by Mary Amato
“And there’s something wrong with him,” Orville said. “He’s not acting like himself. He doesn’t even look like himself.”
“Perhaps he’s disguising himself as a nice guy, thinking that we wouldn’t recognize him,” I said. I checked my watch. We had run out of time. Mom was expecting us. “Well, we didn’t find a lost mummy. But at least Goliath didn’t either. We’d better go back.”
“What do you guys do if you don’t complete your mission?” Amelia asked as we began to climb the stairs.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“If we don’t complete our mission, I’m going to cry,” Orville said.
Amelia patted him on the back. “There’s still time. Maybe we’ll find a lost mummy on the way to the—”
Just then we heard heavy footsteps. Schkunk! Schkunk!
“Someone’s coming down from the second floor,” Orville whispered. “It’s probably Goliath again.”
Schkunk! Schkunk!
“It’s probably a security guard who’s going to arrest us for being in the basement,” Amelia whispered.
“But listen,” I whispered. “Those don’t sound like normal shoes making that sound. Maybe it’s a member of the ancient living dead.”
“Only one way to find out,” Amelia said.
The mystery person turned the corner and began heading down the stairs toward us. It was a mummy! He was huge and wrapped in filthy bandages. Schkunk! Schkunk!
We froze, looking at each other. I could tell that Amelia and Orville were thinking what I was thinking. If you have ever seen a mummy in a glass case, you know how spooky they are. But that’s nothing compared to one actually walking toward you in a dim stairwell. His arms dangled from their sockets. His eyes stared right through us with a ghoulish blackness. He didn’t look like a nice mummy. He looked like the type who puts curses on people and takes their stomachs home in jars.
“Don’t worry,” Amelia said, trying to control the quiver in her voice. “Scary will protect us.”
I didn’t want to burst her bubble, but this guy looked like he’d eat Scary as an appetizer.
“We should hide!” Orville whispered.
But the mummy was quick and there was nowhere to hide.
Our Riot Brother legs started to shake.
The mummy was getting closer.
I thought about grabbing Amelia’s camera and taking a picture to prove that we had seen him before he dragged us to the underworld, but I was too scared to move.
When he was close enough to touch us, he stopped. “Hey,” he said. “Do you guys know where the mummy room is? I’m lost.”
We couldn’t believe our ears.
“I just started working here,” the mummy went on. “And it’s really hard to see out of this thing. Is this the door to the first floor?”
“You work here?” Amelia asked, and he nodded.
“He’s a nice mummy!” Orville flashed me a huge, relieved grin.
“And a lost mummy!” I said. “Do you know what this means?”
We started dancing around. “We found a lost mummy! We found a lost mummy!”
“Excuse me,” the lost mummy said. “Sorry to interrupt your dancing, but I’m supposed to be the guide for that room, and I’m already late.”
We escorted the mummy to the mummy room, where our mummy was waiting for us. Goliath was also there, watching us from the corner. He looked very out of breath and red in the face—jealous, no doubt, because we had completed our mission.
“Where have you been?” Mom asked.
“I’m confused, Wilbur,” Orville whispered. “Can we tell Mom about our successful Riot Brother missions when we’re done?”
“Riot Brother Rule Number Twenty-Eight,” I said. “You may talk about successful secret missions after completion.”
“Great!” Orville exclaimed. “Mom, we wanted to find a lost mummy and we did! This guy was lost and we brought him back here.”
An important-looking woman with a clipboard was listening. “Thank goodness!” She turned to the mummy. “We were worried about you, Harry. Glad you’re safe and sound.”
The museum director shook our hands, and Harry the mummy thanked us politely.
“For a guy who is supposed to be dead,” Orville told Harry, “you have good manners.”
“Can you tell I’m smiling?” the mummy asked us.
We couldn’t.
“I guess a dead guy can only look so happy,” he said.
I nodded wisely and added, “That’s true, of corpse.”
SEVEN
Now That’s the Kind of Lava I Like
“Being a mummy in a museum looks like a fun job,” Amelia said as we were getting into the car.
“Yeah,” Orville said. “Mommy, may I be a mummy when I grow up?”
Mom laughed.
“You know why mummies need to have lots of breaks?” I asked. “Because they’re all wound up.”
Orville laughed.
I was on a roll. “What do you think mummies like to eat for lunch? Wraps!”
Orville laughed again.
Amelia jumped in. “Where do mummies like to go when it’s really hot? To take a swim in the Dead Sea!”
Mom groaned and started the engine.
I had another. “What do mummies do when they catch a cold? They can’t stop coffin!”
Mom looked at us in the rearview mirror. “What do mommies do when they’re tired of hearing mummy jokes?” she asked.
“They buy their children ice cream?” Orville guessed with a big grin.
“No,” she said. “They become numby.”
I nodded. “Not too crummy, Mummy!”
On the ride home, we invented a new Riot Brother game. As soon as we got home we ran over to Jonathan’s house. Jonathan, Alan, Margaret, and Selena were all outside playing with Jonathan’s puppy.
“I bet you’re dying to learn a new game called the Curse of the Mummy,” I said.
