It buzzed almost uncomfortably, and she took it off. What made it do that? she wondered. Did the ring have a more definite power? A clearer purpose?
She inspected the ring for the tenth or twentieth time. There was no inscription on the inside of the band; it didn’t say TO MUMMY WITH LOVE or UNTIL THE AFTERLIFE DO US PART or THANKS FOR THE MUMMERIES or anything like that, not even in hieroglyphs. The only hieroglyph on the ring was the ibis carved into the blue stone. At first Cass had wondered if maybe there was a secret compartment under the ibis, but the top of the ring didn’t screw off and there didn’t seem to be any latch or hinge.
Giving up on the ring inspection, she searched through her desk drawer and located a thin gold chain her grandfathers had given her as a birthday present a few years earlier. She’d never worn it before (as a rule, she considered necklaces worse than frivolous; they were a choking hazard), but now she threaded the chain through the ring and hung it around her neck.
Far from a good-luck charm, the ring was beginning to seem more like a talisman of doom, but she had a distinct feeling it was safest to keep the mysterious gold artifact near her at all times.
Daniel-not-Danielle had a very mixed reaction when he heard about the mummy being stolen. He knew he should be angry—it was his father’s exhibit, after all—and yet, when he thought about it, he had to admit he wasn’t angry at the thieves so much as jealous. He almost wished that he had been with them.
That he had stolen the mummy.
Not really, of course. He’d had enough of mummies to last a lifetime—and well into the afterlife. But maybe that was what was so thrilling about the thought of absconding with one.
Mummies weren’t just his father’s job; they were his father’s hobby and, Daniel-not-Danielle sometimes felt, they were his father’s family as well. His father collected what he called “mummy-abilia,” and their apartment was full of modern-day archaeological artifacts like Halloween mummy costumes and candy Gummy Mummies; mummy key chains and coffee mugs and salt and pepper shakers; toy mummies that unraveled in long strips or glowed in the dark or even, in one case, walked and talked; posters of mummy movies and TV shows; and, most precious of all, mummy dummies and props.
His father’s prized possession: a wax hand from the 1940 movie The Mummy’s Hand. Once, when Daniel-not-Danielle was younger, he had made the mistake of taking it to school to scare his friends. It was the angriest he had ever seen his normally easygoing father.
Until now.
Today was Sunday, and they should have been having pancakes at the diner down the street, followed by a trip to the newsstand to look at comic books—their Sunday morning ritual for the last four years. (Pancakes and comic books were among the few things both he and his father liked, although Daniel-not-Danielle preferred blueberry pancakes, and his father the buckwheat variety; his father preferred DC Comics, and Daniel-not-Danielle the Marvel lineup.) There would be no pancakes this morning, however. Daniel-not-Danielle had to content himself with cold cereal.
His father had warned him not to eavesdrop on the meeting, but his father also had suggested he do his homework; and, as his father knew, Daniel-not-Danielle always did his homework at the kitchen table. Was it his fault that the kitchen was next to the living room and that he could hear every word said in the meeting, whether he was trying to or not? And if by chance he happened accidentally to peek through the keyhole in the door, and therefore he could see almost everything, too, well, how could he be blamed for that?
The living room was small and filled with Albert 3-D’s mummy-abilia. Nobody looked comfortable. Max-Ernest was sitting on the couch, squeezed between his parents. His forehead was red and furrowed as if he were trying with all his might to keep his parents apart or maybe to pull them together—it was hard to tell which. Cass was pacing back and forth in front of her mother, who was sitting tensely in the rocking chair. Every time Cass passed by, the chair rocked and her mother grimaced with annoyance. Of all the people in the room, Yo-Yoji looked the most relaxed, leaning against the wall. But even his jaws tensed whenever his father or mother, standing huddled beside him, said something in his ear.
Daniel-not-Danielle’s father, Albert 3-D, was sitting on his desk chair, wheeled in from his office. A bowl of Gummy Mummies lay untouched on the table.
