05 - The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (5 page)

“Change of plans,” he said a few seconds later, hanging up the receiver and
coming back into the living room.

“What’s the matter, Daddy?” Sari asked, shoving her cereal bowl away.

“It’s very strange,” he replied, scratching the back of his head. “Two of my
workers came down sick last night. Some kind of mysterious illness.” His
expression became thoughtful, worried. “They took them to a hospital here in
Cairo.”

He started to gather up his wallet and some other belongings. “I think I’d
better get over there right away,” he said.

“But what about Gabe and me?” Sari asked, glancing at me.

“I’ll only be gone an hour or so,” her dad replied. “Stay here in the room,
okay?”

“In the
room
?” Sari cried, making it sound like a punishment.

“Well, okay. You can go down to the lobby, if you want. But don’t leave the
hotel.”

A few minutes later, he pulled on his tan safari jacket, checked one last
time to make sure he had his wallet and keys, and hurried out the door.

Sari and I stared at each other glumly. “What do you want to do?” I asked,
poking the cold, uneaten pancakes on my plate with a fork.

Sari shrugged. “Is it hot in here?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It’s about a hundred and twenty.”

“We have to get out of here,” she said, standing up and stretching.

“You mean go down to the lobby?” I asked, still poking the pancakes, pulling
them into pieces with the fork.

“No. I mean get
out
of here,” she replied. She walked over to the
mirror in the entranceway and began brushing her straight, black hair.

“But Uncle Ben said—” I started.

“We won’t go far,” she said, and then quickly added, “if you’re afraid.”

I made a face at her. I don’t think she saw me. She was busy admiring herself
in the mirror.

“Okay,” I told her. “We could go to the museum. Your dad said it was just a
block away.”

I was determined not to be the wimp anymore. If she wanted to disobey her dad
and go out, fine with me. From now on, I decided,
I’ll
be the macho guy.
No repeats of yesterday—ever again.

“The museum?” She made a face. “Well… okay,” she said, turning to look
at me. “We’re twelve, after all. It’s not like we’re babies. We can go out if we
want.”

“Yes, we can,” I said. “I’ll write Uncle Ben a note and tell him where we’re
going, in case he gets back before we do.” I went over to the desk and picked up
a pen and a small pad of paper.

“If you’re afraid,
Gabey,
we can just walk around the block,” she said
in a teasing voice, staring at me, waiting to see how I’d react.

“No way,” I said. “We’re going to the museum. Unless
you’re
afraid.”

“No way,” she said, imitating me.

“And don’t call me Gabey,” I added.

“Gabey, Gabey, Gabey,” she muttered, just to be annoying.

I wrote the note to Uncle Ben. Then we took the elevator down to the lobby.
We asked a young woman behind the desk where the Cairo Museum was. She said to
turn right outside the hotel and walk two blocks.

Sari hesitated as we stepped out into the bright sunshine. “You sure you’re
up for this?”

“What could go wrong?” I replied.

“Let’s go. This way,” I said, shielding my eyes from the bright sunlight with
my hand.

“It’s so hot,” Sari complained.

The street was crowded and noisy. I couldn’t hear anything over the honking
of car horns.

Drivers here lean on their horns the minute they start up their cars, and
they don’t stop honking till they arrive at their destinations.

Sari and I stayed close together, making our way through the crush of people
on the sidewalk. All kinds of people passed by.

There were men in American-style business suits walking alongside men who
appeared to be wearing loose-fitting white pajamas.

We saw women who would look right at home on any street in America, wearing
colorful leggings and stylish skirts and slacks. Women in jeans. Followed by
women dressed in long, flowing black dresses, their faces covered by heavy,
black veils.

“This sure doesn’t look like back home!” I exclaimed, shouting over the blare of car horns.

I was so fascinated by all the interesting-looking people crowding the narrow
sidewalk that I forgot to look at the buildings. Before I knew it, we were
standing in front of the museum, a tall, stone structure looming above the
street behind steeply sloping steps.

We climbed the steps and entered the revolving door of the museum.