Orville cracked up. “Dying to play the Curse of the Mummy? Get it?”
“Is it fun?” Jonathan asked.
“It’s a riot!” Amelia replied.
Everybody wanted to play, of course.
“Don’t look now,” Margaret said. “But Goliath is watching us from behind that tree.”
I looked without looking as if I was looking. Goliath was hard to miss.
“I think he wants to play,” Amelia said. “Should we invite him?”
Our mouths fell open. “Are you crazy? He’s the neighborhood bully.”
“For a bully, he does have extremely clean feet,” Amelia said.
Before anybody could stop her, Amelia walked over and asked Goliath if he would like to play.
The gang was shocked into silence.
“Um—okay,” Goliath said. We were ready for him to take over and start bossing us around. But he just looked at Amelia and asked, “How do you play?”
Amelia explained the rules.
“I’ll be the mummy first,” I announced. “I’m going to put a curse on everybody. Don’t forget, you have to try to tag me while acting out the curse.” I tried to think of a curse that would make them look really funny and summoned up a deep, scary voice: “May your legs go wobbly forever-more. . . . You will be cursed at the count of four.” I wiggled my fingers at them and counted, “One . . . two . . . three . . . four!”
“Ahhhh!” They yelled and writhed as if the curse was running through their veins. With bobbly wobbly legs, they ran after me. I dodged them this way and that. Finally Amelia tagged me.
“Now you get to be the mummy!” I told her.
Amelia thought up a great curse. “May bats fly at your face forevermore. . . . You will be cursed at the count of four.” We all ran around screaming and ducking and swatting at imaginary bats.
Everybody had a couple of turns before Mom called us in.
“Well, that new game was a huge success,” I said to Orville as we went inside.
“We’ve had a great day,�
� Orville agreed. “I think that calls for a celebration.”
“Uh-oh,” Mom said. “What did you have in mind?”
“How about if you make us volcanoes of ice cream with hot fudge lava?” Orville asked.
“Sure,” she said.
We couldn’t believe it.
“Wow, Mom,” I said. “Every once in a while you say something really smart.”
She warmed up the fudge and put mountains of ice cream in our bowls. We broke off the bottoms of ice cream cones and stuck them deep in the center of our ice cream mountains to hold the lava.
While we made sound effects, Mom poured so much hot fudge into our volcanoes that they erupted over the sides. Yum!
We dug in with our spoons. For a while we were speechless. Ice cream can do that to a person.
Eventually, Mom made us go to bed.
“I know you’re going to want to stay up,” she said. “But if you get some sleep tonight, then you can still have some fun tomorrow morning.”
She blew kisses, turned out the light, and left.
We waited silently until we couldn’t hear any more footsteps.
“Amelia,” I whispered. “What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking about how hard it must be to go to the bathroom in a mummy costume. What are you thinking about, Wilbur?”
I was just about to answer when we heard a tap at the window.
Our bedroom happens to be on the second floor, so a tap on our window is very unusual.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
Another tap came.
“Either a blind bird just flew into our window twice,” Orville said, “or someone is out there.”
We ran to the window.
“There’s something in the driveway.” Amelia shined her flashlight down. “Come on, more shine power.”
We shined our flashlights down, too.
There in the driveway under the window was a bunch of rocks arranged in the shape of a heart.
“Whoa!” Orville said. “Who did that? And why?”
“I think I know,” Amelia said.
She pulled the envelope of letters out of her backpack. “Let’s just take another look at this message.” She tossed the letters onto the floor and we gathered around with our flashlights. First she spelled out A SOOTY EVIL GHOUL. Then she rearranged the letters into a new message:
GOLIATH LOVES YOU
“WHAT!!!” I yelped.
“Since when does Goliath love me?” Orville cried.
“Not you,” Amelia said. “Me. I’ve suspected it for a while now. Look at the clues. Red in the face. Out of breath. Tongue-tied. Nice clothes. Aftershave. Clean feet. It all started the minute he met me. He wasn’t spying on us or trying to find the mummy first. He was just trying to be near me.”
Orville and I recoiled in horror. “I don’t believe it.” Orville sat on his bed. “This is just too much for my little brain to handle.”
Mom walked in. “I thought I told you guys it was time for bed.”
“Something shocking and horrible is happening,” Orville groaned.
Mom flipped on the light. “What is it?”
“Mom,” I said, “if I were to tell you that a certain somebody is red in the face, out of breath, and tongue-tied, and that he is also starting to wear nice clothes and aftershave as well as washing his feet—what would you say?”
“I’d say Goliath Hyke is head over heels for your cousin.”
I fell over. “What? How did you know?”
“You can tell just by looking at him. Poor guy. Besides, when his mom called to ask which museum we were going to because Goliath really wanted to go, I figured something was up.”
Orville shook his head. “How do women know these things?”
Reality was sinking in. Goliath was so in love that he was doing embarrassing things, like arranging rocks in the shape of a heart on the Riot Brothers’ driveway.
“Wait a minute!” Orville jumped up, his eyes gleaming. “We could really tease him about this!”
