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Contents

THE DISCOVERY OF EGYPT

ENTER APRIL

ENTER MELANIE—AND MARSHALL

THE EGYPT GIRLS

THE EVIL GOD AND THE SECRET SPY

EYELASHES AND CEREMONY

NEFERBETH

PRISONERS OF FEAR

SUMMONED BY THE MIGHTY ONES

THE RETURN TO EGYPT

EGYPT INVADED

ELIZABETHAN DIPLOMACY

MOODS AND MAYBES

HIEROGLYPHICS

THE CEREMONY FOR THE DEAD

THE ORACLE OF THOTH

THE ORACLE SPEAKS

WHERE IS SECURITY?CONFESSION AND CONFUSION

FEAR STRIKES

THE HERO

GAINS AND LOSSESCHRISTMAS KEYS

William S. and the Great Escape

ExcerptAbout Zilpha Keatley Snyder

To the boys and girls I knew atWashington School and toSusan and Tammy for the loanof some secrets

INTRODUCTION BY THEAUTHOR

Over the years since The Egypt Gamewas first published, I’ve heard from agreat many readers. Their letters havebeen wonderful, telling me how muchthey enjoyed the book and how theymade up their own versions of the game,and almost always asking me thefollowing question: “Where do you getyour ideas?”

That question is perhaps the onefiction writers hear more frequently thanany other. But it’s the wrong question. Abetter one would be “How do you get

your ideas?” Because getting story ideasis pretty much a matter of habit—thehabit of taking interesting, but ratherordinary, bits and pieces of reality andbuilding on them, weaving them togetheruntil a story emerges. Ideas can comefrom anywhere. Everyone has goodsources of ideas. But the building andweaving part can be hard—fun andexciting but also difficult anddemanding.

I’ve often used The Egypt Game toillustrate how any story can have “idearoots” that go back to different periodsin one’s life. The longest root goes backto when I was in fifth grade and becamefascinated by the culture of ancientEgypt. I read everything I could find on

the subject, made up my ownhieroglyphic alphabet, and played myown rather simple, and very private,Egypt Game, which included walking toschool like an Egyptian—imaginingmyself as Queen Nefertiti, actually.

A somewhat shorter root goes back towhen I was teaching in Berkeley,California, while my husband was ingraduate school. My classes usuallyconsisted of American kids of all races,as well as a few whose parents weregraduate students from other countries.All six of the main characters in TheEgypt Game are based, loosely but withethnic accuracy, on people who were inmy class one year—even Marshall,whom I had to imagine backward in time

to four years of age.And the shortest root goes back to

when my own daughter, a sixth-grader atthe time, became intrigued by my storiesabout my “Egyptian period” and startedher own version of the Egypt Game. Hergame was much more complicated thanmine and involved many of the activitiesI described in the story, including themummification of our parakeet, who,like Elizabeth’s Prince Pete-ho-tep, diedby feline assassination. A few yearslater, when my daughter was in herteens, she sometimes threatened to gothrough every one of my books lookingfor all the good ideas she had given me—and charge me for them!

But as I said before, all these idea

roots came from rather ordinary sourcesthat needed to be built on and woventogether until they became the story ofThe Egypt Game.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder

The Discovery ofEgypt

NOT LONG AGO IN A LARGE UNIVERSITYTOWN IN California, on a street calledOrchard Avenue, a strange old man ran adusty shabby store. Above the dirtyshow windows a faded peeling signsaid:

A-ZANTIQUESCURIOS

USED MERCHANDISE

Nobody knew for sure what the A-Zmeant. Perhaps it referred to the fact thatall sorts of strange things—everythingfrom A to Z—were sold in the store. Orperhaps it had something to do with theowner’s name. However, no one seemedto know for sure what his name actuallywas. It was all part of a mysteriousuncertainty about even the smallest itemof public information about the old man.Nobody seemed certain, for instance,just why he was known as the Professor.

The neighborhood surrounding theProfessor’s store was made up ofinexpensive apartment houses, littlefamily-owned shops, and small, aginghomes. The people of the area, many ofwhom had some connection with the

university, could trace their ancestors toevery continent, and just about everycountry in the world.

There were dozens of children in theneighborhood; boys and girls of everysize and style and color, some of whomcould speak more than one languagewhen they wanted to. But in theirschools and on the streets they allseemed to speak the same language andto have a number of things in common.And one of the things they had incommon, at that time, was a vague andmysterious fear of the old man called theProfessor.

Just what was so dangerous about theProfessor was uncertain, like everythingelse about him, but his appearance

undoubtedly had something to do withthe rumors. He was tall and bent and histhin beard straggled up his cheeks likedry moss on gray rocks. His eyes weredark and expressionless, and set so deepunder heavy brows that from a distancethey looked like dark empty holes. Andfrom a distance was the only way thatmost of the children of Orchard Avenuecared to see them. The Professor livedsomewhere at the back of his dingystore, and when he came out to stand inthe sun in his doorway, smaller childrenwould cross the street if they had towalk by.

Now and then, older and braver boys,inspired by the old man’s strangeness,would dare each other into an attempt to

tease or torment him—but not for long.Their absolute failure to get any sort of areaction from their victim was not onlydiscouraging, it was weird enough tospoil the fun for even the bravest ofbullies.

Since there were several antiquestores in the area to draw the buyers, theProfessor seemed to do a fairly goodbusiness with out-of-town collectors; buthis local trade was very small. It wassaid that he sold items that were used,but not antique, very cheaply, but evenfor grown-ups the prospect of a bargainwas often not enough to offset thediscomfort of the old man’s stony stare.

It was one day early in a recentSeptember that the Professor happened

to be the only witness to the verybeginning of the Egypt Game. He hadbeen looking for something in a seldomused storeroom at the back of his shop,when a slight noise drew him to awindow. He lifted a gunnysack curtain,rubbed a peephole in the thick coating ofdirt, and peered through. Outside thatparticular window was a small storageyard surrounded by a high board fence. Ithad been years since the Professor hadmade any use of the area, and the weed-grown yard and open lean-to shed wereempty except for a few pieces offorgotten junk. But as the old man peeredthrough his dirty window, two girls werepulling a much smaller boy through ahole in the fence.

The Professor had seen both of thegirls before. They were about the sameage and size, perhaps eleven or twelveyears old. The one who was tugging atthe little boy’s leg was thin and palelyblond, and her hair was arranged in astraggly pile on the top of her head. Herhigh cheekbones and short nose werefaintly spattered with freckles and therewas a strange droopy look to her eyes.The old man recalled that she had beenin his store not long before, and alongwith some other improbable informationshe had disclosed that her name wasApril.

The other girl, who had the little boyby the shoulders, was African American,as was the little boy himself. A

similarity in their pert features andslender arching eyebrows indicated thatthey were probably brother and sister.The Professor had seen them pass hisstore many times and knew that theywere residents of the neighborhood.

The fence that surrounded the storageyard was high and strong and topped bystrands of barbed wire, but one thinplank had come loose so that it waspossible to swing it to one side. Both thegirls were very slender and they hadapparently squeezed through withoutmuch trouble, but the boy was causing aproblem. He was only about four yearsold but he was sturdily built; moreover,he was clutching a large stuffed toy tohis chest with both arms. He paid not the

slightest attention to the demands of thetwo girls that he, “Turn loose of thatthing for just a minute, can’t you?” and,“Let me hold Security for you just tillyou get through, Marshall.” Marshallremained very calm and patient, but hisgrip on his toy didn’t relax for a second.

When the little boy and his huge plushoctopus at last popped free into the yard,the girls turned to inspect theirdiscovery. Their eyes flew over thebroken birdbath, the crumbling statue ofDiana the Huntress, and the stack offancy wooden porch pillars, and came torest on something in the lean-to shack. Itwas a cracked and chipped plasterreproduction of the famous bust ofNefertiti. The two girls stared at it for a

long breathless moment and then theyturned and looked at each other. Theydidn’t say a word, but with wideningeyes and small taut smiles they sent acharge of excitement dancing betweenthem like a crackle of electricity.

The customer, an antique dealer fromSan Francisco, was stirring restlessly inthe main room of the store. Hearing him,the Professor was reminded of hiserrand. He replaced the sacking curtainand left the storeroom. It was more thanan hour later that he remembered thechildren and returned to the peephole inthe dirty window.

There had been some changes madein the storage yard. Some of the ornateold porch pillars had been propped up

around the lean-to so that they seemed tobe supporting its sagging tin roof; thestatue of Diana had been moved intoposition near this improvised temple;and in the place of honor at the back andcenter of the shed, the bust of Nefertitiwas enthroned in the broken birdbath.The little boy was playing quietly withhis octopus on the floor of the shed andthe two girls were busily pulling the talldry weeds that choked the yard, andstacking them in a pile near the fence.

“Look, Melanie,” the girl namedApril said. She displayed a pricklybouquet of thistle blossoms.

“Neat!” Melanie noddedenthusiastically. “Lotus blossoms?”

April considered her uninviting

bouquet with new appreciation. “Yeah,”she agreed. “Lotus blossoms.”

Melanie had another inspiration. Shestood up, dumping her lap full of weeds,and reached for the blossoms—gingerlybecause of the prickles. Holding them atarm’s length, she announceddramatically, “The Sacred Flower ofEgypt.” Then she paced with dignity tothe birdbath and with a curtsy presentedthem to Nefertiti.

April had followed, watchingapprovingly, but now she suddenlyobjected. “No! Like this,” she said.

Taking the thistle flowers, shedropped to her knees and bent lowbefore the birdbath. Then she crawledbackward out of the lean-to. “Neat,”

Melanie said, and, taking the flowersback, she repeated the ritual, addinganother refinement by tapping herforehead to the floor three times. Aprilgave her stamp of approval to this latestinnovation by trying it out herself, doingthe forehead taps very slowly anddramatically. Then the two girls wentback to their weed pulling, leaving thethistles before the altar of Nefertiti.

A few moments later the blond girlsat back suddenly on her heels andclapped a hand to her right eye. Whenshe took it away the Professor, peeringthrough his spy hole, noticed that the eyehad lost its strange droopy appearance.“Melanie,” April said. “They’re gone.I’ve lost my eyelashes.”

At about that point, a customer,entering the Professor’s store, forcedhim to leave his vantage point at thedirty window. So he missed the franticsearch that followed. He also missed theindignant scolding when the girlsdiscovered that April’s false eye lasheshad fallen before the altar of Nefertiti,where Marshall had found them andquietly beautified one of the button eyesof his octopus.

When the Professor finally was freeto return to his peephole the children hadgone home, leaving the storage yardalmost free from weeds, and a thistleblossom offering before the birdbath.

Enter April

HER NAME WAS APRIL HALL, BUT SHEOFTEN CALLED herself April Dawn.Exactly one month before the EgyptGame began in the Professor’s backyardshe had come, very reluctantly, to live inthe shabby splendor of an oldCalifornia-Spanish apartment housecalled the Casa Rosada. She camebecause she had been sent away byDorothea, her beautiful and glamorousmother, to live with a grandmother shehardly knew, and who wore her grayhair in a bun on the back of her head.

None of April and Dorothea’sHollywood friends ever had gray hair,except the kind you have on purpose, nomatter how old they got otherwise.

It had been on that very first day,early in August, that April and theProfessor first met. On that first morningof her new life April had spent half anhour arranging her limp blond hair in ahigh upsweep, such as Dorotheasometimes wore. It was hard work,much harder than it looked whenDorothea did it. As she pinned andrepinned, April told herself withrighteous bitterness that Caroline wassure to make her take it all down againanyway, and all her hard work would befor nothing.

But if her grandmother noticed thehairdo, she said nothing about it at thebreakfast table. She didn’t even seem tonotice how quiet and depressed Aprilwas and try to cheer her up withquestions and conversation. Aprildecided that Caroline must be theuninterested kind of person who didn’tnotice much of anything. Well, that wasgood. Because, for the short while shewas here, April intended to go right onleading the kind of life she was used to,and if Caroline didn’t even notice—well, at least there wouldn’t be anytrouble. All through breakfast Carolinewent on saying almost nothing, butfinally when she was almost through shedid say that she wouldn’t mind being

called Grandma or even Grannie, ifApril liked.

“Oh, I guess I’ll just go on calling youCaroline,” April said. And then withpointed sweetness she added, “That is,unless you’d rather I didn’t.” Dorotheaalways called her Caroline instead ofMother, so what was wrong withCaroline instead of Grandmother? Ofcourse, Caroline wasn’t Dorothea’smother. She was the mother of April’sfather, who had died in an accidentbefore April even had a chance to get toknow him.

Nothing more was said until Carolinebegan to clear the table. Then she said,“I’ve arranged for you to have lunchwith Mrs. Ross and her children on the

second floor. She said she’d sendMelanie, her little girl, up for you abouttwelve o’clock. The rest of the timeyou’ll be more or less on your own, butI’d appreciate it if you’d let Mrs. Rossknow if you leave the building. Just tellher where you’re going and how soonyou’ll be back.”

“I could get my own lunch,” Aprilsaid. “I cooked a lot at home.”

“I know,” Caroline said, “but I’vemade this arrangement with Mrs. Ross,so we’ll try it for a while, just till schoolstarts. The Rosses are very nice people.Mrs. Ross teaches school and herhusband is a graduate student at theuniversity. Their little girl is about yourage, and they have a boy about four.

They’re African Americans,” she added.April shrugged. “Dorothea and I

know a lot of black people. There are alot of black people in show business.”

Caroline smiled. “I see,” she said.“Tell me, April, what do you think of theCasa Rosada?”

“The what?” April said.“The Casa Rosada, this apartment

house.”“Oh.” April repeated her shrug. “It’s

okay.” Actually it had been a pleasantsurprise—that is, it would have been ifshe’d been in the mood for pleasantsurprises. The last time she’d visitedCaroline, she’d lived in a tinysupermodern apartment, like a cell, onlywith paintings. The Casa Rosada was

very different. Somehow it made Aprilthink of Hollywood and home. It wasvery Spanishy-looking with great thickwalls, arched doorways, fancy irongrillwork, stained-glass panels in thewindows and tile floors in the lobby.Outside it was painted pink.

Caroline smiled her small primsmile. “Mr. Ross calls it the PetrifiedBirthday Cake, and I’m afraid that’s apretty good description. It must havebeen quite the thing when it was builtback in the twenties. Of course, it’sterribly run down now, but theapartments are roomy. It’s so hard to finda modern place with two bedroomsthat’s not awfully expensive.”

It hadn’t occurred to April that

Caroline had moved because of her—soshe could have a bedroom of her own.She knew she ought to feel grateful, butfor some reason what she really felt wasangry. What made Caroline think thatApril was going to be with her longenough for it to make any differencewhether she had a room of her own ornot? Dorothea had promised it wouldonly be for a little while. Only untilthings got more settled down and shewasn’t on tour so much of the time.

Before Caroline left she wrote downthe phone number of the library at theuniversity, where she worked, in casethere was an emergency and Aprilneeded her. There wasn’t muchlikelihood of that. April was used to

taking care of herself.When she was alone April went out

on the tiny iron balcony and lookedaround. Caroline’s apartment was on thethird and top floor and fronted on theavenue. Most of the buildings in theneighborhood were only one or twostories high, so from where she stoodshe could get a pretty good idea of thelay of the land. On one side of the CasaRosada were some small shops—aflorist, a doughnut shop and some others.On the other, across a narrow alley, wasa tall billboard that pretty much blockedthe view, but by leaning forward Aprilcould see the façade of a long lowbuilding. She could tell that it was verydingy and the windows were badly in

need of washing. From her position—high and to one side—she couldn’t makeout the sign; but from the interestingclutter in the show windows it seemed tobe some sort of secondhand store.

A store of that type always offered aninteresting possibility for exploring, butApril was really looking for somethingelse at the moment. A drugstore might door perhaps a beauty shop. WhenDorothea and Nick, Dorothea’s agentand good friend, had put April on the busthe morning before, they had eachslipped her some money. It added up toquite a bit more than April was used tohaving all at once, and she wanted tomake some purchases before Carolinefound out about it. Not that she really

thought that Caroline would take themoney away, but it would be just like agrandmother to insist that it be spent onsomething “sensible” like new shoes ora school dress.

A few minutes later April was takingthe old-fashioned elevator, with its doorlike a folding iron fence, down to thelobby. It wasn’t until she was out on thesidewalk that she remembered whatCaroline had said about reporting toMrs. Ross before she left the building.She paused long enough to decide thatreporting wouldn’t be possible until thatafternoon. After all, Caroline hadn’teven told her where the Rosses lived, atleast not exactly. With that settled to hersatisfaction she went on up the street.

The girl in the drugstore lookedsurprised, but she didn’t make too muchof a big deal out of April’s purchases.When she got out the false eyelashes, shedid ask if they were to be a present forsomeone. But when April made hersmile poisonously sweet and said, “Ohno,” she seemed to get the point andstopped asking questions. On the wayhome April decided that since there wasstill plenty of time before twelveo’clock, she might as well explore thestore she had seen from the balcony.

The store was called A–Z, and itsdusty show windows were crammedwith a weird clutter of old and exotic-looking objects—huge bronze orientalvases next to some beat-up old pots and

pans. An old-fashioned crank telephone,a primitive-looking wooden mask and atreadle sewing machine. Two kerosenelamps and a huge broad-bladed knifewith a carved ivory handle. April felt atiny tingle of excitement. She always feltthat way about old stuff. It had been oneof the few things that she and Dorotheadidn’t agree on. Dorothea always said,“I’ll take mine new and shiny.”

It was dusky inside the store after theoutdoor brightness. There didn’t seem tobe any clerks at all. Not that it mattered,because April was only looking. Shesquatted down in front of a glass casefull of small objects: vases and jars,some partly cracked or broken, crudelymade jewelry and tiny statues. All of it

looked terribly ancient and interesting.She was pressing her nose to the glasswhen suddenly she knew she was beingwatched.

An old man was leaning over thecounter right above her head. “Ohhello,” April said and went on looking ata tiny statue with broad shoulders, shortlegs and a hole in the top of its head. Itlooked almost Egyptian and April hadalways been especially interested inEgyptian stuff. After a moment shelooked up again and the man was stillthere. “What’s that?” she asked, pointingto the tiny figure.

“That is a pre-Columbian burialfigure. It was made in Mexico about twothousand years ago.” The old man’svoice was slow and rusty.

April looked up again quickly. “Twothousand—you’re kidding,” she said.But on second glance she was sure he

wasn’t. He wasn’t kidding and he wasn’tquite like anyone she’d ever seen before.He had a strange skimpy-looking littlebeard and his eyes were deep set and asblank as an empty well. He said nothingmore, and not by so much as a flickerdid his face reveal what he was thinking.

April was impressed. A deadpan wassomething she’d cultivated herself, andshe knew from experience that such aperfect one was not easily come by. “Imean,” she said with respectful caution,“is it really that old?”

The old man only tilted his stone facedownward in a stiff nod. April wentback to studying the objects in the case,but now her interest was divided. Theold man was almost as unusual as the

strange things behind the dusty glass. In afew moments she stood up and smiled athim. It was a real smile, small andquick, not the gooey kind she usuallyused on grown-ups. Somehow she had anotion he wouldn’t fool easily.

“My name is April Hall,” she said.“I’ve just come to live in the apartmenthouse next door, with my grandmother. Iused to live in Hollywood with mymother.” She paused. For a moment itlooked as if the old man wasn’t going toanswer at all, but at last his craggy facecracked enough to allow the escape oftwo small words, “I see.”

April regarded him with grudgingadmiration. It usually wasn’t very hardto pick the real meaning out of things

people said, if you watched themclosely. But this one wasn’t going to beeasy. The “I see” said nothing at all. Itwasn’t friendly, or angry, or curious, oreven bored. In fact, there was somethingabout the absolute nothingness behind itthat was a little bit frightening, likeputting out your hand to touch somethingthat wasn’t really there. April began tochatter a little nervously. “I’m a nutabout things like that.” She motionedtowards the case. “I’m always readingabout ancient times and stuff like that.You know, Babylonia and Egypt andGreece and China. It’s kind of a hobbyof mine. As a matter of fact, I’m evenplanning to be an archaeologist when Igrow up. Some people think that’s a

pretty kooky ambition for a girl—but Ilike it. You see, I have this theory abouthow I was a high priestess once, in anearlier reincarnation. Do you think that’spossible?”

“Possible?” The old man’s voicequavered the word into a whole flock ofsyllables. “Many things are possible.”

“That’s what I think, too. A lot ofpeople don’t think so, though. When Itold Nick—he’s my mother’s agent—about the high priestess thing he justlaughed. He said, ‘I don’t know aboutthose other reincarnations, kiddo, but inthis one you’re a nut.’ ”

Before the old man could answer, ifhe was going to, a couple of ladiesbreezed in the doorway. Of course, they

interrupted right away when they sawthat April was just a kid.

As she drifted out the door and backto the Casa Rosada, April wonderedwhy she’d gabbed so much. It wasn’treally like her. She’d started out justtrying to get the old man to talk and thensomehow she couldn’t quit. It wasalmost as if the old man’s deadly silencewas a dangerous dark hole that had to befilled up quickly with lots of words.

Enter Melanie—andMarshall

ON THAT SAME DAY IN AUGUST, JUST A FEWMINUTES before twelve, Melanie Rossarrived at the door of Mrs. Hall’sapartment on the third floor. Melaniewas eleven years old and she had livedin the Casa Rosada since she was onlyseven. During that time she’d welcomeda lot of new people to the apartmenthouse. Apartment dwellers, particularlynear a university, are apt to come and go.Melanie always looked forward to

meeting new tenants, and today wasgoing to be especially interesting. Today,Melanie had been sent up to get Mrs.Hall’s granddaughter to come down andhave lunch with the Rosses. Melaniedidn’t know much about the new girlexcept that her name was April and thatshe had come from Hollywood to livewith Mrs. Hall, who was hergrandmother.

It would be neat if she turned out tobe a real friend. There hadn’t been anygirls the right age in the Casa Rosadalately. To have a handy friend again, forspur-of-the-moment visiting, would begreat. However, she had overheardsomething that didn’t sound toopromising. Just the other day she’d heard

Mrs. Hall telling Mom that April was astrange little thing because she’d beenbrought up all over everywhere andnever had much of a chance to associatewith other children. You wouldn’t knowwhat to expect of someone like that. Butthen, you never knew what to expect ofany new kid, not really. So Melanieknocked hopefully at the door ofapartment 312.

Meeting people had always been easyfor Melanie. Most people she liked rightaway, and they usually seemed to feelthe same way about her. But when thedoor to 312 opened that morning, for justa moment she was almost speechless.Surprise can do that to a person, and atfirst glance April really was a surprise.

Her hair was stacked up in a pile thatseemed to be more pins than hair, andthe whole thing teetered forward overher thin pale face. She was wearing abig, yellowish-white fur thing around hershoulders, and carrying a plastic pursealmost as big as a suitcase. But most ofall it was the eyelashes. They wereblack and bushy looking, and the ones onher left eye were higher up and sloped ina different direction. Melanie’s mouthopened and closed a few times beforeanything came out.

April adjusted Dorothea’s old furstole, patted up some sliding strands ofhair and waited—warily. She didn’texpect this Melanie to like her—kidshardly ever did—but she did intend to

make a very definite impression; and shecould see that she’d done that all right.

“Hi,” Melanie managed after that firstspeechless moment. “I’m Melanie Ross.You’re supposed to have lunch with us, Ithink. Aren’t you April Hall?”

“April Dawn,” April corrected withan offhand sort of smile. “I wasexpecting you. My grandmother informedme that—uh, she said you’d be up.”

It occurred to Melanie that maybekids dressed differently in Hollywood.As they started down the hall she asked,“Are you going to stay with yourgrandmother for very long?”

“Oh no,” April said. “Just till mymother finishes this tour she’s on. Thenshe’ll send for me to come home.”

“Tour?”“Yes, you see my mother is Dorothea

Dawn—” she paused and Melanieracked her brain. She could tell she wassupposed to know who Dorothea Dawnwas. “Well, I guess you haven’thappened to hear of her way up here, butshe’s a singer and in the movies, andstuff like that. But right now she’ssinging with this band that travels aroundto different places.”

“Neat!” Melanie said. “You meanyour mother’s in the movies?”

But just then they arrived at theRosses’ apartment. Marshall met them atthe door, dragging Security by one of hiseight legs.

“That’s my brother, Marshall,”Melanie said.

“Hi, Marshall,” April said. “Hey,what’s that following you, kid?”

Melanie grinned. “That’s Security.Marshall takes him everywhere. So mydad named him Security. You know. Likesome little kids have a blanket.”

“Security’s an octopus,” Marshallsaid very clearly. He didn’t talk verymuch, but when he did he always saidexactly what he wanted to without any

trouble. He never had fooled aroundwith baby talk.

Melanie’s mother was in the kitchenputting hot dog sandwiches and fruitsalad on the table. When Melanieintroduced April she could tell that hermother was surprised by the eyelashesand hairdo and everything. She probablydidn’t realize that kids dressed a littledifferently in Hollywood.

“April’s mother is a movie star,”Melanie explained.

Melanie’s mother smiled. “Is thatright, April?” she asked.

April looked at Melanie’s mothercarefully through narrowed eyes. Mrs.Ross looked sharp and neat, with asmart-looking very short hairdo like a

soft black cap, and high wingingeyebrows, like Melanie’s. But her smilewas a little different. April was good atfiguring out what adults meant by thethings they didn’t quite say—and Mrs.Ross’s smile meant that she wasn’t goingto be easy to snow.

“Well,” April admitted, “not a star,really. She’s mostly a vocalist. So farshe’s only been an extra in the movies.But she almost had a supporting roleonce, and Nick, that’s her agent, says hehas a big part almost all lined up.”

“Wow, that’s cool!” Melanie said.“We’ve never known anyone beforewhose mother was an extra in themovies, have we, Mom?”

“Not a soul,” Mrs. Ross said, still

smiling.During lunch, April talked a lot about

Hollywood, and the movie stars she’dmet and the big parties her mother gaveand things like that. She knew she wasoverdoing it a bit but something madeher keep on. Mrs. Ross went right onsmiling in that knowing way, andMelanie went right on being so eagerand encouraging that April thought shemust be kidding. She wasn’t sure,though. You never could tell with kids—they didn’t do things in a pattern, theway grown-ups did.

Actually Melanie knew that Aprilwas showboating, but it occurred to herthat it was probably because ofhomesickness. It was easy to see how

much she’d like to be back inHollywood with her mother.

While they were having dessert of icecream and cookies, Mrs. Ross suggestedthat April might like to look overMelanie’s books to see if there wasanything she’d like to borrow.

“Do you like to read?” Melanieasked. “Reading is my favoriteoccupation.”

“That’s for sure.” Mrs. Ross laughed.“A full-time occupation with overtime.Your grandmother tells me that you do alot of reading, too.”

“Well, of course, I’m usually prettybusy, with all the parties and everything.I do read some, though, when I have achance.”

But after lunch when Melanie showedApril her library, a whole bookcase fullin her bedroom, she could tell that Aprilliked books more than just a little. Shecould tell just by the way April picked abook up and handled it, and by the wayshe forgot about acting so grown-up andHollywoodish. She plopped herselfdown on the floor in front of thebookcase and started looking at bookslike crazy. For a while she seemed toforget all about Melanie. As she readshe kept propping up her eyelashes withone finger.

All of a sudden she said, “Could youhelp me get these stupid things off? Imust not have put them on the right placeor something. When I look down to read

I can’t even see the words.”So Melanie scratched the ends of the

eyelashes loose with her longestfingernail, and then April pulled themthe rest of the way off. They were onpretty tight, and she said, “Ouch!”several times and a couple of otherwords that Melanie wasn’t allowed tosay.

“————!” said April, looking inthe mirror. “I think I pulled out most ofmy real ones. Does it look like it toyou?”

“I don’t think so,” Melanie said. “Istill see some. Is this the first timeyou’ve worn them? The false ones, Imean?”

