Of course April and Melanie had a lot to say. They made Toby explain how he’d managed to steal a peek at the questions while he was conducting the ceremonies—while everybody was bowing—and then how he’d looked up the main words in a big book of his dad’s, called Somebody’s Famous Quotations. Then, when he’d picked out a nice mysterious quotation, he’d sneaked back to Egypt at night with a flashlight and written it on the back of the paper.
“But how’d you get out of the house like that, late at night and in the rain and everything? Did your dad know?”
“Did my dad know?” Toby said. Girls could ask the dumbest questions at times. “Fat chance! He never bothers me in the evenings. He’s usually working late in the studio or off at an art show somewheres. It was a cinch.”
“Weren’t you scared?” Melanie asked. “Going down there all by yourself alone in the dark?”
“Well,” Toby admitted, “I wasn’t exactly whistling ‘Yankee Doodle,’ if you know what I mean. Did you happen to notice that the oracle’s handwriting was a little bit shaky? Well, I didn’t just do that to disguise my writing. As a matter of fact, I was about to quit the oracle business even before the rest of you decided to, yesterday. That last night when I went down there, there was somebody in the alley when I was going home.”
The girls gasped. “Honestly? In the rain and everything? Are you sure?”
“As sure as I’d want to be. In fact, for a couple of seconds he was just a few steps behind me. It was too dark to see his face—but he was there, all right.”
“Ohhh! What did you do? How’d you get away?”
“How’d I get away? Look, Melanie, you ought to know how I got away. Who’s been the fastest runner in our class ever since second grade?”
“You,” Melanie agreed.
“Right! And when I saw someone behind me, I really cut out. I mean—jet-propelled or something.”
Toby could always manage to be funny, even about something that was really pretty scary. But after a while, Melanie quit laughing and said, “But who do you think it was? What if it was the man who—”
“The murderer, you mean?” Toby interrupted. “Yeah, I thought of that, all right. Did I ever! But after I got home and calmed down I decided it was probably just some guy taking a shortcut home through the alley. I’m not sure he tried to catch me. I didn’t wait around to find out.”
The girls laughed some more, but then April sobered up enough to mention that Toby’s crimes weren’t going entirely unnoticed—fooling everybody, and lying about the oracle—
“Lie to you!” Toby said. “I did not. I didn’t lie once. I just gave the wrong impression. There’s a difference. Besides, I should think you’d be grateful to me for going to all that trouble just to keep things livened up. My dad says that livening things up is my most outstanding talent. But what I think is, somebody has to do it. Or else everything would just lie there and turn to dust.”
“Okay,” Melanie said. “So you really livened up the oracle. You livened it up so much that Marshall thinks it’s going to tell him where Security is. What are you going to do about that?”
“What am I going to do about that?” Toby said indignantly. “That’s what I got you out here to ask you. What are we going to do about Marshall?”
“Well,” April and Melanie said to each other—only just with a look, not out loud, “wasn’t that like a boy. They got things into a mess and then expected a girl to get them out of it.”
But, since Toby was admitting he needed their help, they were willing to give it. And it didn’t take them long to decide on a plan. April would conduct the ceremony that afternoon, and she would pretend to read something off the back of the paper. It would say that Security had gone on a trip to visit his relatives in Los Angeles, and that he would be home in a few days. Marshall wouldn’t be completely happy about it, but at least it would give them a little more time to look for Security, or to think of something else.
“Then,” Melanie explained, “if we never can find him, at least Marshall will have a few days to get used to the idea, a little at a time. When you lose something like Security, it helps if you can do it sort of gradually.” And Toby and April agreed that that was probably true.
Marshall was eager and happy when they picked him up at nursery school. Apparently, he was absolutely positive that the oracle was going to find his octopus for him.
In Egypt, April got ready to be the high priestess again because she had practiced just what she was going to say. Fortunately, there wasn’t much chance of an argument. When it came to conducting ceremonies, Ken and Elizabeth were definitely the spectator type.
Everything was going smoothly until April took down the question and with a dramatic flourish got ready to pretend to read. But then, instead of starting in on her speech about Los Angeles, she let her mouth drop open and nothing came out except a strange gulping sound. Toby bounded into the temple and snatched the paper from her hand. Then he looked at April in a strange way and they both walked over to where the rest of the Egyptians were waiting.
On the back of the paper, in a fine, pointy, old-fashioned-looking handwriting, it said:
Look under the throne of Set
Toby read it out loud very slowly and hesitantly, as if he didn’t really believe what he was saying; and while everyone else was still standing as if paralyzed, Marshall went into the temple and lifted up the piece of old bedspread that covered the egg-crate altar of Set. He reached inside, felt around for a minute, and then his face lit up with a smile so starry that for just a second the other, wiser Egyptians felt just as pleased with their oracle as he did. But after that they went right back to being incredulous.
April and Melanie looked hard at Toby, but he shook his head so hard his shaggy hair stood out like an umbrella. “No sir!” he said wildly. “I didn’t. I did not! I absolutely did not do it!”
