“You’re as bad as Octavia,” Rosie told me, linking her arm though mine again.
I saw this as my chance to make myself clear. “Octavia’s just the coolest, isn’t she? Totally crazy. I’ve never met anyone like her,” I continued. “She doesn’t give a damn what anyone else thinks. She’s just incredible and … I don’t know, she’s …”
“Hard work?” Rosie hazarded.
“Something special,” I said firmly, pulling my arm away and tightly clutching the sphinx to my chest so she couldn’t get her arm through mine again. And it was true, I didn’t feel right about throwing a big carved stone sphinx on the ground. I had the riddle to consider. Astin had already thrown down a scarab, and that had caused a massive commotion among the vendors and got Mohammed into a push-and-shove situation with a bunch of hustlers. In the end, Astin handed the guy a large wad of cash just so he could get away. So much for Mohammed’s great plan.
Octavia skipped up beside us. “You two make such a cute pair.”
“We were having a private conversation,” Rosie told her.
“No, we weren’t,” I argued. “Rosie was just telling me to smash the sphinx,” I lied. “But I thought it looked too nice.”
“Rosie!” Octavia chastized. “Darling, you’re horrible. I love the sphinx! Don’t you know that the sphinx is full of riddles and only if you solve them do all your dreams come true?”
Rosie rolled her eyes. “Octavia, you just made that up.”
“It might be true,” I insisted. “I mean, the guy who gave it to me said there was a riddle.”
“Exactly. The ancient Egyptians were full of mystery and magic. Anyway, I’m proud of you for not following Mohammed’s orders, Sam. Rosie, you shouldn’t try and quell Sam’s independent spirit. Did you see what Astin did to that poor man’s beetle?”
“Scarab,” Rosie corrected. “It’s called a scarab.”
“Yeah that beetle must have taken someone a lot of work to make,” I agreed.
Then I made a few mental calculations.
1. Octavia admired my style and my independent spirit. Cool.
2. She thought Rosie and I made a cute couple. Terrible!
3. Solution: I needed to figure out that riddle to fulfill the prophecy.
• • •
By the time we reached the temple, I had also acquired an Arab headdress, a T-shirt with Tutankhamen across it, and a scarab like the one Astin had smashed.
Once we reached the temple, I put on my Knicks hat, carried the water by hand, wrapped the sphinx and scarab up in the Arab headdress, and swapped my shirt for the Tut T-shirt worn inside out. I looked like the worst kind of American tourist.
“Gee, you look swell,” Octavia teased.
“Why, thank you, ma’am!” I tipped my cap.
The sun was beating down. Mohammed started his talk over all the other tour guides’ voices. Astin was listening to his iPod with Salah—an earpiece each. Yo kept calling out, “Aaaah! Got cha! No prisoners!” to somebody or something in his visor. Eventually Mohammed asked to see what was going on. Yo gave him a brief rundown of the game, put the visor on his head, and that was all it took to hook Mohammed. He was at war with the tomb mummies.
Mr. Bell took over tour-guide duties. “We’ll start with the majestic tomb of Rameses II’s wife, Queen Nefertari. The greatest love story of ancient Egypt,” he said with a sigh. Then he took the water bottle from his hat and took a drink.
The tombs were reached by a staircase roughly cut out of the rock.
Mohammed struggled down in the VR visor, crying out in Arabic, his arms flailing dangerously, his hands seemingly gripping virtual weapons as he battled his way through ancient Egypt. As hilarious as he looked, I was more interested in keeping an eye on Octavia. Aside from Rosie’s one attempt to be alone with me, I was pretty certain Octavia was focusing on me. Maybe I’d been making too much of last night, I decided, and the incident with Salah really hadn’t meant anything.
As we descended, Octavia took my hand. It was small and soft and warm in the cold, stale air of the tomb. We weren’t permitted to take photographs, and although I noticed people trying to take sneak pictures with their cell phones, I wasn’t even slightly tempted. It was the most eerily beautiful thing—and I didn’t want to let go of Octavia’s hand. No photograph could do this moment justice.
“It makes me feel quite reverent,” Octavia whispered to me. “Like I should be kneeling or something.”
I knew exactly what she meant.