April put back on her haughty face.

“Of course not. Nearly everybody wearsthem in Hollywood. My mother wearsthem all the time. It’s just that these arenew ones, and they must be a differentkind.”

April put her eyelashes awaycarefully in her big bag and they wentback to looking at books. Melanieshowed her some of her favorites, andApril picked out a couple to borrow. Itwas then that April took a very specialbook off the shelf.

It was a very dull-looking oldgeography book that no one would beinterested in. That was why Melanieused it to hide something very specialand secret. As April opened the booksome cutout paper people fell out on the

floor.“What are those?” April asked.“Just some old things of mine,”

Melanie said, holding out her hand forthe book, but April kept on turning thepages and finding more bunches of paperpeople.

“Do you really still play with paperdolls?” April asked in just the tone ofvoice that Melanie had feared she woulduse. Not just because she was April,either. It was the tone of voice thatnearly anyone would use about a sixth-grade girl who still played with ordinarypaper dolls.

“But they’re not really paper dolls,”Melanie said, “and I don’t really playwith them. Not like moving them around

and dressing them up and everything.They’re just sort of a record for a game Iplay. I make up a family and then I findpeople who look like them in magazinesand catalogues. Just so I’ll rememberthem better. I have fourteen familiesnow. See, they all have their names andages written on the back. I make up stuffabout their personalities and what theydo. Sometimes I write it down like astory, but usually I just make it up.”

April’s scornful look was dissolving.“Like what?”

“Well,” Melanie said, “this is theBrewster family. Mr. Brewster is adetective. I had to cut him out of thenewspaper because he was the only manI could find who looked like a detective.

Don’t you think he does?”“Yeah, pretty much.”“Well anyway, he just—that is, I just

made up about how he solved this veryhard mystery and caught some dangerouscriminals. And then the criminalsescaped and were going to get revengeon Mr. Brewster. So the whole familyhad to go into hiding and wear disguisesand everything.”

April spread the Brewsters out on thefloor. Her eyes were shining and withoutthe eyelashes they were pretty, wide andblue. “Have they caught the criminalsyet?” she asked. Melanie shook herhead. “Well, how about if the kids catchthem. They could just happen to find outwhere the criminals were hiding?”

“Neat!” Melanie said. “MaybeTed”—she pointed to the smallest paperBrewster—“could come home and tellthe other kids how he thinks he saw oneof the criminals, going into a certainhouse.”

“And then,” April interrupted, “thegirls could go to the house pretending tosell Girl Scout cookies, to see if it reallywas the crooks.”

From the Girl-Scout-cookies caper,the game moved into even more excitingescapades, and when Mrs. Ross came into say that Marshall was down for hisnap and that she was leaving for theuniversity, where she was taking asummer course for schoolteachers, thecriminals were just escaping, taking one

of the Brewster children with them as ahostage. An hour later, when Marshallcame in sleepy-eyed and draggingSecurity, several of the other paperfamilies had been brought into the plot.Marshall seemed content to sit andlisten, so the game went on with daringadventures, narrow escapes, tragicillnesses and even a romance or two. Atlast, right in the middle of a shipwreckon a desert island, April noticed the timeand said she’d have to go home so she’dbe there when Caroline got back fromwork.

As they walked to the door Melanieasked, “Do you want to play some moretomorrow?”

April was adjusting her fur stole

around her shoulders for the tripupstairs. “Oh, I guess so,” she said witha sudden return to haughtiness.

But Melanie was beginning tounderstand about April’s frozen spells,and how to thaw her out. You just had tolet her know she couldn’t make you stopliking her that easily. “None of myfriends know how to play imagininggames the way you do,” Melanie said.“Some of them can do it a little bit butthey mostly don’t have any very goodideas. And a lot of them only like ballgames or other things that are alreadymade up. But I like imagining gamesbetter than anything.”

April was being very busy trying toget her stole to stay on because the clasp

was a little bit broken. All at once shepulled it off, wadded it all up and tuckedit under her arm. She looked rightstraight at Melanie and said, “You knowwhat? I never did call them that before,but imagining games are just about all Iever play because most of the time Inever have anybody to play with.”

She started off up the hall. Then sheturned around and walked backward,waving her fur stole around her headlike a lasso. “You’ve got lots of goodideas, too,” she yelled.

The Egypt Girls

ALL THROUGH THE MONTH OF AUGUST,MELANIE AND April were togetheralmost every day. They played thepaper-families game and other games,both in the Rosses’ apartment and inCaroline’s. They took Marshall forwalks and to the park while Mrs. Rosswas gone to her class, and almost everyday they went to the library. It was in thelibrary in August that the seeds wereplanted that grew into the Egypt Game inSeptember in the Professor’s desertedyard.

It all started when April found a newbook about Egypt, an especiallyinteresting one about the life of a youngpharaoh. She passed it on to Melanie,and with it a lot of her interest in allsorts of ancient stuff. Melanie was soonas fascinated by the valley of the Nile asApril had been. Before long, with thehelp of a sympathetic librarian, they hadfound and read just about everything thelibrary had to offer on Egypt—both factand fiction.

They read about Egypt in the libraryduring the day, and at home in theevening, and in bed late at night whenthey were supposed to be asleep. Thenin the mornings while they helped eachother with their chores they discussed

the things they had found out. In a veryshort time they had accumulated all sortsof fascinating facts about tombs andtemples, pharaohs and pyramids,mummies and monoliths, and dozens ofother exotic topics. They decided thatthe Egyptians couldn’t have been moreinteresting if they had done it onpurpose. Everything, from their love ofbeauty and mystery, to their fascinatinghabit of getting married when they wereonly eleven years old, made good stuffto talk about. By the end of the month,April and Melanie were beginning workon their own alphabet of hieroglyphicsfor writing secret messages, and at thelibrary they were beginning to be calledthe Egypt Girls.

But in between all the good times,both April and Melanie were spendingsome bad moments worrying about thebeginning of school. April was worriedbecause she knew from experience—lotsof it—that it isn’t easy to face a newclass in a new school. She didn’t admitit, not even to Melanie, but she washaving nightmares about the first day ofschool. There were classroomnightmares, and schoolyard nightmaresand principal’s office nightmares; butthere was another kind, too, that had todo with an empty mailbox. In the wholemonth of August she had had only onevery short postcard from Dorothea.

Melanie was worried, too, but in adifferent way. School had always been

easy for Melanie; and even though shewasn’t the kind who got elected classpresident, she’d always had plenty offriends. But now there was April to thinkabout.

April was the most exciting friendMelanie had ever had. No one else knewabout so many fascinating things, orcould think up such marvelous things todo. With April, a walk to the librarycould become an exploration of aforbidden land, or a shiny pebble on thesidewalk could be a magic token from aninvisible power. When April got thatimagining gleam in her eye there was notelling what was going to happen next.Just about any interesting subject youcould mention, April was sure to know a

lot of weird and wonderful facts aboutit. And if she didn’t, you could alwayscount on her to make up a few, just tokeep things going.

There was only one thing that Aprildidn’t seem to know much about—thatwas getting along with people. Mostpeople, anyhow. With Melanie, Aprilwas herself, new and different fromanyone, wild and daring and terriblybrave. But with other people she wasoften quite different. With other kids sheusually put on her Hollywood act,terribly grown-up and bored witheverything. And with most grown-upsApril’s eyes got narrow and youcouldn’t believe a word she said.

Melanie had gone to Wilson School

all her life, and she knew what it waslike. There were all different kinds ofkids at Wilson; kids who looked andtalked and acted all sorts of ways.Wilson was used to that. But there weresome things that Wilson kids justwouldn’t stand for, and Melanie wasafraid that April’s Hollywood act wasone of them.

And Melanie wasn’t entirely justguessing about how her schoolmateswould react to April. A couple of timeswhen April and Melanie had been at thelibrary or in the park they’d run intosome of the Wilson kids Melanie knew;and you could see right away that Aprilwasn’t making the right kind ofimpression. And it was going to be

worse at school, where every kid wouldfeel duty bound to do his or her part intrimming the new kid down to size.Melanie had a feeling that April wasn’tgoing to trim easily.

The thing that worried Melanie themost was the eyelashes. April was stillwearing them a lot of the time. She’dgotten so she didn’t wear them to thelibrary because she still had troublereading through them, but even if shehadn’t had them on all day she alwaysput them on when it was time for hergrandmother to come home. OnceMelanie asked her why.

“She doesn’t like for me to wearthem,” April said.

Melanie thought about that for a

minute. Then she said, “You don’t likeyour grandmother very much, do you?”

April just shrugged but her eyes gotnarrow.

“I don’t see why,” Melanie said. “Sheseems pretty nice to me.”

“She doesn’t like my mother,” Aprilsaid. “She doesn’t even think thatDorothea’s going to send for me to comehome pretty soon.”

“Did she say so?”“No, but she thinks it. I can tell.”Then, just at the beginning of

September, with school only a few daysaway, came that exciting day when theEgypt Game began. April and Melanieand Marshall were on their way homethrough the alley when, by the sheerest

luck, Melanie noticed the loose plank. Ithad moved stiffly, that first time, with areluctant rusty yelp and they peekedthrough into the hidden and desertedyard. It was fascinating—so weed-grown and forgotten and secret—butthen came the most unbelievablywonderful part of all.

There she was, waiting for them inthe shed, Nefertiti, the beautiful queen ofancient Egypt, like a magical omen, or,as April put it, “a beautiful messengerfrom out of the ancient past.” There hadto be something terribly out-of-the-ordinary about it. Why, it had only beena few days before that they had read allabout her and admired a picture of herlovely sculptured head. And there it

was, almost like magic. Very much likemagic, in fact—and that’s the way theEgypt Game was, from the verybeginning.

But even the discovery of Egyptdidn’t stop the beginning of school fromarriving with all its problems. So, whenApril lost one of her eyelashes that firstday in Egypt, Melanie couldn’t helpfeeling a little relieved, although shewouldn’t have said so. But then, there itwas on Security—and the problem wasjust as complicated as ever. It was thenext morning when Melanie finally gotup nerve enough to talk to April about it.

April was helping Melanie dry thedishes so they’d be ready to leave forEgypt sooner. “Are you going to wear

your eyelashes to school?” Melanieasked with careful casualness.

But April turned quickly, and with herface all shut up the way it was with otherpeople. “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I just don’t thinkanybody else at Wilson wears them.”

April’s chin went up and her lipsthinned. “Am I supposed to care whatthe kids at a little old place like WilsonSchool wear?”

Melanie could see that she wasn’tgoing to get anywhere so she let thesubject drop. But before the dishes werefinished she had started making a drasticplan. April just couldn’t wear thoseeyelashes to school on the first day. Shewas going to be hard enough to integrate

even without them.As soon as Melanie had finished her

chores they were free to head for Egypt.Since it was Saturday, Melanie’s parentswere both at home, but Mr. Ross alwayshad to study and he was only too glad forthe girls to get Marshall out fromunderfoot. Just outside the apartmentdoor April stopped with her finger to herlips.

“Shhh,” she warned, “we mustproceed with caution. We may be beingwatched.”

“Who’s watching?” Marshall asked,looking around.

“The enemies of Egypt. Who werethose worst enemies, Melanie?”

“The Syrians,” Melanie whispered.

“Yeah, they’re the ones. The Syrians.Their spies are everywhere.”

With elaborate caution they madetheir way out of the back door of theCasa Rosada and down the alley. Theywent the wrong way first and tookevasive action through a garage andaround a stack of garbage pails. Thenthey crawled through a piece of cementpipe and started to make a run for it; butthey had to go back for Marshall, whowas still in the pipe, all tangled up inSecurity’s legs. When they finallyarrived at the fence they were out ofbreath.

“All clear?” Melanie asked, lookingboth ways.

“Yes, for the time being,” April

breathed. “But they almost had us. Thatwas a close call back there in thetunnel.”

“Close,” Melanie agreed, “but wefooled them.” With that they shovedMarshall through the hole in the fenceand crawled in after him.

The Evil God and theSecret Spy

WHEN APRIL AND MARSHALL ANDMELANIE SQUEEZED back through thefence for the second time they foundeverything just as they had left it. Theystarted out by pulling the rest of the deadweeds and stacking them in one cornerof the yard. While Marshall stood guardhalfway down the alley to see if anyonewas coming, they shoved the wholestack out through the hole in the fence.Then they scouted around and found a

trash bin that was nice and roomy andnot too full to hold an extra donation ofdead weeds. When, at last, the loosestones and broken bits of things had beencleared away, Egypt looked clean andbare and ready for whatever might begoing to happen.

Next they turned their attention to thelean-to shed, or the Temple, as they werealready beginning to call it. It wasactually only a wooden platform about afoot off the ground, across one end of theyard. A roof of corrugated tin wassupported in the front by a few woodenposts, and on the other three sides wallswere formed by the tall boards of thefence. Already the birdbath altar ofNefertiti, the fancy pillars from the

porch of some Victorian mansion and thecrumbling statue of Diana by theentrance were beginning to create atemple-like atmosphere. But there wasmuch more that could be done.

April and Melanie were sitting on theedge of the Temple’s floor resting for amoment, and planning, when Aprilpointed out the only real door to thestorage yard. It was on the opposite sitefrom the loose plank and was apparentlylocked with a latch and padlock from theoutside. “I wonder where it goes to,” shesaid.

Melanie thought a moment. “I guess itgoes to the rest of the Professor’sbackyard,” she said. “You know, thatpart with a driveway so trucks and

things can back up to his store fordeliveries. You can see into that partfrom the alley.” It was right then whenshe mentioned the Professor thatMelanie, for the first time, had anuncomfortable feeling. “What do yousuppose the Professor would do if hecaught us in here?” she wondered outloud.

April shrugged. Melanie had told herhow most of the children in theneighborhood felt about the Professor.While she had to admit he’d been a littlebit creepy, she didn’t see what all thefuss was about. But Melanie seemed tofeel that April’s short talk with the oldman had made her an authority on thesubject, so she was more or less obliged

to come up with an opinion. “I don’tthink he’d do a thing,” she said. “I justdon’t think he’d even care, as long as wedon’t bother him or hurt anything.Besides, how’s he going to know? Youcan tell by the weeds and everything thatno one’s been in here for ages. I’ll betthe padlock on that door’s rusted so tighthe couldn’t get in if he wanted to. Andthat window isn’t the kind that opens.He’d have to break the glass if hewanted to get through.”

“He might be watching us through it,though.”

Somehow that thought was almostmore scary than the possibility of theProfessor’s actually entering the yard.With one accord the girls moved warily

towards the window. Closer and closeruntil their noses were only inches fromthe dirty panes. Then Melanie breathed asigh of relief. “There’s something like aheavy curtain hanging clear across it. Hecouldn’t see through that.”

“Besides, I don’t think he could seethrough the dirt even if there wasn’t acurtain. I’ll bet this window’s in somelittle back room he doesn’t even use anymore. Otherwise he wouldn’t leave it sodirty.”

Feeling pleasantly safe and secure,the girls sat back down and began tomake plans. Marshall was busy digginga little hole in the middle of the yardwith a sharp stick. He had knotted two ofSecurity’s legs together around his neck

so that his hands would be free fordigging. Security’s pear-shaped plushbody and six of his black legs werehanging down Marshall’s back.

“I know,” April said suddenly,“Marshall can be the young pharaoh,heir to the throne of Egypt. Only there’sa civil war going on, and the other sideis trying to kill him.”

“Okay. And we can be highpriestesses of Isis who are assigned toprotect him.”

“Ummm,” April said. “Or else wecould be evil high priestesses who aregoing to offer him as a human sacrificeon the crocodile altar to—what was thatevil god’s name?”

“Set?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.” April jumpedto her feet. Throwing up her arms, shechanted, “Almighty Set has promised hisservants, the crocodile gods of the Nile,the bloody heart of the young Pharaoh,Marsh—uh, Marshamosis!” She droppedto her knees. “O mighty Set, god of evil,we hear and obey.”

Marshall had stopped digging, andnow he stood up and started towards theopening in the fence. The girls ran afterhim. He didn’t struggle when they caughthim, but Melanie was familiar with theexpression on his face. His funny littlebaby-round chin was sticking outdefiantly and his black eyes glared.“Leave my bloody heart alone,” he said.

The girls giggled. “You know, he’spretty sharp for a four-year-old,” Aprilsaid.

Melanie got down on her knees andtried to take Marshall’s hands, but hewouldn’t turn loose of Security.“Marshall, honey,” she said, “it’s just a

game. Just pretend. We wouldn’t reallyhurt you.”

“What’s a pharaoh?” Marshall askedsuspiciously.

“A king,” Melanie said, “king of allthe Egyptians.” Marshall’s frown lifted alittle and his chin began to go back intoits normal position.

“A terribly important kind of king,”April said. “Everybody had to bowdown to him and do exactly what hesaid.”

Marshall nodded soberly. “I’ll play,”he said.

So that was the way Set started—Setthe god of evil and black magic. At firsthe was just supposed to be a character inthat particular game, and that first day he

was represented by a picture of a manwith an animal’s head that Melanie drewon a piece of cardboard and tacked tothe wall. But once he got started, heseemed to grow and develop almost onhis own, and all out of control; until hewas more than evil, and at times a lotmore than Egyptian. For instance, atdifferent times, his wicked tricksincluded everything from atomic rayguns to sulfur and brimstone.

But, actually, that was the way withall of the Egypt Game. Nobody everplanned it ahead, at least, not very far.Ideas began and grew and afterwards itwas hard to remember just how. Thatwas one of the mysterious andfascinating things about it.

On that particular day, the game aboutMarshamosis, the boy pharaoh, and Set,the god of evil, didn’t get very far.They’d no more than gotten started whenApril and Melanie decided they just hadto have some more equipment beforethey could play it well. So theypostponed the game and went instead toscout around in the alley for boards andboxes to use in making things likethrones and altars. They found just whatthey needed behind the doughnut shopand the furniture store in the next block,and brought them back to Egypt. And itwas on the same trip that they had thegood luck to rescue an old metal mixingbowl from a garbage pail. April said itwould be just the thing for a firepit for

building sacred fires.When they had everything as far as

the hole in the fence, they ran into aproblem. The bowl and boards wentthrough all right, but the boxes were justtoo big. The only solution was to throwthem over the top of the fence. It wasn’teasy, and in landing they made quite a bitof noise.

It wasn’t long afterwards that thecurtain on the small window at the backof the Professor’s store was pushed verycarefully to one side. But April andMelanie were so busy building andplanning that they didn’t notice at all.Only someone with very sharp eyeswould have been able to see the figurethat stood silently behind the very dirty

window in the darkened room.

Eyelashes andCeremony

THE NEXT DAY WAS THE LAST BEFORESCHOOL WAS TO start. It was alsoMelanie’s last chance to put into effecther plan to get rid of the eyelashes. Soafter dinner she went up to Mrs. Hall’sapartment to see April. She took thelibrary book that she was reading andone that she knew April wanted to read.

In April’s room they talked about theEgypt Game and about school starting inthe morning—what they were going to

wear and things like that. Then Melaniesuggested they read for a while, so theygot comfortable on their stomachs acrossApril’s bed and started in on the books—and sure enough, April got up andtook off her eyelashes so she could seebetter.

But, for once, both the girls had ahard time keeping their minds on theirreading. April was thinking about thenext day, telling herself that it didn’tmatter whether the people at WilsonSchool were friendly or not, becauseDorothea would write soon saying shewanted April to come home. Dorothea—it seemed ages since April had seen her.April shut her eyes and tried to pictureher, but tonight the picture wouldn’t

come clear. It was only a blur—a blur oflaughter, talk, movement and color. But abright and beautiful blur, no matter howdistant, was better than a reality that wasdull and gray.

Melanie was having trouble keepingher mind on her reading because she wasso worried about what she was planningto do. In fact, they both were having sucha hard time pretending not to worry thatthey were secretly relieved whenCaroline came in and suggested it wasbedtime for girls who were going toschool in the morning. The eyelasheswere lying on April’s dresser andMelanie managed to walk right past themas she went out. Because of the stickystuff to make them stay on your eyelids,

she only had to brush her hand againstthem to pick them up. Feeling triumphantand treacherous at the same time,Melanie took the eyelashes home and hidthem in her closet. She kept them thereuntil the first few days of school wereover. Then she took them back and putthem under April’s dresser, so it wouldlook as if they’d just happened to fall.By that time April had gotten out of thenotion of wearing them to school.

But even without the eyelashesMelanie had a hard time trying totranslate April into something thatWilson School could understand andappreciate. April was still wearing herhair in a messy upsweep and hermother’s ratty old fur stole, even though

her grandmother had given her a greatnew jacket. Besides, she still put on herHollywood act with people she didn’tknow, and worst of all, she got furiouslyangry when she was teased. Melaniecould see that to the kids at Wilson, allthe stuff April knew made her a know-it-all; her wonderful differentness wasonly kookiness; and her courage onlymeant she’d punch you in the nose if youkidded her, no matter how many teacherswere looking.

At least, that was the way it was for awhile. But with Melanie working herhardest as go-between, it wasn’t toolong before things began to be a littlebetter. The sixth grade began to find outthat April had a way of making life

interesting. For instance, when sheraised her hand in class, her answerwasn’t always what the teacher wanted,but it was almost certain to befascinating. And when it came to guts—whether it was hanging by your heelsfrom the highest bar, or putting astinkbug on the principal’s desk—youcould count on April to do it first andbest.

By the third week in September,although the sixth graders were stillteasing April—from a safe distance—they were beginning to think of her ratherproudly, as their own private oddball.But it was when Toby and Ken gave hera nickname that Melanie knew for surethat the worst was over. Toby Alvillar

and Ken Kamata were two of the biggestwheels in class, and if you were reallyhopeless they simply didn’t notice you—it was as if you didn’t exist. So whenthey started calling April, February,Melanie knew everything would be allright. It was teasing, maybe, but not thekind you use on outsiders.

In the meantime, in the afternoons andon weekends, the Egypt Game wasreally beginning to take shape. As soonas school was out every day, the girlspicked up Marshall at his nursery schooland hurried home. Then they were freeto spend their time in Egypt, until almost5:30, when Caroline and the Rossescame home.

The lean-to temple now had two

altars and two gods. The birdbath altarhad been moved to the right side, whileon the left was the altar of Set, the EvilOne. Set’s altar was made from an eggcrate covered by a piece of an oldbedspread, and the god himself was arather pear-shaped figure of dried mud.April and Melanie had looked andlooked for a suitable Set. For a whilethey tried a Chinese kitchen-god figurinefrom Schmitt’s Variety Store, but he wasall wrong—much too nice and pleasantlooking. At last, they had to resort tomaking a Set themselves, from someclayey mud from the Casa Rosada’sdead flower garden. Except for hisglowing eyes, which were made of glassbuttons of a deep fiery red, he didn’t turn

out particularly well. In fact, at first heseemed rather laughable. But as timepassed and the game progressed, Set’sface hardened and cracked into a wickedleer, and it became clear that his strange,sunken, formless body was the veryshape of evil. Dark and deep as the mudof the Nile, Set brooded lumpily througha mist of sandalwood incense—ninety-nine cents at Schmitt’s—over all kindsof mystic ceremonies, weird rites andwicked plots.

Opposite the altar of the wicked godstood the birdbath throne of the goddessof goodness. Of course, she was stillrepresented by the plaster bust ofNefertiti, but as the game went on shebegan to be called Isis most of the time,

because she was a goddess and not just aqueen. And since the pharaohs weresupposed to be related to the gods, itreally didn’t matter if Isis and Nefertitigot a little bit confused. Whatever hername, what she stood for was always thesame—love and beauty and every kindof perfection.

There was always a great deal to doin the land of Egypt. Right at first Apriland Melanie got terribly involved incomposing and practicing rites andceremonies for the two gods. The ritualswere very complicated and the correctorder of processions, chants,prostrations, sprinklings with holy waterand sacrificial offerings had to becarefully written down so that they

wouldn’t be forgotten. At first therecords were on ordinary notebookpaper, but then Melanie, whosehandwriting was the nicest, put it alldown on onionskin paper rolled onpieces of an old fishing pole they’dfound in the alley. Each page was gluedon two pieces of pole so it could berolled and unrolled like a papyrusscroll. Someday, they decided, theywould do it all over in hieroglyphics,when they’d found time to finish theirhieroglyphic alphabet, but for the presentit was just written in English. Then,when Marshall discovered that thewooden base of the Diana statue washollow, and one side was a little loose,they had a perfect secret vault for the

storage of sacred records.Of course the temple and the two

altars had to be decorated, too. It wasn’tat all difficult to find the right sort ofthings for the altar of Nefertiti-Isis.Flowers, candles, beads, pretty stones,blown-glass figurines of birds and deer,in fact, anything beautiful, seemed to suitthe lovely goddess. One day Melaniebrought her poster paints and theypainted stars and birds and flowers onthe fence in back of the altar; and anotherday they made a canopy to hang aboveNefertiti’s head. They made it from anold fluffy half-slip of crinoline and lace,but when they were through cutting andpinning and tacking, it looked exactlylike a canopy and not like a petticoat at

all.Set was more of a problem. For a

while he had only his incense burner,which was made of an old metal ashtray. April suggested that they might findsomething suitable in the Professor’sstore, but Melanie wouldn’t go with herto help her shop. Melanie had lived toolong in the neighborhood and beenalmost brought up on all those scaryrumors about the Professor. Andbesides, she said, what could they buyfor fifty cents, which was about all theycould scrape up at the time. So Set hadto settle for some spiders and snakespainted on the wall behind him, and adry bone that hung on a string above hishead. April had gone to the trouble of

tricking an unfriendly dog out of the bonebecause it was so large and sinisterlooking; and it had just the right effecthanging there over the evil god, twistingand turning in the wind.

Then one day on the way to schoolMelanie found a strange dark stone. Itwas lying in the middle of a sidewalk,where a stone had no reason to be; buteven more mysterious, when you held itat just the right angle it looked exactlylike a pair of long pointed jaws with abulging snout and jagged teeth.

“There’s no doubt about it,” Aprilsaid, “it’s no ordinary rock, that’s forsure.”

So they put it on the altar, too, andcalled it the Crocodile Stone, and from

then on it became the mysterious andpowerful source of much of Set’s power.

At first Marshall only watchedeverything that was going on, but after awhile he began to be impatient andwanted to know, “When are you going toplay about the pharaoh some more, likeyou said?” When April told him theywouldn’t be ready for that for a longtime, his chin began to stick out. So, tokeep him happy, they let him start beinga sort of junior high priest. At the nextceremony, which was to be thepresentation of a dead lizard as asacrificial offering to Set, Marshallmarched at the head of the processionand sprinkled holy water from a tunacan. He did a good job, too, except that

he wouldn’t put Security down, not evento be a high priest.

At first April said nobody could bethe high priest of an evil god with a toyoctopus hanging around his neck, but shefinally agreed they could pretend it wassome kind of a fancy ceremonial robe.And when the procession was over shehad to admit that Marshall had doneawfully well, for a little kid. “He evenremembered all the words to the chantand he sprinkled in all the right places,”she said wonderingly. But Melaniewasn’t surprised at all.

“That’s the way with Marshall,” shesaid. “He’s been awfully grown-up eversince—oh, since about the time hestarted walking. That is, about

everything except Security. I guess he’snot very grown-up about that. Dad saysthe reason Marshall needs Security isthat he had such a hard time being ababy. Dad says being a baby offendedMarshall’s dignity.”

April shrugged. “Yeah, I guesseverybody has something they’re notvery grown-up about,” she said.

Neferbeth

NEAR THE END OF SEPTEMBER A NEW GIRLMOVED into the Casa Rosada. Her namewas Elizabeth Chung. She and hermother and two little sisters had rentedthe little semibasement apartment next towhere Mr. Bodler, the janitor, lived.Caroline went down to call on Mrs.Chung the evening the family moved into see if there was anything she could doto help them get settled. She asked Aprilif she wanted to go along to meetElizabeth, but April said, “No thanks.”