The girls looked at each other and nodded in agreement that Toby was telling the truth. Nobody, not even Toby, was that good an actor.
“Toby didn’t do it,” Marshall said, hugging a slightly damp octopus to his chest. “Set did it.”
“Set did what?” April asked, staring at Marshall in consternation.
“Set took Security. I left him right there on the ground, like I thought, and in the nighttime Set took him.”
“Sheee—eeesh!” Ken moaned all of a sudden, clapping his fist violently to his forehead. “I knew it! I knew all you guys were going to crack up someday if you didn’t quit fooling around with this hocus-pocus stuff.”
“Nobody’s cracking up,” Toby said thoughtfully, “but something pretty fishy is going on around here.”
“You’re telling me,” Ken said. “And if somebody doesn’t start telling me what it is, I am going to walk right out of here and resign from the whole Egyptian race!”
“I guess we better, huh?” Toby said to April and Melanie. “I mean, tell everybody all about everything?” The girls nodded.
So they went ahead and told the other three all about what Toby had done—and what Toby hadn’t done—and when they were through, they all stood and looked at the temple that they had made themselves, out of ordinary stuff and their own imaginations, and felt—well, maybe a little like Dr. Frankenstein had when he created the monster. They just stood there looking for a while and wondering and then they all went home.
Fear Strikes
THE NEXT TWO OR THREE DAYS THE EGYPTIANS MET in Egypt as usual, but they didn’t play games or consult the oracle. It was damp, drippy weather but with no real rain, and they all just sat around on the floor of the temple in the darkening late afternoons and talked and talked. Toby and April wanted to try the oracle once more to see what would happen, but no one else seemed very enthusiastic. Oh, they said “okay,” but somehow it kept getting put off. They talked about it—but that was all.
They talked about a lot of things, actually. Christmas wasn’t far away, and that’s always a good topic for conversation. But there was one s
ubject they kept coming back to—Security. Where had Security been? How had he gotten from wherever Marshall had left him to the hiding place beneath the altar of Set? And who had written the message? There were dozens of theories, more or less realistic, depending on the mood of the moment.
There were times when they all favored practical theories. Some other kids might have found out about the game and tried to be funny. But, as time went by, and no one burst in on them to gloat about the successful trick, that seemed less and less likely. Or, someone of their own group might have been guilty, just as Toby had been at first; but no one would confess, and there just didn’t seem to be any reasonable how and why to support a conclusion of that sort. Then there was the man Toby had seen in the alley—but no one could come up with an even slightly reasonable explanation of who he was and how he could have known about the oracle.
Of course, the subject of the murders and the murderer came up, as it often still did throughout the neighborhood. It was still an unsolved mystery, and a terribly real and dangerous one. But fortunately, here again, there seemed to be no logical reason to believe that that mystery could have any connection with the mystery of the oracle. Why would a murderer fool around writing messages about a missing toy? There seemed to be no possible answer.
At other times, when the afternoon was almost over and disturbing shadows crept across the storage yard, a different kind of theory went the rounds. Somebody brought up the story of the Curse of King Tut, and pointed out that lots of people actually believed that a mysterious magic power from the days of the pharaohs was strong enough to do terrible things to anyone who stirred it up. What if somehow, in their ceremonies and things, they’d managed to stumble on a way to do some stirring up themselves? Things like that had happened. Everyone had read something or seen something on TV like that. And they all began to remember strange things that had happened. Once when Melanie had touched the Crocodile Stone, she was sure she’d felt it move under her fingers. And another time, when Toby had gotten to Egypt early and alone, he’d had the strangest feeling that someone was watching him.
Once they got going on that sort of thing, they all had stories and experiences to tell. That is, all except Marshall. He just sat, holding Security on his lap and listening, and if he had any theories about mysterious powers or hidden watchers, he kept them strictly to himself.
Then one evening there was to be a concert at the university and the Rosses decided to go. They were planning to take Melanie, but since Marshall had a way of going to sleep at concerts, it seemed best to leave him at home. April had some homework to do anyway, and she agreed to come down and baby-sit until the Rosses got back.
It was around 7:30 when Melanie called to say they were leaving and April said she would be right down. It wasn’t until she started to get her things together that she realized her math book was missing. She looked all over the apartment but she couldn’t find it anywhere. At last she had to give up and go without it.
When April got to the second floor, the Rosses were waiting for her in the hall. As soon as they saw her, they waved good-bye and got into the elevator. Marshall was standing in the doorway.
“Hello,” he said. “They said you were coming to visit.” Marshall didn’t like people to say “baby-sitter,” but he didn’t mind having someone “visit” him while his folks were away. So April took some time to make it a real visit before she started her own work. They played a game of Mousetrap, and April read aloud a short book about a hippopotamus. Then Marshall went back to something he was doing with a box and two orange juice cans, and April started her homework.
It was just about then that she finally remembered what had probably happened to her math book. That afternoon, in Egypt, she’d put her books down on the edge of the temple floor and Ken had been fooling around and knocked them off. He’d sort of picked them up when she yelled at him, but he must have left the math book on the ground.