On the way up the stairs, the heel of Octavia’s shoe broke and I offered to carry her—along with my backpacks and cameras. It was the best feeling—holding her long, lean legs in my arms. I couldn’t get enough of the feel of her skin. A guy at the entrance had gifted her with a horse-hair fan to shoo insects, which she used to playfully strike me as if I were a horse and she was my jockey.
Mr. Bell said, “Octavia, show some decorum,” which was rich coming from a guy in a straw hat with a drink bottle sticking out the top.
When that didn’t work, Mr. Bell implored me to, “Steady up, son!” which made Octavia giggle so hard she almost fell out of my arms.
“Oh no, I’m going to wet myself, dash for the loos, Sam, quickly,” Octavia cried, swishing her horse-hair fan.
I’m not going to lie, I charged through the crowds—a compliant slave to her commands. I paid the five pounds demanded for her to use the filthy lavatories and waited for her in the sun. While I was waiting, I picked up a handful of sand and put it in my pocket. Then I took some shots of a collection of brightly colored plastic buckets piled outside the toilets. I had black-and-white film in, but the buckets had a translucent quality I figured would come out well.
Octavia was laughing when she emerged. “I swear you soooo don’t want to ever know what went on in there.”
“You’re probably right,” I agreed.
But she told all. “I had to squat, and, well, then afterward, I had to wash my feet with that hose thingamee they have. Only I misjudged the pressure somewhat and ended up drenching the poor little toilet woman. It was all very undignified.”
I laughed, totally awed by her honesty. I mean, none of the girls I knew would want me to think of them as anything other than an object of beauty, but here was the most beautiful girl I’d ever met freely sharing her embarrassment.
It made her feel all the more real to me.
I hoisted her back into my arms, feeling genuinely connected to her—and not just her skin—for the first time.
We caught up with the rest of the group at Rameses II’s tomb. Salah and Rosie were at opposite ends of the group, looking bored.
Mohammed was very much back in charge, Yo happily enjoying his virtual Egypt again. Mr. Bell looked pissed. “This tomb is that of maybe greatest pharaoh of Egypt. Rameses II,” Mohammed explained. “As well as his wife, Nefertari, he had two hundred wives and concubines, ninety-six sons and over sixty daughters.”
“So not the greatest romantic love after all,” Octavia teased.
Mohammed smiled as he went on. “He fought many battles, smiting many enemies. For ninety-six years he live!” He paused so we could take all this in. “What is he most famous for, Mr. Bell, please?”
“Well, there’s no doubt he led Egypt into a period of great prosperity,” Mr. Bell said.
Mohammed grinned. “No, he is most revered for his great building program. The jewel in the crown of all his architecture was Abu Simbel. This proved to the world his glory! So why, Mr. Bell, did he build himself a hole in the ground to spend his afterlife?”
Bell took a gulp of water and was in the process of placing the bottle back in the crown of his hat. “Perhaps he was murdered. A lot of these chaps were, blood-thirsty lot don’t you know. Poisonings were rife.”
“Murdered at ninety-six?” Mohammed laughed dismissively. “No, he dug up and buried in large tomb in Abu Simbel. Quickly now, no more talk. The boat sails at noon.”
Octavia giggled and insisted on r
iding on my back down the narrow wooden staircase to the tomb, crying, “Quickly, Sam, we sail at noon.”
The tomb was just as Mohammed had tried to warn us, a hole in the ground. There were a few colorful hieroglyphs on the roof and walls but nothing majorly impressive.
“It definitely lacks the wow power of his wife’s tomb,” Carol chattered.
“Yeah, well, his wife was quite powerful in her own right,” Ms. Doyle explained.
Mohammed shushed them. “Do you want to sleep on the banks of the Nile tonight?”
“Oh, darling, can we?” Octavia clapped, which made Mohammed smile.
We took a little train of open carts called tuf-fufs to the entrance. When we got there, the hustlers started chasing us for their “gifts,” but they didn’t recognize me. Instead of the guy in the white linen Ralph Lauren shirt, they saw a dopey Knicks fan in an inside out T-shirt carrying his girlfriend on his back. It was a proud moment.
Besides, Octavia and her broken shoe were getting all the attention. “No shoe? Why no shoe? This crazy! You American. You crazy people.”