When her grandmother came back

upstairs, April found out all about thenew family. Mr. Chung had died recentlyand his wife was going to have to get ajob to support her three little girls. Shehad moved to the Casa Rosada becauseit was only a few blocks from where herparents lived. Mrs. Chung’s mother wasgoing to take care of the two smallestgirls while she was at work.

“Elizabeth is only a little youngerthan you and Melanie,” Caroline said.“Perhaps you could ask her to play withyou. She’s probably feeling lonely andworried about starting in at a newschool.”

April was ambushed by a quick pangof sympathy, remembering how it was—missing someone and having to face a

new classroom. But she pulled herselftogether and shook it off. It occurred toher that Caroline ought to know that youdidn’t pick your friends just becausethey were handy—or even lonely. Youpicked them because you thought alikeand were interested in the same things,the way she and Melanie were. “Howold is she?” she asked, letting her eyesgo narrow.

“I think her mother said she wasnine,” Caroline said.

“Nine,” said April, with a cool smile,“is a lot younger than eleven.”

“Well, of course, it will have to be upto you and Melanie to decide,” Carolinesaid calmly, but as she turned to leavethe room April was sure she heard a

rather exasperated sigh.April tried to feel pleased about the

sigh, but something prickleduncomfortably. She decided she didn’twant to think about it. She called toCaroline that she was going down to talkto Melanie. Melanie would understandhow impossible it would be to invitesomeone else to be part of anything soprivate and secret as the Egypt Game.

Mr. Ross called, “Come in,” whenApril knocked. He was sitting on thecouch surrounded by books and papers.He was studying to be a college teacherand he always had a lot of work to do inthe evenings. He was a big man withdark brown skin and a teasing smile. Hewas always kidding April about her

name. When April opened the door hesaid, “Just as I thought, it’s springtime.Melanie! the cruelest month is here.”

Mr. Ross was going to teach thingslike poetry and literature, and he wasalways making jokes that weren’t veryfunny unless you knew what he wastalking about. That “cruelest month”business, for instance, was something hewas always kidding April about. Itdidn’t make any sense to April untilMelanie found out about it andexplained. It seemed it came from a biglong poem that started out about howApril was the “cruelest month.” Aprilstill didn’t think it was any riot, but sheguessed it was okay for that kind of joke.

As soon as the girls were alone in

Melanie’s room, April brought up thesubject of Elizabeth. Sure enough,Melanie’s mother had been after her, too,to make the new girl feel at home.

“I don’t know what they think we cando,” April said. “We can’t let her in onthe Egypt Game. She’d be sure to finkabout it and ruin everything.”

“Well, we’ll have to get to know herfirst,” Melanie said, “and see if she’s thekind who can keep a secret. And then—”

“Keep a secret!” April interruptedscornfully. “For one thing, she’s onlynine years old.”

“Well, Marshall’s only four,”Melanie said, “and he doesn’t everfink.”

“Marshall’s different,” April said

impatiently. “This Elizabeth is probablyjust like any other blabbermouth fourthgrader.”

Alarmed at what seemed to her to bea rather wishy-washy attitude onMelanie’s part, April didn’t go homeuntil she felt sure they had reached afirm decision. No matter what, no newgirl was going to be let in on the EgyptGame. If they asked Elizabeth to walk toschool with them, and maybe talked toher at recesses for a while, until she gotaround to making fourth-grade friends,that would be enough.

The next morning April and Melaniewent dutifully down the little darkbasement hallway and knocked on thedoor of the Chungs’ apartment. Almost

immediately the door across the hallopened and Mr. Bodler, the janitor,looked out. “Oh, hello there, youngladies,” he said. “Thought I heardsomeone knocking on my door.”

“Hello, Mr. Bodler,” Melanie said.“We’ve come to get the new girl andtake her to school with us.”

“Well now, isn’t that nice. I thinkthat’s right nice of you young ladies.”

April and Melanie turned back to theChungs’ door, but Mr. Bodler went onstanding behind them. They exchangedsideways “wouldn’t you know it”glances. Mr. Bodler was a fattish manwith faded blond hair who was alwaysnosily cheerful at children. The situationwas already uncomfortable, and Mr.

Bodler, who was a naturallyuncomfortable person to be around,wasn’t making it any better.

The door of the Chungs’ apartmentwas finally opened by a very smallAsian girl. “Hi,” April said. “Is your bigsister ready for school? We’ve come totake her.”

The girl smiled shyly. “I’mElizabeth,” she said.

On the way to school Elizabethwalked between April and Melanie. Shereally was amazingly tiny for a fourthgrader. Her thick black hair was pulledback into a carefully curled ponytail thatbounced when she walked. And therewas something about the carvedperfection of her face that made her

smile seem like magic—an enchantedivory princess warming suddenly to life.She was shy, but not in the stiffembarrassing way that makes otherpeople feel embarrassed, too. It was agentle friendly shyness that made otherpeople feel important, sort of in chargeof things.

April had been afraid—well, lookingat Elizabeth’s upturned face and prettytilted eyes, wide with wonder at almost

anything you told her, it was hard toremember just what she had been afraidof. She almost wished she hadn’t beenso convincing when she talked toMelanie the night before about how theydidn’t want anybody else butting intotheir friendship.

By the time April and Melaniedelivered Elizabeth to the door of thefourth-grade room, they had completelyforgotten that taking care of Elizabethhad been anybody’s idea but their own.Melanie’s forehead wrinkled with worryas she watched Elizabeth make her waytimidly through the noisily assemblingfourth graders, to the teacher’s desk.And a couple of boys who were saying,“Hey, look at the new girl!” and, “Ugh!

A girl!” and other typically fourth-graderemarks were suddenly silenced whenthey met April’s ferocious glare.

That afternoon April and Melaniewalked Elizabeth home and by the nextmorning they were both wondering if itwouldn’t be all right, after all, to let herjoin the Egypt Game. But it was a touchysort of thing to bring up, not knowing forsure how the other one felt about it. Andthen a very strange thing happened.

Elizabeth had arranged to meet themthat morning on the front steps of theCasa Rosada and when April andMelanie were crossing the lobby theycould see her through the glass of thefront door. She was sitting on the railingand looking off up Orchard Avenue so

her profile was towards them. All of asudden April grabbed Melanie’s arm.“Look!” she whispered.

“What?” Melanie whispered back.“Elizabeth,” April said. “Who does

she look like?”Melanie caught her breath.

“Nefertiti,” she breathed.Sure enough. Elizabeth’s ponytail

pulled her hair back away from her faceand neck; and there was certainlysomething about her delicate, slender-necked profile that was very like thestatue of Nefertiti. Of course, Elizabeth’snose was a tiny bit shorter and maybeher chin a little rounder, but theresemblance was there just the same.

She saw them then and bounced

through the door to meet them beforeanything more could be said, but itwasn’t really necessary. April andMelanie just looked at each other andnodded, and on the way to school theystarted telling Elizabeth all about theEgypt Game.

Prisoners of Fear

ELIZABETH TURNED OUT TO BE JUST WHATTHE Egypt Game needed to make itperfect. Of course, she didn’t have manyideas; but then, she was younger andhadn’t had a chance to learn much aboutancient history. Besides, April andMelanie had almost more ideas than theycould use anyway. Elizabeth helped inother ways.

She was just crazy about every partof the Egypt Game, and she was full ofadmiring comments. For instance, sheloved the “Hymn to Isis” that Melanie

had made up almost by herself, with justa little bit of help from a book ofEgyptian poetry. Elizabeth said it wasthe most beautiful thing she’d everheard. And the first time she saw Aprildo a ceremony for Set she kept jumpingup and down with half-scaredexcitement. For a few days it was funjust doing everything over for Elizabethto appreciate; and after that they gotaround to starting a new part of thegame. In the new part, Marshall finallygot to be the young pharaoh,Marshamosis, again, and Elizabeth wasthe queen, Neferbeth. April and Melaniewere priestesses. First they were evilpriestesses, leading Marshamosis andNeferbeth into the clutches of the wicked

Set. And then they were priestesses ofIsis coming to the rescue.

• • •

That was about where they were in theGame, when something happened thatalmost put an end to the Egypt Game;and not to the Egypt Game alone, but toall the outdoor games in the wholeneighborhood. On that particularafternoon, the girls had built a dungeonout of cardboard boxes in the corner ofthe storage yard. Elizabeth and Marshallwere languishing in the dungeon, tiedhand and foot, victims of the priests ofSet. April and Melanie were creepingcautiously from pillar to pillar in theTemple of Evil, on their way to therescue. Melanie was crouching behind

an imaginary pillar, when suddenly shestraightened up and stood listening. Inthe dungeon Elizabeth heard it too, andquickly untied her bonds. April ran tohelp Marshall with his. They were reallyonly kite string and knotted easily. Fromsomewhere not too far away, perhaps themain alley behind the Casa Rosada, Mrs.Ross’s voice was calling, “Melanie!Marshall! Melanie!” There wassomething about the tone of her voicethat made Melanie’s eyes widen withfear.

“Something’s wrong,” she said.“It’s too early.” April nodded. “She

never gets home this early.”They scrambled through the hole in

the fence and, dragging Marshall to hurry

him up, they dashed for the main alleybehind the Casa Rosada. From there theycould safely answer without giving thelocation of Egypt away.

Mrs. Ross met them near the backdoor of the apartment house. Eventhough they all clamored to know whatwas the matter, she only shook her headand said, “There’s been some trouble inthe neighborhood. April, you andElizabeth come up to our apartment untilyour folks get home.”

Of course they were all terriblycurious, but Mrs. Ross wouldn’t say anymore. “We’ll wait to discuss it until wehave the facts,” she said. “What I knowright now amounts only to rumors. Theremay not be any truth in the story at all.”

It occurred to all of them, though, thatthe rumors had been frightening enoughto make Mrs. Ross cancel her after-school remedial reading class—whichshe almost never did—and come homeearly. And Melanie noticed astrangeness in her voice and that herhand shook as she put milk and cookieson the table. It had to be somethingserious.

By the next day it was commonknowledge. A little girl who lived in theneighborhood had been killed. Shehadn’t gone to Wilson School, so Apriland Melanie had barely known her, buther home was only a few blocks awayfrom the Casa Rosada. Like all childrenin the neighborhood, and in all

neighborhoods for that matter, she hadbeen warned about strangers—but shemust have forgotten. She had been on herway to the drugstore—the very onewhere April had purchased hereyelashes—in the early evening, and shehad never returned. The next day herbody had been found in the marshlandnear the bay.

It was a terrible and shocking thing.But there was something else, anothercircumstance, that made it even moreterrifying and threatening to the parentsof the neighborhood. It had happenedbefore. Almost a year before, a little boyfrom the same area had disappeared inalmost the same way; and the policewere saying that it looked as if the guilty

person was a resident of theneighborhood.

As the days passed and no arrestswere made, fear and suspicion grew andspread in all directions; and a greatsilence began to settle over OrchardAvenue and the streets and alleys oneither side.

Twice a day a few children could beseen walking to and from school, butthey went quickly and in larger groupsthan usual; and many other parentsarranged car pools, even for childrenwho had only a few blocks to walk.Afternoons and weekends, which usuallyrang with a medley of shouts andlaughter and pounding feet, dragged byin a strange, uneasy silence broken only

by the dull hum of traffic.But although fear made a great

silence out-of-doors, inside the homesand stores and apartments it had adifferent sound—it talked and it talkedand it talked. For the boys and girls,talking was about all there was left todo, since nobody was being allowed toplay outside. Lying across a bed, orsitting on one of the Casa Rosada’s littleiron balconies, April and Melanie talkedit over many times. Most of their specialinformation, besides what they read inthe papers, came from Mrs. Ross by wayof Melanie. Caroline didn’t seem toknow how to talk about important orshocking things, and April wouldn’thave asked her.

“I wonder why anyone would do anawful thing like that?” April asked oneday while she and Melanie were sittingon the floor in Melanie’s bedroom,looking through old magazines for newpeople for the paper-families game. “OnTV and in the movies when somebodygets killed it’s usually because of money,or else revenge. But little kids don’thave that much money and there’s allsorts of ways to get revenge on kidswithout doing a thing like that.”

Melanie looked at April curiously.She’d noticed before that April, in spiteof her sophisticated ways, really didn’tknow much at all about certain kinds ofthings. The kinds of things parents telltheir children when they’re alone

together and other kids tell you if theyknow you really well. All April’sinformation seemed to be the kind ofthings grown-ups let you overhear, andof course, nearly everything she couldfind in the children’s part of libraries.

“They do it because they’re sick,”Melanie answered. “That’s what mymom says. It’s a sickness of the mind.They can’t help themselves, so there’sno use hating them, but they just have tobe caught and shut up or they’ll probablydo it again.”

“But why can’t they catch him, if he’scrazy? It seems to me a crazy personwouldn’t be hard to catch.”

“It’s not like that,” Melanie said. “Mymom says some people who are crazy

are only crazy at times, or in certainways. Most of the time they seem justlike anybody. My mom says that’s whykids have to be careful about allstrangers, no matter if they seem as niceas anything.”

“Yeah,” April said. “I guess that’sright. You can usually tell about peopleif you watch them hard, but I guess youcan’t always. Hey, look. Here’s a motherwho’s just right for the haunted housefamily. Isn’t she weird?”

It wasn’t only the boys and girls ofOrchard Avenue who talked and talked.The grown-ups did, too. Everybody hadtheories and opinions, and everybodyhad heard rumors they were eager torepeat. There was one rumor that was

particularly persistent and particularlytroublesome to the members of the EgyptGame. It had to do with the Professor.

Someone had seen two policemengoing into the Professor’s store on themorning after the little girl haddisappeared. It looked as if he must be asuspect, at least. No one knew that theProfessor was guilty; but at the sametime, no one knew anything about himthat would make them believe he wasinnocent. There were other people in theneighborhood who were noted for theirbad tempers or downright meanness, buttheir actions were predictable. Forinstance, you knew that Mrs. Harknesswould call the police if you stepped onher lawn, and that at Schmitt’s Variety

Store you’d get cheated out of smallchange if you weren’t careful. But howcould anyone know what a person likethe Professor would do? Of course, hehadn’t been arrested yet, but that mightonly mean that the police hadn’t foundthe proof.

Only the Egypt gang maintained thatthe Professor was innocent. April saidshe was sure of it because of a feelingshe had. As just about the only kid in theneighborhood who’d actually talked tothe Professor, she felt she was entitled tohave feelings about what he might do.Melanie and Elizabeth thought theProfessor was innocent because Aprildid. And, without really admitting iteven to themselves, all three of them

kept thinking he must be innocentbecause if he was guilty the Egypt Gamewas ruined forever. Nobody plays gamesin the backyard of a murderer.

But apparently there were otherpeople who were just as firmlyconvinced of the old man’s guilt. Threedays after the murder someone threw abrick through one of his store’s showwindows, and Mr. Schmitt organized anot-so-secret campaign to get people towrite letters and sign petitions invitingthe Professor to leave the neighborhood.The fact that the Professor sold old andcheap some of the things that Mr. Schmittsold new and expensive was worththinking about; but it really didn’t proveanything one way or the other.

Without the Egypt Game the dayswere very slow for the four Egyptians.Once or twice they tried to play theGame indoors, before the grown-upswere at home of course; but it wasn’t thesame at all. In fact, it was such adisappointment that it was frightening.What if the magic was gone forever? Butprobably it was only that carpets andcouches and curtains just didn’t make theright atmosphere for a game abouthidden splendors and giant mysteries, ina land of mud and sand. Anyway, theydecided instead to spend their timemaking some things they could use whenthey finally could return to Egypt.

Elizabeth, who was very clever andartistic with her hands, started the

costume idea by making herself aNefertiti headdress out of a plasticbleach bottle with the top cut off. Next,Melanie got some old curtains from hermother, enough to make sheer flowingrobes for everyone. The sheer robeswere to be worn over short tunics madeof pillowcases.

It was April who got the idea ofgoing around the apartment house andasking all the ladies if they had any oldjunk jewelry that they were willing tosell. Just as she predicted, most peoplegave them stuff and refused to take anymoney, which was just as well, sincethey only had nineteen cents betweenthem. Some of the jewelry they tookapart and glued or sewed onto their

robes for decoration; but some of thenecklaces and bracelets that looked alittle bit Egyptian they used just as theywere.

Their most successful creation wasMarshall’s costume. One day when theywere all working in the Rosses’apartment, Marshall got out his indoorbowling game. The ball and tenpinswere made of a light plastic, so as not todent up the furniture. April was watchinghim set up the pins and suddenly got abrilliant idea. She went upstairs, got oneof her Egypt books, and showed the restof them that the tenpins were shapedexactly like the inner part of the doublecrown of Egypt. The outer part could bemade of another bleach bottle. Melanie

wasn’t sure they ought to use up one ofMarshall’s tenpins; but April pointed outthat there was nothing wrong with thegame of ninepins. And, anyway, theywere Marshall’s and he was all for itwhen he found out the crown was to befor him. When it was all put together andpainted, with a cardboard vulture’s headand cobra glued to the front, it looked soimpressive they could hardly believethey’d made it themselves.

With no place to work but their ownrooms, it wasn’t long, of course, until

their families knew the girls weremaking Egyptian costumes. Butfortunately a simple and logicalexplanation was handy. Halloweenwasn’t far away and making costumeswas a perfectly natural thing to be doing.

As the days went by, the headlinesabout the terrible thing that hadhappened near Orchard Avenue gotsmaller and smaller. The paper said thepolice were “following up leads” and“investigating clues,” but no arrestswere made and gradually peoplestopped talking about it so much. TheProfessor still stubbornly opened hisstore every day, but now he had almostno local trade. The few people who hadgone in now and then to look over his

used merchandise department werestaying away, and only an occasionalout-of-town antique buyer was seenentering his store. People wondered howhe managed to stay in business, and theywondered if he was really guilty, andthey wondered . . . But wondering takestime, and most of the people of theneighborhood were hard-workingpeople, and so they gradually began toforget. And very gradually the childrenbegan to play out-of-doors again. But theRosses and Mrs. Chung werefrustratingly careful parents, and itlooked as if they were going to be thevery last ones to stop worrying. Ofcourse, Caroline Hall hadn’t given Aprilpermission to play outside either; but she

didn’t get home until 5:30, and April justmight have been willing to do a littleprivate forgetting on her own if she’dhad anyone to keep her company. Butsince Elizabeth and Melanie were stuckinside, April figured she might as wellbe, too.

The waiting was particularly hard onApril because, without the Egypt Gameto think about, it was more difficult tokeep from thinking about other things. Atfirst it was the empty mailbox to try notto think about—not a single letter fromDorothea for over a month. And then atlast there was a letter—and even moreto worry about. Dorothea was back inHollywood. She must have gotten all ofApril’s letters, but she didn’t even

mention the question that April asked inevery one. Dorothea wrote about hertour, and about her new job in anightclub, and about Nick; but she saidnothing at all about April’s cominghome.

As the days dragged by, the Egyptgang grew more and more impatient.They knew that Egypt was waiting forthem just as they had left it becauseseveral times they had been able to stopby on their way to school. They had hadtime to notice things—important things—like the fact that the Crocodile Stoneseemed to have moved a tiny bit, a suresign of its sinister power, and that theflowers on the altar of Nefertiti stayedfresh much longer than you’d expect, as

if in tribute to her beauty. But there wasno time for a real game because Mrs.Ross had arranged for a neighbor ladywho didn’t work to make sure theyarrived home safely and on time.

So the days passed and the Egyptianclothing grew fancier and all sorts ofnew plans were made for the time whenthey could return to Egypt.

Summoned by theMighty Ones

RIGHT UP UNTIL A FEW DAYS BEFORE THEEND OF the month it really looked as ifHalloween was going to be completelywasted. Of course, there was going to bea program at school and kids whowanted to could wear their costumes toafternoon classes, but only little primarykids got very excited about that. The realfun of Halloween, trick-or-treating andbeing allowed to tear around out-of-doors late at night, was absolutely out.

At least that was what all the parents inthe neighborhood were saying all monthlong. Unless, of course, the murderer hadbeen caught by then. But as day after daywent by with nothing new in the papers,there seemed little hope of that. Andthen, with only three more days to go,suddenly there was good news.

At a P.T.A. meeting at Wilson School,a couple of really red-blooded mothersstood up and volunteered their husbandsto take large groups of trick-or-treatersaround the neighborhood. Before longsome other fathers got shamed or naggedinto doing the same thing, and by the daybefore Halloween nearly all the kids atWilson were signed up to go aroundtrick-or-treating with some large,

chaperoned group.Mr. Barkley and Mr. Kamata were

going to be the chaperones for all thekids who lived in the Casa Rosada andthe rest of the eight hundred block ofOrchard Avenue. Mr. Barkley was thefather of some six-year-old twins wholived on the first floor of the CasaRosada, and Mr. Kamata was fromKamata’s Realty, just across the street,and the father of Ken Kamata, who wasin April and Melanie’s class at Wilson.April had it figured out that there were atleast twenty-five kids who would begoing with Mr. Barkley and Mr. Kamata,and that was a lot of kids to keep trackof, particularly in the dark. Whichopened the way for a fascinating and

frightening scheme.If, April decided, the Egypt gang all

stayed together, there might be a chanceto slip away from the big group to pay avisit to Egypt. Their flashlights and jack-o’-lanterns would be enough to light upthe storage yard at least a little, and itwould be really terrific—a nighttimeceremony in the spooky half-light, andwith everybody wearing their newEgyptian costumes. They would onlystay for a few minutes, and they’d getback to the trick-or-treaters before theywere missed.

When April first told Melanie abouther plan, Melanie thought it was justabout the most exciting idea she’d everheard. She agreed to everything, even to

not telling Elizabeth until Halloweennight so that she wouldn’t have too longto worry about it. Elizabeth had atendency to worry about things like nothaving permission. She might notunderstand that it was not at all likebeing downright disobedient. As Aprilpointed out, no one had forbidden themto visit Egypt on Halloween night.Melanie did just mention that maybe thatwas because nobody knew about Egypt;but April just grinned and said, “Yeah, Iknow. Lucky, isn’t it.”

Later, when Melanie began to thinkabout it in private, she began to havesome doubts. Even though the Egypt ganghad decided that the Professor wasinnocent, what if they just might be

wrong? Or what if the Professor wasinnocent, but the somebody else whowasn’t really did live right in theneighborhood, as so many peopleseemed to think? In that case a trip toEgypt might be a lot worse thandownright disobedient. It might bedeadly dangerous. Downrightdisobedient and deadly dangerous. Thetwo phrases seemed to get stuck inMelanie’s head. The night beforeHalloween she woke up several timeswith those four words throbbing throughher thoughts. By morning she’d decidedto tell April that she’d changed her mind.

But the next day Melanie had anearly-morning piano lesson, so therewas no time to talk to April before

school. And at school there were alwaystoo many people around. Even thoughMelanie tried all day to find anopportunity, she still hadn’t told Aprilabout her decision when the time cameto get into their costumes.

April had been keeping all thecostumes in a box in her closet, and ithad been decided that they would all getready at her place. On the way upMelanie and Marshall met Elizabeth inthe hall. Melanie had been almost hopingthat Elizabeth would have her twosisters along. That would have put anend to the Egypt question without herhaving to say anything. But no such luck.Elizabeth explained that her little sisterswere staying home because they were

afraid of the dark and of all the big kidsin their costumes.

When they reached April’s apartment,Mrs. Hall met them at the door. “Comein, come in,” she said. “April’s alldressed already. She’s in her room.”

April looked great. She was wearingher Egyptian headdress and under hersheer jeweled robe she had on the shorttunic made of a pillowcase. Around thebottom of the pillowcase there wereEgyptian-looking decorations done inred and black crayon. But best of allwere her face and hair. For once herfalse eyelashes were on straight, and shehad heavy black eye makeup that madeher eyes look long and mysterious. Butmost surprising was her hair—it was cut

short in a sort of Cleopatra bob.“Caroline helped me with my face

and hair,” April said, and she looked atCaroline and smiled. It occurred toMelanie that it was the first time she’dever seen April smile at hergrandmother. It also occurred to her thatApril wasn’t going to be able to wear anupsweep anymore, but she didn’t sayanything about that.

Instead, she only said, “Your hairlooks terrific, April. You ought to wearit that way all the time.”

Mrs. Hall reminded them that theybetter hurry so they wouldn’t keep theother trick-or-treaters waiting and thenshe went out and left them alone. Aprilshut the door of her room behind her

grandmother and then she turned aroundvery slowly and dramatically to face therest of the Egypt gang. One look at herface and Melanie had a strong feelingthat downright disobedient and evendeadly dangerous weren’t going to beenough. She felt herself slipping beforeshe was even sure of the direction inwhich they were moving.

April put her arms down stiffly alongher sides and with her eyes closed shetilted her Egyptian face upward raptly.To Melanie she looked like a miniaturemonolith, glowing with mystery. “Wehave received a message,” Aprilwhispered with her eyes still closed.“We are summoned by the mighty ones,the mighty ones of Egypt.”

“The mighty ones?” Elizabeth’s voicequavered a little.

April snapped back into life andsnatched up something from her dresser.It was a little velvet pin-cushion box thatshe kept special things on. “It’s in here,”she said, holding the box outdramatically until they had all gatheredaround.

“The summons from Set and Isis,”Melanie said. It was a statement insteadof a question; and with a last lingeringdismay she realized that she was alreadyusing her high priestess voice. Aprilnodded and her eyes flicked acrossMelanie’s in the way they always didwhen their imaginations were tuned in.The gods of Egypt struggled with the

gods of conscience, and Egypt won.“The mighty ones have summoned us,”Melanie chanted and dropped to herknees.

Following Melanie’s lead, April wason her knees almost as quickly andElizabeth and Marshall weren’t farbehind. Slowly and with drama Aprilopened the box. There, on a cushion ofpaper handkerchiefs, was a single shinyfeather. “Just a few minutes ago,” Aprilwhispered, “I heard something—astrange sound—outside my window. I’dbeen expecting something. I’d had aweird feeling all day long. Hadn’t you?”They all nodded and Melanie didn’teven remember what kind of feelingsshe’d really been having all day. “So I

ran to the window and threw it open andthere it was—right on the sill. A token—from the mighty ones.”

“Evil Set and Beautiful Isis have sentus a token,” Melanie chanted. Shenudged Elizabeth with her elbow andwhispered, “You say, ‘The mighty oneshave summoned us to their temple.’ ”

“The mighty ones have summoned usto their temple.” Elizabeth imitatedMelanie’s singing chant.

April poked Marshall. “You say, ‘Wehave received your summons, O mightyones.’ ”

“We have received your summons, Omighty ones,” Marshall chanted and thenad-libbed, “and it’s nothing but an oldpigeon feather.” He scanned the girls’

faces expectantly, but they chose toignore him.

While they were getting into theircostumes, Elizabeth asked a fewworried questions about what they weregoing to do, but April only said, “I don’tknow. We’ll have to stick close togetherand look for a sign.”

“What sort of a sign?” Elizabethwanted to know.

“A secret omen,” Melanie said.“Will it be a pigeon feather?”

Marshall asked.“We don’t know what it will be,”

April told him. “But we will know itwhen it appears.” She clasped her handsand struck a wonder-and-amazementpose. “The very air will smell of

mystery,” she breathed.Marshall sniffed thoughtfully as April

got him into his crown and robe andtried to make his baby-round eyes looklong and mysterious with the eyebrowpencil. She was more successful withElizabeth’s and Melanie’s eyes. Theyboth had beautiful eyes anyway—Elizabeth’s were exotic, long and tilted,and Melanie’s were luxurious, velvetand ivory, fringed with black silk. Withthe Egyptian makeup they both lookedfantastic.

