The Animal Mummies emerged from their hiding places, alert and ready to obey the Unpharaoh. Bab saw a hundred different feelings register on Cainus’s face as the jackal thought back over the centuries.
Every insult, every nostril fireball, every lightning bolt, every cruel command . . . everything the Unpharaoh had done to Cainus seemed to be whizzing through his mind. His pointy snout twitched and his tongue flapped. His tail whipped around and his eyes blazed.
Just before the Unpharaoh could call on her army, Cainus barked his command: “Beard! Remove your shen rings.”
The dark rings shone purple, then fell to the charred ground. The Unpharaoh Beard began to shrivel and smoke. The hairy rope that attached Cainus to the Unpharaoh’s head burned like a fuse on a stick of dynamite.
The flames were blacker than night. With amazing speed, they engulfed the prickly head of the ancient sorceress. Bab gagged as the bitter stench of cooking hair and horns and meanness overwhelmed him.
“What have you done, Cainus?” the Unpharaoh bellowed. “Animal Mummies, destroy! Destroy everyone and everything. And especially, destroy Cainus the Jackal!”
But the Unpharaoh’s army just stood there. Deprived of the eternal life of the dark shen rings, the prickly Beard had no power any more. It couldn’t make them obey.
When Prof Sharkey had destroyed the original Pharaoh’s Beard, it had been strangely quiet. The Unpharaoh Beard did not disappear like that. Bab, Prof Sharkey and the Animal Mummies blocked their ears as the Beard exploded in a black inferno.
KLARP!
The deafening sound warped the sky itself.
The Unpharaoh Beard was gone. Only the dark shen rings remained, lifeless on the cracked pavement.
All was silence – except for the voice of the Unpharaoh. It echoed around the ruined square and turned Bab’s blood to ice: “I will return.”
When the Unpharaoh Beard was destroyed, the Real World had slipped apart from the world of Mumphis. Once again, the Animal Mummies became invisible to everyone – except Bab and Prof Sharkey, who were linked to them by Beard magic.
They’d been able to patch up Scaler and Prong’s torn bandages, and slip out of Cairo unnoticed among the chaotic clean-up that followed.
Social media and the TV news were ablaze with footage of the Unpharaoh and her Animal Mummy invasion. But within a few hours, most people decided they must have been mistaken about the whole experience.
“It was very hot that day,” some said.
“It was all an advertising stunt for nose drops,” said others.
“Nah,” others disagreed, “that was when the Great Pyramid grew a nose that time. The Animal Mummy invasion was an ad for the local vet.”
The Prickle Mummies created by the evil Smoothie of Immortality stopped their wandering. Their horns and prickles shrank to nothing, and they became regular Animal Mummies. Guided by strange instincts of mummy magic, they hurried to Mumphis in search of a better life.
Mumphis itself was again hidden from the Real World, its misshapen citizens safe from being thrown into museums. Especially the Egyptian Museum, which now consisted of three stone stumps and a badly twisted water pipe.
Now, Bab set his jaw grimly in the shadows of the Unpharaoh’s tomb, beneath the Mumphis Pyramid.
“She said she’d return again,” he said. “But thanks to her, I know how to stop that from ever happening.”
“We Animal Mummies should’ve done this a long time ago,” said Scaler. “It was on the Mumphis Council agenda, you know. But to be honest, we were way too freaked out to go near the Unpharaoh’s mummy.”
“The mummy looks nicer with its tummy torn open, though,” added Prong. She poked her curved beak into the cavity, which Cainus had left gaping when he’d retrieved the Beard hair.
Weird, thought Bab. I feel kind of guilty about this.
“I need to do this with some sort of respect,” he said. “She’s my aunt, after all.”
“And my sister,” said Prof Sharkey. “Tricky as she is to love.”
Bab took a deep breath. “I didn’t even think of doing this till she burned the mummies of those Pharaohs. Now she’ll get a taste of her own plan.”
He stroked his Cotton Beard. “Beard? Do this as gently as you can. Make it decent. But do it.”
The Cotton Beard twitched. Two little white hands popped out and made a shrugging gesture, as if asking Bab what he wanted.
Bab closed his eyes for a moment till he felt ready.
“Unwrap the Unpharaoh’s mummy,” he said.
