Tut

by P. J. Hoover

  “I know you’ve all been waiting for this day,” Mr. Plant said, scowling at our overdramatic tour guide.

  “Not really,” I muttered. It wasn’t too late. I could pretend to twist my ankle. Or act like I passed out.

  “Are you kidding?” Henry said. “This is the best field trip ever. Even better than that pumpkin farm we went to back in third grade.”

  I hadn’t been in third grade with Henry, or at all, for that matter, so I couldn’t agree or disagree.

  Henry ran his hand over the gold-painted entryway they’d built specially for the exhibit. Above it hung a sign that read,

  Death Shall Come on Swift Wings

  To Him

  Who Disturbs the Peace of the King.

  It was the curse that had been inscribed outside of my tomb. A chill blew through the air, which had to be part of the exhibit. I scanned the area looking for hidden fans but didn’t see any.

  “I think the curse is hooey,” Henry said. His messy blond hair was blowing from the fans, covering one of his eyes. He tried to push it out of the way, but it only blew back.

  “Me, too,” I said, even though I was living proof that the curse was real. “It’s propaganda, created by archaeologists.” I left it at that. My true opinion of archaeologists wasn’t relevant. And curses were definitely real. They were the most favorite, best weapon of the gods.

  “I think they made it up to keep people out,” Henry said. “Do you have any idea how much stuff was buried with King Tut?”

  “How much?” Tia asked, kicking her combat boots against the gold column. The whole exhibit entryway shook but didn’t collapse.

  I hadn’t realized she was listening in on our conversation, but she was hanging on Henry’s every word, flipping one of her necklaces around in circles on her finger. It looked like it might be a cross, but then I noticed the loop at the top and realized it was an ankh pendant, which was one of the most powerful symbols in Egyptian mythology. She must be way into this field trip, too.

  Henry flipped open his notebook like he’d written it down. “I Googled it,” he said, talking louder now that he knew he had an audience. “There were chariots. And walking sticks … a whole collection of them.”

  Every word out of his mouth made it clear he’d totally geeked out over the field trip. It was flattering in a way, the reality that most of the world thought I was some kind of rock star. Still, the fact that the priests decided I needed that much stuff in the afterworld was pathetic. I’m not sure what they thought I was going to do with everything.

  “What do you think King Tut needed walking sticks for?” Tia asked, craning her neck to see into the exhibit.

  The tour guide scowled at her and shifted so she couldn’t see past him.

  “I heard he was a hunchbacked, bucktoothed pansy,” Seth said.

  Wait. He was talking about me. How dare he! If only I had the power to smite him. The only reason I’d had so many walking sticks is because they’d belonged to my dad before me.

  “That’s not nice,” Tia said, hitting Seth on the arm with her wrist full of bracelets.

  Seth flinched like it hurt. No wonder she’d been kicked out of school for fighting.

  “Before we enter the exhibit, it is imperative that nothing should be touched,” the tour guide said. “Doing so would invoke the wrath of the gods.”

  I forced myself not to groan. The wrath of the gods. That wrath had been invoked thousands of years ago. Touching a few of my old possessions wasn’t going to make them any angrier.

  The tour guide opened the doors. I hesitated. It wasn’t too late. I could leave. Except everyone started pushing forward, trying to be the first in, and I was shoved along with them. Seth bumped into me, I’m pretty sure on purpose. Hunchbacked and bucktoothed? Who was he to spread those lies about me? They’d been started by my enemies after my reign as a way to lessen my popularity.

  The tour guide stopped in front of the first item. “This is the actual chair the boy king sat in while eating his meals.”

  My face heated up. The chair was small enough for a five-year-old. I felt like I was two feet tall. If I had to be immortal, why couldn’t I have been eighteen? Or twenty-one? Why did I have to be fourteen? It was perpetual puberty.

  “King Tut must have been a midget,” Seth said, loud enough for everyone to hear. Even Henry laughed.

  I balled my fists to keep from punching Seth. “Maybe he just liked the chair.” Why hadn’t I had a new one built when I was still pharaoh? Now the entire world thought I was short.