“Let me ask you this,” said Cass after the initial introductions had been made. “If we stole the mummy, where did we hide it? How could we get it out of the museum before the security guard found us? It’s not like we put it in our pockets!”
Unable to see her face from his vantage point in the kitchen, Daniel-not-Danielle nevertheless thought she sounded very adult and forceful. Score one for his friends.
“Besides, why would we even do it in the first place?” asked Yo-Yoji, jumping in. “You think we would steal something like that just for laughs? It’s way too hairy. We don’t want to go to jail!”
Good point, thought Daniel-not-Danielle. If it was just about a prank, why not put a pair of Groucho Marx glasses on a mummy? Or a Hawaiian shirt and flower lei, maybe. Stealing a mummy was pretty extreme.
“Actually, that’s not really an argument in our defense,” Max-Ernest cautioned. “There are lots of other reasons we might have done it besides laughs. People collect all kinds of things. Bugs. Bones. Stamps. A mummy would be priceless to some people. I know for certain that you could sell—”
Cass and Yo-Yoji glared at him. He trailed off.
Watching through the keyhole, Daniel-not-Danielle stifled a giggle. Max-Ernest never knew when not to talk.
All three of them had such distinct personalities, Daniel-not-Danielle reflected. They all had their things. Max-Ernest: hyper-talkative, relentlessly going on about jokes and magic. Cass: a “survivalist,” or whatever it was she called herself. Yo-Yoji: the cool guy with the sneaker collection, the guitarist.
He, Daniel-not-Danielle, didn’t have a thing. Comic books didn’t count; almost everybody liked them. His closest thing to a thing was his hair. But his dreadlocks didn’t signify anything about his personality; it was just hair. Besides, his father had dreadlocks, too. Sometimes, Daniel-not-Danielle felt as if he were one of a group of superheroes, each with a unique superpower—except for him. The guy who had no thing.
Maybe that was part of it. Stealing a mummy—that would have been a thing. Certainly, it was a crazy enough caper to be worthy of a comic book. On the other hand, mummy stealing—who would want that to be their thing? In stories and movies about mummies, tomb robbers were always portrayed as sniveling, sneaky creatures, no better than rats. Daniel-not-Danielle certainly didn’t want to be one of them.
“Hold on, guys—let’s talk this through slowly,” said Albert 3-D. He looked haggard. As Daniel-not-Danielle knew, his father had been up all night—puttering, pacing, swearing—handling the fallout from the theft. “This is a very big deal. There could be an international scandal—we’re going to have to alert the Egyptian Embassy. The museum director wanted to give the police your names, but I begged him to wait until I spoke to you again. That’s why you’re here—I’m hoping you can shed some kind of light on what happened.”
As Albert 3-D laid it out, the case against his son’s friends was very strong:
a) They had a history of vandalizing the mummy (whether intentionally or accidentally).
b) There was video footage of them entering the exhibit around the time the mummy was stolen.
c) Nobody else was seen entering the exhibit that night.
d) In addition, there was an eyewitness—a security guard—who had caught them lingering around the mummy’s empty sarcophagus.
“Yeah, but did the guard see us take the mummy?” asked Yo-Yoji. “At any point in the video, did you actually see us take it?”
Albert 3-D shook his head.
“No, he didn’t, because we didn’t do it,” said Cass. “We don’t steal things!”
“That’s not what your principal says,” said Albert 3-D.
“Yeah, but that wasn’t really stealing,” said Max-Ernest. “She’s just talking about the time we—”
His friends glared at him again. Max-Ernest switched course. “The point is—all the evidence is circumstantial. You said we were the only ones seen entering. Was anyone seen exiting? Maybe somebody could have come in when the museum was open, and they could have hidden in the room until after closing time—and then taken the mummy? How ’bout that?”
“The video is a little… inconclusive,” Albert 3-D admitted. “Do you have any reason to believe somebody stayed? Did you see anybody? If you speak now, it will be better for all of us.”
