The Mandalorian Brothers and the Crowned Jewels, Pt. 1
Read the first ten chapters of Max's latest story!
Prelude: The Throne Room
1900 days after the Mandalorian Brothers had found the Mona Lisa, Quaz wanted to steal something very valuable and decided that he would steal the Queen of England's crowned jewels (including the Queen's crown). After all, he knew how to sneak past older people and a bunch of guards to get past security. He decided to use a mobile camo tank to get into England and, once he was there, he dug underground and found his way to the palace. Once he arrived, he planned to destroy one part of the palace to distract the queen - the main bedroom. He carried out his plan during the evening, when everyone was eating, so that no one would catch him in the act. When he saw that everyone was in the dining room, he used his mobile camo tank to shoot a cannon at a plank that was holding up the Queen's bedroom. This explosion caused the bedroom to crash down at an amazing speed. When the Queen heard the bang of the cannon, she told all her guards to go investigate what had happened. The subjects did their best with their spears, but all they did was make it worse - they crumpled up the bedroom as they tried to fix it. Because Quaz was a thief and did not have any good manners, he giggled as he watched them. Then, Quaz catapulted himself all the way to the roof of the palace, tiptoed across the roof, and snuck his way into the throne room. He used his laser tools to cut through the bulletproof glass and then grabbed the crowned jewels, climbed up his rope, and catapulted himself all the way back to the cannon hiding in the bushes.
Chapter 1: The First Clue
While her guards were busy trying to fix the bedroom, the Queen headed to the throne room and simply gaped. She saw bits of shattered glass and noticed that her crown was missing. She also saw a teeny bit of paper that said "come and find me, heheh." The queen yelled out to her guards.
They all ran into the throne room and asked, "what is it, Queen?" Once they were in the room, they quickly noticed the shattered glass and gaped. The Queen handed them the note. The guards immediately called for backup, trying to figure out if anyone knew who could help solve this case and return the missing jewels. The guards thought they could call Leonardo da Vinci, but realized they had the wrong number and decided to call the brothers instead. One of the backup guards had heard about the Mandalorian Brothers in the news.
"I know! Let's call the Mandalorian Brothers. They saved the Mona Lisa a couple of years ago, which is just as important as the Queen’s crowned jewels. Maybe it's even the same thief!"
All the backup ran towards the phone and started calling.
"Hello? Can you hear me? The Queen's crowned jewels have been stolen." The guards repeated their message twice just to make sure the brothers understood it correctly.
"Did the thief leave any clues?" the brothers asked.
"Yes. They left a slip of paper that said, "come and find me, hehehe."
BabaFrank said, "that sounds like some sort of a riddle."
Apollo agreed. "Did you try flipping the piece of paper over?" he asked.
The backup guards flipped over the slip of paper. Their jaws dropped.
Chapter 2: The Chinese Reading
On the paper were a bunch of Greek letters that the guards could not translate.
"We think there is something written in Greek," the guards told Apollo and BabaFrank.
"Can you show me?" BabaFrank asked. "I think I can understand a little Greek."
The guards hung up the phone and started a FaceTime call. They flipped over the slip of paper and showed it to the brothers.
BabaFrank said, "That's not Greek! It's Chinese! Give me a second to read it."
Then, BabaFrank translated the words out loud. It said, "你好 (ni hao)! You will be able to find your next clue in Brobinson. Look for the farmer with a stumpy arm."
The brothers told the guards that they would figure everything out and do their best to return the crowned jewels.
Apollo hung up the phone and said, "Let's go to Brobinson!"
BabaFrank agreed. "I think the thief might be Quaz," he said. "We know Quaz is sneaky and the Mona Lisa is similar enough to the Queen's crowned jewels!"
Apollo said, "But he just stole something a few years ago! Would he really do it again?"
"Well, maybe. Maybe he still wanted more money. Or maybe he is poor and wants to live, so he thought he could sell the stolen jewels," BabaFrank argued.
"But wouldn't people realize that he was selling the queen's jewels?" Apollo asked. "I guess we should just go to Robinson and look for the farmer with the stumpy arm.”