Next to me on the coach, she asked what was up with Salah. I shrugged. “He’s moody like that,” I lied, and I promise you, I didn’t feel even slightly guilty about dissing my friend. “So Rosie told me that you’re some kind of royalty. What’s up with that?”
“You tell me, American boy,” she said, giving me a shove. “What is up with that?”
“Nothing. You just don’t act royal.”
“How insulting. Anyway I don’t need to act royal!” she teased, tipping my cap.
“Seriously though, tell me about it. I’m intrigued about stuff like that. We don’t have lords or duchesses in America.”
“Well, actually you might be disappointed. Being the daughter of a lord doesn’t do as much for a girl as it used to. Especially when your father’s an impoverished lord.”
I was surprised by the sudden seriousness of her tone. “Impoverished? You?” I squeezed her leg. “Those shoes you just broke must have cost more than the locals here earn in a year.”
“A freebie from some stupid modeling shoot I did,” she dismissed, sounding irritated. “Can we not talk about this, actually?”
“Sure. Sorry, I’m being nosey. It’s an American thing and you’re right, it’s totally none of my business.”
She stroked my head. “No, I’m sorry. I’m being horrible. I’m the biggest sticky beak, so I can hardly expect you not to ask about me. You can still call me M’lady if you wish.” She giggled and that strange moment of tension between us was over.
I’d definitely got under her skin though and that made me feel unreasonably good. “Okay M’lady, you’re on,” I told her, grabbing her in a playful headlock, which worked well as an excuse to sneak an arm around her.
She took the Knicks hat off my head and hit me with it. “Americans are such dorks. And New Yorkers, well they’re the biggest dorks of all.”
And then she kissed me. It was only a light kiss. The sort an old aunt might give you, but it was a kiss and it was on the lips and in that moment, I closed my eyes and pretended it was a real kiss and forgot all about Salah. It lasted only one moment, but when that moment was over, I was resolved to do whatever it took to get a real kiss. She’d respected me for not throwing the sphinx down, and whatever had happened between us when I’d asked about her family had been real, and I knew that I could win that kiss. All I needed was more time.
Chapter 10
Octavia
It’s a dreadful thing that boys force girls to be so calculating.
Oh bugger, I’d just told Sam I was impoverished. Impoverished? Who talks like that? What an absolute tosser I am. And even though I got the bright idea to kiss him straight after I’d said it, to make him forget, I wasn’t convinced my distraction had worked.
And what on earth had possessed me to open up to him of all people? I’d managed a lifetime of concealing the truth and then I go and blurt it to the best mate of the guy I’m trying to pull. Stupid, stupid, enormous-mouthed Octavia! I could just picture Sam blabbing to Salah and then Salah feeling all sorry for me and then … well, of course no boy wants to pull an object of pity. And then it occurred to me that it could even go further than ruining my Nile romance. What if Sam told Salah and then Salah told Yo and Astin and they told Perdie and Artimis? It wouldn’t take long before the whole school knew. I may as well have taken an ad out in The Tatler.
I wished I could have talked to Rosie about it but that would mean admitting I’d been lying all my life to her, too. Instead I decided to fish. “So, darling, do you think I had Salah seething with jealousy today, seeing me gallivanting around with Sam?” I asked her while I was showering off the sweat and desert sand.
“Oh yes, all that gallivanting is bound to make any boy seethe,” Rosie agreed.
“I hope you weren’t jealous darling? You know I’m not after Sam, right? He’s just so much fun. I wish Salah was a bit more like Sam, actually.”
Rosie didn’t say anything, so I continued. “So, you really think a dark cloud of jealous despair descended upon Salah? Was he crying at any point do you think, Rosie?”
“Bawling his crybaby eyes out,” Rosie assured me. “It was heartbreaking to watch. Really, rather pathetic. No one knew quite what to do.”
I was enjoying bantering with Rosie. It was totally taking my mind off the Secret Impoverishment Thing. “So, do you think he’ll get on his hands and knees and beg me to pull him?”
“I wouldn’t really know about that, Octavia. I’ve never had a boy on his hands and knees begging for anything.”
