Egypt Game (9781439132029)

by Snyder, Zilpha Keatley; Raible, Alton (ILT)

  When they reached April’s apartment, Mrs. Hall met them at the door. “Come in, come in,” she said. “April’s all dressed already. She’s in her room.”

  April looked great. She was wearing her Egyptian headdress and under her sheer jeweled robe she had on the short tunic made of a pillowcase. Around the bottom of the pillowcase there were Egyptian-looking decorations done in red and black crayon. But best of all were her face and hair. For once her false eyelashes were on straight, and she had heavy black eye makeup that made her eyes look long and mysterious. But most surprising was her hair—it was cut short in a sort of Cleopatra bob.

  “Caroline helped me with my face and hair,” April said, and she looked at Caroline and smiled. It occurred to Melanie that it was the first time she’d ever seen April smile at her grandmother. It also occurred to her that April wasn’t going to be able to wear an upsweep anymore, but she didn’t say anything about that.

  Instead, she only said, “Your hair looks terrific, April. You ought to wear it that way all the time.”

  Mrs. Hall reminded them that they better hurry so they wouldn’t keep the other trick-or-treaters waiting and then she went out and left them alone. April shut the door of her room behind her grandmother and then she turned around very slowly and dramatically to face the rest of the Egypt gang. One look at her face and Melanie had a strong feeling that downright disobedient and even deadly dangerous weren’t going to be enough. She felt herself slipping before she was even sure of the direction in which they were moving.

  April put her arms down stiffly along her sides and with her eyes closed she tilted her Egyptian face upward raptly. To Melanie she looked like a miniature monolith, glowing with mystery. “We have received a message,” April whispered with her eyes still closed. “We are summoned by the mighty ones, the mighty ones of Egypt.”

  “The mighty ones?” Elizabeth’s voice quavered a little.

  April snapped back into life and snatched up something from her dresser. It was a little velvet pin-cushion box that she kept special things on. “It’s in here,” she said, holding the box out dramatically until they had all gathered around.

  “The summons from Set and Isis,” Melanie said. It was a statement instead of a question; and with a last lingering dismay she realized that she was already using her high priestess voice. April nodded and her eyes flicked across Melanie’s in the way they always did when their imaginations were tuned in. The gods of Egypt struggled with the gods of conscience, and Egypt won. “The mighty ones have summoned us,” Melanie chanted and dropped to her knees.

  Following Melanie’s lead, April was on her knees almost as quickly and Elizabeth and Marshall weren’t far behind. Slowly and with drama April opened the box. There, on a cushion of paper handkerchiefs, was a single shiny feather. “Just a few minutes ago,” April whispered, “I heard something—a strange sound—outside my window. I’d been expecting something. I’d had a weird feeling all day long. Hadn’t you?” They all nodded and Melanie didn’t even remember what kind of feelings she’d really been having all day. “So I ran to the window and threw it open and there it was—right on the sill. A token—from the mighty ones.”

  “Evil Set and Beautiful Isis have sent us a token,” Melanie chanted. She nudged Elizabeth with her elbow and whispered, “You say, ‘The mighty ones have summoned us to their temple.’ ”

  “The mighty ones have summoned us to their temple.” Elizabeth imitated Melanie’s singing chant.

  April poked Marshall. “You say, ‘We have received your summons, O mighty ones.’ ”

  “We have received your summons, O mighty ones,” Marshall chanted and then ad-libbed, “and it’s nothing but an old pigeon feather.” He scanned the girls’ faces expectantly, but they chose to ignore him.

  While they were getting into their costumes, Elizabeth asked a few worried questions about what they were going to do, but April only said, “I don’t know. We’ll have to stick close together and look for a sign.”

  “What sort of a sign?” Elizabeth wanted to know.

  “A secret omen,” Melanie said.

  “Will it be a pigeon feather?” Marshall asked.

  “We don’t know what it will be,” April told him. “But we will know it when it appears.” She clasped her hands and struck a wonder-and-amazement pose. “The very air will smell of mystery,” she breathed.

