Chapter 11

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Chapter 11 We finally made it inside the palace and into the throne room of the Earth King. "We need to talk to you!" I said to the king. Then I spotted Long Feng standing at the king's side. Great. I thought we got rid of this guy. "He's lying!" Long Feng shouted. "They're here to overthrow you!" Long Feng had convinced the king we were his enemies. But I told the king that I was the Avatar and he agreed to listen to me. I explained about the war and that the Dai Li had kept it secret from him in order to control the city and to control him. "Long Feng didn't want us to tell you about all this, so he stole our sky bison to blackmail us," I explained. Now that I was finally with the king, I wasn't going to let anything stop me from telling him the truth. Long Feng denied ever having seen a sky bison, so I Airbended his robe up to show Appa's teeth marks in his leg. Long Feng claimed it was just a birthmark, but Sokka brought Appa into the throne room and showed off his teeth. "That pretty much proves it," the king said. "But it

doesn't prove this crazy conspiracy theory," the king added. What's it going to take to convince him that his entire kingdom is in danger? "I suppose this matter is worth looking into," the king then said. He agreed to come with us to give us a chance to prove that we were telling the truth. We took him to Lake Laogai to expose the Dai Li's secret headquarters, but when we got there, all evidence of the headquarters was gone. The Dai Li had already destroyed the evidence. The king was ready to return home, but then Katara had a brilliant idea. "The wall!" she cried. "And the drill. They'll never be able to cover that up in time!" We flew back to the city and Appa landed on top of the outer wall. The drill still stuck out of the wall, right where we stopped it. "What is that?" the king asked anxiously. "It's a giant drill made by the Fire Nation to break through your walls," Sokka explained. This was proof that we were telling the truth. Now the king finally knew that the war was real. "I can't believe I never knew," the king said. "I can explain this, Your Majesty," said a voice

approaching us. It was Long Feng. This ought to be good. "This is nothing more than a construction project," he said, though it sounded as if even he had trouble believing it. "Really?" said Katara. "Then perhaps you could explain why there's a Fire Nation insignia on your construction equipment." I love Katara! I mean, whoa, I can't believe I admitted that, even if it is just in my own head. But I really do. I mean, she's so clever! She just backed Long Feng into a corner, and now we definitely have him right where we want him. General Sung joined us on the wall and told the king that we were heroes. "Without them," the general said, "our city would have been lost to the Fire Nation army." The king ordered the Dai Li to arrest Long Feng. "He will stand trial for crimes against the Earth Kingdom," the king announced. Then the Dai Li hauled Long Feng away. Back in the throne room, we filled in the king on the approaching comet, which would make the Fire Nation too powerful to stop, and the solar eclipse

during which the Earth Kingdom army must attack the Fire Nation, which would be at its weakest. He agreed to attack on the day of the eclipse—the Day of Black Sun. We did it! I'm so excited, I can hardly stand it! We found Appa, we saved the Earth Kingdom from the Fire Nation drill, and we delivered information to the king that can save the whole world. Sometimes it's really good being the Avatar. Just then the door swung open and General How, leader of the council of generals, entered the throne room. He said that they'd found some things in Long Feng's office that were for us. He handed Toph a letter from her mother. Katara read it and reported that Toph's mom said she was in Ba Sing Se and wanted to see Toph. Then he handed me a scroll. "This scroll was attached to the horn of your bison when the Dai Li captured him," the general said. "I can't believe it," I said after reading the note. "There's a man living at the Eastern Air Temple. A guru. A kind of spiritual expert who says he can help me take the next step in my Avatar journey." Then he handed Katara an intelligence report that said her father was with a small fleet of Water Tribe ships at Chameleon Bay.

"I hate to say it," Katara began, "but we have to split up." We just found Appa, and now Katara wants us to separate? I don't want to let any of them out of my sight—ever again. "You have to meet this guru, Aang," she said. "If we're going to invade the Fire Nation, you need to be ready." It's times like these when I wish I were just plain Aang again so that the fate of the world didn't always depend on me fulfilling my destiny. But I have no choice. She's right. I have to go. Then Sokka pointed out that one of us had to stay there with the king and help him plan the invasion. He volunteered, but sweet, selfless Katara said that she would stay so that Sokka could go see their father. She's the absolute best. Always putting others' needs before hers. I'm totally and completely crazy about her! There's no other way to put it. Now I just really need to tell her how I feel. We all prepared to go our separate ways, then met up to say good-bye. I needed a moment alone with Katara, so I pulled her away from the group. "Katara, I need to tell you something. I've been wanting to say it for a long time." Oh, boy. I'm so