomed from his shoulder blades. "Much better," he sighed as he flapped them. "Now let's see, what is the most unpleasant thing in this room?"
Jane and Sanjay were at the far end of the room, standing beneath the tree mural. "This thing's heavier than it looks," the latter was saying as he tried to lift the Book of Life's cover. "Open sesame! Or something."
"Careful," Xibalba said, coming up behind them. "You might see something you're not meant to."
Jane crossed her arms. "Maybe our pages are blank, too."
"Yes, well, that's going to stay a mystery for now." Beckoning to the other children, he began to flip through the book's pages. "I'll take it from here. Tell me a story you'd like to hear, and I'll make you wish you hadn't."
"I want a scary story! With lots of monsters!" the goth boy exclaimed.
Jane shook her head. "That's way too easy. Do a love story! You can't make those scary."
Xibalba rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you wish."
Sasha peeked out from behind Jane. "Can we hear another story about Manolo and Maria and Joaquin, please?"
Xibalba looked from them to the book and back. "Tell you what…I'll give you all three of those. How does that sound?"
"Can it be extra scary?" asked the goth boy.
"With the one I have in mind? There's no need for that." Breezing through the pages, Xibalba landed somewhere in the middle of the book. "Now…look closely."
The children leaned forward to look, murmuring in awe at what they saw. From the book's pages rose the hazy image of a huge, bright golden city. The Aztec buildings towered over each other in blocky mountains, connected by canals and hanging bridges. Garlands of crystalline flowers hung from the walls. The whole thing sat in the middle of a wide, misty lake atop a giant black pillar that stretched down into nothingness. Water from the canals cascaded in falls down its sides, splashing against the intricate carvings of monsters and warriors.
"What is that place?" Sanjay breathed.
"We call it Aztlan. The city of the gods. We all have our worlds, but this is where we meet when we must all come together." Xibalba pointed to the largest building, a great rectangle in the center of the picture. "You see this? That's the palace of the two kings, Quetzalcoatl and his brother Tezcatlipoca."
"Who are the other gods?" the goth boy asked, pushing his friends aside to see better.
"You'll meet them in a second. Because on the day our story begins, the gods have all gathered for the most important meeting they will ever hold. For you see, word has reached them that a lowly mortal has outwitted the god of death, and they are all very angry."