The Prickly Battle

by Andrew Hansen

  Chapter 1: The Unpharaoh in Chains

  Chapter 2: Spare Hairs

  Chapter 3: The Beard Box

  Chapter 4: Charades in the Desert

  Chapter 5: The Mummy’s Belly

  Chapter 6: The Cotton Pot

  Chapter 7: Cainus the Gardener

  Chapter 8: A Hairy Unpharaoh

  Chapter 9: The Cotton Beard

  Chapter 10: Cactuses on the Loose

  Chapter 11: Burgermuffs

  Chapter 12: The Invasion of Cairo

  Chapter 13: One Beard Against Another

  Chapter 14: They Can See Us!

  Chapter 15: The Potato Pot

  Chapter 16: The Hairy Helicopter

  Chapter 17: Planet of the Animal Mummies

  Chapter 18: The Curator

  Chapter 19: The Prickle Mummies

  Chapter 20: Two Worlds Are Better Than One

  Chapter 21: The Papyrus Garden

  Chapter 22: Two Heads Are Better Than One

  Chapter 23: The Unpharaoh on Ice

  Chapter 24: Special Treatment

  Chapter 25: The Giant Teddy Bears

  Chapter 26: Mummies v Bab

  Chapter 27: Feelings

  Chapter 28: Cainus Bites Back

  Chapter 29: The Unwrapping

  Chapter 30: Prickly Party

  Chapter 31: Mummies on Holiday

  The Mummy Files

  “My nasty, scheming, stinking, book-reading, spiky-haired nephew is dead!” hissed the ancient sorceress. “Dead and gone an entire month. These should be the happiest days I ever spent! Yet where am I? Where am I, Cainus, you hopeless hound?”

  “Er, dead and gone too?” ventured the terrified jackal.

  “Precisely! I’m dead and gone, when I should be alive and . . . what’s the word? . . . not gone!”

  Cainus the Jackal dropped to his patchy haunches and peered up at the vast magic wall. Across its ancient surface, the enormous face of his mistress fumed from the Afterworld. The wall was missing one brick, leaving a dark rectangle where the Unpharaoh’s right eye should be. It made her serpent-like appearance all the more unsettling.

  Last week, Cainus had fashioned a small stone frame near the wall, shaped like a heart. That way he could speak to the Unpharaoh while poking his head through the frame, looking adorable. (Or so he thought – sadly, the frame folded his pointy ears forwards, so he actually looked absurd.)

  “Fear not, Your Deadness,” Cainus said. “The gods may have blocked your spells, but I am doing everything in my power to bring you back to Mumphis. My plan to build a living statue of you out of dead mice wasn’t a bad one!”

  “No, it wasn’t bad – it was woeful. You lacked the magic powers to bring my spirit into the mouse statue anyway. And now you’re keeping the horrid thing as furniture!”

  “It’s a priceless sculpture,” Cainus whined defensively, glancing at the statue he’d made of the Unpharaoh. It looked nothing like her, other than being twisted and grey. (And made of mice, which Cainus suspected the Unpharaoh was, at least partly.)

  “Your other attempts were equally priceless,” the crone mocked. “Like that time you were stupid enough to ask the gods to bring me back, and Ra turned your pointy head into a coconut.”

  “That was a difficult week,” Cainus admitted. “Thank Ra the spell wore off.”

  The Unpharaoh wriggled about, making her chains rattle.

  CLANG-A-CLANK!

  The chains were new. Osiris, boss of the gods, had punished the Unpharaoh after her failed plot to trap Bab Sharkey in the Spongy Void. He had hauled her from the lake of flowers, wound twenty iron chains around her body, and strung her high up one of the Afterworld’s palm trees. This kept her in plain sight of everyone, so she couldn’t cause further havoc.

  But Osiris had made one mistake. The Unpharaoh’s magic wall still sat at the bottom of the lake, so Osiris had assumed it wasn’t a problem. But the Unpharaoh had managed to chip out a tiny fragment of it with a vicious fingernail, moments before Osiris had seized her.

  Now she could peer down at her chained hands and chat to Cainus just as before, though he appeared very small on the tiny chip. She could even snort miniature fireballs at him, if she aimed her nostrils very carefully.

  “However, Cainus,” she whispered to the chip, “I have an idea. The Pharaoh’s Beard.”