April sat there fuming for a few minutes, getting madder and madder at Ken. It was all his fault. For the first time in her life she had been getting pretty good grades in math, and now her record was going to be ruined—all because of Ken. Mrs. Granger was terribly strict about getting assignments in on time. All of a sudden she jumped up. “Marshall,” she called. “Do your folks have a flashlight?”
When Marshall came back with the flashlight, she told him what she had in mind.
“Aren’t you scared?” Marshall asked.
Now that he’d mentioned it, April had to admit to herself that she was. But being scared and chickening out were two different things. Being scared to do something had always made April more determined to do it than ever. Besides, if Toby could go down there all alone at night, so could she.
“Me? Scared?” she said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Wait,” Marshall said. He went in the bedroom and came out with his sweater and Security.
“Now, just a minute,” April said. “You can’t go. I won’t let you.”
Marshall put his sweater on inside out, all by himself. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.
“Your folks wouldn’t like it,” April argued. “I’ll only be gone a minute. You’re going to wait right here.”
Marshall was puzzling over his buttons, which were on the wrong side, and he didn’t answer.
“I mean it,” April said. “Whether you like it or not, you are only four years old, and I am taking care of you and you have to do what I say. And I say that you are going to stay right here and—”
Marshall gave up on the buttons. He picked up Security and walked out the door, into the hallway. He aimed himself down the stairs towards where the landlady lived. “I’ll yell,” he said.
For a few seconds April stared at him in silence. Then she said some things under her breath and, because there didn’t seem to be anything else to do, she took Marshall by the hand and they started out.
It was very quiet and very dark in the alley and familiar things loomed up suddenly, huge and out of shape. The flashlight beam, none too steady in April’s hand, made trash bins crouch and garbage pails lurk, and a length of hose slither against a wall. Imagination is a great thing in long dull hours, but it’s a real curse in a dark alley, and April’s imagination had always been out of the ordinary. She would have hated to admit it, but right at that moment, even a four-year-old was a little bit comforting. Especially a four-year-old who could march steadfastly by a garbage can that had suddenly developed a hunchback and great lopsided eyes, without even seeming to notice.
It was April’s imagination that made trouble when they got to the fence; because if she hadn’t been imagining she wouldn’t have been so nervous. And if she hadn’t been so nervous, she wouldn’t have pushed the board the wrong way. All the Egyptians always pushed it to the right, and it no longer squeaked when it swung that way.
But that night, probably because of the nervousness, April grabbed the board and shoved it the wrong way. And the big crooked nails on which it swung let out a wild rusty shriek.
April and Marshall froze into a shocked silence. In the dark quiet alley the shriek of the nails seemed unbelievably loud. It seemed perfectly possible that people a half-block away had heard it and would come running. But a half minute passed, and then perhaps a whole minute, and nobody came and not a sound was heard. At least, not a sound that was loud enough to be sure of. There was something—a faint and faraway click and then a dragging shuffle—so soft as to be almost entirely lost in the distant drone of traffic and the beating of a racing heart.
Finally, biting her lip, April pushed the board the other way and shoved Marshall through. Then she handed him the flashlight and squeezed through herself. Inside Egypt, April didn’t feel very much better. Ever since the unsolved mystery of the oracle, Egypt, although still fascinating, had ceased to be an entirely comfortable place. She went directly to the side of the temple where her books had been.
“Marshall,” she whispered, “shine the light over here. I can’t
see a thing.” Marshall for some reason had turned around and was aiming the light in the opposite direction, on the wall of the Professor’s store, but at her whisper he turned back. The book was right where she thought it would be, shoved partway back under the temple floor. She snatched it up and with a hurried glance at the temple, where the three altars were only blobs of darkest black on a black background, she hurried back to the fence.
As Marshall held the light on the right spot, April reached through, shoved the board to the right side, and squeezed out. She was holding the board open for Marshall when, out of the darkness and silence behind, something grabbed her with crushing strength, and big hard fingers smothered the scream that sprang into her throat.
In one terrible moment April found that the shock of certain danger is almost always a battle call. Twisting frantically, she managed to free her arms enough to reach for and grab the loose board that formed the door to the storage yard. She held on desperately and the nails shrieked again as the board swung far to one side. For a fraction of a second April’s eyes, above the hand that gagged her mouth, caught a glimpse of Marshall, still standing just inside the fence holding the flashlight and looking back over his shoulder at the wall behind him. “What’s wrong with him?” she thought frantically. “Why doesn’t he scream for help?”
The board was slipping slowly from April’s straining fingers, and the arm around her chest was forcing the air from her lungs, when suddenly, from inside the storage yard, there was a splintering crash and a strange hoarse shout. “Help!” the strange voice rasped. “Help!”
A window went up with a bang somewhere nearby, and farther away other voices began to call questions. “What? What is it? What’s the matter?” And all the while the first strange voice went on calling for help.
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