by Mo O'Hara
‘Fancy some zombie sushi, Fang?’ Mark said, leaning over the sarcophagus so his head was right next to the Cat of Kings.
That was all it took! Frankie’s zombie stare shot from his eyes, aiming straight for Mark. But the quartz heart of Bastet was in the way. Frankie’s stare went straight through the heart and out the other side in a rainbow of colours.
That had never happened before!
‘Frankie, stop!’ I yelled. But it was as if he was in some kind of trance.
The sarcophagus rattled and shook as Mark stood up and adjusted his Hyp-Vis Specs.
‘Why is it taking so long?’ Sanj snapped.
Then Mark looked at the toxic goo that was dripping on the mummy. He held out his finger and caught a drop, sniffed it, then licked it.
‘Kiwi?’ he yelled.
‘Somebody ruined my toxic goo!’ Mark shouted, grabbing me by my pyjama top and balling his fist.
On the phone screen, I saw Pradeep slip out from the grasp of the statue and walk towards the camera.
‘That would be me,’ he said, picking up a handful of spare computer cables.
‘What?’ said Sanj and Mark at the same time.
Mark uncurled his fist, but he didn’t let go while Fang gave me evil looks from his pocket.
There was a scuffling sound and then Pradeep turned the laptop round so the camera showed both himself and Sanj, who was wrapped up in his Evil Computer Genius swivel chair with computer cables like a fly wrapped up by a spider.
‘Curse this Evil Computer Genius swivel chair!’ yelled Sanj. ‘How did you ruin the gunge? You were my prisoner the whole time!’
‘Not the whole time.’ Pradeep smiled. ‘You briefly released me from the Anubis statue and tied me up near the laptop. All that time I had been holding on to my laminated allergy list. I’d sharpened and serrated one of the edges, just in case I ever needed it to cut myself free from anything. Think about it, Sanj. That’s why I never complain about carrying it around!’
‘Of course!’ grumbled Sanj.
‘Once I was free and you were distracted by what was going on with Tom and Mark, I swapped the contents of my kiwi-juice pouch from my museum packed lunch for the toxic goo. Then I sat back down and made it look like I’d been tied up all along.’
‘You could have been a good evil sidekick after all – if only you had been evil,’ Sanj admitted.
‘But that’s not all . . .’ Pradeep went on.
‘It’s not?’ I interrupted, trying and failing to get away from Mark and Fang. ‘Not that it’s not really interesting and everything, but Frankie is still doing his zombie stare at the cat mummy, and even if it’s not bringing it back to life, it’s definitely doing something!’
‘But don’t you want to know how I got out of the death grip of the Anubis?’ Pradeep asked.
‘I do,’ Sanj said.
‘Yeah, I kinda do too,’ admitted Mark.
‘Miaow,’ Fang agreed.
‘The first time that you trapped me with the statue, I realized that it was controlled by sensor points on the arms that received a light signal from your laptop,’ Pradeep said proudly.
‘Well, that’s pretty obvious,’ Sanj huffed.
‘So when you tried to imprison me the second time I was ready with my Egyptian stickers to cover the sensors. Then I just pretended that the arms were tightening around me whenever you pressed the button on the computer.’
‘So you were just acting being trapped and in pain?’ I said. ‘You were really good.’
‘Thanks,’ said Pradeep. ‘I tried to give you a look to tell you what was going on, one that said, “There’s more to the plan! I’ve used my juice and stickers and am pretending to be unhappy to be stuck in the Anubis statue right now, so I can’t really talk.” But you didn’t understand.’
‘Ahhhhh, that makes sense.’ I nodded. ‘Sorry I doubted you!’
‘And now I’m coming to help you,’ Pradeep shouted, and disappeared from the picture.
‘No, come back here! That’s not fair!’ Sanj called after him, frantically unwinding himself from the cables.
At that moment, the sarcophagus started to shake so violently that Mark’s phone fell to the floor. Mark finally let go of me and lunged for his mobile.
‘The moron fish is doing something that’s really not good, and the kiwi juice didn’t do anything – so I’m thinking we just leave the fish here and leg it,’ Mark yelled.
‘No!’ screamed Sanj over the earpiece. ‘You have to stay there. I’m on my way!’
