Free The 39 Clues Book 7: The Viper's Nest by Peter Lerangis Page B

samples? I don't know. Sometimes two people in the same family were called different races. So they had to move. Dude, people protested all the time. The Soweto student uprising in, like, the seventies? Kids were killed by police. Nelson Mandela? He was in jail for almost thirty years. He nearly died."
    "Mandela's like this big honcho," Dan said. He could picture the guy on news reports, all smiley and kind-faced like your favorite uncle.
    "Now he is," Amy said. "The government woke up. Foreigners stopped investing in South Africa. Protests were ruining the country. Apartheid ended, but not till 1994."
    Dan looked out the window. He was feeling sick but not from the car. Different countries for different races... police killing kids ... 1994? It didn't seem real.
    He saw people of all colors heading out of buildings, leaving work. Some had heads down, some were on cell phones. If it weren't for the weird languages, it could have been home.
    As the Yugo puffed up a hill, he saw a strange collection of buildings and a sign welcoming them to
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    Constitution Hill. The building on the left was sleek and modern, with a glass tower rising out of the center. A wall near the entrance contained the words Constitutional Court in different colors and languages.
    Nellie parked, and she and Amy went straight to the court entrance, a massive carved wooden door. But Dan stood staring to the right, at another set of buildings, dirty and flecked with peeling paint. A decrepit lookout building sat above a thicket of razor wire, straddling two of the larger buildings. It was balanced precariously, as if a shove in either direction could send it tumbling.
    "Sorry, miss," he overheard a guard saying to Amy, "Shaka Zulu died many decades before the prison was built. There is no connection to Shaka here. But of course you are welcome to come inside to see the museum."
    "Come on," Amy said, grabbing Dan's arm.
    Dan fell in behind her and Nellie. "Great. A museum next to a prison in the wrong town. That's a good start."
    "Ssshhh," Amy said. They stepped into a cavernous, light-drenched foyer with slanted columns and colorful mosaic walls. "There's a library here. I saw signs."
    "Whaaat?" Dan shot back. "The guy said prison, not library! Oh, I forgot. Same thing."
    Amy took a left, then followed signs down a long hallway until they emerged into a towering room with a wide spiral staircase. "May I help you?" asked a woman with light brown skin and salt-and-pepper hair. She was wearing a simple string of white pearls that somehow
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    seemed to pick up the tint of her deep brown eyes.
    Amy wondered if her skin shade would have been considered "black" or "colored" in apartheid South Africa and immediately felt embarrassed. "Hi I'm, um, Amy and th-th-this is my b-b-brother, Dan, and N-Nellie," she said.
    "We're looking for, like, Shaka Zulu information?" Dan said. "Also ice cream. If you have it."
    "Americans -- how delightful." The woman smiled and extended a hand. "I am Mrs. Winifred Thembeka, and I'm the librarian here. This is mainly a place for information about human rights. Alas, I'm afraid we don't have much about Shaka, although they're planning an exhibit for two years from now."
    "Two years?" Dan said.
    Mrs. Thembeka gave a sympathetic nod. "Our main reading room is on the third floor, should you care to use it. Ice cream is sold in the cafe."
    "Thank you." Amy pulled Dan toward the stairs.
    The third floor contained an airy reading room leading to endless stacks of books. "I thought this was a center for human rights," Dan said, shaking free of Amy's grip. "Now what? We look up every book about Shaka and hope we find a clue?"
    "Have faith," Amy said, sitting at a computer terminal and typing in Shaka's name.
    Nellie sighed. "I hope you're right, Amy. 'Cause Little Mister Ben and Jerry's here has a point. I mean,
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    I love you and all, but I'm thinking that at this rate we're going to end up living in this library."
    Dan sat at another