Egypt Game (9781439132029)

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

  Then there were footsteps and shouts at the mouth of the alley and suddenly the crushing arms were gone. When the rescuers arrived a moment later, they found April lying on the ground and Marshall squeezing out to meet them through the fence. No one else was there, and the only sound was the rasp of April’s breathing as she struggled to force air back into her lungs.

  The Hero

  AFTERWARDS, GETTING TO THE POLICE STATION AND the first things that happened there were always hazy in April’s mind. There was a doctor who talked to her and bandaged her hands where she had scraped them on the rough board. Then there were questions. She explained how she and Marshall happened to be in the alley, but the other questions she couldn’t answer and it frightened her to try. “Who was he?” they kept saying. “What did he look like? Where did he go?” and April could only say, “I don’t know. I didn’t see him. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  They tried to make her lie down on a cot but she kept wanting to get up because she was shaking so hard. Whenever she tried to lie still, the shaking would get worse and worse until she ached from trying to stop it. Then the doctor gave her a pill, and the shaking got a little better and things were clearer in her mind.

  Suddenly she remembered about Marshall. “Where’s Marshall?” she asked. “Is he all right?”

  The man who had been asking the most questions was called Inspector Grant. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but he was a policeman. When April asked about Marshall, he grinned. “He’s fine,” he said. “He’s right in the next room over there.”

  “He’s really all right,” April insisted. “He’s not too scared, or anything?”

  “Well, he doesn’t act a bit scared,” the inspector said. “He’s sitting in there on a desk holding a big stuffed octopus and looking as cool as a cucumber. But he won’t answer any questions.”

  “Won’t he talk to anybody?” April said.

  “Oh, he talks to us,” Inspector Grant said. “He’s been asking us a lot of questions, in fact. He just won’t answer any. Every time we ask anything he just says, ‘No.’ We think he might have seen more than you did. Do you suppose he’d answer a few questions if you ask him?”

  “He might,” April said. “I don’t know.”

  When Marshall saw April he slid down off the desk and came running. “Hi,” he said, giving her one of his rare starry smiles. April hugged him hard. Then she asked what the inspector had told her to ask.

  “Marshall, did you see the—the man—the man who grabbed me?” Saying the words made the shaking start all over again.

  “Yes,” Marshall said. “I saw him. I tried to yell but I couldn’t. My throat was stuck.” He looked worried, as if he wanted to be sure that April understood.

  “You did fine,” April told him. “But about the man—what did he look like?”

  “A man. A big man.”

  “Was he young or old?”

  Marshall thought a minute. “Old,” he said.

  “What color was his hair?”

  “Orange.”

  April looked at Inspector Grant. “Ask about his race,” the policeman prompted.

  “Was he a black or a white man?” April asked.

  “No,” Marshall said thoughtfully, shaking his head.

  April thought he didn’t understand. She took his arm and rubbed her finger on his skin. “Was his skin like yours or like mine?” She held out her own arm.

  “No,” Marshall said, more firmly. “He was spotted.”

  “Would you know him if you saw him again?” Inspector Grant interrupted.

  Marshall only looked at him without answering. The inspector gave an exasperated sigh and turned to April. “He’s not just being stubborn,” April explained. “I think he just wants to be sure he isn’t telling a secret. Marshall never tells secrets.” She turned to Marshall and repeated the question.

  Marshall nodded. “Yes. I know him.” Just then there was a commotion at the door and Inspector Grant stood up. April wasn’t sure if he heard Marshall say, “He’s that man who carries things at the store.”

  The inspector hurried to the door and April heard him say, “The boy says he’d know the man if he saw him.” There was more talk and confusion and finally a man was led into the room. It was the Professor.

  April was sure it was the Professor, but he looked quite different from her memory of him. His hair was mussed, his face moved nervously, and the dead calm was gone from his eyes. He looked at Marshall, and Marshall looked at him. “Hello,” Marshall said.