  BUZZ! BUZZ-BIZZ-BOZZZZ!

  A busy beetle buzzed up to the Unpharaoh’s face. “Talking to yourself again, you selfish grumpy-bottom-lady?” he asked in a French accent.

  Some Pharaohs giggled at this, watching on as they lounged by the pool.

  “Yes, Binky,” the Unpharaoh snarled back. “It’s the only interesting conversation to be had around here.”

  “Pah!” spat Binky. He’d been one of Bab Sharkey’s Animal Mummy friends until the Unpharaoh’s giant Moth Mummy had killed him. He had nothing but contempt for the Unpharaoh. “You know nothing of conversation, as you have not been to France. Their fine artworks and complicated croissants are the only subjects worthy of discussion!”

  Binky buzzed off in a huff, and the Unpharaoh turned her attention back to the chip. “The Pharaoh’s Beard, Cainus,” she repeated. “It is the only thing powerful enough to bring me back. You do remember it, I assume? The priceless Beard that you stupidly left in the Spongy Void?!”

  “I am searching everywhere, Your Terrificness!” Cainus assured her. “I return daily to the Great Pyramid at Giza, but the Beard is nowhere to be found. I have even searched in the vast city of Cairo. I thought someone may have put it in the great museum there, among the mummies of the Pharaohs. But there is no sign of it. Rest assured, however, I shall search until my pointy ears drop off!” His silky voice warbled with fear.

  The Unpharaoh narrowed her serpent eyes. “It does not matter,” she said quietly.

  “I will do anything, Your Gorgeousness,” he vowed. “I will upend Cairo. I will scour the deserts. I will smash open every grain of sand in Egypt. Although grains of sand are very small, I suppose, so I doubt I’ll find the Beard in one of those. Coconuts, perhaps? You mentioned coconuts – maybe it’s hidden in a coconut. I swear, I shall search every last coconut. No coconut is safe from Cainus the Jackal!”

  In his terror, he was blathering. “Please don’t be angry with me,” he went on, “please don’t burn my precious – wait, what did you say?”

  “I said it does not matter, Cainus.”

  Cainus’s tongue flopped so far out of his mouth, it slapped on the tomb floor. “It doesn’t?” he spluttered.

  “Do you remember how you first brought my spirit back to Mumphis, you clueless puppy?”

  Cainus peered at the ceiling, straining to recall.

  “I remember,” the Unpharaoh said. “The Smoothie of Immortality. You stole a single hair from the Pharaoh’s Beard to make it. And beneath the Pyramid of Mumphis, you poured it into the mouth of my mummified body.”

  “Ah yes!” said Cainus. “Happy days, weren’t they? But to make another smoothie, I’d need another hair from the Pharaoh’s Beard. Which, if I’m following this conversation correctly, is hiding inside a coconut.”

  “It is not in a coconut, Cainus!” the Unpharaoh snapped. Then her face crinkled into a sickening grin. Cainus could hear her leathery skin creak.

  “The Beard is gone forever,” she croaked, “but another ancient relic is not. My mummy! You know from your spying that Bab Sharkey left it in my tomb. And what do you think is inside the belly of that mummy?”

  Cainus clutched the stone heart frame with his paws. “You don’t mean . . . the Smoothie of Immortality?”

  “Most of its ingredients would have perished, of course. The natron and resin must have oozed out long ago. Even the lollipops wou
ld have rotted by now. But one magical ingredient is so powerful, it might perhaps remain.”

  Cainus’s body stiffened as he realised. “The hair,” he choked. “The spare hair from the Pharaoh’s Beard.”

  “And this time, when I return, I won’t just be taking over my little city. I hear so much of the world beyond Mumphis, and those stories have given me a hunger. Cairo. France. Hoo-haaccchhh, I shall become Pharaoh . . . of the entire world!”

  “I know it’s there.”

  Or do I?

  Bab Sharkey’s eyes were red raw. Maybe he’d stared too long at the shining dunes. Or maybe he’d hunted too long through books of Egyptian myths, searching for answers.

  He’d done a lot of both those things, ever since the magic city of the Animal Mummies had vanished.

  “I know it’s there,” he repeated to himself, scanning the golden desert beyond his bedroom window. He tried to focus on the precise spot. The spot where the wonky Pyramid used to poke up over the city walls. But so much time had passed.

