Egypt Game (9781439132029)

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

  “Okay, Bastet,” he said, “you wanted to be the oracle priestess, so today it’s your turn. You can do the Ceremony of Returning to the Oracle for the Answer. That is, unless you don’t think you can think up a good answer.”

  “I can think of answers to anything,” April said. “But I thought you were expecting the oracle to do its own answers. Or did you change your mind?”

  “Oh no,” Toby said. “I didn’t change my mind. I just thought you ought to have some good answers ready, just in case. So, let’s get going.”

  So April took charge. To get everyone in the mood, she got the box of costumes out of the shed and had everyone put something on, a headdress or a robe or at least some jewelry. Then she set the scene. “Okay,” she said, “Horemheb, the famous general, has come on a pilgrimage to the grotto of the Oracle of Thoth to ask a terribly important question. He arrived at the grotto a few days ago and asked his question, and since then he has been fasting in a holy cell while he waits for the answer. You know, people who were going to the oracle had to prepare themselves very carefully, so they usually shut themselves up for days without any food and meditated until they felt very pure and sort of dizzy, and then they were ready to go. So that’s what you’ve been doing, Ken.”

  Ken looked self-conscious, and Melanie made a funny, smothered sound. April was careful not to catch her eye. She knew that Melanie was trying not to laugh at the idea of solid old Ken being “pure and dizzy.” April hurried on.

  “The rest of us are priests and attendants of the Oracle. And I’m the high priestess who is the only one who can go into the altar room where the oracle gives out the answers.”

  Next, April had everyone help make some twisted paper logs to burn in the sacred fire-bowl, and then she lined them all up for a procession to the grotto. Ken was in the middle in the place of honor and April demonstrated to him how he should walk—with his hands crossed over his chest and his eyes sort of rolled up. April herself led the procession; and when they had gone twice around the yard, she lined everyone up on the edge of the temple. Then she approached the altar alone.

  First she lit the candles and the incense and the sacred fire, and put the fire-bowl on the floor in front of the altar. On the altar, Thoth still sat with the slip of paper in his beak, exactly as they’d left him the night before. April bowed low before him and started in on an elaborate ceremony, using some of the old things they’d done before and some new ones she’d just thought up. She walked around the altar backwards three times sprinkling holy water. She pulled out three hairs from her head and dropped them on the fire. Then she sat down cross-legged between the fire and the altar and began to chant. Melanie sat down, too, on the edge of the temple floor and motioned for the others to do the same.

  “Aie-ie-ie-ie!” April chanted, making her voice go up and down the scale; and along the edge of the temple, the other Egyptians took it up. When the wailing chant was going strong, April suddenly cried, “Stop! The mighty Thoth has heard us. The oracle has spoken!”

  Very slowly and dramatically, with her eyes half closed and her face smoothed into a dream-like calmness, April raised her arms above her head and with both hands took the message from the beak of Thoth. Very, very slowly she brought it down to eye level and unfolded it. She read it carefully and then turned it over and read the other side. Her calmly regal high-priestess expression faded and she frowned as she read each side again. Then she stood up and stomped out of the temple. The rest of the Egyptians jumped up.

  “Okay,” April said. “Who’s the wise guy?”

  “Wise guy?”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “What does it say?”

  Everybody was talking at once.

  “What did you write on this paper yesterday?” April asked Ken. “What was your question?”

  Ken shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Just some dumb stuff about if I was going to be a star in the big leagues some day.”

  April held out the slip of paper and everybody crowded around to look. In Ken’s large neat handwriting it said:

  Will I be a big league star someday?

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Ken said. “That’s what I wrote.”

  But then April turned the paper over so the other side was visible. In a very different handwriting, small and jittery, there was written:

  Man is his own star, and that soul who can be honest, is the only perfect man

  “How about that?” April asked. “Did you write that too?”

  “Me?” Ken said in amazement. “No way! I didn’t have time to write all that. Besides, I don’t even know what it means.”

  April and Melanie looked at each other and nodded. It was true—it didn’t sound like anything Ken would do. They turned to Toby.

  “Okay, Toby,” April said. “When did you write this?”

  Toby looked disgusted. “Let’s not get ridiculous,” he said. “How could I have written all that without anybody seeing me?”

  “Well, you must have,” April said, “because I know none of the rest of us did it.”

  “Oh yeah?” Toby said. “I’ll bet you did it yourself.”

  From there on the argument began to get louder and more personal. There were accusations and counteraccusations, but no one would admit to writing the mysterious and puzzling words that straggled across the back of Ken’s question. It was finally Melanie who made peace by suggesting that maybe they should just try the whole thing again and see what happened, instead of fighting about it. “We can watch to see that nobody writes an answer, and then if we get another answer and we know none of us wrote it . . . ” Her voice trailed off and nobody offered to finish the sentence for her. It was the kind of thought that isn’t easily finished.

  It was April who won the straw drawing this time, and she thought quite a while before she decided on a question. After she had written it on a piece of notebook paper, she showed everyone the clean clear back of the paper before she handed it, folded, to Toby for the Ceremony of Presenting the Question to the Oracle. Toby presided again as the high priest, and his ceremony was almost exactly the same as the day before.