  Marshall sniffed thoughtfully as April got him into his crown and robe and tried to make his baby-round eyes look long and mysterious with the eyebrow pencil. She was more successful with Elizabeth’s and Melanie’s eyes. They both had beautiful eyes anyway—Elizabeth’s were exotic, long and tilted, and Melanie’s were luxurious, velvet and ivory, fringed with black silk. With the Egyptian makeup they both looked fantastic.

  By the time they had gotten Elizabeth’s ponytail tucked inside her Nefertiti headdress it was almost 7:00. They started to rush out, but in the hallway they noticed that Marshall wasn’t with them. They dashed back and found him in the closet with April’s pin-box. He was calm as they grabbed him out of the closet, snatched away the pin-box and scolded him across the living room to the hall door. “I was just smelling the mystery, like April said,” he was explaining patiently, when suddenly he grabbed hold of the door frame and howled, “STOP!” The result was a four-way collision of Egyptians in the doorway. Marshall kept on yelling, “Stop!” and Elizabeth yelled “Ouch!” because somebody stepped on her, and April yelled, “What the———!”

  But Melanie knew right away what the matter was. She ran back into the bedroom and got Security from where he’d been left on April’s bed, and at last the Egyptians were on their way.

  The Return to Egypt

  THE TRICK-OR-TREAT GROUP WAS A MILLING MOB of devils, witches, tramps and monsters. Mr. Barkley, who always acted as if being the father of six-year-old twin boys was almost more than he could stand, looked positively exhausted; and even Mr. Kamata’s sturdy real-estate-salesman’s smile was beginning to wilt. Outside the Casa Rosada a black cat, a mechanical man, a Little Red Riding Hood, two tramps and four ancient Egyptians joined the already unwieldy group.

  They had started off up Orchard Avenue in a sprawly column when Marshall suddenly stopped and tugged at Melanie’s arm. “I want a sign,” he said loudly. Several of the surrounding trick-or-treaters turned to look at him, and the other three Egyptians stared in astonishment. Marshall had never blabbed about secrets before.

  “Shhh!” April hissed. “Not yet! I’ll tell you when.”

  “Shhh, Marshall. It’s a secret,” Elizabeth whispered covering his mouth with her hand.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Melanie asked in astonishment.

  Marshall pushed Elizabeth’s hand away. “Not a secret sign,” he said. “A sign to carry.”

  All of a sudden Melanie laughed. “Oh,” she said, “I guess he thinks we’re a demonstration—like at the university. He’s never been trick-or-treating because he was too young last year. But he knows about demonstrations.”

  Everybody laughed, except Marshall. “We’re not a demonstration, Marshall,” Melanie explained, tugging at him to get him moving again. “We’re trick-or-treating. Trick-or-treating is for candy and demonstrations are for things like Peace and Freedom. It’s different.”

  Marshall relaxed and allowed himself to be pulled down the street, but he didn’t look convinced. “I’m a demonstration,” he said firmly.

  When the crowd turned up Elm Street where there were more good houses to visit, the Egyptians began to drop to the rear of the group where it would be easier to get away. That meant they were the last ones up to each home, and sometimes most of the good stuff was already taken; but they hardly noticed. They were too busy looking for an omen.

  At the last house before they turned off Elm Street, the Egypt gang started up the front walk and collided with two other trick-or-treaters who also seemed to be hanging behind the main group—a monster and a walking pile of boxes. “Hey,” the monster
said, “it’s Ross and February. What are you supposed to be?”

  The rubber monster mask completely covered the speaker’s head, but the voice was familiar; and besides, the sixth-grade boys were the only ones who called April, February. Then the walking boxes said, “Hey man! It’s a whole herd of Egyptians.” He poked Marshall in the stomach and said, “Hi there, King Tut.”

  “Okay, Mr. Wise-Guy Alvillar,” Melanie said. “I know who you are.” She turned to April with an exasperated shrug. “It’s Kamata and Alvillar.”

  Ken Kamata and Toby Alvillar were just about the most disgusting boys in the sixth grade, in a fascinating sort of way. They were best friends and always together, and everybody always voted for them for everything and wanted to be on their team. But not April and Melanie. April and Melanie always told each other that Ken and Toby were just ordinary (ugh) boys, and it was stupid the way everybody treated them so special. April and Melanie just couldn’t figure out what people saw in them.