By the time they had gottenElizabeth’s ponytail tucked inside herNefertiti headdress it was almost 7:00.They started to rush out, but in thehallway they noticed that Marshall

wasn’t with them. They dashed back andfound him in the closet with April’s pin-box. He was calm as they grabbed himout of the closet, snatched away the pin-box and scolded him across the livingroom to the hall door. “I was justsmelling the mystery, like April said,” hewas explaining patiently, when suddenlyhe grabbed hold of the door frame andhowled, “STOP!” The result was a four-way collision of Egyptians in thedoorway. Marshall kept on yelling,“Stop!” and Elizabeth yelled “Ouch!”because somebody stepped on her, andApril yelled, “What the———!”

But Melanie knew right away whatthe matter was. She ran back into thebedroom and got Security from where

he’d been left on April’s bed, and at lastthe Egyptians were on their way.

The Return to Egypt

THE TRICK-OR-TREAT GROUP WAS AMILLING MOB of devils, witches, trampsand monsters. Mr. Barkley, who alwaysacted as if being the father of six-year-old twin boys was almost more than hecould stand, looked positivelyexhausted; and even Mr. Kamata’s sturdyreal-estate-salesman’s smile wasbeginning to wilt. Outside the CasaRosada a black cat, a mechanical man, aLittle Red Riding Hood, two tramps andfour ancient Egyptians joined the alreadyunwieldy group.

They had started off up OrchardAvenue in a sprawly column whenMarshall suddenly stopped and tugged atMelanie’s arm. “I want a sign,” he saidloudly. Several of the surrounding trick-or-treaters turned to look at him, and theother three Egyptians stared inastonishment. Marshall had neverblabbed about secrets before.

“Shhh!” April hissed. “Not yet! I’lltell you when.”

“Shhh, Marshall. It’s a secret,”Elizabeth whispered covering his mouthwith her hand.

“What’s the matter with you?”Melanie asked in astonishment.

Marshall pushed Elizabeth’s handaway. “Not a secret sign,” he said. “A

sign to carry.”All of a sudden Melanie laughed.

“Oh,” she said, “I guess he thinks we’rea demonstration—like at the university.He’s never been trick-or-treatingbecause he was too young last year. Buthe knows about demonstrations.”

Everybody laughed, except Marshall.“We’re not a demonstration, Marshall,”Melanie explained, tugging at him to gethim moving again. “We’re trick-or-treating. Trick-or-treating is for candyand demonstrations are for things likePeace and Freedom. It’s different.”

Marshall relaxed and allowedhimself to be pulled down the street, buthe didn’t look convinced. “I’m ademonstration,” he said firmly.

When the crowd turned up Elm Streetwhere there were more good houses tovisit, the Egyptians began to drop to therear of the group where it would beeasier to get away. That meant they werethe last ones up to each home, andsometimes most of the good stuff was

already taken; but they hardly noticed.They were too busy looking for an omen.

At the last house before they turnedoff Elm Street, the Egypt gang started upthe front walk and collided with twoother trick-or-treaters who also seemedto be hanging behind the main group—amonster and a walking pile of boxes.“Hey,” the monster said, “it’s Ross andFebruary. What are you supposed tobe?”

The rubber monster mask completelycovered the speaker’s head, but thevoice was familiar; and besides, thesixth-grade boys were the only ones whocalled April, February. Then the walkingboxes said, “Hey man! It’s a whole herdof Egyptians.” He poked Marshall in the

stomach and said, “Hi there, King Tut.”“Okay, Mr. Wise-Guy Alvillar,”

Melanie said. “I know who you are.”She turned to April with an exasperatedshrug. “It’s Kamata and Alvillar.”

Ken Kamata and Toby Alvillar werejust about the most disgusting boys in thesixth grade, in a fascinating sort of way.They were best friends and alwaystogether, and everybody always votedfor them for everything and wanted to beon their team. But not April andMelanie. April and Melanie always toldeach other that Ken and Toby were justordinary (ugh) boys, and it was stupidthe way everybody treated them sospecial. April and Melanie just couldn’tfigure out what people saw in them.

Of course, Toby had a special talentfor getting people off the hook by makingthe teacher laugh. Just when Mrs.Granger was really building up a head ofsteam over something, Toby would makesome little remark and Mrs. Grangerwould start choking and have to turn herback. Sometimes she’d try to pick thingsup where she left off, but all that lostmomentum made a big difference.

Ken was sort of cute in a big bluntcocky way. He had a clean-cut all-American-Asian look about him, and hewalked with a high-school swagger.Toby was thinner, with big ears thatstuck out of his shaggy hair andenormous brown eyes that were alwaysup to something, like a pair of TV

screens turned on full blast. But rightnow you couldn’t see what either one ofthem really looked like at all.

Ken had a man’s old overcoat onover a pillow-padded hunchback, and(wouldn’t you know it) rubber monsterhands and feet, too, as well as the mask.Ken’s father sold a lot of real estate andhe could afford expensive stuff like that.Toby was the box man. He had a smallbox over his head, with a Saran Wrap-covered opening shaped like a TVscreen to look out through. The rest ofhim was covered with all sorts of otherboxes all strung together and paintedblack and covered with pasted-on adsout of papers and magazines. There wereAlka-Seltzer and Pepto-Bismol ads

pasted on his stomach box, aspirin adson his head box, and even a deodorantad under his left arm.

“Boy! Are you two in character,”April said. “A monster and a pile ofjunk.”

“I’ll have you know that I representthe New American,” Toby saidhaughtily. Then he grinned. “It was mydad’s idea. He says it’s a new art formhe just invented.”

Toby’s dad had been a graduatestudent at the university. He was also asculptor who made statues out of allkinds of junk.

“An art form!” April said. “Well, all Ican say is—”

“Don’t,” Toby interrupted. “You’d

just show off your ignorance.”“Come on, Tobe,” Ken said. “We’re

getting left behind.”“Yeah, you little kids ought to keep up

with the group better,” Toby said, as hestarted off up the sidewalk. “You’reliable to get hurt.”

“Little kids!” Melanie yelled afterhim. “Look who’s talking!”

Marshall ran after Toby and gave hima shove on the rear of his biggest box.“We’re not little kids,” he said. “We’reEgyptians.”

Toby swiveled his TV head aroundand surveyed the damage. “Hey, watchit!” he said. “You just bent my Jockeyshorts ad.”

April and Melanie didn’t believe in

encouraging Toby by laughing at him, butthat was too much. By the time theEgyptians got over their convulsions ofgiggles, Ken and Toby had disappearedaround the corner, and the lady whosewalk they were on was calling to ask ifthey wanted some candy or not.

After that Melanie suggested thatmaybe they’d better stay up with thegroup a little better or the fathers wouldnotice and start watching them. But evenwhen they were trying, it wasn’t easy tocatch up because their costumes weresuch a success. At almost every housethey had to be admired and questionedand other members of the family had tobe called to see them—particularlyElizabeth and Marshall. Everyone

thought Elizabeth and Marshall were just“darling,” and “adorable,” and they hadto be admired and fussed over before theEgyptians could take their candy andleave.

At last, at one house they had to waitwhile the man got his flash camera out totake their picture, and when they finallygot away and rushed down the stairs thebig group of trick-or-treaters hadcompletely disappeared.

There they were, all alone on thedimly lit sidewalk, and it was suddenlyvery quiet. They ran down the block tothe corner, where they could look allfour ways, but still there wasn’t a personin sight. They were still just standingthere looking around and wondering

what to do, when suddenly Melaniepointed at the horizon. “Look,” she said.“A shooting star!”

“A shooting star!” Everybodyrepeated it in whispered unison as ifthey’d been rehearsed. Then everybodylooked at April. She nodded. “Thesecret omen,” she said slowly, makingevery syllable heavy with significance.Marshall started turning around andaround, smelling the air.

Looking around one last time to besure no one was watching, the girlsgrabbed Marshall out of his tailspin andstarted down the sidewalk in thedirection that they had come. Theyscurried down two blocks withoutseeing a soul, turned the corner, and a

moment later ducked into the alley thatled to Egypt.

If the secret and mysterious land ofEgypt was fascinating in the daytime, itwas doubly so at night. Dimly lit by adistant streetlight, two flashlights, and ajack-o’-lantern, it was almost toofascinating to bear. April told everyoneto wait just inside the fence while shetiptoed forward and lit the cone ofincense on the altar of Set and the twocandles that stood before the goddessIsis. Then she motioned everyoneforward.

“The Great Ceremony of theCelebration of the Return to Egypt hasbegun!” she chanted, and all fourEgyptians prostrated themselves before

the egg crate and the birdbath.

Egypt Invaded

APRIL AND MELANIE ROSE TO THEIRKNEES FROM their deep bows before thedouble altars of Egypt. Over the heads ofElizabeth and Marshall they exchanged aglance that said, “Okay. What’s next?”Melanie reached over absently to helpMarshall with his pharaoh’s crown,which had slipped down over his eyeswhile he was touching his forehead tothe floor. Suddenly her eyes lit up withan “I have it” expression. She gave thecrown a final tug down over Marshall’sears and turned to face the altar of Set.

She raised her arms and April quicklyfollowed suit.

“The gods are angry at us for beinggone so long,” she chanted.

“The gods are angry,” April repeated.A quick glare at Elizabeth and Marshallgot them going.

“The gods are angry,” they parroted.Melanie nodded and continued with

her inspiration. “The gods demand thatwe make a sacrifice so that we may beforgiven.” She looked over at April, andApril nodded delightedly.

“The gods demand that we make ahorrible and bloody sacrifice.” Apriltook up Melanie’s theme with relish.

“A horrible and bloody sacrifice,”Melanie agreed.

“A horrible and bloody sacrifice,”Marshall and Elizabeth repeateddutifully, but Elizabeth’s voice quavereda little and Marshall leaned over andpoked his sister.

“What sort of bloody?” he demandedin a whisper.

But now April was off and away, andMelanie was following. “The gods willtell us what the sacrifice must be,” Aprilsaid. “We must approach the altar one ata time and touch the Crocodile Stone, thesacred symbol of Set. We must touch thesacred symbol of Set and wait for amessage about the sacrifice. Then wewill decide whose message is the best.”

April went first. She approached theegg crate using the correct Egyptian

walk, which was done by walking withyour shoulders sideways, arms held outfrom the body and bent sharply at thewrist. In front of the altar she boweddeeply with her head tucked between herupraised arms, and then placed herfingertips on the Crocodile Stone. Shestood for a minute with her face turnedupward. Melanie poked the other kidsand motioned for them to watch closely.

When April stalked back to themlooking wildly secretive, Melaniewalked up to the altar and followed herexample, doing exactly the same things.Then came Elizabeth’s turn and finallyMarshall’s. Then they all sat down in acircle on the floor.

As soon as everyone was seated,

Elizabeth raised her hand and shook itfrantically. She was looking excited andpleasantly surprised with herself. Shehad just had a terribly daring idea andshe couldn’t wait to tell it.

“All right, Elizabeth first,” Melaniesaid. “Okay, April?”

April nodded. “Go ahead,Neferbeth,” she said, “but put your handdown, for heaven’s sake. You’re not inschool, you’re a lady pharaoh.”

Elizabeth snatched her hand downand suggested eagerly that Set’s messagewas that they should stick their fingerswith a needle and write him a letter intheir own blood.

April and Melanie exchangedsurprised and appreciative glances, and

Elizabeth beamed proudly. She didn’tthink it was necessary to mention that herteacher had just read Tom Sawyer to theclass—and just possibly Set had had alittle help from Mark Twain.

However, there was one small detail—nobody had a needle. Elizabethlooked crushed. “Don’t feel bad, Bethy,”Melanie said. “It was a neat idea.”

“I’ll say,” April agreed. “It was aterrific idea.”

“It was a dumb idea,” Marshallmuttered. “When you stick your fingeryou get infested.”

“Infected,” Melanie corrected. “Yougo next, April.”

April made a trance-like face. “WhenI stood before the altar,” she chanted, “I

heard the voice of the Crocodile god. Hesaid the object to be sacrificed must besomething very dear to us. It must besomething we hate to part with.Otherwise it won’t count. The Crocodilegod has told me that we mustsacrifice”—she pointed dramatically—“Security!”

“NO!” Marshall shouted, jumping upand hugging Security to his chest. “NO!NO! NO!” With every shout he stampedhis foot. All three girls were around himin a moment, shushing and begging himto keep still. He shushed, but he wentover to the edge of the shed and stoodwith his back to them.

“All right, Marshall. We won’tsacrifice Security. Will we, April?”

Melanie said.April went into a quick trance with

her fingers to her forehead. “The godshave changed their minds,” sheannounced in a moment. “They say theydon’t want Security. But just don’t yelllike that anymore. Somebody will hearus, and we’ll get caught.”

“Somebody already heard us,”Marshall muttered darkly.

“What do you mean, somebodyalready heard us?” Melanie gasped. ButMarshall only shrugged and said nothingmore.

“Come on back to the circle,”Melanie coaxed. “We take it all backabout Security. Besides, it’s your turn tosay what the message was.”

Marshall allowed himself to be ledback to the circle, but his chin was stillsticking out, and he was glaring at April.He put his hand to his forehead the wayApril had done and then jerked it away.“Let’s sacrifice April,” he suggested.

That gave everybody the giggles, andfinally Marshall broke down and smiled,too. Then it was Melanie’s turn. Melaniesaid that she had read about some peoplewho cut off their fingers as sacrifices. Atthat point even April looked shocked,and Elizabeth almost fainted. ButMelanie only laughed. “I didn’t mean weshould do that,” she said. “It just gaveme an idea. We could pull out somehairs—and maybe cut off somefingernails.”

“No scissors,” Elizabeth remindedwith just a touch of satisfaction.

“We could bite them off,” Aprilsuggested. “I do it all the time.”

A few minutes later a small fire oftwisted paper was burning in the mixingbowl firepit, and the high priestesses(and junior high priest) of Egypt wereparading in a circle before the altar.They were walking in the Egyptianmanner—one shoulder forward, armsbent at the wrist—except from time totime when they had to chew off anotherfingernail. Now and then one or anotherwould approach the altar, bow and dropa scrap of humanity on the flames: a hairor two or a shred of fingernail.

It was just about the best ceremony

they’d ever had, and it was a shame toend it; but Melanie was just thinking thatperhaps it was time to leave whensuddenly she heard Elizabeth give a gaspof pure terror. Following Elizabeth’sgaze, Melanie was horrified to see ahuge misshapen figure teetering on thetop of the high board fence. The figureteetered wildly in the dim light, and thensprang forward to land in a horriblethreatening crouch, right in the middle ofEgypt.

ElizabethanDiplomacy

WHEN THE SHAPELESS INHUMAN FIGURESPRANG INTO the middle of the storageyard, the four Egyptians could onlyclutch each other in panic, too shockedfor the moment to even scream. Aprilhad just managed to get her mouth opento yell for help, when suddenly Marshallpointed and said, “Look.” A secondfigure was appearing over the top of thefence.

This second invader, who was having

some difficulty climbing over the wire atthe top of the fence, had a strangelyangular look about him. Strangelyangular—and strangely familiar. In allfour Egyptians frozen fear boiled at onceinto a choking mixture of anger andrelief. In April it overflowed instuttering sputter. “You—you d-d-dirty f-f-finks!” she yelled.

On top of the fence Toby finallymanaged to get his boxy legs free of thebarbed wire. He jumped down, losinghis TV head in the process. Then, as thefour badly shaken Egyptians turned looseof each other and tried to regain theirdignity, the monster and the box-manleaned on each other and choked withfiendish laughter.

They laughed leaning on each otherand standing up—bending over as if theywere in pain—and finally collapsed,sitting flat on the ground. Then, while thefour members of the Egypt gang stared atthem in helpless fuming anger, they justsat there, leaning against each other’sbacks, still shaking with graduallyweakening seizures.

“Man—oh—man!” Toby gaspedfinally. “I’ve got to quit laughing. Mystomach’s killing me.”

“Sheesh! Me too,” Ken said. “I’mdying.” Ken fell over backwards andjust lay there, holding his stomach andsaying “Sheesh” weakly from time totime. But Toby crossed his legs andleaned forward with his chin on one

hand and stared at the angry Egyptians.“Hey, February,” he said finally.

“How do you say panic button inEgyptian?”

April clenched her fists and took astep forward. Toby started to scrambleto his feet—he’d seen April in actionbefore. But Melanie and Elizabethgrabbed her and held her back.

“Turn loose,” April said. “I’m goingto punch him in the nose.”

“There’s no use doing that,” Melaniewhispered. “That won’t do any good.We can’t keep them from telling on us bypunching them in the nose.”

After a moment’s consideration Aprilnodded. “Okay. Turn loose. I won’tpunch them. At least not till we find out

what they’re going to do.” Sheunclenched her fists and all three girlsapproached the enemy. Left behind,Marshall sat down on the edge of thetemple floor in a good position to watcheverything that might happen. Both theboys were standing now, watching thegirls warily.

“Well,” Melanie began. “Are yougoing to tell on us, or not?”

“Tell on you?” Ken said. “Whatmakes you think we’d do a thing likethat?”

“Of course not,” Toby said. “Wedon’t go around finking on people.” Thegirls glanced at each other in surprisedrelief. “However,” Toby continued, “thisis not a matter of plain and simple

finking. Letting you Egyptians get awaywith all this secret stuff just might beconsidered—like, unpatriotic, orsomething.”

“Hey, you’re right,” Ken said.“Maybe we ought to tell the F.B.I.”

“Maybe we should. Or maybe wecould just make an official report on thewhole scene—like, for current eventstomorrow morning.” Toby stalked to themiddle of the yard in what wasobviously meant to be the Egyptianwalk. Then he faced the group, clearedhis throat, and in a phony voice he said,“ ‘What’s Happening in Egypt’—a veryofficial report by Tobias Alvillar, SecretAgent.”

Toby was pretty funny all right, but no

one laughed but Ken. April was thinkinga horrible thought. If they knew about theEgyptian walk, how much else did theyknow? Up until then she’d been thinkingthat the fence was too high to look over—and they couldn’t have seen very muchwhile they were scrambling over it. Sheran to the loose board and looked outinto the alley. When she pulled her headback in, Melanie guessed the awful truthbefore she heard it.

Taking Melanie aside, Aprilwhispered, “There are boxes piled upout there. They could have beenwatching forever! Shall I punch themnow?”

Melanie shrugged hopelessly. “Goahead if you want to. But it won’t do any

good. I think we might as well—leavethe country, or something.”

Elizabeth had followed Melanie andlistened to April’s horrible news. Nowall of a sudden she said, “I have anidea.”

Both the bigger girls lookedsurprised. Elizabeth wasn’t the kind ofperson you expect to come up with ideasin an emergency. But the situation wasdesperate, so April and Melanielistened.

When Elizabeth finished whispering,April shook her head gloomily. “It’llnever work,” she said.

“Well, we may as well try it,”Melanie said. “It can’t make things anyworse.”

The enemy watched cautiously as thegirls returned to face them. For a fewseconds April and Melanie couldn’tthink of a way to get started, and the fiveof them just stood there staring at eachother. Melanie spoke first.

“We don’t have permission to be herefrom the Professor, or our folks oranybody.”

Toby grinned. “So what else is new?”he said.

April’s fists clenched but she forcedherself to open them. “We’ll be interrible trouble if you tell on us,” shesaid in as pitiful a voice as she couldmanage. To her amazement she noticedthat the look the two boys exchangedwas just the tiniest bit confused. And

Kamata and Alvillar were two guys whoweren’t easy to confuse. Warming to hertheme, she went on, “We’ll probably getbeaten and everything.”

There was no doubt about it, theenemy had faltered for a few moments,but they managed to regroup.

“We’re crying,” Ken said. “See thetears.”

“Yeah. We’ll come to your funerals,”Toby said.

Just then Elizabeth pushed her waybetween April and Melanie. Everyonelooked at her in surprise—she’dprobably never spoken to a sixth-gradeboy before in her life, but now shelooked as if she meant to. “Please,” shesaid, in a feathery little voice. “Please

don’t tell on us, and we’ll let you play,too.”

April cringed. It was such a corny,baby thing to say. She had a crazy urge tograb Elizabeth and drag her out ofwisecrack range, before she got hurt. Butseconds passed and nobody pounced.April unsquinched her eyes. Strangelyenough, the boys were looking confusedagain. More confused than ever.Elizabeth was looking shyly hopeful,like an un-spanked puppy.

Then Ken blinked his eyes likesomeone coming to after a whack on thehead. “Come on, Tobe, let’s get out ofhere,” he said. And then, to no one inparticular, “Maybe we won’t fink on youguys. You never can tell. Maybe we justwon’t be in the mood for finking. Huh,Tobe?” But Toby only nodded absently.

Ken picked up Toby’s T.V. head andjammed it into his hands. “Come on,Tobe,” he said. “We’ve got to get backbefore my dad misses me.”

But Toby appeared to be thinking. Henodded again slowly and then walkedaround the girls to the temple. He lookedfor a moment at each altar and thenaround the yard. When he came back hiseyes had a faraway look.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. We don’t rat,and we get to join the game. Is it adeal?”

“Join the game!” Ken said. “Thisgame? Are you kidding? We could makea deal about using the yard—like for”—he paused and glanced around—“four-square or handball or something, but—”

He caught a glimpse of Toby’s face, andhis voice trailed off. Toby was lit up likea pinball machine. Ken shruggedphilosophically. “Okay,” he said. “Sowe’re Egyptians. It figures.”

From then on things happened fast.Toby made everybody take a solemnoath not to tell where they’d been, evenif they’d been missed and people startedasking questions. Then, there was a briefcrisis over getting Toby out of the yard.He wouldn’t fit through the hole in thefence with his boxes on, and the big boxthe boys had used for climbing over wastoo big and heavy to throw into the yard.He couldn’t take his costume off becausehe didn’t think he could get back into itwithout his dad’s help, and it wouldn’t

be wise to rejoin the trick-or-treat groupin pieces. Finally he lay down on theground and had everybody stomp on him,more or less gently (less, in the case ofApril, who was still mad) until theboxes were flattened enough to squeezethrough the hole. Afterwards, they triedto square him back up, but he never didlook quite the same.

As soon as they’d carried off theboxes the boys had piled up to climb on,they started off after the trick-or-treatgroup. Fortunately Ken knew the line ofmarch, and since they didn’t stop at anyhouses, it wasn’t too long until theycaught up. They even had time to collecta few more treats before it was time togo home.

But it would have taken more than afew pieces of cheap candy to consoleApril and Melanie. After they got thetwo smaller kids uncostumed and senthome, they sat on April’s bed and staredat each other gloomily.

“What are we going to do?” Aprilsaid finally. “We just can’t play theEgypt Game with those—those—boysthere.”

“I don’t see how we can, either,”Melanie said. “But what else can wedo? You know what will happen if wetry to keep them out. We can try to playit, anyway. Then, if they’re just tooawful, I guess we’ll have to give thewhole thing up.”

It was a terrible thought. For a few

minutes the two girls contemplated thepossibility in mournful silence. At last,in a more cheerful voice, Melanie said,“Well, at least we don’t have to give itup yet, thanks to Elizabeth. If she hadn’thad that idea, I’ll bet those jerks wouldhave finked on us right away, just for thefun of it.”

“Yeah,” April said wonderingly.“How about that Elizabeth! How’d alittle kid like that know how to handlethose two creeps? I’m pretty good athandling adults and people like that, butboys! Yick!”

Melanie grinned. “You know? It’ssort of like what you do in ‘non-violence.’ My mom says it’s appealing totheir better natures.”

“Better natures, phooey!” April said,wrinkling up her nose.

Moods and Maybes

THE NEXT DAY AT RECESS TOBY ALVILLARSIDLED UP to Melanie and April. Beforehe started talking, he looked aroundquickly to be sure no one who matteredwas looking. Ken and Toby didn’tbelieve in talking to girls. Of course, itwas all right to make comments at girls—particularly if they were insults—butreal conversations were out, at least inpublic places.

“When are you guys going ‘you knowwhere’ again?” he asked, sort of out ofthe corner of his mouth.

“I don’t know,” Melanie answered.“We’re not supposed to go there at all,yet. They’re still not letting us playoutside because of the murder andeverything. But my folks are weakening,I think.”

“Caroline says I can start playingoutside again as soon as Melanie can,”April said.

“Well, look. Ken and I won’t go thereuntil Friday,” Toby said. “Try to get yourfolks to spring you by then. Okay?”

April and Melanie exchangedsurprised glances. “Oh, we’re not justbeing boy-scouty,” Toby said. “My dadgot mad at me and restricted me for threedays. So I couldn’t go before anyway.”

April and Melanie tried not to giggle.

“Yeah,” Toby said. “It’s all you guys’fault, too. My dad got mad at the wayyou guys mashed up my costume.Parents!” Toby rolled up his eyes in anexasperated expression. “All I ask himfor is an idea for a Halloween costume.At first he says he’s too busy to thinkabout it. He’s an artist, and he can’teven think up a little old costume idea.Then, all of a sudden he gets thisbrainstorm and he spends a whole daymaking the costume, plus a couple ofhours putting me into it, and then he’s sohung up on the whole thing that he getsmad when I squash it a little.”

April and Melanie broke down andgiggled and, sure enough, Toby wasencouraged. “Yeah,” he said, “I just

walk in the door, see, and my dad givesme this cold look and says, ‘How manywere killed?’ I start saying what’s hetalking about, and he says in this icyvoice, ‘Well, obviously you’ve been hitby a truck and I was just wonderingabout the other casualties.’ After that hegot louder and not so funny—and it endsup I’m restricted for three days.”

Toby mugged an exaggeratedlyexasperated look again and strolled off,leaving the girls absolutely devastatedwith giggles. It was all very well havinga rule about not laughing at Toby, but itwasn’t always easy to stick to it.

That night at home Melanie broughtup the subject of playing outdoors andgot her parents started on an argument

about it. Her father’s opinion was that“we can’t keep them cooped upforever,” and fortunately he won—on thecondition that Marshall and Melaniepromise not to play alone. So it all hadto wait until the Rosses could get aroundto talking with Mrs. Hall and Mrs.Chung and get everything all decided—and by then it was already Thursday.

On Thursday afternoon the three girlspicked up Marshall at his nursery schooland hurried to Egypt. They had just oneday to spend there in peace and quietbefore the coming of the “outsiders.” Itwas a nice sunny afternoon andeverything was right where they’d left it,but somehow it was hard to keep theirminds on the Game. They were all

worrying about the next day. They werewondering if the boys really wanted toplay, or if they just wanted to tease andmake trouble. April said it wouldn’tsurprise her a bit if they showed up withhalf the boys in the sixth grade and justsmashed everything to pieces. In fact,April said she thought they might just aswell give the whole thing up and goaway and never come back.

Later Elizabeth, with worriedwrinkles in her forehead, asked Melanieif April really meant it. Were they reallygoing to give up the Egypt Game? ButMelanie told her not to worry. “Shedoesn’t mean it,” Melanie said. “She’sjust in a bad mood about something.Can’t you tell?”

And April was in a bad mood. Shehad been in a bad mood since the daybefore, when she’d gotten a letter fromHollywood. The letter was fromDorothea, and it was very cheery andchatty—and it said that Dorothea andNick had gotten married. Dorotheachatted about how happy she and Nickwere, and how she’d moved into Nick’sapartment and there really wasn’t muchroom. “Of course,” the letter said,“we’re both looking forward justawfully to the time when we can getmore settled and have a bigger place andhave you come to live with us. But in themeantime, darling, I’m sending the restof your things on up to Caroline’s as thestorage situation here is just terrible.”

There was a lot more about the bigpart that Dorothea was about to get—notthe same one as she’d written about lasttime, which hadn’t really been her typeof thing, anyway. But this new part—

April hadn’t finished the letter. Shehad torn it up into little tiny pieces andflushed it down the toilet, so shecouldn’t change her mind and paste itback together. Then she sat on thewindowsill and stared off up OrchardAvenue. She had still been sitting therewhen Caroline came in, but April hadn’tturned around.

“I got a letter from your mother today,too, dear,” Caroline had said. She putone hand very gently on April’sshoulder.