‘No way am I being stuck in a tomb with some old dead cat,’ Mark objected, and Fang miaowed in agreement. He grabbed my arm and started marching me towards the main door to the tomb.
‘Frankie!’ I yelled, pulling in the other direction.
Suddenly Sanj appeared in the doorway and Mark let me go in surprise.
How had he got here before Pradeep? I shook my head in confusion.
‘I’ve brought more of the toxic goo you made earlier. We have to try again,’ Sanj said.
‘Fine,’ grumbled Mark, looking longingly at the exit.
As they walked towards the shaking sarcophagus I jumped behind the fallen statues. I had to stop them and save Frankie, but how?
Just then, Pradeep stepped out of the shadows of the doorway. ‘We’ve got to stop Sanj,’ he said in his look. ‘I think he’s got a Plan B if Plan A doesn’t work, and I think Plan B is even worse!’ He stepped back into the darkness.
The sound of stone sliding across stone filled the room. The sarcophagus had stopped shaking and the lid was closing!
‘Frankie!’ I shouted, and sprang out of my hiding place.
Frankie was flapping around on the floor next to the sarcophagus. He must have flipped right out of the goblet when his weird zombie stare trance was broken by the closing lid.
‘He needs water!’ I cried as Mark grabbed me and pinned my arms to my sides. ‘Let me go!’
‘As long as the fish is alive there will be just enough power left in him for one more task,’ Sanj replied. ‘Then you can let Fang have her fishy snack,’ he added to Mark.
Fang jumped out of Mark’s pocket and slunk towards Frankie, licking her lips. That’s when Sanj pounced. He scooped up Fang and wound her tight in a bandage.
‘Hey!’ Mark let go of me and stepped forward. ‘No one touches my evil kitten!’
At the same time, Sanj pulled some kind of weird ray gun with a big funnel on the front out of his pocket and pointed it at Mark.
‘Don’t make me use this,’ he warned.
‘Is that another hypno-ray? I’m wearing your Hyp-Vis Specs, remember? It won’t work on me.’ Mark balled his fist.
Sanj shrugged and pulled the trigger. A long string of white stuff shot out from the funnel and snaked around Mark until his whole body was tightly wrapped in bandages.
‘It’s my new mummy gun. Thought it might come in handy if we decided to make more mummies later on.’ Sanj smiled. ‘Always good to give these things a test run!’
Mark teetered like one of his own Moron Bowling pins and fell over. Then Sanj turned the gun on me.
‘Don’t move, or you’ll be next!’ he threatened. I looked desperately at Frankie, who had stopped flapping around by now, but I didn’t dare move a muscle. Pradeep would have a plan, I just knew it!
‘Now I have your evil little kitten I can make her into my zombie mummy slave instead,’ Sanj said to Mark. ‘She’ll still be a powerful zombie slave, even if she isn’t an ancient mummy.’
‘Fang! No!’ Mark pleaded.
Pradeep peered around the doorway at me. His look said, ‘I know we really don’t get on with Fang and she’s definitely evil – but we can’t let Sanj make her into a zombie cat mummy.’
‘Agreed,’ my look replied. ‘And we have to save Frankie!’
Fang was struggling to free herself from the bandages but they held tight. Sanj positioned her on the sarcophagus lid and then lifted Frankie back into his goblet. As s
oon as Frankie hit the water his gills flapped slightly.
‘Phew!’ I sighed. I gave Pradeep a look that said, ‘Frankie’s OK!’
Sanj tapped on Frankie’s goblet. ‘Looky, looky, little fishy! Is that an evil kitty on the coffin lid over there? You’d better zombify her before she attacks!’
Frankie looked dazed and exhausted, but when he locked eyes on Fang on the other side of the heart of Bastet, his eyes practically bulged out of his head.
‘No, Frankie!’ I yelled. ‘Don’t do your zombie stare!’
‘Now, Tom!’ Pradeep shouted at the same time. He leaped out of the shadows and tackled Sanj around the ankles. It was a tackle that any rugby coach would have been proud of, even though technically it was caused by Pradeep tripping over his shoelaces. Still, he managed to distract Sanj and knock him off balance!
At the same time, I grabbed Fang, but as I did I knocked the ping-pong-ball-sized heart of Bastet, which started rolling across the lid of the sarcophagus.