Chapter 3: The Airport Flood
The brothers decided to ask the speed of light dolphin if he could bring them to Brobinson on the other side of the island. They were afraid that the airplane might break and knew that the dog sleigh did not like water. The brothers called for the dolphin and said, "Dolphinnn, where are youuu?" Suddenly, the dolphin appeared. Since it could go so fast, the dolphin jumped out of nowhere and made a huge splash in the brothers' pool - it completely emptied the pool, but most of the water fell back in. The brothers rushed to the pool and said, "Dolphin, would you please give us a ride to Brobinson?" The dolphin understood them, smiled, and said, "Sure!” The dolphin knew how to get everywhere - he could get around the entire world 8 times in just 1 second (at the speed of light)!" The brothers got onto the dolphin's dorsal fin and held on as the dolphin jumped out of the pool into the ocean. The dolphin flew into the air and headed toward Brobinson as quickly as possible. The trip went by in milliseconds and the brothers could not even see the things that flew around them. Once they were close, the dolphin cannon-balled into the airport pool and it soaked the whole airport - even the airplanes. The water went flying so fast that it also cut through metal. The dolphin and brothers looked around and said, “Oopsies.” The airport workers were scared and were running away from the water and the dolphin. The brothers jumped off the dolphin and said, “Sorry! We didn’t mean to!! Our dolphin has special powers - he can swim at the speed of light.” The brothers tried to make a plant wall to use the water and apologize. The wall had daises, lavender, and roses. But there was another problem - they accidentally planted too many plants! The brothers were worried that the plants would overcrowd the entire airport, but the flowers actually looked pretty nice.
Chapter 4: The Barn
The brothers grabbed some super scooters at the airport and headed off towards the farms and grasslands in Brobinson. The land looked very flat, and the brothers saw a lot of grass, small houses, cows, pigs, horses, sheep, and goats. The brothers also needed to use their super scooters to get past invisible walls that had been set up to stop crooks from getting into the farms. They even had to use their horse-powered engines to grind holes through the invisible walls. Apollo and BabaFrank were able to do it pretty easily because the invisible walls were made of a crystal clear leather that the brothers could cut through. Once they were past the invisible wall, the brothers stopped on the side of the road to ask a handyman if they knew where the farmer with the stumpy arm lived. The handyman was a bit confused, but gave them a map and told them where to go. The brothers were supposed to go down the lane, take a right, then a left, do that pattern two more times, and then take more two lefts. The brothers carefully followed the instructions that were given and ended up right at a farm. The farm had beautiful crops - Brobinson was famous for its food and always produced lots of carrots, lettuce, and fruits and vegetables. The barn was red, with white around most of the windows and doors. It looked like it could have been built about 18 or 19 years ago, so it was pretty new, but the windows still looked a bit tattered. Even though the barn looked okay, the front door was pretty scary - it had a bunch of holes that looked like gun holes. Had someone tried to shoot through the door?
Chapter 5: The Odd Icon
When the brothers noticed the gun holes, they almost screamed.
"Oh my gosh, that's pretty scary," Apollo said.
"Maybe the guy who used to live here had been bad, but now someone new built a farm," BabaFrank suggested.
"That would be hard," Apollo replied. "After all, I don't think the building is more than 18 years old. Why would someone move out so soon?"
At that moment, the farmer walked right by the brothers. The man had on a tattered green shirt, some grey waterproof shoes, and lush blue jeans. He also had two sparkling blue eyes, a cherry red mouth, and a nose as yellow as the sun. He was as tall as the BFG.
"Hello," he said. He didn't seem confused that the brothers were at his house. "You must be Apollo and Babafrank."
"What in the world?" the brothers quietly mumbled. Then, they turned to the strange man and said, "Hello, good day farmer."
In the meantime, the brothers noticed that the farmer had a funny inscription on his shirt. The brothers tried to translate it on the spot, but they could not translate it into anything they knew. Apollo had an idea - he pulled out his phone and took a sneaky picture of the farmer that the brothers could use to translate the inscription later.
"Good day," the farmer said. "Can I help you?"
"Um, well, we are kind of on a mission to find the Queen’s missing crowned jewels, and we were told to come to you - the farmer with the stumpy arm," Apollo said.
"Do you know where we should go next?" BabaFrank asked.
"I think you should go to Brazil because I think Quaz went there just a couple of days ago. He told me that he was taking a trip down there."
"What? Do you mean that Quaz is the thief?"
Chapter 6: The Falcon Dive
"Well, Quaz always carried around a big sack on his shoulder,” the farmer said. “And when he left for Brazil, there was something really shiny in his bag that reflected the sun."
"Thanks for your help!" the brothers said. By now, they were sure Quaz was the thief.