Amelia shook her head. “No. You must have pity on his tortured soul.”
“I agree,” Mom said. “After all, someday it will happen to both of you.”
I looked at Orville. Orville looked at me. “NO WAY!!!”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about it right now,” Mom said, tucking us all in. “Right now you have to worry about going to sleep.” She turned out the light.
I lay in bed, thinking about Goliath’s strange behavior. What if Amelia were to fall in love with Goliath? What if they were to get married? Then Goliath would become our second-cousin-in-law and he and Amelia would have very large babies.
“Amelia,” I whispered, “I have to ask you something.”
“What?” she asked.
“Do you—um—like Goliath in return?”
She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I’m keeping all my options open.”
It was a mysterious statement from a mysterious girl.
“You know what I’m thinking?” Orville said.
“What?” we both asked.
“I’m thinking that we should paint our underpants gold so that they make better King Tut hats.”
“Over my dead body,” Mom called out.
“Wow,” Amelia said. “Your mom has big ears.”
Orville nodded. “We’ve been telling her that for years.”
“I heard that,” Mom called again. “You can talk in the morning. Now go to sleep.”
Amelia fell asleep before we did. How did we know? Because we heard the sound of snorgling coming from her cot.
That girl snorgles like two wild pigs rolled into one.
“Whoever she marries better buy earplugs,” Orville said.
And then he fell asleep and began snorgling.
As for me, I was tossing and turning and having a terrible time trying to get to sleep. Then I remembered what Amelia had said about the moon.
I looked out the window and sang in a soft mysterious voice, “Full moon, full moon, help me fall asleep soon.”
And I did!
The End
ONE
Gotta Beat the Heat
CRASH!
“Wake up!” Amelia slammed two pot lids together. “It’s time for the Riot Brother Weather Report!” She was standing on my bed.
She gave the pot lids one final crash.
We did what any appreciative audience would do. We clapped. “That was a creative way to wake us up.”
“Thank you. And it’s all true.” Amelia jumped down. “Your mom said it’s supposed to be the hottest day on record.”
“Hey!” I exclaimed. “Let’s go to the Splash-and-Soak Water Park.”
“Bingo bongo!” Orville started hopping around. He couldn’t help it. When he gets excited, he just has to hop.
Mom walked in with a laundry basket full of clean clothes. “Forget it. Amelia’s parents are coming to pick her up this afternoon.”
“We could go in the morning,” I suggested wisely.
“It’s too expensive,” Mom said.
Orville sighed. “Why are you always worried about money, Mom? Live a little!”
Mom laughed.
“Wait!” Orville cried. “I know where we can get the money. Who always has what we need in her backpack?” He grinned and held his arms out to our cousin.
“I do have a collection of money.” Amelia began pulling stuff out of her pack. “Let’s see. I have several ancient Chinese coins. I’m sure they are very valuable in China. Some Swiss francs, Japanese yen, and Chilean pesos. Sorry, Orville. I guess I’m short on American cash.”
“But you’re big on personality.” Mom laughed.
“Hey, Mom, if we make enough money, will you take us?” I asked.
“I doubt you could make enough,” she said.
I grabbed a sheet of paper and drew a one hundred dollar bill. “Here! I just made some.”
Amelia and Orville thought it was funny, but my o
wn mother ignored me. “While you’re thinking of more schemes,” Mom said, “you can put away your clothes.” She dumped the clean laundry on the floor.
“We will put away our laundry for a price,” Orville said.
Mom put her hands on her hips. “In your dreams, buster!”
“Why are you so grumpy?” Orville asked.
“I’m not grumpy!” she said.
“You’re grumpy because it’s so hot today,” I said. “It’s so hot, if we don’t go to a water park, our poor cousin will melt.”
Amelia melted dramatically to the floor.
Mom laughed. “I’m not grumpy!” She took the empty basket and left the room to go do whatever it is that grumpy mothers do.
I sat next to Orville, who was looking grumpy himself. I wasn’t feeling grumpy at all. That’s because I had a plan. “Orville, have we ever failed in any of our missions?”
“No.”
I smiled at Amelia. “It’s true. So, let’s make it our mission to have fun at a water park. That means we’ll succeed. And how will we succeed? Simple. We will use our amazing brains to come up with a money-making scheme. If we make enough money, Mom will be impressed and agree to take us.”
“But according to Riot Brother Rule Number Two, we cannot tell anyone our true mission,” Orville said.
“So let’s not tell Mom that it’s our mission to do it. We’ll just raise the money and ask for a ride.”
“I like it!” Amelia said. “But we’ll have to get rich quick!”
“We can do it!” Orville hopped into our pile of clean clothes like it was a pool of water. “Water park, here we come!”
TWO
Please Don’t Eat the Ham
“This will be easy,” Orville said. “All we have to do is sell people something they need. Then we’ll make a lot of money. What does everyone need?”
“Cheering up,” Amelia said. “Let’s brainstorm things that cheer people up.”
“Candy!” Orville started hopping around again. “Let’s buy a bunch of candy and sell it to people.”
“There’s only one problem,” Amelia said. “We need money to buy candy.”