“Wow, it’s so quiet in here!” I exclaimed, whispering. It was nice to get
away from the honking horns, the crowded sidewalks, and shouting people.

“Why do you think they honk their horns so much?” Sari asked, holding her
ears.

“Just a custom, I guess,” I replied.

We stopped and looked around.

We were standing in the center of an enormous open lobby. Tall marble
stairways rose up on the far left and far right. Twin white columns framed a
wide doorway that led straight back. An enormous mural across the wall to the
right showed an aerial view of the pyramids and the Nile.

We stood in the middle of the floor, admiring the mural for a while. Then we
made our way to the back wall and asked a woman at the information desk for the
mummy room. She flashed us a nice smile and told us in perfect English to take
the stairs to the right.

Our sneakers thudded loudly over the shiny marble floor. The stairway seemed to go up forever. “This is like mountain
climbing,” I complained, halfway up.

“Race you to the top,” Sari said, grinning, and took off before I had a
chance to reply.

Of course she beat me by about ten steps.

I waited for her to call me “slowpoke” or “snail face” or something. But she
had already turned to see what lay ahead of us.

A dark, high-ceilinged room seemed to stretch on forever. A glass case stood
centered in the entryway. Inside was a detailed construction of wood and clay.

I went up close to take a good look. The construction showed thousands of
workers dragging enormous blocks of limestone across the sand toward a partially
built pyramid.

In the room behind the display I could see huge stone statues, large mummy
cases, displays of glass and pottery, and case after case of artifacts and
relics.

“I think this is the place!” I exclaimed happily, rushing over to the first
display case.

“Ooh, what’s that? Some kind of giant dog?” Sari asked, pointing to an
enormous statue against the wall.

The creature appeared to have a fierce dog’s head and a lion’s body. Its eyes
stared straight ahead, and it seemed ready to pounce on anyone who came near it.

“They put creatures like that in front of tombs,” I told Sari. “You know. To
protect the place. Scare away grave robbers.”

“Like guard dogs,” Sari said, stepping up close to the ancient sculpture.

“Hey—there’s a mummy in this case!” I exclaimed, leaning over an ancient
stone coffin. “Look!”

Still staring back at the enormous sculpture, Sari walked up beside me. “Yep.
It’s a mummy, okay,” she said, unimpressed. I guess she’s seen a lot more of
them than me.

“It’s so small,” I said, staring at the yellowed linen wrapped so tightly
around the skinny head and body.

“Our ancestors were shrimps,” Sari replied. “Think it was a man or a woman?”

I glanced at the plaque on the side of the coffin. “It says it’s a man.”

“Guess they didn’t work out in those days,” she said and laughed at her own
remark.

“They did a great wrapping job,” I said, examining the carefully wrapped
fingers on the hands, which were crossed over the mummy’s chest. “I was a mummy
the Halloween before last, and my costume completely unraveled after ten
minutes!”

Sari tsk-tsked.

“Do you know how they made mummies?” I asked, moving around to view it from the other side. “Do you know the first
thing they did? They removed the brain.”

“Yuck. Stop,” she said, sticking out her tongue and making a disgusted face.

“Don’t you
know
about this?” I asked, delighted that I had some truly
gruesome information that she didn’t.

“Please—enough,” she said, holding up one hand as if to fend me off.

“No, this is interesting,” I insisted. “The brain had to come out first. They
had this special tool. It was like a long, skinny hook. They’d push it up the
corpse’s nose until it reached the brain and then wiggled it back and forth,
back and forth, until the brain became mush.”

“Stop!”
Sari pleaded, covering her ears.

“Then they took a long spoon,” I continued gleefully, “and scooped the brain
out a little at a time.”

I made a scooping motion with my hand. “Scoop scoop. They scooped the brain
out through the nose. Or sometimes they popped off an eyeball and scooped the
brain out through the eyeball socket.”

“Gabe—I
mean
it!” Sari cried. She really looked like she was about
to hurl. She was green!

I loved it.

I never knew that Sari had a squeamish bone in her body. But I was really
making her sick.

Outstanding! I thought.

I would definitely have to remember this technique.