  The inspector took hold of April’s arm and whispered a question. She gazed at the Professor in horror. Could it have been? Had he really been the one all the time? All that time while they were playing every day in his yard. Obediently, but with a shaky voice, she transferred the question to Marshall.

  “Marshall, is that the man? Is that the one who grabbed me?”

  “No,” Marshall said. “That’s the man who watches us all the time. He was looking out his window, like always. He was the one who said, ‘Help.’ ”

  The Professor smiled wearily. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you—”

  But now Marshall realized that they still hadn’t understood. He shook April’s arm to get her attention and explained it all again as patiently as he could. “I told you!” he said. “I told you who it was. It was that spotted man with orange hair. The one who carries things at the toy store.”

  At last April understood. “Oh-h-h,” she said. “I think he means that redheaded man who works for Mr. Schmitt sometimes. He’s a stockboy or something.”

  Two of the policemen hurried off, and Inspector Grant led April back to the other room and told her to lie down again and rest. This time Marshall came with them and climbed up on a chair beside the cot. He put Security on his lap and looked around with interest. Seeing him there made April feel calmer.

  She lay on the cot and tried to keep from shivering. And she tried not to think about the redheaded man. Instead she thought about the Professor. “Marshall,” she said, raising up on one elbow, “did you say the Professor’s been watching us?”

  Marshall nodded. “Out his window,” he said. “And he broke it with a stick and said, ‘Help.’ I couldn’t. My throat was stuck.”

  It gave April a funny feeling to think that they’d been watched all that time, or at least whenever the Professor felt like it—but it was certainly a good thing he’d been watching tonight. It was a good thing he “said help,” as Marshall put it.

  The inspector, who was sitting at the other end of the cot, broke in as if he could read her thoughts. “It was certainly lucky that the old man was there to shout for help,” he said. “You know that’s the best thing to do in a situation like that. Your voice is your best defense.”

  “But I couldn’t call,” April said, covering her face and trying not to remember so vividly the fingers across her mouth and throat. Inspector Grant leaned over and patted her shoulder.

  “I know,” he said soothingly. “But it’s all over now. And it all worked out just fine, didn’t it. You’re all right, and Marshall here has been a real detective.”

  “Why did they think the Professor did it?” April asked after a while.

  “Well, they weren’t sure, of course,” the inspector said. “But some of the officers thought he was a pretty good suspect. Living right there in the neighborhood, and he couldn’t give us an alibi for the nights when the other—for the other times. And then tonight, with it happening right in his backyard and all. And when some of the boys went to the door of his store and he came running out looking wild-eyed and excited, it seemed best to bring him in for questioning at least. He told them that he’d called for help from his window, but I guess they weren’t buying his story much, until Marshall stood up for him.”

  It was then that Caroline came in. She ran across the room and hugged April up into her arms and held her tight. When April realized that Caroline was crying, she began to cry, too. She hadn’t cried at all unti
l then, and she really didn’t want to, but when they both stopped crying, the tension was gone and the shaking, and she felt much better. She was suddenly very tired and sleepy. “Grandma,” she said, “would you ask them if we can go home now? I’m terribly tired.”

  To Marshall’s delight they rode home in a police car, and they left a note on the Rosses’ door because they weren’t back from the concert yet. It was amazing to April to think that so little time had passed—it seemed like years and years. In their own apartment they made a bed for Marshall on the couch and he went right off to sleep as if nothing had happened, with his arm around Security. April went to bed, too, but it took her a long time to get to sleep, and Caroline sat beside the bed until she finally did. April always hated to be fussed over, but it was sort of nice to open her eyes now and then and see Caroline just sitting there, quietly reading a book.

  Of course, the math didn’t get done; but as it turned out, it didn’t really matter, because April stayed home from school the next day, and her grandmother took the day off, too. April was feeling fine, except for the bandages on her hands and some bruises on her cheeks and ribs. In the afternoon the police came to take her back to the station to look at some men in the lineup. She wasn’t much help because she really hadn’t seen the man at all. But Marshall had to go, and he wanted April to come, too, and the police seemed to think that she might remember something that would be useful.

