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On the day before the full moon was to appear that night, they noticed a strange, short figure dressed in Arab robes walking around the nearby sphinx. He seemed to be looking at the sandy ground, searching for something. The sun was setting and his dark silhouette against the orange glow of the horizon obviated a clear view of his features.
“You reckon that’s Fungus in disguise?” whispered Noodles.
“Maybe. If he was, what does he think he’s doing?”
The question remained unanswered. From their stone-walled hide they watched the tourist buses came and go. By now the sun had set and the flood lights had been switched on to attract the night-time visitors. Both the pyramid and the sphinx stood majestically bathed in reflected golden light against bright stars twinkling in a black sky. What a setting. No wonder the slaves and subjects of the pharaoh would have been awed by his powers, in commanding such amazing and mysterious structures to be built on such a large scale.
Botzi and Noodles where now on full alert, as the hour of power was getting closer.
The full moon was estimated to be at its peak about one hour after midnight. When mid-night had passed, the tourist numbers dwindled to a small handful of young back-packers, whose wobbly walk and occasional fit of giggles suggested there may have been something more than just coke in their cokes.
With ten minutes to go, Botzi and Noodles sneaked out from their hiding place and took up positions a couple of hundred meters from the pyramid on opposite corners, so that each could watch two sides clearly.
No sooner had they taken up their positions when the whole area was plunged into darkness. The floodlights failed completely. But after some moments of visual adjustment to the low light, the grey light of a full silver moon came into its own, illuminating the scene enough to see once again the great bulk of the pyramid and its cohort, the sphinx.
Izaak got up to mischief and tickled the Sphinx’s nose. “Get down!” yelled Botzi, “if she sneezes we’ll be blown away across the desert!”
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Twenty-Seven (27)
Disaster Smashes the Dream
Some figures could be made out, slouching around, possibly guards or tourists. But there was one larger person at the base of the pyramid, visible from Botzi’s area of watch, who seemed to have a purpose. Within a second, that person leaped onto the first tier of the pyramid stone base and headed towards the top.
Botzi radioed Noodles, “Noodles get around to the East side. I think it’s him, he’s going to the top.”
Botzi and Noodles wasted no time. They both ran at top speed towards the base of the pyramid, keeping an eye on their quarry who was by now about a quarter of the way up. The guards were taken by surprise. Here was a race to the top by some mad tourists. They watched as the trio leaped almost like frogs, from one stone level to the next going higher and higher.
The pyramids were not designed to be climbed to the top by some future tourist and originally the sides were capped with a layer to make them smooth, and deter would-be adventurers. Even after thousands of years, the top section of the pyramid had some of this smooth capping left, making it difficult to get to the very top.
Botzi and Noodles were unsure what Alby would do to get past this smooth part, but they soon found out as he reached it. They had noticed Alby was carrying a coil of rope slung over his shoulder and some kind of back pack. For a quick moment, Alby stopped at the highest available stone ledge, pulled out a hammer and some steel pins and began to drive the pins into the soft stone, in an ever-climbing zig zag pattern. These pins formed the basis of his toe-holds to climb on, towards the top. Cleverly, as he went up, he lassoed the lowest pins with the rope and yanked them out, to deny his pursuers the same advantage and make it harder for them to follow.
Botzi and Noodles eventually reached the highest level they could manage and looked up at that dark, agile monkey getting further away.
“Blast!” exclaimed Botzi, “We’ve come so far and near to catching him, to be finally defeated like this.”
“It’s not over yet, Botzi,” replied Noodles, “I can still generate a magnetic pull on the pins he’s using and keep up with him.”
“Well, Ok, good luck, I can’t help you, because I can’t get a grip. I’ll go down and alert the guards to get the police.”
“Leave it to me, I’ll get him.”
As Botzi made his way down, Noodles presented a strange sight. His body scraped flat against the pyramid face, pulled ever upwards, as if by an invisible rope, provided by a strong magnetic attraction to each new pin position. Alby could see what was happening, and as he neared the top he wasted no more time, leaving the remaining embedded pins behind. In fact, he did one mighty leap to the top point of the pinnacle and proceeded to retrieve the Sceptre from his back-pack. Noodles, now reaching these available pins, increased his climbing speed.
Alby looked at his watch. He had ten seconds to go before the Sceptre could be used. He stood upright and pointed the blue crystal end at the city of Cairo. Just before the moment when the Mystical Powers were to be unleashed over the city of millions of unsuspecting people, Noodles yelled “No, you don’t!!”
With a desperate mighty leap from below, Noodles tackled Alby like a rugby player, knocking the Sceptre out of Alby’s hands and sending it spinning into the sky.
The whirling Sceptre arced far out away from the face of the great pyramid. A glinting spinner, it traced the pull of gravity all the way down. But the force of the duo’s collision was not enough to send it clear of the stones at the base of the pyramid. Soon as the crystals smashed into the hard material, they fragmented into tiny pieces emitting a shower of green sparks. That was the final end of that instrument, to Botzi’s great relief.
Botzi’s attention turned quickly back towards the top of the pyramid where, Noodles and Alby wrestled in a life and death struggle. This position could not be maintained forever and the inevitable overbalance by one or the other began the bone-crushing tumble and cart-wheeling down the sloping sides, neither one letting go of the other. There was nothing Botzi could do but watch and be ready to help Noodles when they finally reached the desert sand.
