"Oh, no!" the twins wailed in one voice. "We both voted to go!"
"That vote was for teenagers only," returned Uncle Charlie. "Somebody has to stay here and look after your mother. Besides, the Cessna only carries five passengers and we have four already: Li, Chuba, Muscles, and myself."
"But if we're small fry," argued Monica, "the two of us would only count as one—"
"Or maybe you don't want girls along," interrupted Ted, "so in that case you can take just me."
Monica turned on Ted at that and was pounding him to show how tough her fists could really be, when Uncle Charlie moved in and separated them as he said:
"Break it up! Muscles is so big he counts for two, so that makes five passengers already. Sorry, no more room!"
When they reached the airfield, Muscles had the plane all ready for the flight. The massive mechanic was standing guard and glaring suspiciously at any workers who came near the plane.
"That is Muscles' way," Charles Keene said approvingly. "With an international spy ring haunting an old gold mine and thugs trying to steal a ruby as a gift for the goddess Kali, almost anything could happen to any of us, anywhere!"
Then, with Charles Keene at the controls, the plane was climbing from the runway in the direction of the snow-capped Himalayas, where dozens of magnificent peaks seemed to grow into sight, to match huge Kanchenjunga and even more distant Everest.
The higher the plane rose, the more the mountains loomed above it. Avoiding those vast peaks, Charles Keene worked the plane above valleys and passes that formed openings in the massive barrier. The ranges rose skyward like great steps until the plane reached the fertile Katmandu Valley near the center of Nepal, a great green oasis in a vast desert of rocky crags and the perpetual snow of the surrounding Himalayas.