by Terry Deary
“A cat! A cat like my Katkins. You’ve always wanted one.”
“You can’t do magic,” the little boy sniffed.
“Urrrrgh!” Neria cried angrily. She marched up to Karu, snatched the ball from his podgy little hand and ran.
She was racing down the road and could hear his wailing until she was half way to the city gates.
Chapter 5
The Magic Cat
As the Eye of Horus sank in the sky the desert grew dark with purple shadows. Neria trotted back home behind her father. “You did well,” he said.
“Thank you father,” she said.
“The mummy you made from the cat Bastet was fine – for a first try.”
“Thank you father.”
“Very neat.”
They walked through the city gates. The guards saluted and closed the gates to shut out the jackals of the night. When they reached their house, Karu was waiting for them. His scowling face was streaked with mud and tears.
Father ignored him. The boy cried out, “Father, Father! Neria stole my ball – she took it and she …” Karu stopped shouting. It’s hard to shout when your big sister has a hand across your mouth.
She dragged the boy down the hall and into her room. Karu struggled all the way. There was just enough light in her room to see the chest in the corner. She took her hand away from her brother’s mouth.
“Where’s my ball?” he sobbed.
“I haven’t got it.”
“Waaaagh! Why not?”
“I told you,” she hissed. “I used magic to turn it into a cat.”
Karu stopped crying suddenly. “No you didn’t.”
“Yes I did.”
“Where is it?” he demanded.
“In that chest,” she said.
He ran over to the corner of the room and heaved up the lid. A dazed cat blinked up at him. “Ohhhh!” Karu breathed. “A cat.”
“Your cat,” Neria told him.
Karu lifted the cat out carefully and clutched it in his short arms. “A magic cat,” he said.
Neria smiled. “A magic cat. Now let’s wash your face and go to dinner.”
As the servants lit the lamps in the dining room Karu walked in with a scrubbed and happy face. “Neria,” he said.
“Yes, Karu?”
“I think you stole my crocodile on wheels.”
“So?”
“So I would like you to magic me a bow and arrow, a fishing boat and a golden bowl for my cat.”
Neria smiled sweetly at her brother. “Karu. You have your cat. Ask me for anything else and I will turn you into a mummy.”
“You can’t do that!” he squawked.
“Oh, yes I can – father says I make a fine mummy, a neat mummy.”
Her teeth and eyes glinted in the lamplight. Karu looked up at her and was afraid. He swallowed hard, turned pale and began to shake.
“It’s alright. Neria. You can keep my crocodile,” he said.
“I think that’s best,” she said softly. “Mummy knows best.”
Afterword
The House of Death wasn’t a house at all. It was a large tent where the mummy was made ready for its last journey – the journey into the Afterlife.
The Afterlife was a lovely place to live if you were lucky enough, and good enough, to get there. It was away from the heat of the desert and the smell of death – away from the jackals that wanted to steal the king’s flesh and the humans who wanted to steal his riches.
The House of Death was a holy place and a work place. The priest in charge was a servant of the jackal god, Anubis. So, of course, this one priest wore the Jackal mask over his head. Anubis was the good god who looked over mummies and guarded their tombs. His priest led the chanting of all the priests and that was the sign for the start of the mummy-making.
The king could not go along to the Afterlife without his loyal pets. They had to be killed and turned into mummies too so they could be buried with him.
The priest of Anubis would be one of the most important men in the city, his house would be fine and his family would be rich.