‘Fang!’ Mark shouted.
‘I’ve got her!’ I yelled back. ‘OUCH!’ She clamped her teeth into my hand.
Meanwhile, Frankie leaped out of the goblet and stopped the stone just before it rolled off the lid.
Sanj finally broke free of Pradeep’s ankle grip and lunged for the stone, grabbing it from Frankie and holding it up high.
‘You ruined my plan yet again!’ Sanj yelled, pointing his weird gun at Pradeep and me in turn. ‘But at least I still have the stone. As long as I have the heart of Bastet then I can still create a zombie mummy slave. I’ll make a new mummy soon and then you won’t be able to stop me!’
He did his eerie evil wheeze.
I looked at Frankie. He knew exactly what to do. In a single spinning kung-fu move, he leaped into the air and slammed all his force into a single tail thwack aimed at the heart of Bastet. He splashed back into his goblet as the pale pink stone hurtled towards the floor.
‘Nooooo!’ Sanj screamed. The heavy stone slammed on to the toes of his right foot and then bounced off and shattered on the floor. ‘Nooooo!’ he yelled again, kicking the sarcophagus with his left foot in fury. Then he screamed again and clutched his toes. This time with no recognizable words.
By now, Fang had managed to slice through all her bandages (and some of my pyjamas) so I let her go. She ran over to Mark and licked his face. Then she ran her razor-sharp claws down the bandages trapping him, cutting him free.
‘OUCH!’ Mark winced. ‘That was a little too close!’ Then he added, ‘Hey, what’s that rumbling sound?’
‘Pradeep,’ I panted, ‘does that sound to you like a big stone door slowly rolling closed?’
We looked towards the main doorway.
‘It is a big stone door slowly rolling closed,’ he confirmed. ‘We’ve gotta get out of here!’
‘Come on,’ I shouted to Mark. ‘Let’s go!’
‘That’s what I said earlier . . . but no one listens to the Evil Scientist big brother, do they?’ Mark muttered as he scooped up Fang and put her in his pocket.
Sanj was hobbling on his sore feet.
‘Come on!’ Pradeep yelled, pulling him along. ‘We need to go, now.’
I grabbed Frankie’s goblet and ran.
The rumble of the stone door sliding towards the floor pounded in our ears. It was halfway down already. We had to duck to get through!
‘We’re safe!’ I sighed as we finally all made it outside.
Then, behind us from the tomb I heard a ‘Miaooooooowwww!’ and a splat. I looked down at the water-filled but fish-free goblet in my hand. ‘Frankie?’ I said.
‘Where’s Fang?’ said Mark looking in the pockets of his Evil Scientist white coat.
Then we all looked towards the almost closed door.
‘Kitty, come here!’ cried Mark, shoving his hands into the rapidly shrinking gap between the door and the floor.
‘How can we distract Fang?’ Pradeep asked. ‘If we can get her to leave Frankie alone for a second, maybe we can grab them both?’
‘I’ve got an idea!’ I cried. It was as if a light bulb had been turned on inside my head. ‘What can’t any cat resist?’ I started digging in my pyjama pocket.
‘Of course!’ said Pradeep. ‘It’s kryptonite for cats!’
‘String!’ we cried together.
I shoved the end of the string through the gap and wiggled it. In a second I felt the snatch of claws. I yanked hard and managed to drag Fang through the tiny gap with the string between her paws and an orange tail hanging out of her mouth. She spat Frankie on to the floor and grabbed playfully at the end of the string again with wide-eyed wonder – as if she had never seen such an amazing thing as string before in her little evil life! Frankie spat water at her and then jumped back into the goblet, just as the door closed so firmly that a piece of paper could barely fit underneath.
Mark scooped up Fang and put her in his pocket just as torchlight hit our faces.
‘What are you kids doing back here?’ cried a voice. It was one of the museum guides. I shoved the goblet behind my back.
‘The doors to the Egyptian rooms were stuck fast. It took us ages to get them open,’ another voice said. ‘And there were some very funny noises.’ He looked around suspiciously.
‘We were just about to call lights out for the sleepover when we did a head count and saw you were missing,’ said the first guide. ‘Or at least, two of you were.’ He turned to the other guide and muttered, ‘We must have done the count wrong. There are four of them here, not two.’