Fuppa-FOOP!
The Beard extended into a long trunk and sprouted a dozen large, fluffy hands. They set to work on the mummy, delicately peeling away its bandages.
SHHPLURG. SHHPLURG
The bandages made unpleasant slurping noises as they came off. The process didn’t take long. Within minutes, the foul wrappings lay in a pile beside the stone slab and the Unpharaoh’s skeleton was exposed for all to see.
Some of her organs had been mummified in jars nearby, so the Beard Hands pulled those out and unwrapped them too. The embalmers had left the sorceress’s heart inside her chest, according to custom. One of the cotton hands set to work peeling off its bandages. The shrivelled heart inside was tiny and pathetic.
As for the sorceress’s brain, Bab realised it was still lying squashed and dried up in the corner. He’d tossed it away when he’d first battled his aunt. It felt so long ago.
The Unpharaoh’s bare remains lay there in perfect stillness.
Bab frowned. In the darkness it was hard to tell, but he could swear he saw a figure standing behind the slab. A frightful man with sunken eyes and moonlight glowing from beneath his skin.
The magician by the Nile, Bab thought. The teacher of purple magic.
Bab blinked and the figure changed. Now it was a creature with the body of a jackal and the head of a donkey.
That’s Seth, thought Bab, the god of chaos and terrible game shows. Was Seth the magician all along?
Then with a quiet puff, the Unpharaoh’s remains crumbled to dust. The strange figure vanished with them – if it had been there at all.
Bab felt a delicious warmth spread from his belly up to his face. “Do you feel that?” he asked his mum.
“Yes,” she said. “It proves Andica’s spirit is gone. Gone forever. Even in the Afterworld, her very existence planted a deep chill inside everyone. But now she is no more.”
Prong ruffled her wings and honked, “I feel the warmth too.”
“And me,” said Scaler, stretching her sewn-on legs with a satisfied groan. “A world without the Unpharaoh sure feels fine!”
But a sense of disappointment swept over Bab. He sat on the cold floor of the tomb, clutching his knees. “I wish Andica had taken the chance,” he said. “She could have let go of all that ambition and settled down with Cainus. I just wish it had worked out better.”
“No.” A posh, silky voice rang out from the far end of the tomb. “This way is best.”
Bab stood up and made his way over to Cainus. “Cainus. I’m sorry she let you down.”
Cainus whimpered like a puppy. Bab wasn’t sure how to handle the heartbroken creature.
Should I ruffle his pointy ears? Hmm, let’s not go that far.
“She can’t break your heart any more,” Bab told him. “The thing about love is . . . geez, I don’t know about love, I’m twelve! But I can see you’re pretty bummed out.”
Cainus shot Bab a pleading look.
“Nooo way,” said Bab. He grabbed Cainus’s headscarf and led him out of the tomb and into the town square. “Don’t think you’re staying with us. Not after all you’ve done. I was happy to bring you here to watch me destroy that mummy, but you need to head off to your big old tomb now. There’s a good dog.”
Cainus blinked in the sunlight and sighed. “I shall return there on one condition, Bab Sharkey. Allow me to go shopping in the Souk for as many dashing outfits and velvet cushions as I can carry. All I require are a few nice k
nick-knacks, then the mummies of Mumphis will never hear from me again.”
Bab considered this. “Deal.”
“Plus, I don’t mind the Tomb so much,” Cainus admitted. “Not now that my jackal friends are back.”
Indeed, when Bab had first returned to Mumphis with Cainus and the others, the cactus jackals had tried to attack them. But Bab had explained how Cainus had destroyed the Unpharaoh Beard. The cactuses had to obey him, as he was their true master now.
“See here,” Cainus had announced, showing the cactus jackals the dark shen rings. “Behold the evidence of my victory!”
The cactus jackals had been so impressed, they began panting and hanging on Cainus’s every word.
Now they sat their spiny behinds outside the Unpharaoh’s tomb, waiting for their beloved master to emerge.
“Jackals!” Cainus said to them. Bab detected a new note of pride in his tone. “I think we’ll have a jolly old time in the Tomb of the Jackals from now on. There’s no more Unpharaoh to bow and scrape to. Let us return there and brick up that dreadful magic wall!”