Hot tears had drowned April’s eyesand painful gulps climbed up her throat.She had hated the hand on her shoulderand she had hated Caroline because itwas all her fault. She’d been all rightuntil Caroline came in—just angry. Mad—mad—mad, but all right. And thenCaroline had to come in and make hercry.

Caroline had just stood there, andonce or twice she had made a littlesound in her throat as if she were goingto say something, but she never did.After a while the painful gulps worethemselves out and the tears runningdown April’s cheeks began to feelalmost good, soothing like warm rain.Suddenly she had felt empty and very

tired, and because she was so tired shelet her head lean over towards Carolinejust a little bit—not really touching, butalmost. They stayed that way for quite awhile and then Caroline had givenApril’s shoulder a squeeze, kissed herquickly on top of the head and gone out.

April had sat there a while longer,tasting the tears on her face with the tipof her tongue and thinking how long ithad been since she’d cried enough totaste. And thinking, too, that a kiss on topof the head was okay, and didn’t makeyou want to rub it off the way a kiss onthe cheek did. Things were better afterthat but April had gone on being in a badmood.

Melanie didn’t know about the letter,

but she knew something was wrong, andshe was worried. Friday afternoon wasgoing to be difficult enough withoutApril’s being in one of her touchymoods. But by Friday, April was in amuch better frame of mind. Melaniecould tell that she had gotten her mindoff whatever it had been that wasbothering her because she started makingcheerful plans in school about getting thebest of Ken and Toby.

That afternoon the girls and Marshallgot to the storage yard first, and theywere all sitting on the edge of the templefloor just waiting when Ken and Tobyarrived. Ken had to do a certain amountof squeezing and inhaling to get throughthe fence, but skinny Toby came through

almost as easily as the girls, now that hewasn’t wearing boxes. They didn’t saymuch at first, just “Hi,” and then the boysstarted looking around at the altars andthe things on them. The girls watchedwarily, trying to figure out just what theyhad in mind.

After a few minutes Melanie decidedthat Ken really didn’t have anything inmind at all. He looked reluctant andpuzzled and a little bit embarrassed. Shedecided that Ken was only there becauseToby was, so she started watching Toby.

It was easy to tell by looking atToby’s dark eyes that somethingimportant was going on behind them.They almost gave you the feeling thatyou could hear things inside his head

going “whirr-clank-buzz,” but for once itdidn’t seem to have anything to do withlaughter. Melanie began to get the feelingthat maybe Toby wasn’t just there totease and cut up after all.

So when Toby started askingquestions about the things on the altarsand about Set and Isis, Melanie startedgiving straight answers. At first Aprilpoked her and frowned in a way thatsaid not to give everything away, butafter a while she changed her mind andstarted answering questions, too. Sheeven took the secret scrolls out of theirhiding place in the hollow base of thestatue of Diana and showed the boys thelist of things to do for differentceremonies and the partly finished

hieroglyphic alphabet. Finally Toby leftthe shed and walked to the middle of theyard.

Ken looked relieved. “Well, I guessthat’s all there is to see,” he said toToby. “We might as well split, huh?We’ll still have time to get in the gameup at school.”

But Toby shook his head. “I don’t feellike playing basketball,” he said.“Besides, I sort of go for this Egypt stuff.Let’s hang around awhile. Okay?”

Ken shrugged. “Sheesh!” he said. “Idon’t care. But the whole scene’s prettykooky, if you ask me.”

It turned out that Toby wasn’t kidding—he really did go for the Egypt Game.He wanted to hear and see everything,

and that first afternoon he somehowmanaged to talk the girl Egyptians intodoing all their ceremonies and ritualsover for him to watch. At first they werestill a little suspicious and embarrassed,but when it became clear that he wasn’tgoing to tease they became moreenthusiastic. A couple of times he evenmade approving comments like, “Hey!Weird!” or, “Holy cow.”

Ken was pretty respectful about thewhole thing, too. He kept hitting himselfon the forehead and saying “Sheesh!” buthis tone of voice seemed to indicateamazement more than anything else.

As they were all leaving, a littlebefore 5:30, Toby asked the girls towrite down the names of some of the

best books about Egypt. He said he wasgoing to the library that evening to checksome out.

That night April and Melanie sat onMelanie’s bed and, feeling very pleasedwith things in general, they discussed thefuture. The first meeting of the enlargedEgypt gang had gone off much moresmoothly than they had expected. Theydidn’t admit it, even to each other, butthey had both been flattered by Ken’sand Toby’s respectful interest.

“And maybe, after a week or two,they’ll lose interest,” Melanie said.“Maybe they’ll play for a while and thenthey’ll get homesick for their old ballgames, and everything will be just like itused to be.”

“Yeah,” April agreed. “I’ll bet theydo. Or else, maybe they won’t evencome back at all. Maybe they were justcurious, and now that they know allabout it, they just might not bother tocome back. And I don’t think they’regoing to fink to the other kids, either. Atleast, not as long as they don’t get mad atus, or something. You know, I wouldn’tbe surprised if they just don’t show uptomorrow at all.”

Hieroglyphics

KEN AND TOBY SHOWED UP IN EGYPT THENEXT DAY, all right. They showed upright on time, overflowing with ideasand loaded down with stuff. At least,Toby was overflowing with ideas, andKen was carrying most of the stuff.

The four original Egyptians wereespecially thrilled and amazed about thestuff the boys brought for Set. It seemedthat sixth-grade boys just normally kept alot of things around that were perfect forthe altar of an evil god. Set’s altar,which had always been rather bare in

comparison to Isis’s jeweled andflowered throne, was suddenly rich withornaments. There were several lifelikerubber things—spiders, snakes and bugs.There was a real skull of a mediumsizeanimal, maybe a cat or a skunk, and awell preserved dead tarantula. Therewas a wicked-looking theatrical dagger,with a twisted blade that sank into thehandle to make fake stabbings look real.But the two best things were a shrunkenhead and a large stuffed owl.

The shrunken head wasn’t real, ofcourse, but it was an expensive rubberone that did look terribly real. It wasKen’s, and he was obviously quitepleased with himself for bringing it. Theowl was Toby’s and it was real; that is,

it had been once, but now it was stuffed.It was a little beat-up-looking, but Tobysaid that was because he’d had it eversince he was a baby. Actually, what hesaid was that his father had given it tohim to cut his teeth on when he was fivemonths old, but that might only havebeen one of Toby’s stories.

Anyway, it looked great perched on alittle shelf just above the altar of the evilgod. It sat there, in the shadows amongthe spiderwebs, and peered downbalefully over its tooth-scarred beak. Atfirst Toby suggested that it could be aservant of Set, whose duty was to carrythe message of doom to Set’s victims;but later on someone remembered Thoth,the bird-headed god of wisdom and

writing. From then on the owl wasknown as Thoth.

Besides all the other stuff, Toby hadalso brought some pencils and paper. Hesaid he’d been thinking it over, and he’ddecided the first thing they ought to dowas finish the alphabet of hieroglyphicsthe girls had started.

“Oh, is that right,” April said. “Is thatwhat you’ve decided? Whose EgyptGame do you think this is, anyway? Justbecause—”

She had a lot more things to say, butToby interrupted. “Okay, okay. Cool itfor a minute and let me finish. Let me tellyou the rest of my idea before you startcoming unglued. Then if you don’t buy it—” he shrugged—“we won’t do it.”

That seemed fair enough, so Aprilshut up, but she kept her eyes narrowedwarily as Toby explained. When theyhad the alphabet all made up, they couldmemorize it and use it to write secretmessages—at school and everyplace.They could write about things like whento meet in Egypt again, and what theythought of the teacher, and all sorts ofother private information. Then if themessages fell into enemy hands, no onewould know what it was all about.Besides that, Toby thought they shouldeach choose an Egyptian name—Marshall was already Marshamosis—and a hieroglyphic symbol that stood forthe name. That way each one could signhis messages with his symbol and that

would make the whole thing moremysterious. Toby took out a piece ofpaper all folded up into a tiny squareand spread it out on the floor of the shed.On it were some hieroglyphics and someEgyptian names that he had copied out ofbooks the night before. Everyone exceptApril immediately got down on handsand knees and began to examine thepaper eagerly and discuss possiblenames.

April was telling herself it was acrummy idea, when all of a sudden sheremembered Bastet. Bastet had alwaysseemed especially intriguing to April.She was a sort of cat goddess, and therewas a famous statue of her as a cat, withcruel mysterious eyes and earrings in her

ears. If you were to pick the name ofBastet, your symbol could be a cat’shead with earrings. “Hey,” she said,dropping down to join the group, “I’vegot a great one.”

Everybody liked April’s name andhieroglyph. In fact, Toby said it gave himan idea for a hieroglyph for himself.He’d already picked out his name. It wasgoing to be Ramose, after a famousEgyptian wise man. And since an owlwas supposed to be wise, what could bebetter than an owl’s head for a symbol?

Melanie knew right away what shewanted her name to be. She had goneonce with her parents to hear GraceBumbry sing Aïda and had beenfascinated with the tragic story of the

beautiful princess who had been acaptive in ancient Egypt. As a matter offact, she’d already thought of herself asAïda, at times, when they were playingthe Egypt Game, but she hadn’t toldanyone. A symbol to go with Aïda was abit of a problem, but finally Melaniepicked the bird hieroglyph because itstood for the letter A in the real Egyptianalphabet.

When everyone was throughchoosing, Melanie made a new scrolland added it to the secret records.

Ken had picked the name ofHoremheb because Toby said Horemhebhad been a great general and also apharaoh. He thought up his ownhieroglyph of a bloody sword. Therewasn’t anything particularly Egyptianabout it, but it did seem to go with beinga general. Elizabeth’s symbol wasApril’s idea. It was a real Egyptianhieroglyph and it meant “heart,” to gowith Nefertiti, which means “BelovedOne.” And of course Marshall’shieroglyph was the double crown ofEgypt because he was already the boy-pharaoh—and that’s what he liked to be

best.The next few meetings of the

Egyptians were taken up with finishingthe hieroglyphic alphabet andmemorizing it. Some of the letters thatthey used in their alphabet were actualEgyptian hieroglyphs, but for the soundsthat were missing in the Egyptianalphabet, as well as a few that were toodifficult to draw in their original form,they made up their own. Then, becausetheir book on Egyptian writing told howhieroglyphics were considered magicalworks of art as well as writing, andbecause they were always done in manybright colors, it was decided that somesets of colored pens were necessary. Sothe game was suspended for a couple of

afternoons while money was raised tobuy the pens. Ken and Toby mowed afew lawns, and the girls and Marshallscouted the neighborhood for emptybottles to return to the grocery store.

Just buying the pens took most ofanother afternoon because it took so longto get waited on at Schmitt’s VarietyStore. Melanie said her mother said thatthe reason Mr. Schmitt never had a clerkfor long was that he paid such lowsalaries. Except for Mr. Schmitt’scousin, a stocky redheaded young manwith blotchy freckles, there was no oneworking in the store that day but Mr.Schmitt. The cousin never waited oncustomers, but only dusted shelves andbrought stuff out from the back room; and

Mr. Schmitt, himself, never waited onkids until after all the grown-ups weretaken care of, no matter who’d beenthere longest. So the Egypt gang waitedand waited and it was all prettyfrustrating.

But the pens were worth the effort,and during the next few days Egypt wasfull of scribes practicing the ancient artof hieroglyphic writing. In a short timeall sorts of possibilities were suggestedand explored. Letters were written andexchanged and deciphered. Decorativehieroglyphic borders were added to theposter-paint pictures that alreadyadorned the walls of the temple. Secretmailing spots were picked out all aroundthe neighborhood, such as a certain

clump of weeds in an untended parkwayor the crotch of a particular plum tree. Amysterious and beautifully drawn pageof hieroglyphics got loose in the sixth-grade class at Wilson School and waspassed around and puzzled over byeveryone, including the teacher; but noone came even close to figuring it out.And of course, no one was as loudly anddramatically puzzled as the four sixth-grade members of the Egypt Game.

Later, there was a brief and bloodlesswar, a sort of battle of the scribes, whenRamose and Bastet started an argumentover whether a line of hieroglyphicsshould be written from left to right orfrom up to down. Everybody took sidesand went home mad; and for a day or

two Toby and Ken went back to playingbasketball after school.

It turned out to be a good thing really,because they were just in time to find outabout a plot. Some of the other boys hadgotten so curious about what Ken andToby had found to do after school thatwas better than basketball, that theywere getting ready to launch aninvestigation.

Toby took care of that in a hurry.Without exactly saying so, he managed tospread the rumor that he and Ken had anafter-school job—a very serious jobinvolving actual work. Toby figured thatthere was nothing less interesting to mostof the kids he knew than an after-schooljob, and he was right. After that the other

boys weren’t nearly so curious.Then when a few days had passed

and all the Egyptians had had a chance tocool off, Ken and Toby turned up inEgypt again—and the others were gladto see them. It did seem best not to talkabout hieroglyphics right away—but thatwas all right because everyone was alittle tired of them anyhow—particularlyMarshall.

It wasn’t that Marshall hadn’t takenany interest in hieroglyphic writing,because he had. As a matter of fact, hecould almost do a better job of readingand writing in Egyptian than he could inEnglish. But, since he wasn’t even inkindergarten yet, he wasn’t exactly fluentin either one. So towards the end of the

hieroglyphic period, when he’d learnedabout as much Egyptian writing as he feltready for, he hadn’t had very much to do.Most of the time he spent just watching.He had watched the other Egyptianswriting and planning and arguing, he hadwatched an ant hole in the corner of thestorage yard, and every once in a whilehe had watched the little window in oneof the walls of the land of Egypt.

Then, one day not long after Ken andToby returned to the land of Egypt, aneighbor’s cat got into the Chungs’apartment and killed Petey the parakeet—the only pet Elizabeth had everowned. Elizabeth was brokenhearted,and it was while they were trying tocheer her up that April and Melanie got

the idea for the Ceremony for the Dead.

The Ceremony for theDead

IT WAS SATURDAY AFTERNOON ANDAPRIL, MELANIE and Marshall had justcome down to get Elizabeth to join theboys in Egypt for a previously scheduledrendezvous. When Elizabeth met them atthe door with her dead pet, and tears inher eyes, it was only natural thatsomebody should think of a funeral. Andwhen April and Melanie started tossingthe idea back and forth, decorating andelaborating the way they always did, it

worked just the way it was supposed to.Elizabeth’s tears slowed up, and a dampdimple flickered in her cheek.

By the time the three girls andMarshall squeezed through the fence toEgypt, where Ken and Toby werealready waiting, a great deal of thenecessary background material wasalready beginning to take shape. PrincePete-ho-tep, son of the great QueenNeferbeth, had just fallen in a battle witha terrible monster, and his body wasbeing taken in solemn procession to thetemple of Anubis, God of the Dead.

Ken and Toby were gratifyinglyenthusiastic. In fact, Toby, who alwayshad to be right in the middle ofeverything, insisted right away that he

and Ken—Horemheb, that is—weregoing to be the high priests of Anubis.

“Now, just a minute,” April said.“Melanie and I thought up this ceremony.We get to be the high priestesses of thedead.”

“You mean Aïda—you and Aïda,”Toby corrected. Just the day before arule had been passed that membersshould be called only by their Egyptiannames while they were inside the land ofEgypt.

“Okay! Me and Aïda. Anyway it wasour idea.”

“Yeah, but I’ve just finished reading agreat book that tells all about what theydid to the mummies and everything. I’vegot some tough ideas.”

“So have I,” April said.“Queen Neferbeth ought to choose the

high priest,” Melanie said, interruptingthe exchange of glares. “After all, it’sher parakeet.”

That broke the deadlock. Elizabethdidn’t want to decide against anybody,so she put a pebble in one hand and letthem choose. Ken and Toby won and gotto be the high priests of Anubis.

The first thing Toby did as high priestwas to announce that the whole thingwas going to take a long time. In realEgyptian times, he said, the preparationof the dead and the funeral ceremonytook as much as forty days. Theirswouldn’t take that long, but maybe itwould last as much as five or six. He

said that before he could really getstarted, they were going to need a lot ofsupplies, so until he could get the thingshe neelded they might just as well go onwith the procession to the temple.

Melanie suggested that the processionneeded palm branches and flower petalsand that sort of thing; and of courseeveryone thought of the trash bin behindthe florist shop. So, a few minutes later,the entire population of Egypt wassneaking up the alley on the way to sortover the florist’s recent rejects. As soonas they returned, loaded with loot, theprocession got under way.

Marshall came first, carrying thesmoking incense burner. Next cameElizabeth, as the Queen Mother and

Chief Mourner. One of the curtain robeswas draped over her head as a veil andshe carried a big bouquet of only slightlywilted dahlias. Then came April andMelanie as the mourning populace,scattering flowers and chanting, “Weepfor Prince Pete-ho-tep—fallen in battle,”in a high mournful wail. And last of allcame the two high priests of Anubis,carrying on a flower-strewn plank thedead body of Prince Pete-ho-tep.

The procession wound its way backand forth across the storage yard severaltimes, and came to a stop in the temple.There the bier was placed on a speciallyprepared altar in the middle of the floor.At that point the ceremony had to stopfor fresh ideas. Since this was the first

Ceremony for the Dead there was norecord scroll to follow, and it wasnecessary to stop now and then fordiscussion and new suggestions.Afterwards, of course, Melanie wouldmake a record of the things that weredone—and any future Ceremony for theDead wouldn’t have to stop and start.

All the other ceremonies and riteshad been developed in the same way, butthis time there was a difference. Thiswas the first new ceremony to be madeup since the coming of the two newEgyptians, and the first real ceremonythey’d actually taken part in. April andMelanie had often wondered if they everreally would.

But they needn’t have wondered. The

boys took part, all right, and to an extentthat nobody had expected. For instance,it was Toby who suggested that theymarch around the altar, beating theirchests and sprinkling their heads withashes and wailing. That wasn’t so muchof a surprise. He’d already demonstratedthat he had lots of good ideas. It was theway he threw himself into the part thatcame as a shock to the girls. He was sodifferent from what he was at school. Atschool he was Toby the cool-catsophisticate; and now, suddenly, he wasToby, the grief-stricken ancient Egyptian.And, somehow, he gave the feeling therewere a lot of other roles he could playjust as well.

Ken was a different matter, although

he, too, did a lot better than anybodywould have expected. He was, ofcourse, absolutely perfect at beinghimself, and he was very much at homein the role. But this Egyptian businesswas something else again.

And so, while Toby staggered aroundthe altar, beating his chest with wild-eyed abandon, sprinkling real ashes—left over from Set’s sacrificial fire—inhis hair, and wailing like a wounded

electric guitar; and while, right behindhim, April and Melanie did more or lessthe same things, just about asrealistically, except they were usingimaginary ashes—because to a girl eventhe death of a pharaoh isn’t worth a dirtyhead; and while Elizabeth did everythingApril and Melanie did, only softer; andwhile even Marshall marched withsolemn assurance, thumping his chestfirmly with the hand that wasn’t holdingSecurity, and making a noise like a stuckrecording, Ken brought up the rear.

If the rest of them could do it, KenKamata could, too, and he did. But itwasn’t easy. Every time he thumped hischest or made a brief, halfhearted wail,he felt his ears get hot; and from time to

time he announced to nobody inparticular, “Sheesh! I feel like a kook.”

When 5:30 came and everyone wasleaving, Toby told the other members ofthe Egypt Game to call him up thatevening and he would assign themsomething to bring. He was going to dosome research, he said, to find outexactly what was needed to make amummy. But there was an awful lot tolearn about mummies, and even after awhole evening of study it turned out thatToby’s information wasn’t all thatcomplete. For instance, when Ken, whowas assigned to bring oil, wanted toknow what kind, Toby couldn’t exactlysay. It didn’t seem likely that the ancientEgyptians used any of the kinds Ken and

Toby knew about—crankcase, sewingmachine, polyunsaturated or bicycle.They finally settled for bicycle, becauseoil was oil, and bicycle was the onlykind that Ken owned personally.

When the Egyptians had assembledthe next after noon, bringing theirofferings of oil and spice and salt andperfume, Toby—Ramose—gave a littletalk on how to prepare a mummy. It wasa good speech, but it suffered fromfrequent interruptions because Bastetand Aïda had read the same book andhad some ideas of their own. And therewas another pause while everyone triedto comfort Queen Neferbeth, who got allupset when Ramose spoke indelicatelyabout “taking out the guts.” It turned out

that Queen Neferbeth felt so stronglyabout “cutting holes in Petey,” even if hewas dead, that it was decided todispense with that part of the procedure.

“It’ll be all right, Tobe—uh—Ramose,” Horemheb said. “He’s so littlehe can’t have enough guts to make thatmuch difference.”

Toby was disappointed, but he had toadmit that according to the book therewas another way. Poor people, whocouldn’t afford the more expensiveprocess, had been simply soaked inbrine.

So the rest of the afternoon was takenup in preparing a saltwater bath forPrince Pete-ho-tep and placing him in itwith the proper pomp. Then he was left

to soak.The appearance of the mummy-to-be

when he was removed from his brinebath, on the following afternoon, wassomething of a shock to everybody. Hiswet feathers stuck to his tiny body and hewas covered with a thick white saltyscum. When Toby lifted him gingerly outof the brine by one claw, everybody felta little queasy, and Elizabeth’s eyesbecame suspiciously liquid.

Toby glanced at her and sighedimpatiently. “Now just cool it a minute,Neferbeth,” he said. “I’ll have him allfixed up in two seconds.” He hastilypoured some fresh water over theparakeet and dried him off on the tail ofhis T-shirt, which was huge and dingy

and probably belonged to his father.When Pete-ho-tep was dry and his

feathers rearranged, he did look almostas good as new, and the mummificationprocess continued. In the next few dayshe was anointed with spices andperfume, wrapped in thin strips of oil-soaked cloth, and laid to rest with asupply of birdseed and a few of hisfavorite toys, in a smallish pyramidmade of old bricks.

It was a good week in the land ofEgypt. Melanie collected several newceremonies to add to the sacred records;Ken began to find being an ancientEgyptian a little less embarrassing; andElizabeth felt so proud of the importantpart that Petey had played, she almost

forgot how much she missed him.But as the Egypt Game became

second nature to its six participants, andthey began to feel more and more athome in the land of Egypt, they graduallybegan to forget about being cautious.Ceremonies, discussions and argumentsbegan to be carried on in normal or evenlouder than normal tones and no onestopped to worry about being overheard.Only one very small Egyptian had anidea that the land of Egypt was beingwatched, and for some reason, whichwas his own and private, he didn’tchoose to tell.

The Oracle of Thoth

STRANGE AS IT MAY SEEM, MRS.GRANGER, THE sixth-grade teacher atWilson, was responsible for the nextphase of the Egypt Game. It all grew outof the fact that an assignment the classwas reading just barely mentionedsomething called an oracle. Toby had apretty good idea of what an oracle wasbut he decided to ask Mrs. Grangerabout it, in the hopes of getting herstarted on one of her long-windedexplanations. A test was scheduled forthe end of the period, and Mrs. Granger

had been known to forget about suchthings, if you handled it just right.

So Toby asked a question aboutoracles and sure enough it worked. He’dpicked on a subject that Mrs. Grangercould really get her teeth into. She gotthat gleam in her eye and started out fullblast, and Toby settled back, feeling sureshe was good for the rest of the timeuntil recess.

But the way it turned out, the wholething sort of backfired, because by theend of the period the whole class—Tobyincluded—was as hung up on the wholeoracle bit as Mrs. Granger was. As amatter of fact, it had completely slippedToby’s mind that he’d only asked about itto head off a test. Mrs. Granger could do

that sort of thing to you, if you weren’tcareful.

During library period, which camenext, a lot of people got stuff to readabout oracles, and that afternoon therewas another discussion in class.Everyone had come up with a lot of infoabout the different kinds of oracles andhow they predicted the future in differentways—through the actions of sacredsnakes or birds or fish or even throughthe way the insides of a dead animalwere arranged when the priests cut itopen. There was even one very famousone that was run by a priestess who wentinto a kind of trance or fit, and while shewas clear off in this trance she spoutedout a lot of messages and stuff that were

supposed to come right straight from themouths of the gods. The oracles all hadspecial sacred places, caves or grottoesor specially built temples, and therewere all sorts of far-out things connectedwith them like sacred fires and mysticvapors and magical statues.

Among the stuff reported to the classwas a list of the countries that haddepended on oracles to help the rulersdecide how to run things. And one of thecountries was Egypt.

As soon as he heard it, Tobyremembered reading something about theEgyptian priests making predictions, buthe just hadn’t been thinking about theoracles in connection with the EgyptGame until that moment. He snuck a

glance in the direction of Ross andFebruary, to see if they had the sameidea, and sure enough, they had. It waseasy to tell. They were staring at eachother in that way they had. If they werewhere they could talk, Toby thought tohimself, one of them would be starting asentence and the other finishing it—as ifthey had Siamese brains, or something.Just at that moment the girls stoppedstaring at each other and turned andstared at Toby.

They were giving him that same bitwith the eyes that they used on eachother; and if he’d wanted to, Toby couldhave given it right back. He knew whatthey were saying, all right. Instead, heslowly and deliberately made his eyes

go crossed and let his mouth fall open ina “stupid-idiot” face.

The reaction was just what he’dexpected. The girls looked shocked, thenangry, and then they turned their backsand worked hard at ignoring him for therest of the period. Toby let his mind goback to his plans for the afternoon with afeeling of satisfaction. They would haveforgotten about being mad by the timeschool was out—and besides, they’dreally asked for it. He’d told those girlsbefore, Egypt was Egypt, but at schoolyou had to play it cool.

That afternoon’s two hours in Egyptturned out to be mostly a long discussionof the What and How of the EgyptianOracle. April had her mind set on the

kind of oracle that got its messages fromthe gods through a high priestess withfits. And, naturally, she was all set to bethe high priestess. She would sit on athrone before the sacred fire, surroundedby swirling mystic vapors, and peoplewho wanted predictions would writetheir question on a slip of paper anddrop it in the fire. She would go into atrance, and then she would speak withthe voice of the gods.

That was just great as far as thetrance was concerned, Toby thought. Ifanybody could throw a far-out fit, Aprilcould. And if he hadn’t cooked up such agreat idea himself, he’d have beentempted to go along with April’s versionjust to see how she’d do it. But the fact

of the matter was, he had a scheme thatwas going to make the oracle bit justabout the greatest thing that had ever hitthe land of Egypt. So, much as he hatedto do it, he set about spoiling April’splans.

“So, when they drop their questionsin the fire,” he asked, “how are yougoing to know what to answer?Particularly if you haven’t even seen thequestion?”

“You must not have been listening inclass today,” April said. “I don’t have toknow. The gods speak through the mouthof the priestess.” Sometimes it was hardto tell whether April was kidding orwhether she really believed stuff likethat.

Ken was looking at April inconsternation. “You really think the godsare . . . ” His voice faded away and for aminute he just stared at April. “Sheesh!”he said at last. “You really are crackingup this time.”

But Toby only raised an eyebrow andgave April his cool-amusement look.“Sure,” he said, “but don’t you think weought to have something else planned?Just in case the gods don’t get themessage.”

Then, while April glared at him, Tobytold everybody his idea, and naturallyeverybody thought it was the greatest.Even April, after she’d had a chance tocool off. The way Toby saw it,somebody would think up a question

they wanted answered about the future.Then they would write it on a piece ofpaper and bring the paper to the templeof the oracle. At the temple the priest—or priestess, he added graciously—would pass the paper over the sacredfire, and do whatever other stuff hecould think up. Then—and this was thegood part—he would take it to thisspecial altar they would build for Thothand put the question in his beak andleave it there overnight.

Toby jumped up and grabbed Thothdown off the shelf and dusted him off.“After all,” Toby said, “Thoth was theEgyptian god of wisdom, and this crazypriestess bit was something the Greeksthought up.”