  “Does this sound descriptive enough?” Henry asked, showing me his notebook. He’d written, TINY PHARAOH CHAIR across the top of the page.

  I grabbed the pencil and scratched out the word tiny.

  We moved on to the next object.

  “The funerary chest,” the tour guide said, stepping in front of a curtain.

  He pulled aside the curtain, revealing a white marble chest with hieroglyphs etched along the sides. This was where my guts would have been neatly tucked away had I actually been mummified, which thank the gods I hadn’t.

  My scarab heart—that’s what I called the thing Osiris had stuck in my chest—started pounding. I’d found out early on that it’s what kept me immortal and gave me special powers from the gods as long as I kept it charged with energy. I tried to calm it.

  The tour guide flipped a light on, revealing the four Canopic jars inside, each with an image of my face carved on the top.

  A palm frond sprouted from under my feet. Seconds later, it was joined by five more.

  “Whoa!” Henry said. “What is up with that?”

  Everyone looked.

  What was up was the powers of Osiris. Osiris was the god of plants and bugs, and lucky me, I had special powers over plants and bugs. Things like palm fronds and roaches appearing out of nowhere. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Powers over plants and bugs. Big deal. But I’ve found some clever ways to make use of the powers, like mind tricks to make people forget the crazy things that happened around me. And then there was the way I could create swarms of gnats around people who irritated me. Like Seth.

  Normally I had control over my powers. Perfect control.

  I took a deep breath. Tried to stay calm. “What do you mean?” I asked. And then I incanted my memory spell. It struck faster than a viper. Everyone’s face clouded over and resettled as their short-term memories were adjusted.

  Henry picked up one of the leaves. “Hey, cool. They added plants to the exhibit. You think these are the kind they used to have back in ancient Egypt?”

  “They’re exactly the same kind,” the creepy tour guide said. He was only inches away. “Aren’t they?” he asked me.

  Uh, that was weird.

  “How would I know?” I said. “It’s not like I’ve been to Egypt.”

  The tour guide only narrowed his eyes.

  “I’ll add it to our report,” Henry said, dropping the palm frond and writing in his notebook. He’d titled the page, DEATH BOX WITH CREEPY LITTLE BOX PEOPLE INSIDE. It did sum up the funerary chest pretty well.

  The tour guide stepped away. “Our next item is new to the exhibit, recently uncovered in Egypt just outside the tomb. We’re honored to be the first to display what surely must be the most valuable of the King Tut treasures.”

  This got even my attention. I’d always figured my sarcophagus was the most valuable thing in the exhibit. The tour guide moved into the next room, and the whole class followed.

  “It’s probably another stupid sculpture of King Tut’s ugly face,” Seth said, like he was one to talk. “He must’ve been the most stuck-up pharaoh in existence to have so many pictures of himself around.”

  Not the most stuck-up, but definitely one of the best looking, which was kind of the reason there were so many images of me. Except none of the artists could get me just right. Either my eyes were too small or my teeth too big.

  “He was kind of cute, for a pharaoh,” Tia said, pulling at the pink
streak in her hair.

  “You have horrible taste,” Seth said, but I didn’t care. I was stuck on her “cute” comment.

  The tour guide stopped next to a thick red curtain. I prepared myself. I would keep my powers in check this time, no matter what was behind the curtain. My scarab heart tensed in anticipation.

  The tour guide grasped the velvety material. “I present to you the most powerful Egyptian god in existence.” He pulled the curtain aside. “The god Set.”

  It was a short, gold statue of the god I most despised. It had definitely never been part of my tomb. And the most powerful god in existence? Horus would choke on catnip if he heard that.

  “Go, Set!” Seth said, making some stupid victory motion with his arm.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. This tour was officially one of the worst days in the last century. Eighth grade was bad enough without the added worries of my scarab heart flaking on me. I ditched the tour and the ominous statue of Set, using the bathroom as an excuse.