The cactus jackals yelped in approval, stomping their prickly green paws.
“And then,” Cainus added, “we must have a proper jackal party. No cactus juice, this time. Just plenty of snarling and yapping and fashion parades!”
Inspired, Scaler yanked her bony bass guitar out of her bandages and began plucking a riff. Her Fish Mummy bandmates heard the twanging and sand-swam over to join in.
“Hit it, Cainus,” said Scaler.
Cainus struck a disco pose and cried, “My moment in the spotlight has finally arrived!”
For effect, he leaped into a pool of sunlight that shone through a cracked shop.
“It’s been four thousand years and now I finally see,” he sang.
“The Unpharaoh’s not for me.
She’s gone forever so the good times are here.
You know we’re gonna have to mark the day,
So let’s party in our Tomb, the cactus jackal way.
Let’s have a prickly party!
Let’s have a prickly party!
Let’s have a prickly party, in fancy clothes!”
The upbeat song ended and all the Animal Mummies in town cheered and whooped. Beaming, Cainus seized a nearby Baboon Mummy – the one he’d attacked a while ago – and said, “So, Mr Critic. What do you think of my rhyming now?”
“Your rhyming is . . .”
The Baboon Mummy stared skywards, trying to think of a suitable word.
“. . . lame,” he concluded.
“Bah!” Cainus snapped. “Jackals, let us leave this city of tone-deaf ingrates!”
Yowling in glee, the cactus jackals followed Cainus out of Mumphis and over the dunes.
Prof Sharkey chuckled. “My toes are quite worn out from tapping to that funky beat,” she declared.
“Not just your toes, Mum,” said Bab with a grin. “All of us are worn out from top to bottom. I could sleep for as long as you’ve been alive!”
The Prof grinned back at her son. “Precisely. We need a break, Bab. I thought you’d be rather tired of mummies and ruins, so I’ve booked us a special trip away.”
“Awesome!” said Bab. “Where to? Tokyo? New York? The NASA space centre?”
“No. We’re off to the ancient Incan cities of Peru!”
Bab looked at her sideways. “Mum . . . you do know that means more mummies and ruins, right?”
The Prof gave him a cheeky wink. “How could I resist?”
At first, Bab felt a bit guilty about leaving Mumphis behind. After all, he was Pharaoh again. But then he realised that, unlike his mum, he wasn’t going to be around for thousands of years. It was about time the Animal Mummies learned to look after themselves.
So he assembled all the townsfolk in the square and spoke to them through one of the Mumphis microphones powered by mummy magic.
“I know you guys find it hard to remember what to do sometimes,” Bab said to the gathered townsfolk.
“I don’t,” said Phil the Dog Mummy, raising a paw. “Wait, sorry, what were you saying, Pharaoh? I’ve forgotten.”
Bab smiled. “It’s okay, Phil. I just don’t want Mumphis to fall apart like it did after I lost the Pharaoh’s Beard. So I’ve made something for while I’m away. If you ever need to know how to fix stuff, or what time to go to bed at night, just read these instructions. Elephant Mummies, bring ’em out!”
Six Elephant Mummies dragged a huge sandstone wall out from behind the Pyramid. Bab had spent several days, with his mum’s help, painting hieroglyphs all over it. The pictures told the Animal Mummies what to do in lots of different situations: how to count, how to do your shopping, how to get dressed, how to rebuild a collapsed awning.
Bab had changed since he’d first come to Mumphis. Back then, he was a frightened kid who’d never been in charge of anything beyond his own bedroom. He’d had no encounters with magic or mummies. Today, he felt like a real leader, ready to call the shots – most of the time, anyway. And he’d dealt with more magic than most actual magicians.
He’d been through plenty of pain, too, outside and in. He’d faced death, even been dead. And he’d lost his dad, twice.
He was a tougher, wiser Bab Sharkey.
But there’s still plenty of life in front of me, he knew.
“See you guys in a bit!” he announced. The Animal Mummies waved and whistled, and some of them dabbed tears away with bits of papyrus. Bab waved back and headed for the Sharkey Shack to pack his things.
“And don’t you two forget about me,” he said to Scaler and Prong. “I expect some cold, bandagey hugs when I come back.”
His two best friends just grinned at him and waved.