“It’s all true,” I told her, unable to hold back a wide grin.

“Just shut up,” she muttered.

“Of course sometimes they didn’t pull the brain out the nose. Sometimes they
just sliced off the head. Then they drained the brains out through the neck and
put the head back on the body. They just bandaged it back on, I guess.”

“Gabe—”

I’d been staring at her the whole time, checking out her reaction. She was
looking sicker and sicker. She was breathing real heavy. Her chest was sort of
heaving. I really thought she was going to lose her breakfast.

If she did, I’d never let her forget it.

“That’s really gross,” she said. Her voice sounded funny, like it was coming
from underwater or something.

“But it’s true,” I said. “Didn’t your dad ever tell you about how they made
mummies?”

She shook her head. “He knows I don’t like—”

“And you know what they did with the guts?” I asked, enjoying the startled
look on her face. “They put them in jars and—”

I suddenly realized that Sari’s startled look wasn’t for me.

She was actually staring over my shoulder.

“Huh?” I turned around and saw why she suddenly looked so surprised.

A man had entered the room and was standing just in front of the first
display case. It took me a few seconds to recognize him.

It was Ahmed, the strange, silent Egyptian with the black ponytail who had
greeted us in such an unfriendly manner down inside the pyramid. He was dressed
the same, in loose-fitting white trousers and shirt with a scarlet bandanna
around his neck. And his expression was just as unfriendly. Angry, even.

Sari and I both backed away from the mummy case, and Ahmed, his eyes darting
from one of us to the other, took a step toward us.

“Gabe, he’s coming after us!” Sari whispered.

She grabbed my arm. Her hand was cold as ice.

“Let’s get out of here!” she cried.

I hesitated. Shouldn’t we stop and say hello to him first?

But something about the stern, determined look on Ahmed’s face told me that
Sari was right.

We turned and began walking really fast away from him into the vast room,
Sari a few steps ahead of me.

I turned and saw that Ahmed was jogging after us.

He shouted something to us, his voice angry, threatening. I couldn’t make out
the words.

“Run!” Sari cried.

And now we were both running at full speed, our sneakers drumming loudly over
the polished marble floor.

We scooted around an enormous glass display case containing three upright
mummy cases. Then we ran straight down the wide aisle between sculptures and
shelves of ancient pottery and pyramid relics.

Behind us, I could hear Ahmed shouting furiously, “Come back! Come back!”

He sounded really angry.

His shoes clacked against the floor as he ran, the sound echoing in the vast,
empty museum chamber.

“He’s gaining on us!” I called to Sari, who was still a few steps ahead.

“There’s got to be a way
out
of here!” she answered breathlessly.

But I immediately saw that there wasn’t. We were nearly to the back wall. We
passed a gigantic sphinx, then stopped.

There was nowhere to go.

No doorway. No exit.

A solid granite wall.

We both turned and saw Ahmed’s eyes grow wide with triumph.

He had us cornered.

Ahmed stopped a few feet in front of us. He was panting like a dog, gasping
for air, and holding his side. He glared at us angrily.

Sari glanced at me. She looked pale, really frightened. We both had our backs
pressed against the wall.

I swallowed hard. My throat felt tight and dry.

What was he going to do to us?

“Why did you run?” Ahmed finally managed to say, still holding his side as if
he had a cramp. “Why?”

We didn’t reply. We both stared back at him, waiting to see what he was about
to do.

“I came with a message from your father,” he told Sari, breathing hard. He
raised the red bandanna from his neck and wiped his perspiring forehead with it.
“Why did you run?”

“A message?” Sari stammered.

“Yes,” Ahmed said. “You know me. We met again yesterday. I don’t understand
why you ran.”

“I’m sorry,” Sari said quickly, glancing guiltily at me.

“We weren’t thinking clearly,” I said. “Sari frightened me, and I followed
her.”

“Gabe was telling me all this frightening stuff,” she said, jabbing me hard
in the side with her elbow. “It was
his
fault. He scared me with all this
mummy stuff. So when I saw you, I wasn’t thinking clearly, and…”