  That is, the things Toby did were just about the same, but somehow the feeling was different. Or perhaps, not so much different as more so. More spooky and supernatural. Even though all the Egyptians were positive that somebody was fooling and had somehow managed to write the answer to Ken’s question, there are times when being positive isn’t quite enough.

  There wasn’t much light in the land of Egypt that afternoon, which didn’t make it all less strange. The days had been getting shorter, of course, but it was something more than a gradual seasonal change. As Toby bowed and mumbled and chanted before the altar of Thoth, his high-priest face looking distant and unfamiliar in the deep shadow and flickering candlelight, low black clouds were moving in swiftly from the bay. In the temple it was suddenly so dark that the reflected candles lit Thoth’s glassy stare with points of fire.

  Then, just as Toby was finishing his ceremony, there was a huge shuddering thumping noise that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Elizabeth gave a little scream and everyone rushed out of the temple. It wasn’t until a rain-filled blast of air swept into the land of Egypt a moment later that the noise was recognized for what it was.

  “Thunder! That was thunder!” everybody started saying to each other in voices that were giggly with relief. Somehow, without quite knowing how they’d gotten there, they were all six standing in a rather tight little group in the center of the storage yard.

  “And rain! Wow!” somebody added.

  That was the day they found out that it really was impossible for more than one person at a time to get through the hole in the fence, no matter how hard they tried.

  Where Is Security?

  THE NEXT DAY ALL SIX EGYPTIANS WAITED WITH great impatience for the end of school and the time to meet in the land of Egypt. Everyone was anxious to see if April’s question would be answered, but two of the Egypt
ians had a special reason of their own to be impatient. Marshall had lost his octopus, Security, and there was reason to believe that it had been left in Egypt the night before. Marshall wanted Security back, and Melanie wanted Marshall to quit pestering her and be himself again.

  The night before when everyone had left Egypt in such a hurry they had been too busy getting away from the rain—and the darkness and question mysteriously answered—to remember about Security. Not even Marshall had thought of it. And then, just as Marshall and Melanie got back to their apartment, their dad had come in early from the university. He had just been promised a teaching assistantship for the spring semester, and he had been in the mood for a celebration. He had rushed Marshall and Melanie into the car and they had driven to the school where their mom taught, and then they had all gone out to dinner. It was an exciting and unusual evening because until Dad got out of school, money was scarce, and they didn’t eat out very often. In fact, it had been such an interesting evening that Marshall hadn’t had time to remember about Security until they were home.

  Melanie had been climbing into bed when Marshall came into her room. The minute she had looked at him she had known what was wrong—either Security was lost, or the world was coming to an end. It had to be that serious!

  Of course, Marshall had wanted to go out right then to Egypt, and Melanie had had a hard time convincing him that it was impossible. It was late, they were both ready for bed, and outdoors the rain was coming down in a great wet roar. Mom and Dad would never let them go alone, and if Dad went with them, the other Egyptians would never forgive them for giving away Egypt to a grown-up. Melanie had known that Marshall understood the importance of what she was saying and that he was trying awfully hard to believe that it was all more important than finding Security. He had gone to the window and stood looking out at the waves of rain that swooshed against the pane. When he came back to Melanie’s bed his chin was wiggling. “But—but Security will drown if I don’t go get him,” he had said.

  Melanie had taken hold of his shoulders. “Marshall honey, octopuses can’t drown. They live in water,” she had said.

  Marshall had hung his head. And finally he had sighed and said very softly, “But Security is another kind of octopus.”

  Just then Melanie had thought of something that helped. “You know what? I’ll bet you didn’t leave Security in Egypt at all. Now that I think about it, I don’t remember seeing him there today. I’ll bet you left him at nursery school. I’ll bet he’s safe and sound in the playroom at nursery school, and you can get him in the morning when you get to school.”

  Then Melanie had taken Marshall back to his bed and tucked him in. She wasn’t at all sure that she believed Security was at the nursery school, and she knew that Marshall didn’t either. But they had both tried to believe it as hard as they could.

  In the morning it had still been pouring down rain when it was time to go to school, and Melanie’s dad had insisted on taking everyone to school in his car on his way to the university—so there had been no chance to check to see if Security really was in the land of Egypt. And, just as they both had feared, he had not been at the nursery school. So there had been nothing they could do but wait for school to be over and the time for Egypt to come.

  Fortunately, it had stopped raining during the day, although the sun never came out. But when the time finally came, and all six Egyptians squeezed back through the fence into Egypt—Security wasn’t there, either. The storage yard was wet and muddy—and bare. Inside the temple, things were damp and messy from the wind-blown rain. Ashes and papers were blown around and some plastic flowers had fallen off the birdbath—but there was no sign of Security anywhere.

  That day Marshall wouldn’t even take part in the ceremony. He just sat on a box against the fence and watched with big sad eyes. Everybody tried to talk to him and cheer him up, but he wouldn’t answer. Looking at him, the others remembered with a feeling of shock that he was awfully little. He usually seemed bigger.