That was a good point, and after thatthere wasn’t much more argument—except that April did say if they weregoing to be so particular, how about thefact that actually Thoth was supposed tobe an ibis and not an old chewed-upowl. But nobody paid much attention toher. They were all too busy starting in onThoth’s altar and planning the ceremonyfor Consulting the Oracle.

It was decided that they would drawstraws and the winner would get to bethe first one to ask the oracle a question.They gave the straws to Marshall to holdand everybody drew. And, just as you’dthink, the winner was Ken, the one guywho really didn’t want to win.

“Sheesh,” Ken said. “I don’t know

anything to ask. Anything I can’t find outfor myself, I don’t even want to know.”

“Now look,” Toby said. “You wonand you can’t cop out on it. That’s poorsportsmanship. Anybody can think of alittle old question about the future. I’llbet even Marshall could think up a lot ofquestions, and he’s only four years old.”

“I can think up three bags full,”Marshall said.

Nobody ever got away with callingKen a poor sportsman. His chin got thehard look it got just before he slammed ahome run, and after a minute you couldtell he’d thought of something becausehis ears got red. “Okay,” he said, “I got aquestion. Give me the paper.”

At that point, Melanie suggested that

perhaps the questions to the oracle oughtto be written in hieroglyphics, but forsome reason Toby was against it. Assoon as Ken had written his question,Toby grabbed the folded paper, and,stepping up to the new altar, he startedright in being the priest of the oracle. Bythe time a certain party realized whathad happened, she was too interested inwhat was going on to argue.

Toby pressed the slip of paper to hisforehead and walked three times aroundthe temple. Then he made Ken kneelbefore the altar of Thoth and press thepaper to Thoth’s forehead, while Tobysprinkled them both with holy waterfrom the tuna can. Next he hung the paperon one of Thoth’s long sharp toenails

and sprinkled it with more holy water.Finally he waved it back and forth in thesmoke from the incense burner, chanting,“Hear us, O Thoth, ancient and wise.Hear us and answer.”

There was no doubt about it, Tobymade a great high priest. The otherEgyptians were so caught up in hissmooth solemnity and exalted priestlyexpression that they found themselvesalmost believing—well, half-believing—that Toby was actually talking to anancient and powerful being, and thatsomething strange and supernatural wasabout to happen. So, when Toby turnedto them a moment later and thundered,“Kneel and bow low—O ancientEgyptians—before the miracle of the

oracle!” they hurried to obey.A moment later, when they lifted their

foreheads from the temple floor, thescrap of paper was hanging in Thoth’scurved beak, and Toby was backingaway from the altar, bowing at everystep.

When Toby had backed to where theothers were kneeling, he got them up andhustled them out of the temple. Out in themiddle of the storage yard, he droppedhis high-priest expression. In his normalvoice he said, “Well, I guess we mightas well cut out. If we hang around,somebody’s going to read what’s onKen’s question before tomorrow and thatwould ruin everything.”

April’s eyes flattened. “Like what for

instance?” she asked. “Just what do youhave in mind that might get ruined, Mr.Oracle?”

“Have in mind?” Toby said, givingher the wide-eyed-innocence treatment.“I don’t have anything in mind. It’s justthat I don’t want anybody else to either.At least, not until we find out what theoracle can do all by itself.”

“Wait a minute, Tobe!” Ken said,looking worried again. “You don’t meanyou think there’s a chance it might? Howabout what you said before—about thegods not getting the message and all that?Sheesh! Sometimes I think the wholebunch of you guys are going off yourrockers.”

Toby gave Ken a reassuring grin.

“Cool it,” he said. “I don’t thinkanything. At least not anything for sure. Ijust think we ought to give it a chance.Then if nothing happens, we can taketurns being the one who makes up theanswers. But what I do think is, younever can tell about a thing like this.” Helowered his voice mysteriously. “Afterall, it used to work, didn’t it? I mean allthose other oracles weren’t just kid stuff.Even kings and generals and all sorts ofother adults used to go for this oraclestuff, didn’t they? Well—”

As one person, the six Egyptiansturned and looked back into the temple-shed. The sun was very low and theshade was deep in the back of the templewhere the new altar to Thoth had been

built. The huge tattered owl seemed tobe leaning forward, staring into theincense burner; and as they watched, afinal twist of fragrant smoke curledupward like a dancing snake and seemedto wind itself around the head of Thoth.

Someone moved towards the openingin the fence, and the other five followedso quickly that it was almost as ifnobody much wanted to be the last oneout into the alley.

The Oracle Speaks

THE NEXT DAY, BY PREARRANGEMENT, ALLTHE Egyptians met in the alley andentered the land of Egypt together. Tobysaid that was necessary so no one wouldhave a chance to fool around with theoracle before everyone was there. Onceinside the yard, everyone looked atToby, but Toby looked at April.

“Okay, Bastet,” he said, “you wantedto be the oracle priestess, so today it’syour turn. You can do the Ceremony ofReturning to the Oracle for the Answer.That is, unless you don’t think you can

think up a good answer.”“I can think of answers to anything,”

April said. “But I thought you wereexpecting the oracle to do its ownanswers. Or did you change your mind?”

“Oh no,” Toby said. “I didn’t changemy mind. I just thought you ought to havesome good answers ready, just in case.So, let’s get going.”

So April took charge. To geteveryone in the mood, she got the box ofcostumes out of the shed and hadeveryone put something on, a headdressor a robe or at least some jewelry. Thenshe set the scene. “Okay,” she said,“Horemheb, the famous general, hascome on a pilgrimage to the grotto of theOracle of Thoth to ask a terribly

important question. He arrived at thegrotto a few days ago and asked hisquestion, and since then he has beenfasting in a holy cell while he waits forthe answer. You know, people who weregoing to the oracle had to preparethemselves very carefully, so theyusually shut themselves up for dayswithout any food and meditated untilthey felt very pure and sort of dizzy, andthen they were ready to go. So that’swhat you’ve been doing, Ken.”

Ken looked self-conscious, andMelanie made a funny, smothered sound.April was careful not to catch her eye.She knew that Melanie was trying not tolaugh at the idea of solid old Ken being“pure and dizzy.” April hurried on.

“The rest of us are priests andattendants of the Oracle. And I’m thehigh priestess who is the only one whocan go into the altar room where theoracle gives out the answers.”

Next, April had everyone help makesome twisted paper logs to burn in thesacred fire-bowl, and then she linedthem all up for a procession to thegrotto. Ken was in the middle in theplace of honor and April demonstratedto him how he should walk—with hishands crossed over his chest and hiseyes sort of rolled up. April herself ledthe procession; and when they had gonetwice around the yard, she linedeveryone up on the edge of the temple.Then she approached the altar alone.

First she lit the candles and theincense and the sacred fire, and put thefire-bowl on the floor in front of thealtar. On the altar, Thoth still sat with theslip of paper in his beak, exactly asthey’d left him the night before. Aprilbowed low before him and started in onan elaborate ceremony, using some of theold things they’d done before and somenew ones she’d just thought up. Shewalked around the altar backwards threetimes sprinkling holy water. She pulledout three hairs from her head anddropped them on the fire. Then she satdown cross-legged between the fire andthe altar and began to chant. Melanie satdown, too, on the edge of the templefloor and motioned for the others to do

the same.“Aie-ie-ie-ie!” April chanted, making

her voice go up and down the scale; andalong the edge of the temple, the otherEgyptians took it up. When the wailingchant was going strong, April suddenlycried, “Stop! The mighty Thoth hasheard us. The oracle has spoken!”

Very slowly and dramatically, withher eyes half closed and her facesmoothed into a dream-like calmness,April raised her arms above her headand with both hands took the messagefrom the beak of Thoth. Very, veryslowly she brought it down to eye leveland unfolded it. She read it carefully andthen turned it over and read the otherside. Her calmly regal high-priestess

expression faded and she frowned as sheread each side again. Then she stood upand stomped out of the temple. The restof the Egyptians jumped up.

“Okay,” April said. “Who’s the wiseguy?”

“Wise guy?”“What’s the matter?”“What does it say?”Everybody was talking at once.“What did you write on this paper

yesterday?” April asked Ken. “Whatwas your question?”

Ken shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know,” hesaid. “Just some dumb stuff about if Iwas going to be a star in the big leaguessome day.”

April held out the slip of paper andeverybody crowded around to look. InKen’s large neat handwriting it said:

Will I be a big league starsomeday?

“Yeah, that’s it,” Ken said. “That’swhat I wrote.”

But then April turned the paper overso the other side was visible. In a verydifferent handwriting, small and jittery,there was written:

Man is his own star, andthat soul who can be honest, isthe only perfect man

“How about that?” April asked. “Didyou write that too?”

“Me?” Ken said in amazement. “Noway! I didn’t have time to write all that.Besides, I don’t even know what itmeans.”

April and Melanie looked at eachother and nodded. It was true—it didn’t

sound like anything Ken would do. Theyturned to Toby.

“Okay, Toby,” April said. “When didyou write this?”

Toby looked disgusted. “Let’s not getridiculous,” he said. “How could I havewritten all that without anybody seeingme?”

“Well, you must have,” April said,“because I know none of the rest of usdid it.”

“Oh yeah?” Toby said. “I’ll bet youdid it yourself.”

From there on the argument began toget louder and more personal. Therewere accusations andcounteraccusations, but no one wouldadmit to writing the mysterious and

puzzling words that straggled across theback of Ken’s question. It was finallyMelanie who made peace by suggestingthat maybe they should just try the wholething again and see what happened,instead of fighting about it. “We canwatch to see that nobody writes ananswer, and then if we get anotheranswer and we know none of us wroteit . . . ” Her voice trailed off and nobodyoffered to finish the sentence for her. Itwas the kind of thought that isn’t easilyfinished.

It was April who won the strawdrawing this time, and she thought quitea while before she decided on aquestion. After she had written it on apiece of notebook paper, she showed

everyone the clean clear back of thepaper before she handed it, folded, toToby for the Ceremony of Presenting theQuestion to the Oracle. Toby presidedagain as the high priest, and hisceremony was almost exactly the sameas the day before.

That is, the things Toby did were justabout the same, but somehow the feelingwas different. Or perhaps, not so muchdifferent as more so. More spooky andsupernatural. Even though all theEgyptians were positive that somebodywas fooling and had somehow managedto write the answer to Ken’s question,there are times when being positive isn’tquite enough.

There wasn’t much light in the land of

Egypt that afternoon, which didn’t makeit all less strange. The days had beengetting shorter, of course, but it wassomething more than a gradual seasonalchange. As Toby bowed and mumbledand chanted before the altar of Thoth, hishigh-priest face looking distant andunfamiliar in the deep shadow andflickering candlelight, low black cloudswere moving in swiftly from the bay. Inthe temple it was suddenly so dark thatthe reflected candles lit Thoth’s glassystare with points of fire.

Then, just as Toby was finishing hisceremony, there was a huge shudderingthumping noise that seemed to comefrom everywhere at once. Elizabeth gavea little scream and everyone rushed out

of the temple. It wasn’t until a rain-filledblast of air swept into the land of Egypta moment later that the noise wasrecognized for what it was.

“Thunder! That was thunder!”everybody started saying to each other invoices that were giggly with relief.Somehow, without quite knowing howthey’d gotten there, they were all sixstanding in a rather tight little group inthe center of the storage yard.

“And rain! Wow!” somebody added.That was the day they found out that it

really was impossible for more than oneperson at a time to get through the hole inthe fence, no matter how hard they tried.

Where Is Security?

THE NEXT DAY ALL SIX EGYPTIANS WAITEDWITH great impatience for the end ofschool and the time to meet in the land ofEgypt. Everyone was anxious to see ifApril’s question would be answered, buttwo of the Egyptians had a specialreason of their own to be impatient.Marshall had lost his octopus, Security,and there was reason to believe that ithad been left in Egypt the night before.Marshall wanted Security back, andMelanie wanted Marshall to quitpestering her and be himself again.

The night before when everyone hadleft Egypt in such a hurry they had beentoo busy getting away from the rain—and the darkness and questionmysteriously answered—to rememberabout Security. Not even Marshall hadthought of it. And then, just as Marshalland Melanie got back to their apartment,their dad had come in early from theuniversity. He had just been promised ateaching assistantship for the springsemester, and he had been in the moodfor a celebration. He had rushedMarshall and Melanie into the car andthey had driven to the school where theirmom taught, and then they had all goneout to dinner. It was an exciting andunusual evening because until Dad got

out of school, money was scarce, andthey didn’t eat out very often. In fact, ithad been such an interesting evening thatMarshall hadn’t had time to rememberabout Security until they were home.

Melanie had been climbing into bedwhen Marshall came into her room. Theminute she had looked at him she hadknown what was wrong—either Securitywas lost, or the world was coming to anend. It had to be that serious!

Of course, Marshall had wanted to goout right then to Egypt, and Melanie hadhad a hard time convincing him that itwas impossible. It was late, they wereboth ready for bed, and outdoors the rainwas coming down in a great wet roar.Mom and Dad would never let them go

alone, and if Dad went with them, theother Egyptians would never forgivethem for giving away Egypt to a grown-up. Melanie had known that Marshallunderstood the importance of what shewas saying and that he was tryingawfully hard to believe that it was allmore important than finding Security. Hehad gone to the window and stoodlooking out at the waves of rain thatswooshed against the pane. When hecame back to Melanie’s bed his chinwas wiggling. “But—but Security willdrown if I don’t go get him,” he hadsaid.

Melanie had taken hold of hisshoulders. “Marshall honey, octopusescan’t drown. They live in water,” she

had said.Marshall had hung his head. And

finally he had sighed and said verysoftly, “But Security is another kind ofoctopus.”

Just then Melanie had thought ofsomething that helped. “You know what?I’ll bet you didn’t leave Security inEgypt at all. Now that I think about it, Idon’t remember seeing him there today.I’ll bet you left him at nursery school.I’ll bet he’s safe and sound in theplayroom at nursery school, and you canget him in the morning when you get toschool.”

Then Melanie had taken Marshallback to his bed and tucked him in. Shewasn’t at all sure that she believed

Security was at the nursery school, andshe knew that Marshall didn’t either. Butthey had both tried to believe it as hardas they could.

In the morning it had still beenpouring down rain when it was time togo to school, and Melanie’s dad hadinsisted on taking everyone to school inhis car on his way to the university—sothere had been no chance to check to seeif Security really was in the land ofEgypt. And, just as they both had feared,he had not been at the nursery school. Sothere had been nothing they could do butwait for school to be over and the timefor Egypt to come.

Fortunately, it had stopped rainingduring the day, although the sun never

came out. But when the time finallycame, and all six Egyptians squeezedback through the fence into Egypt—Security wasn’t there, either. The storageyard was wet and muddy—and bare.Inside the temple, things were damp andmessy from the wind-blown rain. Ashesand papers were blown around andsome plastic flowers had fallen off thebirdbath—but there was no sign ofSecurity anywhere.

That day Marshall wouldn’t even takepart in the ceremony. He just sat on abox against the fence and watched withbig sad eyes. Everybody tried to talk tohim and cheer him up, but he wouldn’tanswer. Looking at him, the othersremembered with a feeling of shock that

he was awfully little. He usually seemedbigger.

Somehow, no one felt veryenthusiastic about starting the ceremony,without really knowing why. It wasalmost as if they were a little bit afraidof finding out whether there was anymysterious writing on the slip of paperthat still hung, damply limp, fromThoth’s beak. But at last Melanie, whoseturn it was to be high priestess, gotthings going. She did pretty much whatApril had done the day before until shegot to the part where she took the slip ofpaper out of Thoth’s beak and read it. Onone side was April’s question, just whatMelanie had thought it would be:

When will I go home again?

And on the other side—Melanie looked up at the other

Egyptians with wide eyes, and then sheturned and looked, long and hard, atThoth. Finally she walked right out ofthe temple, threw the paper on theground, and said, “I think we just betterstop playing this awful game.”

Everyone crowded around, grabbingfor the paper and asking questions. As itwent the rounds, it left a lot of startledfaces behind it. The back of the paper,which they all knew had been clean andblank when they had left Egypt the nightbefore, was now covered with writing.In the same small wavery hand that hadanswered Ken’s question, the oracle hadwritten:

The best thing we can do isto make wherever we’re lostin Look as much like home aswe can.

Again, no one had seen the wordsbeing written. Again, what they saiddidn’t sound like anything that a kidwould make up. Something very strangewas going on. As one person the fivebiggest Egyptians turned and looked attheir temple. There on the left was thealtar to Set that they had built themselvesfrom nothing but an old egg crate, and ontop of it was the made-by-hand statue ofSet, looking a little more sunken andslimy than usual from the blowing rain ofthe night before. On the right was the

birdbath altar with the plaster head ofNefertiti, lovely and gracious in spite ofthe cracks and chips. And at the backwas the new altar to Thoth, with itscandles and incense still burning in frontof an old stuffed owl that Toby had cuthis teeth on.

It had only been a game. Of course, ithad been a very special one, moreserious and important and mysteriousthan most—and a lot more fun. And therehad been times when it had seemed tohave a mysterious sort of reality about it.But no one had believed, when you cameright down to it, that it was anythingmore than a game. At least, no one haduntil today.

“I think Ross is right,” Ken said

suddenly. “I told you guys before therewas something kooky about this wholething.” He grinned at Toby. “How aboutit, Tobe? You ready to go back tobasketball?”

Toby shrugged. “I think you guys are abunch of chickens,” he said. “Just whenthings get good and something reallyexciting starts happening, you want tocop out. What I want to know is, if youdon’t like a little excitement, why’d youstart fooling around with stuff likeEgyptian gods and ancient magic in thefirst place?”

“Look, wise guy,” April said, “it justso happens that I didn’t say I wanted tocop out. And if you’re so crazy aboutexcitement why don’t you go jump off

the bridge or something? That ought tobe exciting enough to suit you. It just sohappens that some people think there’ssuch a thing as too much excitement.”

Toby grinned at April in a way thatsaid he wasn’t looking for a fight. “I’mnot arguing,” he said. “If everyone wantsto split, it’s all right by me. Let’s justforget—”

“No!” Marshall said suddenly in aloud clear voice. It was the first thinghe’d said since he found out that Securitydefinitely wasn’t in Egypt. “No!”Marshall got up off his box and cameover to where the rest of them werestanding. His chin was up and he waslooking much more like himself. “Let’snot stop. Let’s not stop till I ask a

question. I’m going to ask aboutSecurity.”

Everybody tried to talk him out of it.April and Melanie and Elizabeth alltried because they could see how hardhe was going to take it if the oracledidn’t come through. And for somereason, Toby tried hardest of all. Hesquatted down by Marshall and talked tohim a long time about how he didn’tthink that was the kind of question thatoracles answered, but Marshall onlyshut his eyes and shook his head andsaid “NO!” And everybody knew thatMarshall never said no unless he meantit.

So Melanie wrote,

WHERE IS

SECURITY?on a piece of paper, because Marshalldidn’t do much writing yet, and Tobywent through the ceremony just as he hadthe two times before.

Marshall went home acting almost asif Security had already been found, buteveryone else went home worried.Melanie and April and Elizabeth andKen didn’t quite know whether to worrybecause the question might be answeredor because it might not be. The wholething was getting to be so weird andcreepy that they couldn’t really wish foranother answer—but at the same time,what were they going to do aboutMarshall?

But Toby was the most worried of all.

Confession andConfusion

THAT NIGHT, WHILE THE ORACLE OFTHOTH IN THE Land of Egypt struggledwith the question “Where is Security?”,Toby Alvillar struggled with hisconscience. He thought and worried andthought; and at last he broke down anddid something entirely against hisprinciples—he called up a girl. WhenApril answered, all he said was, “Look,I got to talk to you and Ross tomorrowearly. Meet you out by the parallel bars

first recess. Can’t talk now—party line.”He had it all worked out so it

wouldn’t look fishy. When recessstarted, he went whooping down the halland down the stairs with the rest of theguys who were headed for the basketballcourt, but on the way down the stairs hepretended to stumble and turn his ankle.He denied that he was badly hurt, but hemanaged to look bravely-in-pain as hestumbled over to sit out the recess on thebench near the parallel bars. The girlswere in the midst of a jump-rope fad, sothe parallel bars were pretty muchdeserted.

When April and Melanie wanderedover—and registered exaggeratedsurprise to find him there—he got right

to the point. “Look,” he said, “I was theone who wrote those answers. I was theoracle. But I don’t know whereMarshall’s old octopus is. What’re wegoing to do?”

Of course April and Melanie had alot to say. They made Toby explain howhe’d managed to steal a peek at thequestions while he was conducting theceremonies—while everybody wasbowing—and then how he’d looked upthe main words in a big book of hisdad’s, called Somebody’s FamousQuotations. Then, when he’d picked outa nice mysterious quotation, he’dsneaked back to Egypt at night with aflashlight and written it on the back ofthe paper.

“But how’d you get out of the houselike that, late at night and in the rain andeverything? Did your dad know?”

“Did my dad know?” Toby said.Girls could ask the dumbest questions attimes. “Fat chance! He never bothers mein the evenings. He’s usually workinglate in the studio or off at an art showsomewheres. It was a cinch.”

“Weren’t you scared?” Melanieasked. “Going down there all byyourself alone in the dark?”

“Well,” Toby admitted, “I wasn’texactly whistling ‘Yankee Doodle,’ ifyou know what I mean. Did you happento notice that the oracle’s handwritingwas a little bit shaky? Well, I didn’t justdo that to disguise my writing. As a

matter of fact, I was about to quit theoracle business even before the rest ofyou decided to, yesterday. That last nightwhen I went down there, there wassomebody in the alley when I was goinghome.”

The girls gasped. “Honestly? In therain and everything? Are you sure?”

“As sure as I’d want to be. In fact, fora couple of seconds he was just a fewsteps behind me. It was too dark to seehis face—but he was there, all right.”

“Ohhh! What did you do? How’d youget away?”

“How’d I get away? Look, Melanie,you ought to know how I got away.Who’s been the fastest runner in ourclass ever since second grade?”

“You,” Melanie agreed.“Right! And when I saw someone

behind me, I really cut out. I mean—jet-propelled or something.”

Toby could always manage to befunny, even about something that wasreally pretty scary. But after a while,Melanie quit laughing and said, “Butwho do you think it was? What if it wasthe man who—”

“The murderer, you mean?” Tobyinterrupted. “Yeah, I thought of that, allright. Did I ever! But after I got homeand calmed down I decided it wasprobably just some guy taking a shortcuthome through the alley. I’m not sure hetried to catch me. I didn’t wait around tofind out.”

The girls laughed some more, but thenApril sobered up enough to mention thatToby’s crimes weren’t going entirelyunnoticed—fooling everybody, and lyingabout the oracle—

“Lie to you!” Toby said. “I did not. Ididn’t lie once. I just gave the wrongimpression. There’s a difference.Besides, I should think you’d be gratefulto me for going to all that trouble just tokeep things livened up. My dad says thatlivening things up is my most outstandingtalent. But what I think is, somebody hasto do it. Or else everything would justlie there and turn to dust.”

“Okay,” Melanie said. “So you reallylivened up the oracle. You livened it upso much that Marshall thinks it’s going to

tell him where Security is. What are yougoing to do about that?”

“What am I going to do about that?”Toby said indignantly. “That’s what I gotyou out here to ask you. What are wegoing to do about Marshall?”

“Well,” April and Melanie said toeach other—only just with a look, notout loud, “wasn’t that like a boy. Theygot things into a mess and then expecteda girl to get them out of it.”

But, since Toby was admitting heneeded their help, they were willing togive it. And it didn’t take them long todecide on a plan. April would conductthe ceremony that afternoon, and shewould pretend to read something off theback of the paper. It would say that

Security had gone on a trip to visit hisrelatives in Los Angeles, and that hewould be home in a few days. Marshallwouldn’t be completely happy about it,but at least it would give them a littlemore time to look for Security, or tothink of something else.

“Then,” Melanie explained, “if wenever can find him, at least Marshallwill have a few days to get used to theidea, a little at a time. When you losesomething like Security, it helps if youcan do it sort of gradually.” And Tobyand April agreed that that was probablytrue.

Marshall was eager and happy whenthey picked him up at nursery school.Apparently, he was absolutely positive

that the oracle was going to find hisoctopus for him.

In Egypt, April got ready to be thehigh priestess again because she hadpracticed just what she was going to say.Fortunately, there wasn’t much chance ofan argument. When it came to conductingceremonies, Ken and Elizabeth weredefinitely the spectator type.

Everything was going smoothly untilApril took down the question and with adramatic flourish got ready to pretend toread. But then, instead of starting in onher speech about Los Angeles, she lether mouth drop open and nothing cameout except a strange gulping sound. Tobybounded into the temple and snatched thepaper from her hand. Then he looked at

April in a strange way and they bothwalked over to where the rest of theEgyptians were waiting.

On the back of the paper, in a fine,pointy, old-fashioned-lookinghandwriting, it said:

Look under the throneof Set

Toby read it out loud very slowly andhesitantly, as if he didn’t really believewhat he was saying; and while everyoneelse was still standing as if paralyzed,Marshall went into the temple and liftedup the piece of old bedspread thatcovered the egg-crate altar of Set. Hereached inside, felt around for a minute,and then his face lit up with a smile so

starry that for just a second the other,wiser Egyptians felt just as pleased withtheir oracle as he did. But after that theywent right back to being incredulous.

April and Melanie looked hard atToby, but he shook his head so hard hisshaggy hair stood out like an umbrella.“No sir!” he said wildly. “I didn’t. I didnot! I absolutely did not do it!”

The girls looked at each other andnodded in agreement that Toby wastelling the truth. Nobody, not even Toby,was that good an actor.

“Toby didn’t do it,” Marshall said,hugging a slightly damp octopus to hischest. “Set did it.”

“Set did what?” April asked, staringat Marshall in consternation.

“Set took Security. I left him rightthere on the ground, like I thought, and inthe nighttime Set took him.”

“Sheee—eeesh!” Ken moaned all of asudden, clapping his fist violently to hisforehead. “I knew it! I knew all you guyswere going to crack up someday if youdidn’t quit fooling around with thishocus-pocus stuff.”

“Nobody’s cracking up,” Toby saidthoughtfully, “but something pretty fishyis going on around here.”

“You’re telling me,” Ken said. “And

if somebody doesn’t start telling mewhat it is, I am going to walk right out ofhere and resign from the whole Egyptianrace!”

“I guess we better, huh?” Toby said toApril and Melanie. “I mean, telleverybody all about everything?” Thegirls nodded.

So they went ahead and told the otherthree all about what Toby had done—and what Toby hadn’t done—and whenthey were through, they all stood andlooked at the temple that they had madethemselves, out of ordinary stuff andtheir own imaginations, and felt—well,maybe a little like Dr. Frankenstein hadwhen he created the monster. They juststood there looking for a while and

wondering and then they all went home.

Fear Strikes

THE NEXT TWO OR THREE DAYS THEEGYPTIANS MET in Egypt as usual, butthey didn’t play games or consult theoracle. It was damp, drippy weather butwith no real rain, and they all just sataround on the floor of the temple in thedarkening late afternoons and talked andtalked. Toby and April wanted to try theoracle once more to see what wouldhappen, but no one else seemed veryenthusiastic. Oh, they said “okay,” butsomehow it kept getting put off. Theytalked about it—but that was all.

They talked about a lot of things,actually. Christmas wasn’t far away, andthat’s always a good topic forconversation. But there was one subjectthey kept coming back to—Security.Where had Security been? How had hegotten from wherever Marshall had lefthim to the hiding place beneath the altarof Set? And who had written themessage? There were dozens oftheories, more or less realistic,depending on the mood of the moment.

There were times when they allfavored practical theories. Some otherkids might have found out about the gameand tried to be funny. But, as time wentby, and no one burst in on them to gloatabout the successful trick, that seemed

less and less likely. Or, someone of theirown group might have been guilty, justas Toby had been at first; but no onewould confess, and there just didn’tseem to be any reasonable how and whyto support a conclusion of that sort. Thenthere was the man Toby had seen in thealley—but no one could come up with aneven slightly reasonable explanation ofwho he was and how he could haveknown about the oracle.