  An entire month. The dunes had shifted, and he was no longer sure exactly where the Pyramid had once stood.

  A gentle hand touched his shoulder.

  “Bab,” whispered his mum.

  Bab turned and grinned at the professor. “Hey, Mum.” Her springy hair was crusted with desert sand. “Back from the dig site already, huh?”

  Bab’s mouth tingled as Prof Sharkey popped a lime marshmallow into it. “We’ve nearly packed it up, kit and kaboodle, Bab,” she told him. “Soon the other professors will head home, and we’re going with them. If I can remember the way to the airport.”

  Bab winced as he munched on his marshmallow. “Mum, this is home now. I know it’s only a crooked tin shack, but it’s right beside where my friends live. I mean, I can’t see Mumphis any more, but I know it’s there.”

  Prof Sharkey gave him a kind smile. “I know Mumphis is there, too. And that’s something, isn’t it? Knowing your friends will always be there, in that special place.”

  “I guess so,” Bab said. “But anything could go down in that crazy city. I feel like I’m still their Pharaoh. What if they need me to keep them safe from . . . I don’t know.”

  The Prof fixed him with as serious a look as she could muster through her crooked glasses. “My sister can’t return, Bab,” she assured him. “The Pharaoh’s Beard is gone, and the gods will be keeping a very strict eye on Andica in the Afterworld. Especially Osiris, he’s probably thought up at least eighty-three new rules.”

  Bab swallowed. “I bet that leathery lady can still find a way to hurt the Animal Mummies, though. She won’t give up till she’s–”

  “Ooh!”

  The Prof interrupted by scratching madly at her head, sending a shower of sand onto the floor.

  “Mum?” said Bab. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, yes, it’s just the part of my brain that’s missing. It itches inside my head sometimes. I never wanted to tell you, Bab, but . . . sometimes I feel she’s listening.”

  Bab frowned. “The Unpharaoh is listening? To your brain?”

  He hadn’t completely trusted his mum’s brain since he’d found out that the Unpharaoh had bitten a chunk out of it.

  The Prof clapped her hands. “Not to worry!” she chirped. “Now, what say you help me carry your father outside for some fresh air? Even statues need fresh air, you know. If you can find your way out of your messy room, that is – hoo!”

  The Prof picked up a few of Bab’s books and games, shook her head, and threw them aside again.

  As Bab followed her out, picking a careful path through his stuff, he noticed something among the mess. It made him smile sadly.

  It was the silver box. The one Scaler had coughed up when Bab had first met her and Prong. The box had contained the Pharaoh’s Beard.

  Bab supposed all the Pharaohs of Egypt kept the Beard in that box whenever they weren’t wearing it, like at night, when it became pretty annoying squashed against your pillow.

  He remembered how the Beard had first found him. It had flown straight onto his chin, so fast that the two Animal Mummies hadn’t even noticed it whizz out of the box. Prong had checked inside and declared, “Nup, nothing in here but a few hairs!”

  Bab could almost hear Prong’s sweet, gentle honks right now. He felt hot tears prick his eyes.

  “Are you coming, Bab?” prompted his mum. “I only have one lifespan left, remember. I can’t wait for eternity like I used to!”

  Bab lifted up the silver box and rummaged inside. When he pulled his hand back out, three or four black hairs were stuck to his fingers.

  Spare hairs, Bab thought. So the Pharaoh’s Beard isn’t all gone.

  “Coming, Mum,” he said, popping the hairs back and tossing the box to the floor.

  He went to leave but stopped. Something about the box troubled him.

  Spare hairs, he thought again, staring at the ancient object. Spare magic hairs . . .

  In another dimension, there was a soft sound.

  Ploomf.

  The silver box fell back onto the sand.

  This dimension was a slightly mad place, caught between life and death. Neither Bab nor Prof Sharkey were here. In fact, the entire Sharkey Shack was gone, along with the dig site and its potty professors. Here, there were only the baking dunes of Egypt, looking just as they did four thousand years ago.

  Some way off in the distance stood long, yellow walls. The yellow walls of Mumphis.

  On the dunes stood two mummified animals, dry and tattered. They stared at the box intently.

  One of them was Prong, the sweet-natured Ibis Mummy. Her eyes bulged from her bandaged head and her long beak fell open. “Did you see that!?” she honked at her friend.