  “What about our project?” Henry said as I was leaving the exhibit hall. Everyone was busy jotting down notes about the fictitious relic.

  “Take good notes,” I managed to say. “Except no way are we doing our project on that statue.” I hated Set. He had no place in my exhibit. He was the reason behind every problem in my life. My scarab heart pounded in my chest, and I was pretty sure my powers would burst from me, growing vines over the entire museum, if I didn’t get away from the exhibit.

  I left the room and sat by the giant elephant in the museum rotunda and waited. I was not returning to the exhibit ever again.

  4

  WHERE I MAKE A MONUMENT EXPLODE

  “Let’s work on our project today,” Henry said once we got off the school bus. He’d talked about the exhibit for the entire bus ride, writing stuff in his notebook and asking my opinion on everything from how many crocodiles I thought lived in the Nile to whether servants really were buried alive in pyramids. I wasn’t sure why he thought I’d have the answers.

  Our project was so far from my mind, I almost laughed aloud. All I could think about was the energy slipping from my scarab heart with every second that passed.

  “Not today,” I said. “I have things to do.”

  “Things like what?” Henry asked.

  Great Amun, he was nosy.

  “Just things,” I said. Things like recharging my scarab heart. It was nearly drained. It skipped around in my chest like some kind of dying fish.

  “The deadline for the project’s gonna be here before you know it,” Henry said, showing me his notebook where he’d circled “Three Weeks” at the top of the page.

  “We have plenty of time,” I said. Anything could happen in three weeks.

  Henry didn’t look convinced, but I hurried away, leaving him outside the front of the school, so he couldn’t nag me about it anymore.

  I texted Gil to let him know I’d be late so he wouldn’t worry about me, and then tried to decide which obelisk to use for recharging. The Washington Monument was out. It has enough cracks and flaws that sucking energy out of it was like drinking a milk shake through a straw with a hole in it. A better choice—actually a near-perfect example—was one of the five brand-new ones that had been put up in the last year around the District. They were taller than the Capitol building and made my heart jump in anticipation every time I saw them. Horus swore they were the work of Set. Part of Set’s grand plan to take over the world or something ridiculous like that. But Horus was full of conspiracy theories. The government claimed they were memorials to dead heroes. That explanation worked for me. I decided on the obelisk in the middle of Dupont Circle.

  I hopped the Metro, even though it was standing-room only. My stomach grumbled, but eating would have to wait until I’d recharged. On a good day, my scarab heart made me feel like I could slay a Tyrannosaurus rex. Right now, I don’t think I could have summoned the energy to squash a bug. My powers were virtually gone.

  Invisible energy sizzled in the air around the obelisk. It drew me toward it as I came up from the Metro station. All I could think about was recharging. The obelisk was the perfect collector of immortal energy. My scarab heart leapt in anticipation.

  It was rush hour, so the streets were packed with cars and people filled the sidewalks. I crossed the street, barely waiting for the light to change. How had my heart gotten so low? It had to be the anxiety from the field trip. Once I got to the traffic island, I fought to keep from running up to the obelisk because I didn’t want people to think I was strange.

  The thing was enormous. So huge, twenty schoolkids could have sat around it and had their picture taken. But there were no schoolkids around today. Only some stinky homeless guy crashed out near the base. There was some sort of black graffiti painted on the obelisk behind him, but I couldn’t see what it said since he was pressed up against the limestone base. I plugged my nose because he smelled like dirty socks, and skirted around him to the other side. The immortal energy called to me. So fresh. So powerful. I couldn’t wait any longer.

  I put my hands on the obelisk.

  The connection was instant. Raw energy pulsed through my heart, filling it. I devoured it, feeling my powers grow and replenish with every second that passed. It pumped out of my heart and through my arteries, reaching every single part of my body. And then it returned to my heart and collected. Great Osiris, it felt good to be an immortal.

  I stepped back, basking in the glory of recharging … and the obelisk exploded.

  I flew backward, landing on my butt on the crowded sidewalk. Around me, cars screeched to a halt and started blowing their horns. People screamed and ran away from the traffic circle.