  Somehow, no one felt very enthusiastic about starting the ceremony, without really knowing why. It was almost as if they were a little bit afraid of finding out whether there was any mysterious writing on the slip of paper that still hung, damply limp, from Thoth’s beak. But at last Melanie, whose turn it was to be high priestess, got things going. She did pretty much what April had done the day before until she got to the part where she took the slip of paper out of Thoth’s beak and read it. On one side was April’s question, just what Melanie had thought it would be:

  When will I go home again?

  And on the other side—

  Melanie looked up at the other Egyptians with wide eyes, and then she turned and looked, long and hard, at Thoth. Finally she walked right out of the temple, threw the paper on the ground, and said, “I think we just better stop playing this awful game.”

  Everyone crowded around, grabbing for the paper and asking questions. As it went the rounds, it left a lot of startled faces behind it. The back of the paper, which they all knew had been clean and blank when they had left Egypt the night before, was now covered with writing. In the same small wavery hand that had answered Ken’s question, the oracle had written:

  The best thing we can do is to make wherever we’re lost in Look as much like home as we can.

  Again, no one had seen the words being written. Again, what they said didn’t sound like anything that a kid would make up. Something very strange was going on. As one person the five biggest Egyptians turned and looked at their temple. There on the left was the altar to Set that they had built themselves from nothing but an old egg crate, and on top of it was the made-by-hand statue of Set, looking a little more sunken and slimy than usual from the blowing rain of the night before. On the right was the birdbath altar with the plaster head of Nefertiti, lovely and gracious in spite of the cracks and chips. And at the back was the new altar to Thoth, with its candles and incense still burning in front of an old stuffed owl that Toby had cut his teeth on.

  It had only been a game. Of course, it had been a very special one, more serious and important and mysterious than most—and a lot more fun. And there had been times when it had seemed to have a mysterious sort of reality about it. But no one had believed, when you came right down to it, that it was anything more than a game. At least, no one had until today.

  “I think Ross is right,” Ken said suddenly. “I told you guys before there was something kooky about this whole thing.” He grinned at Toby. “How about it, Tobe? You ready to go back to basketball?”

  Toby shrugged. “I think you guys are a bunch of chickens,” he said. “Just when things get good and something really exciting starts happening, you want to cop out. What I want to know is, if you don’t like a little excitement, why’d you start fooling around with stuff like Egyptian gods and ancient magic in the first place?”

  “Look, wise guy,” April said, “it just so happens that I didn’t say I wanted to cop out. And if you’re so crazy about excitement why don’t you go jump off the bridge or something? That ought to be exciting enough to suit you. It just so happens that some people think there’s such a thing as too much excitement.”

  Toby grinned at April in a way that said he wasn’t looking for a fight. “I’m not arguing,” he said. “If everyone wants to split, it’s all right by me. Let’s just forget—”

  “No!” Marshall said suddenly in a loud clear voice. It was the first thing he’d said since he found out that Security definitely wasn’t in Egypt. “No!” Marshall got up off his box and came over to where the rest of them were standing. His chin was up and he was looking much more like himself. “Let’s not stop. Let’s not stop till I ask a question. I’m going to ask about Security.”

  Everybody tried to talk him out of it. April and Melanie and Elizabeth all tried because they could see how hard he was going to take it if the oracle didn’t come through. And for some reason, Toby tried hardest of all. He squatted down by Marshall and talked to him a long time about
how he didn’t think that was the kind of question that oracles answered, but Marshall only shut his eyes and shook his head and said “NO!” And everybody knew that Marshall never said no unless he meant it.

  So Melanie wrote,

  WHERE IS SECURITY?

  on a piece of paper, because Marshall didn’t do much writing yet, and Toby went through the ceremony just as he had the two times before.

  Marshall went home acting almost as if Security had already been found, but everyone else went home worried. Melanie and April and Elizabeth and Ken didn’t quite know whether to worry because the question might be answered or because it might not be. The whole thing was getting to be so weird and creepy that they couldn’t really wish for another answer—but at the same time, what were they going to do about Marshall?

  But Toby was the most worried of all.

  Confession and Confusion

  THAT NIGHT, WHILE THE ORACLE OF THOTH IN THE Land of Egypt struggled with the question “Where is Security?”, Toby Alvillar struggled with his conscience. He thought and worried and thought; and at last he broke down and did something entirely against his principles—he called up a girl. When April answered, all he said was, “Look, I got to talk to you and Ross tomorrow early. Meet you out by the parallel bars first recess. Can’t talk now—party line.”

  He had it all worked out so it wouldn’t look fishy. When recess started, he went whooping down the hall and down the stairs with the rest of the guys who were headed for the basketball court, but on the way down the stairs he pretended to stumble and turn his ankle. He denied that he was badly hurt, but he managed to look bravely-in-pain as he stumbled over to sit out the recess on the bench near the parallel bars. The girls were in the midst of a jump-rope fad, so the parallel bars were pretty much deserted.

  When April and Melanie wandered over—and registered exaggerated surprise to find him there—he got right to the point. “Look,” he said, “I was the one who wrote those answers. I was the oracle. But I don’t know where Marshall’s old octopus is. What’re we going to do?”