I turned the shower off. “Well, in that case, that is definitely something we shall remedy tout de suite. I noticed Sam gazing into your eyes at breakfast. I’m sure you could make him beg if you tried.”
I toweled off and swept my clothes off the floor to make way for Rosie. “Shower’s yours now,” I told her, flopping on the bed beside hers. I looked up wistfully at the fabby Arabesque lantern hanging from the ceiling. It was a boat designed for love.
While Rosie showered, I threw myself into the task of dressing to slay. I’d only just finished emptying the contents of my suitcase on the bed when I looked out the window and saw that we were actually sailing down the Nile! I mean, of course one expects that sort of thing on a Nile cruise, but it was all just too exciting. I pulled up the wooden blind for a better view. There were a few feluccas sailing past. “Oh, Rosie, come and see this, we’re actually sailing down the Nile, just like Cleopatra, only sans the golden barge contraption.” But Rosie had the shower going and was humming away loudly.
I pressed my face against the window. It was all so timeless and glorious and romantic. Too perfect to waste. I absolutely completely had to make Salah love me.
“Rosie, you’ve got to hurry up,” I begged, because I wanted to share the moment with her. Also, I was in a huge rush to get up to my Mark Antony.
But Rosie took forever and we arrived at an all but empty restaurant. No one else (well, apart from the teachers) was there. One look at the diminished buffet suggested everyone had already grazed and run. The waiters were clearing away plates. I was so cross and frustrated at Rosie for spending so long in the shower and then taking forever to get dressed.
“Oh well, c’est la vie, I wasn’t really hungry anyway. Shall we go and find the others?” I suggested, trying to hide my disappointment.
“But I’m famished,” Rosie insisted belligerently.
I grumped over to the buffet, piled a bunch of salad leaves on a plate, and handed the nourishing cargo over to her. “Fine! Take this up with you then,” I told her. “The green leaves match your skirt. Sam strikes me as the sort of boy to notice those details.” Then before she could make a fuss, I shoved a bun in her mouth and strode out of the restaurant, up the stairs to the bar, and then outside to the lower deck.
Rosie could yell at me later. I had damage control to attend to.
“Hey!” Sam called from the ot
her end, where he and Salah were stretched out on one of the white sofas under the canopy. He was adjusting the lens of one of his fancy cameras. I gave him a flirty wave and headed over. I could hear Rosie clunking up the stairs behind me.
Along the river’s edge, women in black were spreading colorful rugs out on the mud brick walls. As I sat down, I pointed them out to the boys. “Aren’t they picturesque, darlings?”
“You mean poor?” Salah replied as Rosie joined us.
The word made me go cold. “No, I mean pretty,” I persisted. I couldn’t bear for him to misunderstand me. What would he know about poor anyway? I looked nervously at Sam to try and work out if he’d blabbed anything.
“The colors of the rugs actually, they’re just so vibrant and rich,” I added pointedly.
“I agree,” Sam said. He’d been fiddling with his BlackBerry but he put it aside and grabbed his camera again. “I’m a fan of the scene myself. A big fan of the donkeys especially. Check out that one over there,” he said, taking a shot of a donkey on the bank. Then he showed me his camera screen and scrolled through some shots he’d taken earlier. I noticed there were loads of me, but before I could comment he stopped on a photograph of a donkey. “This little white one here especially caught my eye. How much do you think one of those would cost to ship back home, dude?” he asked Salah. “We could keep it at school.”
Salah just smiled lazily.
“I think it’s all amazingly beautiful,” Rosie said as she speared a lettuce leaf with her fork and plonked herself inconveniently close to Salah. “I love the way the date palms and the green fields are all on one side and the golden desert and the mountains are on the other. The only thing is, it’s sort of in total contrast to us.” She gestured with her fork. “The luxury of this boat, I mean, all this food even!” she added, before jamming the leaf into her mouth.
Salah smiled again, and ran a hand through his hair, but said nothing. He looked so languid and fit. Although when he stretched and settled his hand back behind his neck, it was virtually touching Rosie. Mind you, boys have no sense of spatial reality. Still, Rosie could have shifted a bit—and shut up about poverty contrasts.
True Love, the Sphinx, and Other Unsolvable Riddles Page 8