  Of course, Toby had a special talent for getting people off the hook by making the teacher laugh. Just when Mrs. Granger was really building up a head of steam over something, Toby would make some little remark and Mrs. Granger would start choking and have to turn her back. Sometimes she’d try to pick things up where she left off, but all that lost momentum made a big difference.

  Ken was sort of cute in a big blunt cocky way. He had a clean-cut all-American-Asian look about him, and he walked with a high-school swagger. Toby was thinner, with big ears that stuck out of his shaggy hair and enormous brown eyes that were always up to something, like a pair of TV screens turned on full blast. But right now you couldn’t see what either one of them really looked like at all.

  Ken had a man’s old overcoat on over a pillow-padded hunchback, and (wouldn’t you know it) rubber monster hands and feet, too, as well as the mask. Ken’s father sold a lot of real estate and he could afford expensive stuff like that. Toby was the box man. He had a small box over his head, with a Saran Wrap-covered opening shaped like a TV screen to look out through. The rest of him was covered with all sorts of other boxes all strung together and painted black and covered with pasted-on ads out of papers and magazines. There were Alka-Seltzer and Pepto-Bismol ads pasted on his stomach box, aspirin ads on his head box, and even a deodorant ad under his left arm.

  “Boy! Are you two in character,” April said. “A monster and a pile of junk.”

  “I’ll have you know that I represent the New American,” Toby said haughtily. Then he grinned. “It was my dad’s idea. He says it’s a new art form he just invented.”

  Toby’s dad had been a graduate student at the university. He was also a sculptor who made statues out of all kinds of junk.

  “An art form!” April said. “Well, all I can say is—”

  “Don’t,” Toby interrupted. “You’d just show off your ignorance.”

  “Come on, Tobe,” Ken said. “We’re getting left behind.”

  “Yeah, you little kids ought to keep up with the group better,” Toby said, as he started off up the sidewalk. “You’re liable to get hurt.”

  “Little kids!” Melanie yelled after him. “Look who’s talking!”

  Marshall ran after Toby and gave him a shove on the rear of his biggest box. “We’re not little kids,” he said. “We’re Egyptians.”

  Toby swiveled his TV head around and surveyed the damage. “Hey, watch it!” he said. “You just bent my Jockey shorts ad.”

  April and Melanie didn’t believe in encouraging Toby by laughing at him, but that was too much. By the time the Egyptians got over their convulsions of giggles, Ken and Toby had disappeared around the corner, and the lady whose walk they were on was calling to ask if they wanted some candy or not.

  After that Melanie suggested that maybe they’d better stay up with the group a little better or the fathers would notice and start watching them. But even when they were trying, it wasn’t easy to catch up because their costumes were such a success. At almost every house they had to be admired and questioned and other members of the family had to be called to see them—particularly Elizabeth and Marshall. Everyone thought Elizabeth and Marshall were just “darling,” and “adorable,” and they had to be admired and fussed over before the Egyptians could take their candy and leave.

  At last, at one house they had to wait while the man got his flash camera out to take their picture, and when they finally got away and rushed down the stairs the big group of trick-or-treaters had completely disappeared.

  There they were, all alone on the dimly lit sidewalk, and it was suddenly very quiet. They ran down the block to the corner, where they could look all four ways, but still there wasn’t a person in sight. They were still just standing there looking around and wondering what to do, when suddenly Melanie pointed at the horizon. “Look,” she said. “A shooting star!”

  “A shooting star!” Everybody repeated it in whispered unison as if they’d been rehearsed. Then everybody looked at April. She nodded. “The secret omen,” she said slowly, making every syllable heavy with significance. Marshall started turning around and around, smelling the air.

  Looking around one last time to be sure no one was watching, the girls grabbed Marshall out of his tailspin and started down the sidewalk in the direction that they had come. They scurried down two blocks without seeing a soul, turned the corner, and a moment later ducked into the alley that led to Egypt.