  When the men came in for the lineup, there was the big stocky man with red hair and blotchy red-brown freckles from Schmitt’s Variety Store, the one who was the stockboy, and Marshall pointed to him right away. April remembered that when she had seen him in the store, he had seemed quiet and shy, and in the lineup he looked bewildered, as if he didn’t understand what had happened.

  The next day it was all in the papers. The redheaded man had admitted everything. There wasn’t going to be a real trial because the man was very sick mentally and was to be sent to a hospital for the criminally insane. He was a relative of Mr. Schmitt and he had always had something wrong with his mind. He couldn’t get a good job, and sometimes Mr. Schmitt let him work as a stockboy in his store. He’d work for a while and then he’d go away and do something else. But he always came back again, and since he was willing to work for very little money, Mr. Schmitt always hired him again. The police hadn’t found out about him before because Mr. Schmitt had always given him an alibi. But when the redheaded man confessed, and told all about things he couldn’t have known unless he was guilty, Mr. Schmitt decided that he hadn’t been positive of his cousin’s whereabouts at the times of the crimes. He only thought he knew.

  April’s picture was in the paper and so was Marshall’s. There was a long story about how Marshall had saved the Professor from being unjustly accused and described the murderer so that the police were able to catch him. But April and Melanie were a little bit disgusted with the way the reporter talked about Marshall’s description. After all, he was spotted, in a way, and his hair was more orange than anything else. He really wasn’t old, as Marshall had said; but, as Melanie pointed out, when you are only four yourself, almost anybody’s old by comparison.

  Anyway, Marshall was a real hero around the neighborhood. Everyone wanted to see him and ask him questions about what happened. The Rosses tried to keep him home for a while because they said they didn’t want him getting an exaggerated notion of his own importance. But they needn’t have worried. Marshall took the whole thing very calmly. In fact, being a hero didn’t seem to change him a bit except for one thing.

  When the photographer came to take his picture for the paper, Marshall took Security into the bedroom and put him on his bed. He said Security didn’t want his picture taken. After that he started leaving Security home sometimes when he went places, and before too long he didn’t need to have Security with him at all anymore, excepting to hold on to at night when he was sleepy.

  Gains and Losses

  THINGS HAD SCARCELY HAD TIME TO QUIET DOWN after April’s narrow escape when Christmas vacation arrived. The first few days of vacation, the members of the Egypt gang were pretty busy with family things like shopping and trips and relatives, but now and then some of their paths crossed and they stopped to discuss things in general, and the Egypt situation in particular. That situation didn’t look good at all.

  The day after all the excitement, Toby had drifted down the alley just to look things over, and he had found the land of Egypt boarded up. Someone had replaced the loose board and nailed it into place with big, long nails, and some fresh strands of barbed wire had been strung around the top. The consensus of opinion was pretty much, “That’s that!” Egypt was lost and gone forever, and there was no use thinking about it. It was a terrible loss.

  As a matter of fact, the Egyptians hadn’t really realized until then just how great Egypt had been. It had been a terrific game, full of excitement and mystery and way-out imagining, but it had been a great deal more than that. It had been a place to get away to—a private lair—a secret seclusion meant to be shared with best friends only—a life unknown to grown-ups and lived by kids alone. And now, all of a sudden, it was gone.

  But the other Egyptians didn’t blame April and Marshall for its loss. After all, they hadn’t done it on purpose, and the way it turned out they had really done all the kids in the neighborhood a big favor—because now that the murderer had been caught everybody was being allowed a lot more freedom. The whole neighborhood had benefited, really. There was only Egypt to mourn.

  It was a few days after the beginning of vacation that April decided to go down and pay a visit to the Professor, or Dr. Huddleston, as people were beginning to call him. The visit had been her grandmother’s suggestion in the first place, but April agreed that it was a good idea. As she started downstairs, she considered stopping by for Melanie, but she decided against it. It was better to go alone on such a personal errand. And she really did have something very personal to say.