‘My brother hurt his feet when he was climbing over those red ropes that you’re not supposed to cross,’ Pradeep said with a smile at Sanj.
‘We were looking for someone to help him,’ I added.
The museum guides helped Sanj up. ‘We’ll make sure you’re OK, son,’ said the first one, ‘but you shouldn’t ever go behind the ropes like that. We’ll have to call your parents about this and ask them to come and collect you.’
‘Let’s get you to the first-aider,’ the other said.
A happy miaow came from Mark’s pocket.
‘What’s that?’ the first guide said, looking at Mark. ‘You brought a cat . . . into a museum? That’s it. We’re calling your parents too!’
‘You can’t call miaow . . . miaow . . . m . . . m . . . my . . . miaow!’ Mark said and grabbed his mouth with his hands. Fang peered up out of his pocket and purred.
‘No good being smart with us, son,’ the guide snapped. ‘We’ll find out who your parents are and call them anyway.’
I shot Pradeep a look that said, ‘Is Mark really miaowing?’
Sanj looked over at Mark and shook his head. ‘Listen,’ he started, ‘you’ve got this all wrong. There’s really no need to call miaow . . . my . . . miaow parents, miaow, miaow, miaow!’ Sanj’s eyes widened as he realized miaows were coming out of his own mouth too.
‘You too, huh? You think this is funny?’ the second guide snapped.
‘Miaow, miaow, MIAAOOOWWW!’ Sanj shouted, turning red with rage.
‘It’s the Curse of the Cat of Kings!’ Pradeep whispered. Out loud he said, ‘Our mum’s phone number is on this emergency card,’ and handed the guide his laminated allergy list.
‘Thanks,’ the guide said as they led Mark and Sanj away. ‘You boys head back to the group now, lights out in two minutes.’
‘OK,’ we promised. We could hear them miaowing all the way down the corridor.
‘I guess they weren’t “pure of heart” when they entered the tomb,’ I said.
‘The curse must kick in when you leave,’ Pradeep replied. ‘I wonder if it will wear off?’
We poured Frankie back into Pradeep’s torch and placed the goblet on a display stand next to the tomb with some other Egyptian stuff. Just before we screwed the lid back on to the torch, a funny-looking sheet of paper slid out from under the door of the tomb.
‘Do you think there’s someone still in there?’ I asked. ‘We should call the guides!’
‘No – wait.’ Pradeep was turning the paper around in his hands. ‘It’s papyrus.’
‘What does it say?’ I asked.
‘It’s written in “hieratic”, which is like handwritten hieroglyphics. I don’t know if I’m reading it right, but I think it says, “Dear emerald-eyed protector and your brave boy slaves . . .”’
‘Boy slaves!’ I repeated. I could swear Frankie was smiling.
‘“As per the prophecy, you have protected my tomb from those with evil in their hearts. Now the heart of Bastet is beyond use and I can finally truly rest. Cats do need a lot of sleep. K of C.”’
Pradeep and I looked down at Frankie who shrugged and winked at us.
‘There’s more,’ Pradeep said. ‘It says, “PS If you still have the heart of Anubis . . .”’
I looked in my pyjama jacket pocket and pulled out the heavy blue stone.
‘“. . . the curse will be lifted if those affected lick the stone. PPS It tastes horrible.”’
I smiled at Pradeep. ‘Maybe we won’t tell Mark and Sanj about the cure just yet?’
Pradeep smiled and turned to Frankie. ‘Good work, Frankie. Just don’t expect us to really be your “boy slaves” from now on.’
Frankie gave us a disappointed look.
‘Maybe just this once,’ Pradeep and I agreed.
When we got back to the group we all had a torchlight midnight feast of gummy scarab beetles and kiwi juice. We had positioned our sleeping bags behind a pillar so the guides couldn’t see us. Pradeep took the piece of papyrus and fanned Frankie while I fed him bits of green candy.
‘Do you think you would have liked living in ancient Egyptian times, Tom?’ Pradeep asked.
I looked at the green candy beetle in my hand. ‘No way! Too many bugs,’ I replied with a shudder. ‘But I’m sure Frankie would have loved it.’