Of course, the subject of the murdersand the murderer came up, as it oftenstill did throughout the neighborhood. Itwas still an unsolved mystery, and aterribly real and dangerous one. Butfortunately, here again, there seemed tobe no logical reason to believe that that

mystery could have any connection withthe mystery of the oracle. Why would amurderer fool around writing messagesabout a missing toy? There seemed to beno possible answer.

At other times, when the afternoonwas almost over and disturbing shadowscrept across the storage yard, a differentkind of theory went the rounds.Somebody brought up the story of theCurse of King Tut, and pointed out thatlots of people actually believed that amysterious magic power from the daysof the pharaohs was strong enough to doterrible things to anyone who stirred itup. What if somehow, in theirceremonies and things, they’d managedto stumble on a way to do some stirring

up themselves? Things like that hadhappened. Everyone had read somethingor seen something on TV like that. Andthey all began to remember strangethings that had happened. Once whenMelanie had touched the CrocodileStone, she was sure she’d felt it moveunder her fingers. And another time,when Toby had gotten to Egypt early andalone, he’d had the strangest feeling thatsomeone was watching him.

Once they got going on that sort ofthing, they all had stories andexperiences to tell. That is, all exceptMarshall. He just sat, holding Securityon his lap and listening, and if he hadany theories about mysterious powers orhidden watchers, he kept them strictly to

himself.Then one evening there was to be a

concert at the university and the Rossesdecided to go. They were planning totake Melanie, but since Marshall had away of going to sleep at concerts, itseemed best to leave him at home. Aprilhad some homework to do anyway, andshe agreed to come down and baby-situntil the Rosses got back.

It was around 7:30 when Melaniecalled to say they were leaving andApril said she would be right down. Itwasn’t until she started to get her thingstogether that she realized her math bookwas missing. She looked all over theapartment but she couldn’t find itanywhere. At last she had to give up and

go without it.When April got to the second floor,

the Rosses were waiting for her in thehall. As soon as they saw her, theywaved good-bye and got into theelevator. Marshall was standing in thedoorway.

“Hello,” he said. “They said youwere coming to visit.” Marshall didn’tlike people to say “baby-sitter,” but hedidn’t mind having someone “visit” himwhile his folks were away. So Apriltook some time to make it a real visitbefore she started her own work. Theyplayed a game of Mousetrap, and Aprilread aloud a short book about ahippopotamus. Then Marshall went backto something he was doing with a box

and two orange juice cans, and Aprilstarted her homework.

It was just about then that she finallyremembered what had probablyhappened to her math book. Thatafternoon, in Egypt, she’d put her booksdown on the edge of the temple floor andKen had been fooling around andknocked them off. He’d sort of pickedthem up when she yelled at him, but hemust have left the math book on theground.

April sat there fuming for a fewminutes, getting madder and madder atKen. It was all his fault. For the firsttime in her life she had been gettingpretty good grades in math, and now herrecord was going to be ruined—all

because of Ken. Mrs. Granger wasterribly strict about getting assignmentsin on time. All of a sudden she jumpedup. “Marshall,” she called. “Do yourfolks have a flashlight?”

When Marshall came back with theflashlight, she told him what she had inmind.

“Aren’t you scared?” Marshall asked.Now that he’d mentioned it, April

had to admit to herself that she was. Butbeing scared and chickening out weretwo different things. Being scared to dosomething had always made April moredetermined to do it than ever. Besides, ifToby could go down there all alone atnight, so could she.

“Me? Scared?” she said. “Don’t be

ridiculous.”“Wait,” Marshall said. He went in the

bedroom and came out with his sweaterand Security.

“Now, just a minute,” April said.“You can’t go. I won’t let you.”

Marshall put his sweater on insideout, all by himself. “Don’t beridiculous,” he said.

“Your folks wouldn’t like it,” Aprilargued. “I’ll only be gone a minute.You’re going to wait right here.”

Marshall was puzzling over hisbuttons, which were on the wrong side,and he didn’t answer.

“I mean it,” April said. “Whether youlike it or not, you are only four yearsold, and I am taking care of you and you

have to do what I say. And I say that youare going to stay right here and—”

Marshall gave up on the buttons. Hepicked up Security and walked out thedoor, into the hallway. He aimed himselfdown the stairs towards where thelandlady lived. “I’ll yell,” he said.

For a few seconds April stared at himin silence. Then she said some thingsunder her breath and, because theredidn’t seem to be anything else to do,she took Marshall by the hand and theystarted out.

It was very quiet and very dark in thealley and familiar things loomed upsuddenly, huge and out of shape. Theflashlight beam, none too steady inApril’s hand, made trash bins crouch and

garbage pails lurk, and a length of hoseslither against a wall. Imagination is agreat thing in long dull hours, but it’s areal curse in a dark alley, and April’simagination had always been out of theordinary. She would have hated to admitit, but right at that moment, even a four-year-old was a little bit comforting.Especially a four-year-old who couldmarch steadfastly by a garbage can thathad suddenly developed a hunchbackand great lopsided eyes, without evenseeming to notice.

It was April’s imagination that madetrouble when they got to the fence;because if she hadn’t been imagining shewouldn’t have been so nervous. And ifshe hadn’t been so nervous, she

wouldn’t have pushed the board thewrong way. All the Egyptians alwayspushed it to the right, and it no longersqueaked when it swung that way.

But that night, probably because ofthe nervousness, April grabbed theboard and shoved it the wrong way. Andthe big crooked nails on which it swunglet out a wild rusty shriek.

April and Marshall froze into ashocked silence. In the dark quiet alleythe shriek of the nails seemedunbelievably loud. It seemed perfectlypossible that people a half-block awayhad heard it and would come running.But a half minute passed, and thenperhaps a whole minute, and nobodycame and not a sound was heard. At

least, not a sound that was loud enoughto be sure of. There was something—afaint and faraway click and then adragging shuffle—so soft as to be almostentirely lost in the distant drone of trafficand the beating of a racing heart.

Finally, biting her lip, April pushedthe board the other way and shovedMarshall through. Then she handed himthe flashlight and squeezed throughherself. Inside Egypt, April didn’t feelvery much better. Ever since theunsolved mystery of the oracle, Egypt,although still fascinating, had ceased tobe an entirely comfortable place. Shewent directly to the side of the templewhere her books had been.

“Marshall,” she whispered, “shine

the light over here. I can’t see a thing.”Marshall for some reason had turnedaround and was aiming the light in theopposite direction, on the wall of theProfessor’s store, but at her whisper heturned back. The book was right whereshe thought it would be, shoved partwayback under the temple floor. Shesnatched it up and with a hurried glanceat the temple, where the three altarswere only blobs of darkest black on ablack background, she hurried back tothe fence.

As Marshall held the light on the rightspot, April reached through, shoved theboard to the right side, and squeezed out.She was holding the board open forMarshall when, out of the darkness and

silence behind, something grabbed herwith crushing strength, and big hardfingers smothered the scream that spranginto her throat.

In one terrible moment April foundthat the shock of certain danger is almostalways a battle call. Twisting frantically,she managed to free her arms enough toreach for and grab the loose board thatformed the door to the storage yard. Sheheld on desperately and the nailsshrieked again as the board swung far toone side. For a fraction of a secondApril’s eyes, above the hand that gaggedher mouth, caught a glimpse of Marshall,still standing just inside the fenceholding the flashlight and looking backover his shoulder at the wall behind him.

“What’s wrong with him?” she thoughtfrantically. “Why doesn’t he scream forhelp?”

The board was slipping slowly fromApril’s straining fingers, and the armaround her chest was forcing the airfrom her lungs, when suddenly, frominside the storage yard, there was asplintering crash and a strange hoarseshout. “Help!” the strange voice rasped.“Help!”

A window went up with a bangsomewhere nearby, and farther awayother voices began to call questions.“What? What is it? What’s the matter?”And all the while the first strange voicewent on calling for help.

Then there were footsteps and shouts

at the mouth of the alley and suddenly thecrushing arms were gone. When therescuers arrived a moment later, theyfound April lying on the ground andMarshall squeezing out to meet themthrough the fence. No one else was there,and the only sound was the rasp ofApril’s breathing as she struggled toforce air back into her lungs.

The Hero

AFTERWARDS, GETTING TO THE POLICESTATION AND the first things thathappened there were always hazy inApril’s mind. There was a doctor whotalked to her and bandaged her handswhere she had scraped them on the roughboard. Then there were questions. Sheexplained how she and Marshallhappened to be in the alley, but the otherquestions she couldn’t answer and itfrightened her to try. “Who was he?”they kept saying. “What did he look like?Where did he go?” and April could only

say, “I don’t know. I didn’t see him. Idon’t know. I don’t know.”

They tried to make her lie down on acot but she kept wanting to get upbecause she was shaking so hard.Whenever she tried to lie still, theshaking would get worse and worse untilshe ached from trying to stop it. Then thedoctor gave her a pill, and the shakinggot a little better and things were clearerin her mind.

Suddenly she remembered aboutMarshall. “Where’s Marshall?” sheasked. “Is he all right?”

The man who had been asking themost questions was called InspectorGrant. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, buthe was a policeman. When April asked

about Marshall, he grinned. “He’s fine,”he said. “He’s right in the next roomover there.”

“He’s really all right,” April insisted.“He’s not too scared, or anything?”

“Well, he doesn’t act a bit scared,”the inspector said. “He’s sitting in thereon a desk holding a big stuffed octopusand looking as cool as a cucumber. Buthe won’t answer any questions.”

“Won’t he talk to anybody?” Aprilsaid.

“Oh, he talks to us,” Inspector Grantsaid. “He’s been asking us a lot ofquestions, in fact. He just won’t answerany. Every time we ask anything he justsays, ‘No.’ We think he might have seenmore than you did. Do you suppose he’d

answer a few questions if you ask him?”“He might,” April said. “I don’t

know.”When Marshall saw April he slid

down off the desk and came running.“Hi,” he said, giving her one of his rarestarry smiles. April hugged him hard.Then she asked what the inspector hadtold her to ask.

“Marshall, did you see the—the man—the man who grabbed me?” Saying thewords made the shaking start all overagain.

“Yes,” Marshall said. “I saw him. Itried to yell but I couldn’t. My throatwas stuck.” He looked worried, as if hewanted to be sure that April understood.

“You did fine,” April told him. “But

about the man—what did he look like?”“A man. A big man.”“Was he young or old?”Marshall thought a minute. “Old,” he

said.“What color was his hair?”“Orange.”April looked at Inspector Grant. “Ask

about his race,” the policemanprompted.

“Was he a black or a white man?”April asked.

“No,” Marshall said thoughtfully,shaking his head.

April thought he didn’t understand.She took his arm and rubbed her fingeron his skin. “Was his skin like yours orlike mine?” She held out her own arm.

“No,” Marshall said, more firmly.“He was spotted.”

“Would you know him if you saw himagain?” Inspector Grant interrupted.

Marshall only looked at him withoutanswering. The inspector gave anexasperated sigh and turned to April.“He’s not just being stubborn,” Aprilexplained. “I think he just wants to besure he isn’t telling a secret. Marshallnever tells secrets.” She turned toMarshall and repeated the question.

Marshall nodded. “Yes. I know him.”Just then there was a commotion at thedoor and Inspector Grant stood up. Aprilwasn’t sure if he heard Marshall say,“He’s that man who carries things at thestore.”

The inspector hurried to the door andApril heard him say, “The boy says he’dknow the man if he saw him.” There wasmore talk and confusion and finally aman was led into the room. It was theProfessor.

April was sure it was the Professor,but he looked quite different from hermemory of him. His hair was mussed,his face moved nervously, and the deadcalm was gone from his eyes. He lookedat Marshall, and Marshall looked at him.“Hello,” Marshall said.

The inspector took hold of April’sarm and whispered a question. Shegazed at the Professor in horror. Could ithave been? Had he really been the oneall the time? All that time while they

were playing every day in his yard.Obediently, but with a shaky voice, shetransferred the question to Marshall.

“Marshall, is that the man? Is that theone who grabbed me?”

“No,” Marshall said. “That’s the manwho watches us all the time. He waslooking out his window, like always. Hewas the one who said, ‘Help.’ ”

The Professor smiled wearily.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you—”

But now Marshall realized that theystill hadn’t understood. He shook April’sarm to get her attention and explained itall again as patiently as he could. “I toldyou!” he said. “I told you who it was. Itwas that spotted man with orange hair.The one who carries things at the toystore.”

At last April understood. “Oh-h-h,”she said. “I think he means thatredheaded man who works for Mr.Schmitt sometimes. He’s a stockboy orsomething.”

Two of the policemen hurried off, andInspector Grant led April back to theother room and told her to lie down

again and rest. This time Marshall camewith them and climbed up on a chairbeside the cot. He put Security on his lapand looked around with interest. Seeinghim there made April feel calmer.

She lay on the cot and tried to keepfrom shivering. And she tried not to thinkabout the redheaded man. Instead shethought about the Professor. “Marshall,”she said, raising up on one elbow, “didyou say the Professor’s been watchingus?”

Marshall nodded. “Out his window,”he said. “And he broke it with a stickand said, ‘Help.’ I couldn’t. My throatwas stuck.”

It gave April a funny feeling to thinkthat they’d been watched all that time, or

at least whenever the Professor felt likeit—but it was certainly a good thing he’dbeen watching tonight. It was a goodthing he “said help,” as Marshall put it.

The inspector, who was sitting at theother end of the cot, broke in as if hecould read her thoughts. “It wascertainly lucky that the old man wasthere to shout for help,” he said. “Youknow that’s the best thing to do in asituation like that. Your voice is yourbest defense.”

“But I couldn’t call,” April said,covering her face and trying not toremember so vividly the fingers acrossher mouth and throat. Inspector Grantleaned over and patted her shoulder.

“I know,” he said soothingly. “But it’s

all over now. And it all worked out justfine, didn’t it. You’re all right, andMarshall here has been a realdetective.”

“Why did they think the Professor didit?” April asked after a while.

“Well, they weren’t sure, of course,”the inspector said. “But some of theofficers thought he was a pretty goodsuspect. Living right there in theneighborhood, and he couldn’t give us analibi for the nights when the other—forthe other times. And then tonight, with ithappening right in his backyard and all.And when some of the boys went to thedoor of his store and he came runningout looking wild-eyed and excited, itseemed best to bring him in for

questioning at least. He told them thathe’d called for help from his window,but I guess they weren’t buying his storymuch, until Marshall stood up for him.”

It was then that Caroline came in. Sheran across the room and hugged April upinto her arms and held her tight. WhenApril realized that Caroline was crying,she began to cry, too. She hadn’t cried atall until then, and she really didn’t wantto, but when they both stopped crying,the tension was gone and the shaking,and she felt much better. She wassuddenly very tired and sleepy.“Grandma,” she said, “would you askthem if we can go home now? I’mterribly tired.”

To Marshall’s delight they rode home

in a police car, and they left a note on theRosses’ door because they weren’t backfrom the concert yet. It was amazing toApril to think that so little time hadpassed—it seemed like years and years.In their own apartment they made a bedfor Marshall on the couch and he wentright off to sleep as if nothing hadhappened, with his arm around Security.April went to bed, too, but it took her along time to get to sleep, and Carolinesat beside the bed until she finally did.April always hated to be fussed over,but it was sort of nice to open her eyesnow and then and see Caroline justsitting there, quietly reading a book.

Of course, the math didn’t get done;but as it turned out, it didn’t really

matter, because April stayed home fromschool the next day, and her grandmothertook the day off, too. April was feelingfine, except for the bandages on herhands and some bruises on her cheeksand ribs. In the afternoon the policecame to take her back to the station tolook at some men in the lineup. Shewasn’t much help because she reallyhadn’t seen the man at all. But Marshallhad to go, and he wanted April to come,too, and the police seemed to think thatshe might remember something thatwould be useful.

When the men came in for the lineup,there was the big stocky man with redhair and blotchy red-brown frecklesfrom Schmitt’s Variety Store, the one

who was the stockboy, and Marshallpointed to him right away. Aprilremembered that when she had seen himin the store, he had seemed quiet andshy, and in the lineup he lookedbewildered, as if he didn’t understandwhat had happened.

The next day it was all in the papers.The redheaded man had admittedeverything. There wasn’t going to be areal trial because the man was very sickmentally and was to be sent to a hospitalfor the criminally insane. He was arelative of Mr. Schmitt and he hadalways had something wrong with hismind. He couldn’t get a good job, andsometimes Mr. Schmitt let him work as astockboy in his store. He’d work for a

while and then he’d go away and dosomething else. But he always cameback again, and since he was willing towork for very little money, Mr. Schmittalways hired him again. The policehadn’t found out about him beforebecause Mr. Schmitt had always givenhim an alibi. But when the redheadedman confessed, and told all about thingshe couldn’t have known unless he wasguilty, Mr. Schmitt decided that he hadn’tbeen positive of his cousin’swhereabouts at the times of the crimes.He only thought he knew.

April’s picture was in the paper andso was Marshall’s. There was a longstory about how Marshall had saved theProfessor from being unjustly accused

and described the murderer so that thepolice were able to catch him. But Apriland Melanie were a little bit disgustedwith the way the reporter talked aboutMarshall’s description. After all, he wasspotted, in a way, and his hair was moreorange than anything else. He reallywasn’t old, as Marshall had said; but, asMelanie pointed out, when you are onlyfour yourself, almost anybody’s old bycomparison.

Anyway, Marshall was a real heroaround the neighborhood. Everyonewanted to see him and ask him questionsabout what happened. The Rosses triedto keep him home for a while becausethey said they didn’t want him getting anexaggerated notion of his own

importance. But they needn’t haveworried. Marshall took the whole thingvery calmly. In fact, being a hero didn’tseem to change him a bit except for onething.

When the photographer came to takehis picture for the paper, Marshall tookSecurity into the bedroom and put him onhis bed. He said Security didn’t want hispicture taken. After that he startedleaving Security home sometimes whenhe went places, and before too long hedidn’t need to have Security with him atall anymore, excepting to hold on to atnight when he was sleepy.

Gains and Losses

THINGS HAD SCARCELY HAD TIME TO QUIETDOWN after April’s narrow escape whenChristmas vacation arrived. The firstfew days of vacation, the members of theEgypt gang were pretty busy with familythings like shopping and trips andrelatives, but now and then some of theirpaths crossed and they stopped todiscuss things in general, and the Egyptsituation in particular. That situationdidn’t look good at all.

The day after all the excitement, Tobyhad drifted down the alley just to look

things over, and he had found the land ofEgypt boarded up. Someone hadreplaced the loose board and nailed itinto place with big, long nails, and somefresh strands of barbed wire had beenstrung around the top. The consensus ofopinion was pretty much, “That’s that!”Egypt was lost and gone forever, andthere was no use thinking about it. It wasa terrible loss.

As a matter of fact, the Egyptianshadn’t really realized until then just howgreat Egypt had been. It had been aterrific game, full of excitement andmystery and way-out imagining, but ithad been a great deal more than that. Ithad been a place to get away to—aprivate lair—a secret seclusion meant to

be shared with best friends only—a lifeunknown to grown-ups and lived by kidsalone. And now, all of a sudden, it wasgone.

But the other Egyptians didn’t blameApril and Marshall for its loss. After all,they hadn’t done it on purpose, and theway it turned out they had really done allthe kids in the neighborhood a big favor—because now that the murderer hadbeen caught everybody was beingallowed a lot more freedom. The wholeneighborhood had benefited, really.There was only Egypt to mourn.

It was a few days after the beginningof vacation that April decided to godown and pay a visit to the Professor, orDr. Huddleston, as people were

beginning to call him. The visit had beenher grandmother’s suggestion in the firstplace, but April agreed that it was agood idea. As she started downstairs,she considered stopping by for Melanie,but she decided against it. It was betterto go alone on such a personal errand.And she really did have something verypersonal to say.

But if April had imagined that itwould be easy to have a quiet personalinterview with the Professor in hislonely store, she was mistaken. Therewere two or three browsers just lookingaround; the Professor was wrappingsomething up for a customer; and overby the window Elizabeth’s mother, Mrs.Chung, was dusting some figurines and

arranging them in the display case. Thewhole store looked different—cleanerand brighter and not so cluttered. Aprilwas amazed.

For one thing, Mrs. Chung had beenworking at a cleaners over on the otherside of town, and April hadn’t heardanything about a change. But then,Elizabeth had been visiting in SanFrancisco with her cousins the last fewdays, so April wasn’t really up to dateon the Chung family news.

“Hi, Mrs. Chung,” April said. “Doyou work here now?”

“Hello, April. Yes I do. I just beganon Monday.”

It didn’t look as if the Professor wasgoing to be free very soon, so April

squatted down to look at the tiny foreign-looking statues that Mrs. Chung wasarranging very artistically on a velvetcloth.

“I think this would be a neat place towork,” April said. “I’d sure like it.”

“It’s a very interesting place towork,” Mrs. Chung said. “And it’swonderful being so close to home. Ithink I’m going to like it very much. Dr.Huddleston is planning to do sometraveling soon to look for new things tosell, and I’ll be in charge here whilehe’s gone.” Mrs. Chung smileddelightedly, and April noted that herdimples were just like Elizabeth’s.

“There sure are a lot of people inhere,” April mentioned, just to make

conversation.Mrs. Chung smiled. “I guess it’s been

that way all the time lately. Poor Dr.Huddleston’s almost worn himself outtaking care of them. Of course, some ofthem are just curious, because of all thepublicity and everything in the papers.But a lot of them are neighborhoodpeople who are feeling ashamed aboutsuspecting him when he was innocent.They come in here and buy things theydon’t even need, just to ease theirconsciences.”

April grinned. “I’ll bet the peoplewho signed that petition Mr. Schmitt sentaround buy the most of all.”

“No doubt,” Mrs. Chung said. “I’veheard that Mr. Schmitt is selling out.

This whole thing must have been veryhard on him.”

“Well, I don’t feel sorry for him,”April said. “I’ll bet he had a notion thathis cousin was the murderer but hedidn’t want to believe it. And that waswhy he was so sure it was the Professor.That’s what my grandmother says.”

“I guess that’s something we’ll neverknow,” Mrs. Chung said. She noddedtowards the Professor. “I think Dr.Huddleston is free now if you wanted tosee him.”

The Professor shook April’s hand,and he smiled ever so slightly when shesaid, “I came to say thanks a lot forsaving my life.” He looked pretty muchas April remembered him and his voice

was still gravelly and grave, but heseemed younger, somehow, and morelively.

“You’re most welcome,” he said.“But I’m not at all sure I wasresponsible. I feel sure your youngfriend would have found some othermeans to aid you if I had not beenavailable.”

“Oh, you mean Marshall?” Aprilsaid. “Yeah, isn’t he something!”

The Professor agreed that he certainlywas, and then there was anuncomfortable pause and April for oncewas at a loss for words.

At last the Professor said, “I havesomething here you might like to see.”He took down a small box and opened it

carefully on the counter. There were twoobjects in it, a flat piece of marble withdim hieroglyphics on it, and a smallhead of a glowing milky white.

“Ohhh,” April said. “That’s alabaster,isn’t it?”

“Very good,” the Professor said.“You’re quite an Egyptologist. And theother is a bit of marble facing from thewall of a tomb.”

They examined the pieces together,and the Professor told April all sorts ofinteresting things about them. He alsosaid that they had once belonged to hiswife—and that was an interesting idea initself, to think that the lonely oldProfessor had once had a wife. In thecourse of the conversation it occurred to

April that this would be a good time tomention all the things that had been leftin the land of Egypt. The six Egyptianshad thought about them many times andwondered if the Professor intended togive them back. Toby, in particular,hated to lose Thoth—he was a sort ofkeepsake. Two or three times she was onthe verge of mentioning it, but each timeshe lost her nerve. After all, they had putthe things on the Professor’s property,and maybe that meant they were his now.And you just can’t go around demandingthings of someone who’s just saved yourlife.

But, except for the fact that theProfessor didn’t offer to give back theirthings, it was a very successful visit. As

April was getting ready to go, she said,“Well, good-bye, and thanks again,Profes—I mean Dr. Huddleston. Mygrandmother says your name is Dr.Julian Huddleston. Are you really adoctor?”

“Not a medical doctor. A doctor ofphilosophy—a Ph.D. I once taught at theuniversity, but that was a long time ago.I’d be most pleased if you and yourfriends continued to call me theProfessor. I’d prefer it, in fact.”

“So do I,” April said. “Okay, good-bye, Professor. And thanks again.”

When April got back to the apartment,there was a letter waiting for her. It wasfrom her mother. It was the first letterApril had had for over a month. Of

course, Dorothea would probably havewritten if she’d known about April’snarrow escape, but she hadn’t known.For some reason, April hadn’t told her,and she’d asked Caroline not to either.When Caroline had asked April why,she’d just said, “I don’t know. What’sthe use. It’s too late now.”

But today there was a letter, and aninvitation.

Darling,Nick and I are planning on

spending three or four days inPalm Springs over Christmas.We want you to hop on a planeand fly down to us. There’ll beswimming and sunning and lots

of fun. We’ll meet you at theairport if you let us know whenand where. We’re dying to seeyou again.

Love,Dorothea

April took the letter to her room. Shesat down by the window and reread itthree times and felt around inside herselffor reactions. She found some, all right,both good and bad; but not nearly asmuch either way as she would haveexpected. Not as much happiness to beasked, and not nearly as much anger tobe asked so late and for so little. After awhile she got out some paper and wrotean answer. Then she took both letters

and went looking for Caroline. Shefound her in the kitchen sewing sequinson a Christmas stocking made of felt.Without saying anything, April put theletters down in front of her.

Dear Dorothea, (April’s lettersaid)

Thank you for inviting me toPalm Springs. It sounds likelots of fun. But Grandma and Ihave our plans all made forChristmas Eve and I have a dateto spend part of Christmas Daywith my friend, Melanie. So Iguess I can’t make it this time.

Love,April

P.S. You should see our tree.We decorated it yesterdayand it’s great.

Caroline was such a quiet person itwas hard sometimes to know what shewas thinking. But lately, April usuallythought she could tell. Right then,Caroline only smiled and said, “That’s avery nice letter, dear,” and bent her headback down over the sequins. And the suncoming in the little stained-glass sectionof the breakfast room window made hersmooth gray hair look just like apigeon’s wing.

Christmas Keys

ON THE MORNING OF CHRISTMAS EVE,CAROLINE had a telephone call from theProfessor, and afterwards she askedApril to phone all the members of theEgypt gang and ask them to come to theHalls’ for just a few minutes that nightafter dinner. “The Professor wants to seeyou,” she said. “He said he knows you’llall want to be with your families tonightand he won’t keep you long. But hewants to see all six of you for just a fewminutes.”

“What for?” April asked.

“I think he wants it to be a surprise,”Caroline said.

So April called up all the otherEgyptians and made the invitation soundjust as mysterious and intriguing as shecould. Personally, she had a suspicionthat the Professor was just going to giveback all their stuff, but as Toby said,there’s nothing like keeping thingslivened up.

After dinner Caroline made some hotspiced cider, and April arranged a plateof fancy Christmas cookies that she andCaroline had baked. Just about then theguests started to arrive. Ken and Tobycame first, looking slightly embarrassedto be visiting where a girl lived. ThenMelanie arrived with Marshall, and

Elizabeth came a few minutesafterwards. They sat around for a whiledrinking cider and listening to aChristmas carol program. Theyspeculated about what the Professor hadin mind, and had just about agreed thathe was probably bringing back all theirstuff, when he arrived—apparentlyempty-handed. So that was the end ofthat theory.

The Professor gave April his coatand said hello to everyone in his strangeformal way. Caroline got everyoneseated again and turned the music downvery low; but for a while they all just satthere feeling uncomfortable. The wholesituation was so unusual that nobodyknew quite how to act.