  If the secret and mysterious land of Egypt was fascinating in the daytime, it was doubly so at night. Dimly lit by a distant streetlight, two flashlights, and a jack-o’-lantern, it was almost too fascinating to bear. April told everyone to wait just inside the fence while she tiptoed forward and lit the cone of incense on the altar of Set and the two candles that stood before the goddess Isis. Then she motioned everyone forward.

  “The Great Ceremony of the Celebration of the Return to Egypt has begun!” she chanted, and all four Egyptians prostrated themselves before the egg crate and the birdbath.

  Egypt Invaded

  APRIL AND MELANIE ROSE TO THEIR KNEES FROM their deep bows before the double altars of Egypt. Over the heads of Elizabeth and Marshall they exchanged a glance that said, “Okay. What’s next?” Melanie reached over absently to help Marshall with his pharaoh’s crown, which had slipped down over his eyes while he was touching his forehead to the floor. Suddenly her eyes lit up with an “I have it” expression. She gave the crown a final tug down over Marshall’s ears and turned to face the altar of Set. She raised her arms and April quickly followed suit.

  “The gods are angry at us for being gone so long,” she chanted.

  “The gods are angry,” April repeated. A quick glare at Elizabeth and Marshall got them going.

  “The gods are angry,” they parroted.

  Melanie nodded and continued with her inspiration. “The gods demand that we make a sacrifice so that we may be forgiven.” She looked over at April, and April nodded delightedly.

  “The gods demand that we make a horrible and bloody sacrifice.” April took up Melanie’s theme with relish.

  “A horrible and bloody sacrifice,” Melanie agreed.

  “A horrible and bloody sacrifice,” Marshall and Elizabeth repeated dutifully, but Elizabeth’s voice quavered a little and Marshall leaned over and poked his sister.

  “What sort of bloody?” he demanded in a whisper.

  But now April was off and away, and Melanie was following. “The gods will tell us what the sacrifice must be,” April said. “We must approach the altar one at a time and touch the Crocodile Stone, the sacred symbol of Set. We must touch the sacred symbol of Set and wait for a message about the sacrifice. Then we will decide whose message is the best.”

  April went first. She approached the egg crate using the correct Egyptian walk, which was done by walking with your shoulders sideways, arms held out from the body and bent sharply at the wrist. In front of the altar she bowed deeply with her head tucked between her upraised arms, and then placed her fing
ertips on the Crocodile Stone. She stood for a minute with her face turned upward. Melanie poked the other kids and motioned for them to watch closely.

  When April stalked back to them looking wildly secretive, Melanie walked up to the altar and followed her example, doing exactly the same things. Then came Elizabeth’s turn and finally Marshall’s. Then they all sat down in a circle on the floor.

  As soon as everyone was seated, Elizabeth raised her hand and shook it frantically. She was looking excited and pleasantly surprised with herself. She had just had a terribly daring idea and she couldn’t wait to tell it.

  “All right, Elizabeth first,” Melanie said. “Okay, April?”

  April nodded. “Go ahead, Neferbeth,” she said, “but put your hand down, for heaven’s sake. You’re not in school, you’re a lady pharaoh.”

  Elizabeth snatched her hand down and suggested eagerly that Set’s message was that they should stick their fingers with a needle and write him a letter in their own blood.

  April and Melanie exchanged surprised and appreciative glances, and Elizabeth beamed proudly. She didn’t think it was necessary to mention that her teacher had just read Tom Sawyer to the class—and just possibly Set had had a little help from Mark Twain.

  However, there was one small detail—nobody had a needle. Elizabeth looked crushed. “Don’t feel bad, Bethy,” Melanie said. “It was a neat idea.”

  “I’ll say,” April agreed. “It was a terrific idea.”

  “It was a dumb idea,” Marshall muttered. “When you stick your finger you get infested.”

  “Infected,” Melanie corrected. “You go next, April.”

  April made a trance-like face. “When I stood before the altar,” she chanted, “I heard the voice of the Crocodile god. He said the object to be sacrificed must be something very dear to us. It must be something we hate to part with. Otherwise it won’t count. The Crocodile god has told me that we must sacrifice”—she pointed dramatically—“Security!”