“Does that mean you saw somebody exiting with the mummy in the video?” asked Yo-Yoji.
“Not with the mummy, no,” said Albert 3-D.
“But there was someone else?” Yo-Yoji insisted.
Albert 3-D hesitated. “I’m really not supposed to say—”
“So you think we’re his accomplices?” asked Max-Ernest.
“That’s one theory—”
“Can we see the video?” asked Cass.
“Sorry. I was very specifically instructed not to share it.”
“That isn’t fair,” said Max-Ernest. “Without all the evidence, how can we mount our defense?”
“Now, slow down, son,” said Max-Ernest’s father. “If the museum doesn’t press charges, the police can’t investigate, isn’t that right?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Max-Ernest,” said Max-Ernest’s mother. “The police can launch an investigation only if the museum presses charges, correct?”
“It makes no difference,” said Albert 3-D, only slightly put off by the repetitive nature of the questions. (He had met Max-Ernest’s parents before.) “If the museum doesn’t press charges, the Egyptians probably will.”
“So should we be hiring attorneys for our kids, Albert?” asked Yo-Yoji’s father.
“It’s not a bad idea.”
“Nobody’s pressing charges,” said Cass’s mother. “These kids will tell you everything. They’ll get your mummy back for you, I promise.”
“But, Mom, we don’t know anything!” said Cass, outraged.
“Sweetheart, didn’t you hear what he said? They looked at the video footage. If you didn’t take it yourselves, you must know something.”
“I can’t believe you won’t believe me—your own daughter! Why don’t you ask Albert 3-D what he was doing when the mummy was stolen? He’s the one who collects mummies.”
“Cassandra!” Her mother glared at her.
“Well, it’s true. Look around you. And he probably had more opportunity than anyone—”
“Cass, please be quiet before you make things much worse for yourself,” said her mother. “Albert, you’ll have to excuse my daughter. She’s a little upset.”
“I understand.”
“Think about how a police record would affect these kids’ futures. Can you just give us a little time?” Cass’s mother looked hopefully at Albert 3-D.
“I’ll try to hold off the dogs, but I can’t promise,” said Albert 3-D. “The exhibit is supposed to move to Las Vegas in three days. If the mummy doesn’t turn up before then, I’m afraid the police are going to have more than a few questions.”
After that, everybody spoke at once.
In the kitchen, Daniel-not-Danielle stewed. He had assumed his friends were guilty—there seemed to be no other explanation—but now he had his doubts.
Either they were innocent or they were better actors than he thought they were. Max-Ernest, especially. Daniel-not-Danielle didn’t think Max-Ernest could lie about something like this to save his life.
If they didn’t do it, who did?
For a second, he wondered if Cass’s wild accusation about his father could be right. But he could think of no real motive. Contrary to Cass’s suggestion, the last thing his father would want to add to his collection was a real mummy. His father had more than enough of those at work.
While people continued to discuss the missing mummy in the living room, Daniel-not-Danielle came to a decision. As quietly as he could, he walked down the hallway to his father’s home office. His father’s desk was covered with books and journals and notepads, but he didn’t have to look for very long: the security disk was right on top of a pile of magazines. He could tell what it was because the museum’s name was on the label, along with the previous day’s date.
Quickly, he inserted the disk into his father’s computer and started to save the contents of the disk onto the hard drive. In a moment, he would condense the file and e-mail it to his friends.
The wax hand from The Mummy’s Hand sat on a shelf right next to his father’s desk, a silent witness to his little act of digital thievery. Daniel-not-Danielle gave the hand a good stare and defiantly stuck out his tongue. In his imagination, the hand responded with a wave of acquiescence. Copying the video was the most legally questionable thing Daniel-not-Danielle had ever done. And yet he almost thought his father would want him to do it.
It wasn’t stealing a mummy. It wasn’t even aiding and abetting the stealing of a mummy. In a way, it was the opposite, he thought as he pressed Send: he was helping his friends prove they hadn’t stolen a mummy—perhaps even helping them solve the crime.