At last the Professor put down hiscup, looked around the room, and said,“I’ve come to tell you a story.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Aprilsaw Ken and Toby exchange raisedeyebrows. She narrowed her eyes andnailed them both with her fiercest glare.When somebody saves your life, itmakes him sort of your property, andnobody was going to make fun of theProfessor with April around, even if hewas going to treat them as if they werelittle kids.

“A Christmas story?” Marshall asked.“No—” the Professor began, but then

he paused. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose itis. I suppose it is a Christmas story, in away. But it’s a sad story—a terrible

story—too terrible for children, perhaps.And yet, I feel that it’s something the sixof you ought to know.”

April felt, rather than saw, Ken andToby prick up their ears. She gave aninternal nod of approval. He had themnow. The Professor was doing all right.

“The story begins when I was a youngman. I was really a professor then, at theuniversity. I was always a very quiet andreserved person and at that time my life,even my work, was beginning to seemrather dull and routine. But then one day,a young woman enrolled in one of myclasses and changed my entire way oflife. Her name was Anne.”

April and Melanie looked at eachother and their eyes made extravagant

comments.“Anne was an artist,” the Professor

went on. “My subject was anthropology,which, as you may know, is the study ofall the various kinds and conditions ofmankind. Anne was not particularlyinterested in anthropology, but sheenrolled in a class I was teaching onprimitive and ancient peoples because ofher interest in primitive art. Anne usedto tease me about anthropology—shesaid anthropologists were onlyinterested in people in general and sheliked people in particular—and she did,too. All kinds of people. She was at easewith everyone—lighthearted, fun-loving,enthusiastic and optimistic. There was ahopefulness about her—Well, after we

were married I began to see life in anew way.

“Anne was delighted when I decidedto travel and do research. While Istudied various tribes, she studied theirart forms and collected samples of theircrafts. And usually she managed to getinvolved in various efforts to improvethe living conditions of the people of thearea. The A–Z store was Anne’s idea, inthe beginning. Her plan was to make itan outlet for some of the nativehandicrafts from areas where we hadworked. It was on our last visit hometogether that she bought the building andmade the first arrangements.”

The Professor paused as if he wastrying to think what to say next. “On our

last trip,” he went on at last, “Anne wasvisiting a mission where she was tryingto set up a production center for nativehandicrafts. The people of the area werevery poor and she thought it wouldprovide them with a means of earning abetter living. There had been someunrest in the next province, but wethought—Well, there was an uprising, asmall local rebellion. The mission wasattacked and Anne was killed—by thevery people she was trying to help.

“I came back here. I had no desire toteach, so I sold our house and movedinto Anne’s store. I had some idea ofopening the store and operating it alongthe lines that Anne had planned, but Isoon gave it up. I gradually broke off

many of the contacts that Anne had madeand let the store become a junk shop. Ihad a small income so I didn’t have tomake the business pay, but for somereason I kept the store open.

“As the years went by, the store and Ibecame dusty junkyards, and after awhile I didn’t care.”

The Professor looked up and aroundthe circle of intent faces, and his lipsmoved in their slight smile. “And thenone day,” he said, “I heard a strangenoise in my storage yard. At first, I toldmyself I was watching to make surenothing was damaged and no fires werestarted. You know, sacred fires can bejust as dangerous as ordinary ones.Then, after the murder, when my

business dropped to almost nothing and Ihad little else to do, I watched more andmore often.”

“You mean, you watched us do theCeremony for the Dead and the oracleand all that stuff?” April asked.

“Yes, all of that.”The Egyptians exchanged sheepish

glances, and Ken hit himself on theforehead in an agony of embarrassment.“Sheesh!” he moaned.

“The oracle!” Toby said suddenly.“Hey! You didn’t have anything to dowith—”

The Professor nodded. “I’m afraid Imust plead guilty to that, too. I watchedyou leave that night and I saw theoctopus left behind in the rain. I went out

and pried open the old padlock and wentinto the yard. The wind was blowing therain into the shed quite badly and underthe altar covering seemed the driestplace. I was getting wet and was in sucha hurry that I didn’t stop to consider thatit might be hard to find. Then, as I waswatching the next day I suddenlyconceived of a plan to direct you to thelost article by way of”—he paused andhis lips moved again in his small stiffsmile—“the oracle.

“What I did then, in behalf ofSecurity, was done on the spur of themoment, and afterwards I tried not tothink about it. I think I decided to playthe part of the oracle because I feltobligated to let you know what I had

done with Security, and the oracleoffered a way to do it without any directcontact. And contact—involvement—was what I had spent years eliminatingentirely from my life.

“I had begun to suspect, however, thatone of you”—the Professor looked atMarshall—“knew that I was watching.But he was very careful in the way hewatched back. I wasn’t entirely sureuntil the night of the attempt on April’slife.

“I was reading when I heard a soundin the storage yard and, of course, I wentimmediately to the window. When I saw—when I realized what was happening,my first reaction was the natural one. Igrabbed up a block of wood—but then,

twenty-five years of self-imprisonmenttook control. I couldn’t bring myself tobreak the glass and call.

“I stood there holding the block ofwood in my hand, and then Marshallturned around and looked at me. I could

see that he knew that I was there and thathe was asking me to help. And then Ibroke the glass—”

The Professor’s voice stopped andeveryone waited until, at last, it becameclear that his story was over, eventhough it hadn’t sounded like an endingat all. For a long time no one moved ortalked. The room was very still exceptfor a boys’ choir singing “Hark theHerald Angels” very softly on the radio.

But then Marshall leaned over andpoked Melanie. “Is that the end?” hewhispered loudly.

“Shhh!” Melanie said, and nodded.“But what was the Christmas part?”

Marshall whispered even more loudly.The Professor must have heard

Marshall but he didn’t answer. Insteadhe began to feel around in his jacketpocket. There was a jingling sound, andhe brought out a handful of shiny newkeys. The keys had long chains to weararound your neck, and on the head partof each one a name was engraved. TheProfessor read off the names one by oneand handed out the keys. “Elizabeth,Toby, Melanie—”

“Is it—is it to Egypt?” Elizabethwhispered as she took her key, and at theProfessor’s nod there was a storm ofcomment.

“Hey, neat!”“Awesome!”“Thanks a lot.”“Hey, yeah, thanks.”

“Thanks a lot.”“Of course, you’ll have to enter on

the other side of the yard now,” theProfessor said. “I’ve had a new padlockput on the door—a padlock with just sixkeys—”

Caroline got up and went to thekitchen for a fresh round of cider andcookies, but everyone was too busytalking and planning to be muchinterested in food. “No, not tomorrow,”Melanie said. “Tomorrow’s Christmasand we’ll have to be home most of thetime. But the next day—”

“Yeah,” Toby agreed, “we’ll be doingthe togetherness bit at our pad tomorrow,too. My dad’s even promised to stay outof his studio all day. But the day after’s

okay by me.”So the date was made—Egypt, the

day after Christmas, right after lunch.Then everybody got up and startedgetting ready to go home. At the doorKen turned back. “Uh, Professor,” hesaid. “Are you going to—that is—areyou still going to watch us all the time?”

Everybody laughed. “No, I’m afraid Iwon’t have time,” the Professor said. “Iseem to have gotten myself involved inbeing a real storekeeper. I’m going to tryto do some importing again, handicraftsand curios. I’ll be doing quite a bit oftraveling for a while until I get my stocklined up. But perhaps, once in a whilewhen I’m home, you’ll invite me to aspecial occasion.”

“Sure,” Toby said, “that’ll be great.And thanks again for the great present. Isure wish we had something for you.”

“Yes,” some of the others chimed in.“We should have brought something foryou.”

The Professor held up his hand. “ButI thought you understood,” he said.“You’ve already made me a gift—a veryimportant one.” He smiled his strangesolemn smile and put his hand onMarshall’s head. “That’s how I shouldhave ended my story—if I could haveexplained it—with your gift to me. Thatwould have been the Christmas part.That’s what makes it a Christmas story.”

• • •

Late the next afternoon April and

Melanie lay across April’s bed andchatted. They were stuffed to contentedlaziness with Christmas dinner and theyhad been down to Melanie’s apartmentto look at her presents and then up tolook at April’s.

They had talked about Christmas andpresents until the subject was exhaustedand then they began to talk about the keysand the Professor and what he’d said theevening before.

They just lay there for a while,dreaming and digesting, and thenMelanie suddenly sat up. “I feel sad,”she said.

April made a “why?” expression.“Oh, I don’t know,” Melanie said. “It’sabout Egypt. Going back and everything.

It seems like it won’t be the same.”“Yeah,” April said. “I thought about

that, too.”“We’ll go back, thinking it will be so

terrific—and what will we do? Thesame things all over again? We’ve donejust about everything exciting aboutEgypt.”

“Yeah, and it’s just awful when yougo back to something that was so greatthe way you remembered it and it’s nogood anymore. It even ruinsremembering.”

Melanie nodded tragically and theyboth collapsed again. They lay there,staring into the future gloomily for awhile, their chins on their hands. ThenApril turned towards Melanie, slowly

and thoughtfully.“Melanie,” she said, “what do you

know about Gypsies?”

Turn the pagefor your first glimpse of

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

CHAPTERI

is birth certificate, if he evenhad one, probably just said WillyBaggett, but for most of the seventhgrade he’d been signing his schoolpapers William S. Baggett.

William S. Baggett

But that, too, would change as soonas he made his move. No more Baggett

then—and good riddance.Actually, he’d started thinking about

running away almost seven years ago.That was when he’d started going toschool and began to learn, among otherthings, that not everybody behaved likeBaggetts. And not very long after that hebegan putting every penny he could gethis hands on into what he thought of ashis Getaway Fund. Well, not quite everypenny. He did spend a dime, now andthen, on a Saturday matinee at the RoxieTheater. Watching how your favoritemovie actors could make you believethey were all those different people wasone thing he’d never been able to dowithout.

In spite of an occasional movie, his

secret stash had grown pretty fast whilethe Baggetts still lived in the city, wherethere were lots of lawns to mow andflower gardens to water and weed. Andeven after they had to get out of town,he’d managed to add a few coins nowand then by doing odd jobs at school—carrying stuff for teachers, and moppingup on rainy days for Mr. Jenkins, thejanitor.

He’d made other plans andpreparations too. Besides saving hisearnings, he began to keep a long,narrow knapsack beside his bed, and allhis most important belongings right therewithin arm’s reach, ready to push into it.And then, someday, he would take hisGetaway Fund out of its supersecret,

hard-to-reach hiding place, sling hisknapsack over his shoulder, and simplywalk away. And that would be that.

But what then? Where would he runto? Over the years he’d changed hismind a lot, but just recently he’d comeup with some interesting possibilities.Like, how about Hollywood? OrBroadway in New York City? Or evenbetter, Stratford-upon-Avon. Okay, notlikely. But, “We are such stuff as dreamsare made on.” Right?

He never told anyone, of course. Noteven Jancy, at least not until after she’dpretty much guessed. But the little bitJancy knew didn’t worry him that much.His sister would never do anything toruin his future career. He was sure of

that. Well, he had been sure anyway,until the day her guinea pig got flusheddown the toilet, which not only messedup the plumbing, but apparently changedeverything.

Sweetie Pie had been Jancy’s petever since her fourth-grade teacher gottired of a health class experiment thatinvolved feeding some guinea pigs fruitsand vegetables, and some others nothingbut candy and cookies. Sweetie Pie hadbeen one of the stunted sweet-stuff pigs,and she never quite made it to normalguinea pig size. Not even after Jancywent to the trouble to clear off a stretchof cluttered, weed-grown land to plant avegetable garden. She did manage togrow a little bit of healthy stuff for

Sweetie Pie, and she would have growna lot more if Gary and the twins hadn’tdecided to use her garden plot as oneend of their football field.

Even though Sweetie Pie never gotmuch bigger, she was, according toJancy, the smartest, cutest guinea pig thatever lived. But then came the first ofAugust, 1938, and Sweetie Pie’s storycame to a sad end.

William found out about it soon afterit happened, when he overheard thetwins snickering outside the bathroomdoor. What he heard them saying washow they’d managed to “get rid of thatstinkin’ rat, and let Buddy take the rap.”

William wanted to pound on the doorand yell at them—not that that would

have accomplished anything, exceptgetting himself beaten to a pulp. Besidesbeing extra big for fourteen-year-olds,Al and Andy were extra vicious. SoWilliam bit his lip and went looking forJancy.

For a while he couldn’t find heranywhere. Not in the room she sharedwith Trixie and Buddy, and notanywhere else in the big old wreck of ahouse. Not hiding behind any of thejunkyard furniture in what might oncehave been a pretty nice living room, orout on the halfway collapsed veranda,either. But then, as he was checking theback hall, there she was, walking towardher room with her mop of hair hiding herface as usual. But when she saw him, she

put her finger in her ear—their secretsignal that asked for a talk in theirprivate hideout.

Okay, fine. No amount of talk wasgoing to do poor Sweetie Pie any goodat that point, but William knew howJancy must be feeling, and if talkingwould help, he was ready to listen.Ready and willing, even though it meantmaking a feverish (hay feverish, that is)trip to the barn—the huge, saggy, roofedbuilding that sat about fifty yards fromthe condemned farmhouse where theBaggetts had been hanging out ever sincethey got more or less kicked out ofdowntown Crownfield.

Nowadays the barn was a kind ofjunkyard where all the Baggetts who

were old enough to drive—not tomention the ones who drove even thoughthey weren’t old enough—had stashedthe body parts of a whole lot of dead hotrods, pickup trucks, and motorcycles.Down there on the ground floor thescene was nothing but rusty carcasses,but up above the car cemetery there wasa secret place that nobody seemed toknow about except William and Jancy. Adeserted area that must have been ahayloft back in the days when the hugeold building had been a cow barninstead of a car dump.

So a moldy hayloft had become theirfavorite place to have a really privateconversation, in spite of what it alwaysdid to William’s hay fever. He didn’t

mind that much about the hay fever thing.Being forced to choose between beingteased and tormented or having hay feverwasn’t nearly the worst thing aboutbeing at the bottom of the Baggettpecking order.

On the plus side, the loft was fairlyhandy. All it took was a well-timedscamper across the cluttered yard to thebarn door. And then a careful zigzagaround and over fractured fenders andrusty radiators until you got to a narrowladder that led up to a place where youcould scrunch down behind a big pile ofmoldy hay and be fairly sure none of thebigger Baggetts would show up.

Up behind the haystack, in betweenWilliam’s sneezing and sniffing fits, he

and Jancy had now and then managed tocome up with the kind of plans that werenecessary in order to survive ascomparatively small and defenselessBaggetts. Plans like how to discourageGary from throwing your books off thebus on the way to school, or where tohide your most precious possessionswhere Al and Andy couldn’t get at them.So it was up there in the hayloft thatWilliam was waiting when Jancy’s curlyhead and red, weepy eyes appeared overthe edge of the loft floor.

The weepy eyes were no surprise.But what he certainly hadn’t foreseenwas how the conversation began. Thevery first words out of Jancy’s mouthwere, “Look here, William, I know

you’re getting ready to run away. Youare, aren’t you?”

Puzzled, William shrugged. “Well,yeah, I guess so. Sooner or later. Why?”

He was still wondering what hisplans for the future had to do with thesad fate of Sweetie Pie, when Jancycleared that up by explaining that shehad decided that what happened toSweetie Pie was the last straw.

“I’m just plain finished with being aBaggett,” she told William fiercely. “SoI’m going to run away too, as soon asever I can.”

William was shocked. “What are youtalking about?” he said. “You’re onlyeleven years old. A little kid like youcan’t just take off all by yourself.”

Jancy threw up her hands. “Listen tome, William,” she said. “I didn’t meanall by myself. I said too. Like, with you.And it has to be real soon. Like maybetomorrow. Don’t you get it?”

William got it, but he didn’t like it.However, he knew from experience thatwhen Jancy really made her mind upabout certain kinds of things that waspretty much it—not much use to argue.But he kept trying.

“But the problem is,” he insisted,“I’m not ready yet. Look at me, Jancy.I’m just a kid.” He shrugged andscrewed up his face in the kind oflopsided smile that an actor uses toshow he’s joking—mostly joking,anyway. “Well okay, a supersmart and

talented person, maybe, but still just atwelve-year-old kid.” He was kidding,but not entirely. He was pretty smart, allright. No Baggett, not even the ones whoput him down as a smart aleck andteacher’s pet, could deny that.

And as for talented? Well, accordingto Miss Scott . . . But that was anotherstory. The only story he had to come upwith right now was one that would keepJancy from running away. At least for afew more years.

“The kind of help you’d need for asuccessful getaway,” he told her, “issomebody with a lot more than justsmarts. Like, what you’re going to needis some big, musclebound type guy.”

Trying for a laugh—Jancy usually

liked comedy—he stuck out his skinnychest and flexed invisible muscles.

No laugh. Jancy listened, squintyeyed and silent. He sighed. Even thoughshe’d known about his running-awayplan for a long time, she also knew, orshould have, that he’d always seen it assomething that was going to happen inthe fairly distant future. And now,suddenly, it was like right this minute?

Things were moving way too fast. Itwasn’t more than an hour since theSweetie Pie tragedy, and now Jancy wasjumping the gun by announcing that she’dnever been cut out to be a Baggett, andshe was going to prove it by runningaway.

“Okay. Running away to where?”

William asked. “Where you planning togo?”

Jancy raised her head and jutted hersmall pointed chin. “To Gold Beach,”she said firmly. “I’m going to go to GoldBeach to live with our aunt Fiona.”

William shook his head doubtfully. “Iwouldn’t count on it,” he said. FionaHardison, their mother’s sister, was aschoolteacher who lived in a little townon the northern California coast. Awoman whom William and Jancy hadmet only once, right after their motherdied, and that was four long years ago.“What makes you think Aunt Fionawould let you live with her?” Williamasked.

“Oh, she will,” Jancy said. “She’ll be

so happy to get Trixie and Buddy back,she’ll be glad to have you and me, too.”

And that was how Jancy finally gotaround to mentioning an important minordetail. Not only would William andJancy be running away together—theywere going to be taking Trixie andBuddy with them.

CHAPTER2

nder the circumstances,Jancy’s decision to give up on being aBaggett wasn’t all that surprising. Afterall, she’d probably loved poor oldSweetie Pie more than any Baggett,except possibly William himself—andthe two little kids, of course.

That was another thing about Jancy.She’d liked little things, the littler thebetter. Not that William, who was

actually a year and a half older and acouple of inches taller than she was,could play that role very well. Hewasn’t really little, but according topopular opinion (Baggett opinionanyway), pretty much of a wimp. Somaybe that’s what made the differencewith Jancy. William was aware that littleand cute was way out ahead where Jancywas concerned, but skinny and wimpymight come in a close second.

That day in the hayloft, William’sarguments got even more frantic afterJancy mentioned that her escape planincluded Trixie and Buddy. “HolyToledo, Jancy,” he said, when she letthat minor detail slip out. “You can’t beserious. And tell you right now that I am

very serious about not helping commit adouble kidnapping. You know what theydo to kidnappers when they catch them.Like that guy who stole the Lindberghbaby. Zap!” He did an exaggeratedquivering, stiff-limbed impression of anelectric chair victim. Still no smile. Heshrugged. “Anyway, I mean it. Count meout.”

“But you told me—,” Jancy wasbeginning when he interrupted.

“Okay, so I did say I was going toclear out, and I meant it. But I meantlater. Like when I’m practically an adult.Like fourteen or fifteen. Not now, when Iwon’t even be thirteen till next month.And as for you getting those two littlekids all the way to Gold Beach? No

way. Doing it all by yourself? I mean,look at you.”

She did, and William did too. Thereshe was, barely eleven years old, andsmall for her age. And at the moment—itwas a blazing hot day—wearing one ofBabe’s outgrown sundresses. On Babe,who was fifteen, the dress had looked—well, kind of sexy, in a not very classyway. But on Jancy’s skinny little stick ofa body, it only made her look like thewrong end of a hard winter.

With the hay fever kicking in prettybadly, William had to stop to sneezeseveral times before he went on. “So I’msupposed to believe that what I’mlooking at right this minute is adangerous kidnapper who’s going to nab

two little kids and get them all the wayto Gold Beach without getting caught?More than a hundred miles from here?And even if you managed to get that farbefore the police caught up with you,what makes you think Aunt Fiona wouldlet you stay? She didn’t even answer thelast time you wrote to her.”

“I know,” Jancy said. “But she didwrite me two letters that were all abouthow awful bad she felt when Big Edtook Buddy and Trixie away. Like howshe’d had them and loved them for twoyears and would have kept them foreverif Big Ed hadn’t showed up all of asudden to take them back.”

“Yeah, I know,” William said. “Iremember.” What he knew, and would

never forget, was that right after Buddywas born, their mother, Laura HardisonBaggett, died. Died very suddenly,leaving behind newborn Buddy and two-year-old Trixie to be taken care of byBig Ed and a bunch of Baggett teenagers.William had been eight years old at thetime, and he remembered that final sceneall too well. Especially when he wastrying not to.

Back then Big Ed had been glad to letAunt Fiona take Buddy and Trixie awayto live with her. Let them go probablybecause there was no longer any Baggettleft alive who was willing and able tochange diapers. William had beenwilling to try, and he’d said so, butnobody would listen to him. So the two

youngest Baggetts went to live with theirmother’s sister, who kept them for twoyears before Big Ed decided to takethem back.

That happened right after he’dmarried Gertie, his third wife. What BigEd told the welfare people was that hetook the two little kids back becauseGertie wanted to be a mother to them. Asfar as William could see, Gertie wasn’t,and never had been, the least bitinterested in being a mother to anyone.The way William figured, it was a lotmore likely that President Roosevelt’snew welfare plan had something to dowith Big Ed’s decision to have all hiskids under the same roof. The New Dealplan that gave really poor families a

certain amount of money for each of theirchildren.

“Aunt Fiona probably didn’t answeryour letter,” William told Jancy,“because she was sure that if she gotthem back, Big Ed would just show upand grab them away again.”

“I know.” Jancy hung her head so thata bunch of her thick, streaky-blond hairswung down, hiding her small face.Jancy got teased about her hair—gotcalled Mop Head and Rabbit Tail andeven worse names. Actually, Williamthought her curly hair was her bestfeature, at least when it was clean andcombed, which wasn’t all that often.He’d told her so before, but now he saidnothing at all, and after a while she said,

“I know” again, in a faint weepy voice.“But I am leaving, for absolute sure andcertain, and I just can’t leave the poorlittle things here all alone.”

“Humph!” William snorted. “Allalone? Not hardly. Even with you gone,and maybe me too, that still leaves—let’s see.” He pretended to count on hisfingers. “Seven”—he stopped to sneeze—“that leaves eight big Baggetts, if youcount Gertie.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Jancy said. “That’sexactly why I can’t leave Trixie andBuddy here.”

William got her point, and he couldn’thelp but agree, but just then anotherthought hit him. “I don’t get it. What Idon’t get is why you’d want to bother

with them. Well, Trixie maybe.” Hecould sort of understand that. Trixie waskind of hard to resist. “But Buddy? Imean, wasn’t he the one who flushed thetoilet?”

Her face still hidden by her hair,Jancy nodded. “I know,” she kind ofgasped. And when she went on, hervoice sounded wobbly. “But it wasn’this fault. Not really. Al, or else it wasAndy—Buddy never can tell them apart—told him that a toilet is just the rightsize for a guinea pig bathtub, and whenyou flush, it’s just like a guinea pigwashing machine. It was that crummytwin’s fault. I know it was awful dumbof Buddy to believe him, but he’s onlyfour years old. And who’s going to tell

him what else to not believe after both ofus leave?”

William could tell she was crying bythe sound of her voice, even though aheavy hunk of hair was hiding her face.“Crying won’t do any good,” he said.

But of course it did. After a fewminutes of listening to her sobs andwatching her skinny little shouldersshaking and quivering, he sighed andsaid, “Okay, okay.I’ll think about it.”And he meant it, even though it didn’ttake much thought to figure out that onereason, even the main reason, that Jancywanted him to run away too was becauseshe knew about—

“Oh thank you, thank you, William.”Jancy interrupted his suspicious

musings. And then her special talent formind reading—at least where Williamwas concerned—kicked in. “And it’s noteither because of your money,” she said.“All that money in your running-awaypiggy bank.”

William’s snort was even louder.“My Getaway Fund is not in a piggybank,” he said.

“Well, whatever you keep it in,”Jancy said quickly. “It’s not because ofyour money. It’s because you don’tbelong here either. You’re not like therest of them. You’re not nearly as mean,and ever so much smarter and . . . ”

William didn’t have to listen to knowthe rest of what Jancy had to say. He’dheard her say it before when she wanted

to get something out of him. But he alsofelt pretty sure that she said it becauseshe knew it was true—at least the partabout being smarter. But he still had astrong suspicion that his running-awaymoney had a lot to do with it.

He shrugged. “Well, okay then, maybeI’m in. So what are your plans? I meanlike when—and how?”

“When?” Jancy’s smile, still tear wet,was wide and beaming. “Well, as soonas ever I can. Tomorrow or else the nextday, for sure.” She nodded again, sohard her curly mop bounced up anddown. “Not a minute later.”

“Ookaaay,” William drawled theword out slowly. “But then comes how.How are you going to do it?”

“Well,” Jancy’s big eyes rolledthoughtfully. “I guess I’ll just . . . ” Hervoice trailed off to a whisper and thencame slowly back. “Well, I’ll just packup all their clothes”—long pause—“andsomething to eat on the way, andthen . . . ”

“Yeah,” William prompted. “Andthen?”

Jancy’s bony little face widened intoa wobbly smile. “And then you’ll decidewhat to do. You will, won’t you,William?”

William shoved to the back of hismind a lot of troublesome unansweredquestions concerning such things as howand when, and the even more serious oneabout what Aunt Fiona’s reaction might

be to their unannounced arrival. Hesneezed again, wiped his nose on hissleeve, sighed, and said, “Yeah. Well,sort of looks like I’ll have to.”

is the author of The EgyptGame, The Headless Cupid,and The Witches of Worm, allNewbery Honor Books, andmost recently, The Treasures ofWeatherby, The Bronze Pen,and William S. and the GreatEscape. She was nominated foran Edgar Award for her bookThe Unseen, which was aSchool Library Journal BestBook and a Parents’ ChoiceSilver Honor winner. Zilphalives in Mill Valley, California.Visit her at zksnyder.com.

ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNGREADERS

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Also byZILPHA KEATLEY SNYDER

And Condors Danced

Black and Blue Magic

Blair’s Nightmare

The Bronze Pen

Cat Running

The Changeling

The Famous Stanley Kidnapping Case

Fool’s Gold

The Ghosts of Rathburn Park

Gib and the Gray Ghost

Gib Rides Home

The Gypsy Game

The Headless Cupid

Janie’s Private Eyes

Libby on Wednesday

The Magic Nation Thing

The Runaways

Season of Ponies

Song of the Gargoyle

Squeak Saves the Day

The Treasures of Weatherby

The Trespassers

The Truth About Stone Hollow

The Unseen

The Velvet Room

The Witches of Worm

This book is a work of fiction. Any referencesto historical events, real people, or real localesare used fictitiously. Other names, characters,places, and incidents are the product of theauthor’s imagination, and any resemblance toactual events or locales or persons, living ordead, is entirely coincidental.

ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNGREADERSAn imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’sPublishing Division1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY10020www.SimonandSchuster.comCopyright © 1967 by Zilpha Keatley SnyderCopyright renewed © 1995 by Zilpha KeatleySnyderJacket design by Michael McCartney

Jacket illustrations copyright © 2009 by DavidFranklandAll rights reserved, including the right ofreproduction in whole or in part in any form.First Atheneum Books for Young Readerspaperback edition July 2009CIP data for the hardcover edition of this bookis available from the Library of Congress.ISBN 978-1-4169-9051-2ISBN 978-1-4391-3202-9 (eBook)

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