Twenty-eight
The next morning, some time close to dawn, the pirates returned, carrying two bundles over their shoulders.
"Two?" Maya said. "Who's the other one?"
"Oh no," Katara groaned. "Not Sokka, too." She looked at Aang. "I'm sorry," she said to him. "This is all my fault."
"No it isn't, Katara," Aang said.
Uncle, who had been quiet the whole time, piped up and said, "Yeah, it kind of is."
Aang and Katara's brother Sokka were tied up, and the pirates then surrounded the three of them.
"Give me the boy!" Zuko commanded.
"Give us the scroll first," the pirate leader replied.
Suddenly, Sokka said, "Wait, wait, wait. You're really gonna give up the Avatar for a stupid scroll?"
Maya knew immediately what he was doing.
The pirate leader looked closely at Aang. "Your friend here is the Avatar?"
"Don't listen to him!" Zuko said quickly, trying to distract him. "He's trying to turn us against each other!"
"Okay, fine," Sokka said, hands out in defeat. "But I'm tellin' ya, you'll make a much larger fortune on the Black Market if you sell the Avatar than you will for that scroll."
"Shut your mouth, you Water Tribe peasant!" Zuko shouted angrily.
Maya choked on laughter. Again with the peasant thing? she thought. Zuko, you must have the biggest superiority complex ever.
"Yeah, Sokka," Aang said nervously. "You really should shut your mouth…"
The pirate leader grinned and put up a hand. "Keep the scroll. We're outta here."
Maya watched as the change came over Zuko. She saw his eyes flash. "You'll regret breaking a deal with me," he growled.
And then all hell broke loose. It was all very difficult to follow. All Maya knew was this: At some point, Aang's little lemur thing was attacked by the pirate captain's green parrot, Aang and his friends were cut from their bonds, and they escaped using the pirates' ship. There were a lot of fire blasts and cursing, but she didn't think anyone got too hurt. In the middle of all of this, Zuko and the captain got into a duel with one another, which Uncle had to cut short because it was at this time that Aang was escaping on the ship.
"Are you two so busy fighting that you cannot see that your own ship has set sail?" he asked.
"This is no time for one of your proverbs, Uncle!" Zuko yelled.
"It's no proverb," Uncle replied, pointing in the direction of the ship, which was heading swiftly downriver.
"My ship!" the captain cried, chasing after it on foot.
Zuko pointed and laughed.
Maya was about ready to start laughing too, until she saw their boat going downriver also, being captained by the pirates. Silently, she pointed. Zuko followed her finger, and then yelled, "My boat!" and began chasing after it.
They all spent the next few minutes running after their respective watercrafts and shouting aimlessly to stop. That is, until everyone noticed the massive waterfall up ahead. Maya wasn't sure exactly what happened after that. But then the pirate ship began turning sideways in the water, and was held in that position for about a minute. She presumed that Aang and Katara were somehow using waterbending to keep the ship from going over the falls, but there was a problem with that line of thinking – Zuko's boat, which the pirates were using, was going to crash into the ship.
A second later, that's exactly what happened. With a loud crunch, the two objects collided, sending them both down the waterfall to be smashed to bits below. With a sickening feeling, Maya thought, They're going to die.
And then, from out of nowhere, the Avatar's flying bison, lovingly referred to as Giant Fluff-Monster, came flying right at the waterfall. Maya, Zuko, and Uncle stood there and watched as Aang and his friends jumped from the deck of the falling ship into the animal's saddle and flew away. It was the craziest thing Maya had ever seen.
The three of them stood in silence for a few minutes, staring at the waterfall. And then Uncle began to laugh. Confused, Maya turned to look at him. "What about this is funny to you?" she asked. "Everyone almost died."
"That's not it," he replied, wiping tears from his eyes. "You're really going to get a kick out of this. The lotus tile was in my sleeve the whole time!"
Maya's mouth dropped open. "No. Way." Then she groaned when she saw him hold it up. "You've got to be kidding me. We just went through all that and –
But she never finished what she was saying. Zuko was literally smoking. She jumped. There was smoke coming out of the pores in his body, like he was about to catch on fire. And then he suddenly snatched the lotus tile out of Uncle's hand and threw it as hard as he could into the water down below.
Uncle's grin slowly disappeared, and then he looked at his hand confusedly, as if he expected the lotus tile to just magically reappear in it. Maya wanted to feel sorry for him, but for some reason Zuko had just made their entire situation hilarious. She laughed so hard for so long that she was crying and her sides hurt.
At some point during her laughing session, she noticed Zuko stalking away angrily into the trees.
Uncle took a step forward. "Perhaps I should –
"I'll go," she interrupted him. And with that, she followed Zuko into the woods.