Free We Sled With Dragons by C. Alexander London

sounded just like something
Agent Zero
would do. He looked over at Corey, who looked pretty excited too. They high-fived each other. Celia grunted and the boys stopped smiling.
    Celia had agreed to go on this adventure, but she had never agreed to enjoy it.

12
WE TURN THE PAGE

    â€œDON’T TELL ME you don’t understand. I know you understand because this is perfectly understandable to someone of your understanding!” Sir Edmund slammed his fist down on the long wooden table.
    â€œUh . . . what?” quivered the explorer at the opposite end of the table, squinting in the bright light that shone into his eyes and not understanding anything the little man had just shouted at him.
    The explorer was not tied up or held at the point of a spear or a gun or a weapon of any sort, and yet it should be quite clear to us, by his darting eyes and the nervous tapping of his fingers on the table and the pools of sweat soaking through his shirt jacket, that he was indeed a prisoner. On either side of the table, stern men in dark suits watched the explorer carefully.
    â€œI don’t understand what you’re asking me,” he squeaked.
    â€œPoppycock!” Sir Edmund slammed his fist on the table again. “Balderdash! Flimflammery!”
    â€œI don’t understand that either,” the explorer cried.
    â€œEdmund,” said the only man at the table who was not wearing a suit. He wore a T-shirt and blue jeans and had a baseball cap pulled low over his face. He hardly looked up from his cell phone, on which he was tapping away sending text messages. “Your question was confusing.”
    â€œIt’s
Sir
Edmund,” Sir Edmund said.
    The man stopped tapping on his phone. He, like everyone at the table but the explorer, wore a gold ring engraved with a symbol of a scroll locked in chains, the symbol of the Council, enemies of the Mnemones from time immemorial. He fiddled with the ring but didn’t say a word.
    The other figures on the Council held their breath, waiting. Sir Edmund’s nostrils flared.
    â€œDid I forget to call you sir?” The man in the baseball cap smiled. “Oops.” He shrugged and went back to sending text messages.
    â€œAhem.” Sir Edmund cleared his throat loudly. “Ahem,” he tried again. No one else spoke. The captive explorer shifted uncomfortably in his chair. All eyes looked toward the man in the baseball cap, who finally looked up from his phone.
    â€œWhat? Are we done already?” he asked.
    â€œI would appreciate it if you would give these proceedings your full attention,” Sir Edmund told him.
    â€œThis is the tenth explorer we’ve questioned,” the man answered. “None of them know how to read that map of yours, and we’re just wasting time. We should be going after the Navels. Unless you’re afraid that they’ll beat you again.”
    â€œThey have never beaten me at anything!” Sir Edmund’s face was bright red.
    â€œSo your ship sank itself in the Pacific Ocean? The Navels didn’t do that?”
    â€œA treacherous giant squid sank my ship,” Sir Edmund answered. “Anyway, I got Plato’s map to Atlantis, so I won. The Navels lost.”
    â€œWhat about getting you kicked out of the Explorers Club?” the man smirked.
    â€œI was not kicked out!” Sir Edmund objected. “I left on purpose. I wanted to start my own club!”
    â€œOh yes.” The man laughed. “The Gentleman’s Adventuring Society . . . an appropriate acronym.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by that?”
    â€œAn acronym is a word formed from the first letters of other words,” the man answered.
    â€œI know what an acronym is, you dolt!” Sir Edmund yelled at him. “But what do you mean by insulting the Gentleman’s Adventuring Society!”
    â€œI have nothing against GAS,” the man answered. “I get it all the time.”
    The