At about mid-way, the tumbling stopped but not the swinging punches. Whack! Bam! Grunt! Botzi was awed and hoped Noodles was alright. Alby was no chicken and lashed out with all his might. This was purely a physical fight, as unbeknown to Botzi, his friend had suffered damage to his magnetic resonator and could only fight like an old fashioned street slugger. Alby kicked Noodles off balance, but Noodles wasn’t going to be defeated and swung out to grab Alby as they both toppled downwards once again.
The pyramid guards by now had joined Botzi and waited for the two wrestlers to arrive at the lower levels. Botzi asked the guards for help, after giving them a brief explanation of what happened. Soon as the fighters came close, about three guards, Botzi and Noodles jumped on Alby and pinned him to the ground. Ropes and handcuffs soon bundled Alby into a helpless cocoon and the guards confirmed that a police van was already on its way.
“I’ll sue you for this!” snarled Alby to Botzi.
“You’ve got some cheek,” replied Botzi, “you threatened us with guns and stole my treasure. You’re going to jail.”
“Your treasure? It was my treasure – I had it in my hands and you tried to steal it from me!”
“We’ve got witnesses as to your actions,” said Noodles a bit hoarsely. His chest rings had a fair amount of scratches and dents, as well as some damage to his legs.
They saw Alby running towards the largest pyramid to climb his way to the top.
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Twenty-Eight (28)
Home to Poppycock Place
Now during all this, Fungus watched proceedings from the top of the sphinx, where Alby had instructed him to stay and keep watch. Earlier that evening, Fungus had the jo
b of cutting the floodlight cables, which he did successfully, so Alby could do his climb to the top of the pyramid unnoticed by the guards. But, Fungus, clumsy as usual, had aroused suspicion, when, after slicing through the main electrical cable, caused a bright flash and dropping the tools, raced away to hide. The guards were after him but he disappeared out of their sight for a while until they spied him crouching on the back of the sphinx. This was not a very intelligent guerrilla manoeuvre, as the guards quietly circled the sphinx and beckoned him to come down. They didn’t like the look of him either, and doubted that Fungus, with his black bowler hat and two upright canine teeth protruding past his top lip would ever get asked to play Father Christmas in a shopping mall. Just to ensure no arguments, two guards motioned him down off the sphinx with their drawn pistols. Fungus obliged and held out his hands to receive a pair of stainless steel bracelets courtesy of the Egyptian Government.
Meanwhile, Alby was still ranting and raving. “I’ve got a witness too. Fungus will swear I found the treasure first and you guys mugged me, just as you did on top of the pyramid.”
“What about your attempts to conquer the Egyptian people with the power of the Sceptre?”
“You must be crazy, who will believe that?”
“We have the map that leads to the treasure.”
“You have a copy, you mean. And anyway, there’s no proof that the Sceptre was anything but an ancient trophy. You broke it beyond repair by knocking it out of my hand.”
The Bots could see the arguments would see-saw between them all night, so they changed the subject. Turning to the guards Botzi asked.“What happens now?”
“Well sir, all of you will have to report to the Cairo police station tomorrow morning and explain yourselves. Our little friend here,” pointing to Fungus, “will enjoy our hospitality for at least six months in a little cell for his destruction of our floodlight system.”
The guards took the personal identification of Botzi, Noodles and Alby and told them they will be expected to make a statement to the authorities. Meantime a prison van arrived and Fungus was escorted inside for a tour to the city jail.
Alby walked off into the darkness, still snarling.
Botzi turned to Noodles, “At least we destroyed a weapon that could have done great harm if it fell into the wrong hands.”
“Or a lot of good, if used by kind-hearted people,” added Noodles.
“As a fifty-fifty risk, I think it was better that it did not exist anymore. Alby sure proved it could easily be used by the wrong people.”With that, they took a taxi to their hotel and when morning came, they made a report at the police station. Alby was nowhere to be seen. The police sergeant had bigger things on his schedule than some tourists climbing a pyramid. He gave the boys a small fine and let them go.
Back on the plane taking them home, Noodles mentioned to Botzi “The nuisance part of all this is we have to live with Alby next door, back in Poppycock Place.”
“We don’t have to look at him or talk to him – we’ll just ignore him.”
After checking out from customs, they saw Rory greeting them in a taxi. The bots piled into the vehicle and Botzi related what happened.
“We smashed the Sceptre.”
“You what? What a disaster!” exclaimed Rory
“No actually, it was a two-edged sword. It could do evil as well as good. We’re not sorry that it can’t be used by the likes of Alby and other evil people.”
“I guess that’s something to be considered,” said Rory thoughtfully, “ but cheer up, the Fiesta of San Juan will take place in Poppycock Place next week and all the tenants and shopkeepers are gearing up to make it the best ever!”
“Better polish my dancing shoes,” laughed Botzi.
The END
A Children’s story by Tobias Dingbat
Illustrated by Tobias Dingbat
“SKY SAILING HEROES”
ISBN: 978-0-9870533-0-5
NOTE TO THE READER:
A free download of this book is available at
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Poppycock Place Series -Sky Sailing Heroes Page 7