The brothers took off and walked towards the airport. The main airport was still a bit flooded because of their splash earlier, so they decided to go to another airport about 91 miles away. Apollo and BabaFrank decided to hike over there - it might seem long, but they had hiked much farther before! Halfway through, the brothers got a little tired and decided to use a super strong and efficient rope to help them reach their new airplane. They threw the rope as far as they could, and it luckily landed right on an airplane. Then, the brothers swung all the rest of the way and arrived right at the airport. They didn't have to go through security! BabaFrank was piloting and Apollo was working as his co-pilot. They flew from Brobinson, which was on a tiny island in Australia, all the way to Santos, Brazil. The brothers saw the control tower in Santos from about 300 miles away. The brothers had already to Santos once before to chase a villain named FaceaFrank, and they had super good remembering skills. The brothers pushed a bunch of rainbow buttons on the ceiling to fix all the gears and land quickly. It was a pretty bumpy landing because the brothers did a falcon dive. Apollo and BabaFrank jumped forward in their seats when they hit the ground - they almost flew right through the cockpit window, but luckily they had their seatbelts on to protect them.
Chapter 7: The Trip and Roll
Once the brothers got out of the plane, they climbed down the rest of the hill and walked towards the beach. But, then they had an accident. They didn't see a huge rock on their way down the hill because they were too busy talking to each other about where they should go next, and accidentally tripped over the rock. Apollo hit the rock first and started rolling all the way down the hill towards the beach. BabaFrank was confused about what had happened, and he said,
"Apollo! Where are you?"
Apollo responded, "Don't step on that rock, or you will trip and fall!"
What rock? I don't see a rock! Did you say you turned into a rock? Well, I'll come and find you!" BabaFrank said.
Suddenly, Babafrank tripped. And then he started rolling down the hill at full speed. BabaFrank eventually caught up to Apollo because he was rolling down the hill so fast. The brothers were crushing everything in their way - they could not stop rolling! Eventually, the force of speed shot them upwards off the hill and onto the beach. The brothers hit the sand and made a loud THUMP. Then, they looked around to see where they had landed and saw a little boy crying. They slowly got back to try to help the boy, but then realized that they had ruined his sandcastle. The brothers felt bad.
"We're so sorry!" they said. "We didn't mean to do that."
"BUT YOU DID!!!" whined the little boy. "I'm going to tell my mommy!"
The brothers quickly started digging a hole so that they could hide underneath the sand. Luckily, the brothers hid just in time, so when the boy came back with his mom, she was very confused. "I don't see anyone," she told the little boy.
Chapter 8: Neymar
The brothers creeped out from under the sand as soon as the boy and his mom were gone. Then, they immediately started running all the way to Santos stadium, because they heard that there would be a game there later in the day. But, the brothers did not know that Neymar would be there. When the brothers got to the stadium, they hid behind some of the seats because they didn't have tickets and forgot to bring any extra money. They didn't think anyone had seen them, but all of a sudden, Neymar walked up to the seats in the stadium. He sat down to look at the stadium, but then he thought he felt something weird touch his leg. He peaked under his seat and saw the brothers staring at him.
Apollo and BabaFrank didn't know what to do. "Oopsie!" they said.
All Neymar said was, "Oh! You must be the Mandalorian Brothers. I got a text message earlier today telling me two brothers would be at the stadium today. He told me to tell you guys to go to Egypt, and I think his name was Quaz? He also accidentally sent me a picture of a big sack. I thought it looked weird and even wondered if he had stolen England's crowned jewels. But, I doubt it! That would be crazy! He seemed pretty innocent."
"Don't judge people by their looks, Neymar."
"You think he stole them?" Neymar asked. “Well, I guess you'd better hurry if you're right!”
Chapter 9: The Santos Team
The brothers decided to watch a couple of soccer games before taking off. The first game was Bocco Juniors against the Strongest - the strongest (which is the weakest team) won! Then, the brothers watched Santos against Barcelona - and Santos won (even though they lost in real life)! Neymar used the ball to perform a hat, kicking the ball over another player. Then, another Santos player took the ball and kicked it towards the goal. The goalie caught it, but then Neymar ran towards it and stole it back from him and scored. GOAL! In the second half of the game, the Santos' goalkeeper kicked the ball all the way into the other team's goal on the other side of the field. People were worried that this goal might not count, but the referee said it was valid. The people in the stadiums yelled, "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY." Most of them were from Santos and acted super crazy when their team won. The fans from Santos were jumping up and down and dancing - a bunch of the players were even throwing themselves on top of Neymar! The brothers saw everyone else going crazy and got super excited. They ran down to the field to congratulate Neymar, and then they left to head to their next stop: Egypt. The brothers started walking back towards their plane on the hill and yelled, “Thank you Neymar!” The brothers hoped that Neymar would hear them. Then, the brothers got into the plane and headed to Egypt - they didn't need directions because they still had super memory. After all, they had been to Egypt once when a pyramid had been stolen.