  Some woman with a giant flowered purse ran up to me. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  No, I wasn’t okay. This had never, in the three thousand years I’d been recharging my heart, happened before.

  “I’m fine,” I said, and got to my feet, brushing limestone dust off my jeans and windbreaker.

  “You could have been hurt,” she said, clutching her purse so it didn’t get swept away in the crowd. “You could have died.”

  “It just surprised me,” I said. “It’s all okay.”

  Except it wasn’t all okay. Limestone dust filled the air so thick that I couldn’t even see where the obelisk had been. Mixed in with the dust was black mist putting off the overwhelming scent of sulfur. It was the same odor and the same kind of black mist I’d seen three thousand years ago when I’d been fighting with Horemheb.

  With a final assurance that I wasn’t hurt, the woman finally scurried away, getting swallowed by the crowd. The police and fire trucks would be here any second. I could already hear the sirens.

  By some miracle the homeless guy was still asleep, but I rolled him out of the way so I could get a closer look at the graffiti behind him. I held my breath to keep the smell of singed limestone and the sulfur mist out of my nose. Someone had drawn something on the base of the obelisk: an image of the scepter of Set with some hieroglyphs next to it. Since I knew Egyptian hieroglyphics better than my ABCs, I recognized them the instant I saw them.

  Horemheb.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and the world slowed down around me. General Horemheb was in Washington, D.C.

  It had been almost a hundred years since my tomb had been opened by archaeologist Howard Carter, and in all that time, there wasn’t a sign of my uncle. I’d hoped—okay, actually I’d prayed—that somehow Horemheb had been destroyed when the tomb was opened. That maybe dung beetles had eaten him. Or he’d been buried in a sandstorm. But deep down, I knew better. If I was immortal, he was immortal. It meant you got to live forever. Which was fine for me, but not for my murderous uncle. He didn’t deserve immortality. He didn’t deserve anything but death. And now he was back in my world.

  Immortal life was looking up.

  * * *

  “I’m going to kill Horemheb,” I told Horus once I got back to my town house. My s
carab heart was pumped full of energy, and the man who’d killed my family had finally surfaced after three thousand years. Revenge was going to be mine.

  Horus stared at me from the futon, flipping his tail back and forth.

  “And how exactly are you going to do that?” he said.

  That was the only problem with my plan: I didn’t have one. Since Horemheb was immortal like me, then there was no way I knew of to actually kill him. The only upside of that was that there was no way for him to kill me, either.

  “I’m working on it,” I said.

  “Hope you have a direct line to Bes, then, because you’re going to need some luck,” Horus said.

  Sadly, praying to the god of luck was my only option at the moment.

  I guess this would be a good time to mention that Horus isn’t really a cat. Well he is a cat, but not only a cat. That’s just the form he prefers to stay in most of the time. He’s actually a god, son of Osiris and Isis who, without getting too technical, are the king and queen gods. Oh, and also, Horus can talk. Sometimes too much.

  I collapsed on the futon, brushing aside scarab beetle exoskeletons on my way. After three millennia, I knew Horus well enough to know that he had no intention of cleaning up after himself.

  “Couldn’t you at least eat the shells?” I asked.

  He licked his paw. “Too crunchy.”

  I grabbed for a scarab shell, but the leader of the shabtis—I called him Colonel Cody—jumped on my wrist and tore it away. Scarab beetles follow me everywhere, even without me having to summon them. It was all thanks to Osiris. The fact that Horus ate them just made for a win-win situation.

  “Please, Great Pharaoh, allow your undeserving servants to do that for you,” Colonel Cody said.

  So I let go. Who was I to argue with the shabtis? I’d found the shabtis—or they’d found me—after my tomb was opened back in 1922. I wasn’t sure how I ever lived without them.

  Horus licked his paw again. “See, the shabtis will clean up. They’re meant to serve us.”

  “Me,” I corrected. “They’re meant to serve me.” After all, they’d come from my tomb.