  Even Scaler the Fish Mummy, normally so cool, raised her painted eyebrows. “I’ve got to admit, Prong, that was kinda weird. We find the old Beard box lying out in the desert, it drifts up into the air all by itself, some black hairs float out of it, some black hairs float back into it, then the box falls.”

  “Is that normal behaviour for a Beard box?” Prong asked. She clearly had great respect for her friend’s wisdom in such matters.

  Scaler chewed at the hook in her lip. “Say, Prong,” she said to the Ibis Mummy. “You don’t think someone was picking up the box just now, do you?”

  “No, I never think,” honked her friend. “The box picked itself up. We saw!”

  “I mean someone we can’t see,” Scaler said. Her ancient face broke into a grin full of spiky green teeth. “Like our old Pharaoh dude, for instance!”

  Prong gasped and fell to her knees, studying the box in wonder. “You don’t mean . . .”

  She leaped back up and began flapping about in a circle, kicking her talons in a joyous dance. “BAB’S HERE! BAB’S HERE! BAB’S HEE-HEE-HERE, WOOHOOOOO!”

  Scaler’s grin faded. “Yeah, woohoo,” she said flatly. “We can’t see him or hear him or contact him, but we can watch him pick up an old box. Soooo useful.”

  The Fish Mummy looked around. There were a few ancient bits and pieces lying in the sand – some pots, ushabti statues, broken slabs of temple walls.

  “Those must be things Shoshan collected in her dinky shack,” Scaler said. “We can’t see the shack, but we can see the old knick-knacks. ’Cos they date from our day, same as the Beard box.”

  Prong stopped her dance and began wiping tears away with a rotten wing. “Oh, Scaler, I felt so happy just now but you’re right. We can only see old, cracked things like ourselves. We’ll never get to see our shiny new Bab.”

  She broke into a honking sob. “Baw-haw-haw!”

  Scaler wrapped her fantail around the sweet ibis in a fishy version of a hug. “I’m not ready to give up yet, Prong. It was your idea to come here looking for his house, and I reckon we’ve found it. That’s a start.”

  Prong sniffed. “But why? Bab knew we were coming back with the Elephant Mummies to block that spongy pyramid’s nostrils. Why did he just disappear? N
ow all we can do is watch Invisible Bab fiddle with boxes and Beard hairs.”

  “Beard hairs . . .” Scaler snatched up the silver box. “Prong! That could be the answer – the Pharaoh’s Beard. Bab always said it let him see our world, and us see his. Remember what Shoshan said before we went off to fetch the Elephant Mummies?”

  “No, I was too busy admiring her lovely camel face. Baw-haw-haw, I’ll never get to see her camel face again!”

  “Shoshan said she was going to destroy the Beard. Maybe that’s why we lost Bab and his shack – the Beard is gone forever!”

  In his world, Bab Sharkey heard blood pounding in his ears. He hardly dared believe what he was seeing.

  The silver box had launched itself off his bedroom floor and was hovering in the air!

  He snatched at it. The box was difficult to move, almost as if an invisible hand was clutching it.

  A hand? Bab wondered. Or a claw . . .

  “Could it be them?” he whispered. “Scaler and Prong?”

  Heart in his throat, he gave the box another tug.

  “Yow!” said Scaler. “Something just pulled at the box. Twice.”

  “It’s Bab,” honked Prong. “Invisible Bab. Invisi-Babble. I just know it! Oh, Invisi-Babble, we mummies can’t remember how to run Mumphis without you. Everyone’s arguing. Yesterday the whole city erupted in a giant dustburger fight and I got a flying dustpickle in my eye. Please stop being invisible! My eye hurts!”

  Scaler ground her spiky teeth. “Even if it is Bab,” she replied, “he won’t hear you. He won’t even know that we’re standing here.”

  With a crusty talon, Prong grabbed the box from Scaler. “I can show him, Scaler. Don’t you remember when I drew those beautiful portraits in the Spongy Void? Behold, a self-portrait of Prong, the master artist!”

  Bab swallowed as an invisible hand swirled the box around in the air. It traced a pattern:

  Bab wrinkled his nose in confusion.

  “Gimme the box back, Prong,” said Scaler. “No offence, but your self-portrait is a little abstract.”