It’s good they’re not too sad about me going, he thought. They need some independence. But man, I feel way sadder than them!
Bab felt even sadder when he and Prof Sharkey checked into their hotel room in Peru.
“What’s the matter, Babby-Boo?” his mum asked.
“Nothing really,” Bab mumbled. “I’m excited to be here, I just miss Mumphis a little. That place is my home now, you know?”
“Don’t worry, Bab, we’ll soon take your mind off it. The archaeological wonders of Peru are truly a . . . Waaaarghh!”
Prof Sharkey sprang backwards as she popped open her suitcase. Instead of finding her luggage inside, a big mummified fish popped out.
“Didn’t mean to scare you, Shoshan,” said Scaler, unable to hide a grin. “But when you announced this little vacation of yours, I decided I felt like a break myself.”
“Scaler!” cried Bab, picking her up and giving her a cold, bandagey hug. “You tricky stowaway.”
Prof Sharkey got up, giggling uncontrollably. “What a cheeky Fish Mummy you are! I do hope you transferred all my luggage into Babby’s suitcase, or I’ll have nothing to wear.”
“Er, here’s the thing,” said Scaler. “Bab didn’t have any spare room in his suitcase.”
“Because I’m in it!” honked Prong, exploding out of Bab’s case in a stink of cheesy bandages.
“Woo-hooo!” screamed Bab. “You two are the best!”
Prof Sharkey cried with laughter. “Well, this has turned into a bigger holiday than I’d planned. Come on you lot, let’s hit the museum!”
“I hope they have a little shop that sells shirts and pants,” said Bab as they headed out.
“And toothpaste,” added the Prof. “Ooh, and marshmallows of course. All that packing for nothing, hee-hee!”
Scaler laughed like a goof. “Hwuk, hwuk! The marshmallows were the one thing we kept in Bab’s suitcase.”
“But I ate them on the way,” Prong admitted, picking bits of marshmallow packet out of her beak. “They were good, but they could use more dust.”
The Incan Museum was an elegant old building with fancy archways and carved pillars. Prof Sharkey bought tickets for Bab and herself. Scaler and Prong were invisible to the lady selling the tickets. She gave Ba
b an odd look.
“You’re not taking parmesan cheese into the museum, I hope?” she asked.
“Not at all,” said Bab. “Erm, we just ate a big Italian lunch. As you do in Peru.”
In the museum, Prong was delighted by the pretty courtyard in the middle. She went to have a little bathe in the bird bath. Scaler, on the other hand, was amazed by the cool musical instruments the Incas used to use.
“I gotta get my hooves on that flute thing,” she said.
It was the ancient Incan mummies that really wowed them all. Most of them were people, but Bab could scarcely contain his excitement at what he saw inside one glass case. It was an Incan animal mummy!
“What is it?” he asked. “A small, pudgy Puppy Mummy?”
Prof Sharkey peered at the squashy, wrapped creature. “I think it’s a guinea pig. The Incas used to keep them as pets. How adorable!”
Bab noticed that Scaler and Prong were both staring at the mummy as if hypnotised. “Don’t go nuts, you two. These mummies aren’t living like you guys.”
He and his mum moved on to check out some amazing old pots, painted with swirls and curls and googly-eyed faces.
As soon as they’d turned their backs, the guinea pig’s tiny eyes flicked open. “Shh,” it said to Scaler and Prong.
The two friends clutched each other in astonishment.
The creature pointed a withered claw at the glass case. “Open this up and I’ll take you to the city,” it squeaked.
THE END
Jessica Roberts writes, draws and films stories. Originally from a little town called Kyneton, Jessica grew up surrounded by an odd collection of pets including dogs, quails, chickens, sheep, goats, rabbits and a donkey who’d bite holes in your clothes if you weren’t careful. During a trip to Egypt, Jessica got the idea for this story when she saw real mummified animals in a spooky museum.
When Andrew Hansen isn’t writing about Animal Mummies, he writes and performs comedy. He hops on stage whenever he feels brave enough. Working with his friends in a group called The Chaser, he’s written funny newspapers and books. The Chaser have also made TV shows with silly names like Media Circus, The Hamster Wheel, The Chaser’s War On Everything and even one called CNNNN, which has more Ns in a row than any other show.
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