  But if April had imagined that it would be easy to have a quiet personal interview with the Professor in his lonely store, she was mistaken. There were two or three browsers just looking around; the Professor was wrapping something up for a customer; and over by the window Elizabeth’s mother, Mrs. Chung, was dusting some figurines and arranging them in the display case. The whole store looked different—cleaner and brighter and not so cluttered. April was amazed.

  For one thing, Mrs. Chung had been working at a cleaners over on the other side of town, and April hadn’t heard anything about a change. But then, Elizabeth had been visiting in San Francisco with her cousins the last few days, so April wasn’t really up to date on the Chung family news.

  “Hi, Mrs. Chung,” April said. “Do you work here now?”

  “Hello, April. Yes I do. I just began on Monday.”

  It didn’t look as if the Professor was going to be free very soon, so April squatted down to look at the tiny foreign-looking statues that Mrs. Chung was arranging very artistically on a velvet cloth.

  “I think this would be a neat place to work,” April said. “I’d sure like it.”

  “It’s a very interesting place to work,” Mrs. Chung said. “And it’s wonderful being so close to home. I think I’m going to like it very much. Dr. Huddleston is planning to do some traveling soon to look for new things to sell, and I’ll be in charge here while he’s gone.” Mrs. Chung smiled delightedly, and April noted that her dimples were just like Elizabeth’s.

  “There sure are a lot of people in here,” April mentioned, just to make conversation.

  Mrs. Chung smiled. “I guess it’s been that way all the time lately. Poor Dr. Huddleston’s almost worn himself out taking care of them. Of course, some of them are just curious, because of all the publicity and everything in the papers. But a lot of them are neighborhood people who are feeling ashamed about suspecting him when he was innocent. They come in here and buy things they don’t even need, just to ease their consciences.”

  April grinned. “I’
ll bet the people who signed that petition Mr. Schmitt sent around buy the most of all.”

  “No doubt,” Mrs. Chung said. “I’ve heard that Mr. Schmitt is selling out. This whole thing must have been very hard on him.”

  “Well, I don’t feel sorry for him,” April said. “I’ll bet he had a notion that his cousin was the murderer but he didn’t want to believe it. And that was why he was so sure it was the Professor. That’s what my grandmother says.”

  “I guess that’s something we’ll never know,” Mrs. Chung said. She nodded towards the Professor. “I think Dr. Huddleston is free now if you wanted to see him.”

  The Professor shook April’s hand, and he smiled ever so slightly when she said, “I came to say thanks a lot for saving my life.” He looked pretty much as April remembered him and his voice was still gravelly and grave, but he seemed younger, somehow, and more lively.

  “You’re most welcome,” he said. “But I’m not at all sure I was responsible. I feel sure your young friend would have found some other means to aid you if I had not been available.”

  “Oh, you mean Marshall?” April said. “Yeah, isn’t he something!”

  The Professor agreed that he certainly was, and then there was an uncomfortable pause and April for once was at a loss for words.

  At last the Professor said, “I have something here you might like to see.” He took down a small box and opened it carefully on the counter. There were two objects in it, a flat piece of marble with dim hieroglyphics on it, and a small head of a glowing milky white.

  “Ohhh,” April said. “That’s alabaster, isn’t it?”

  “Very good,” the Professor said. “You’re quite an Egyptologist. And the other is a bit of marble facing from the wall of a tomb.”

  They examined the pieces together, and the Professor told April all sorts of interesting things about them. He also said that they had once belonged to his wife—and that was an interesting idea in itself, to think that the lonely old Professor had once had a wife. In the course of the conversation it occurred to April that this would be a good time to mention all the things that had been left in the land of Egypt. The six Egyptians had thought about them many times and wondered if the Professor intended to give them back. Toby, in particular, hated to lose Thoth—he was a sort of keepsake. Two or three times she was on the verge of mentioning it, but each time she lost her nerve. After all, they had put the things on the Professor’s property, and maybe that meant they were his now. And you just can’t go around demanding things of someone who’s just saved your life.