In comic books, it was usually the villains who pressed buttons—to set off bombs, for example. The heroes raced to stop them. Nonetheless, Daniel-not-Danielle felt, it was a start.
Daniel-not-Danielle: button pusher, crime fighter.
Maybe that would be his thing.
Who’s there? Show me your hands!”
The security video ended there, with the nervous museum guard advancing on the three of them, his hand on his nightstick. In the center of the frame was a frozen Max-Ernest, spooked by the appearance of the guard.
It was Sunday night and—thanks to Daniel-not-Danielle—Cass, Max-Ernest, and Yo-Yoji had all been watching the video simultaneously on their computers at home, messaging each other at frequent intervals.
guitarsamurai: dude, you look like you saw a ghost.
survivor3000: he always looks like that, it’s the hair.
juniorjester: u guys going to make fun of me all night? thought we were trying to avoid getting arrested.
guitarsamurai: just practicing for juvenile hall. we’re going to have to entertain ourselves there.
survivor3000: ok, let’s get serious. my mom’s going to check on me any sec. I can feel it.
They knew what happened next, after the video ended: the guard’s relief when he realized it was just the three kids Albert 3-D had introduced earlier. His scolding them for wandering around the gallery unsupervised. Then his shock when he discovered the mummy was missing. His insistence that they not move until the head of security arrived along with Albert 3-D.
Et cetera. Et cetera.
It was what happened earlier that they had questions about.
They decided to watch the video again from the beginning.
As Albert 3-D had said, the video was “inconclusive.” Even so, it was intriguing. The video presented a fish-eye view of the mummy exhibit’s largest room, with the mystery mummy’s glass chamber in the center. The chamber looked much farther away than it actually was, like a reflection in a rearview mirror. At the same time, the camera’s night-vision technology lent the black-and-white video an eerie quality, almost as though they were seeing the images in negative.
The video, which was coded in twenty-four-hour military time, spanned roughly three hours—from the moment the museum closed to the moment the kids discovered that the mummy was missing—but it was sped up to play in under ten minutes. The first three-quarters or so showed almost no movement at all. Then,
guitarsamurai: hey, what was that? wait—*is rewinding*
guitarsamurai: there, at 19:36:15… those stars—I didn’t see them before….
survivor 3000: oh, you mean like those lights on the glass?
juniorjester: that’s just reflection.
guitarsamurai: yeah, but of what? the mummy’s ghost!? lol
survivor3000: ha-ha.
guitarsamurai: seriously, it’s not yr flashlight—we don’t come for another three min. and guard wasn’t there yet. can’t be like car lights or anything from outside—no window.
survivor3000: maybe the thief’s flashlight?
guitarsamurai: maybe.
juniorjester: a flashlight would just be a single light, not like a bunch of little ones—unless maybe it bounced off some stuff? but there wasn’t anything reflective besides glass.
survivor3000: he could have been wearing a headlamp and holding a flashlight. or there could have been somebody else with one, too.
juniorjester: there are more lights than that.
guitarsamurai: all right, forget the lights. let’s move on to the guy.
They each forwarded to the man who exited the glass chamber about three minutes before they arrived. Several times already, they had watched this shadowy figure walk out of the exhibit—and out of the picture frame—but they hadn’t yet come up with a plausible explanation for his actions. Presumably, this was the man (or, possibly, woman—you couldn’t see the face in the darkness) who had stolen the mummy. And yet there appeared to be no way he could have the mummy with him. His hands were empty. He carried no bag. He wore no backpack. And it seemed hardly credible that the mummy was hidden in his clothes. The man looked too skinny, too gaunt. Surely, there would have been at least one telltale lump if he had slipped the mummy under his shirt.
What’s more, he was never seen entering the mummy’s chamber, only leaving it.
guitarsamurai: hey, I have an idea—what if mummy was stolen earlier in the day, and this guy lied down in the mummy’s place—then got up later after exhibit closed?
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