Take the Mummy and Run

by Mary Amato

  I found the beetle in the grass and held it out to Goliath, along with the box of raisins. “As long as you have raisins handy, you’ll be okay.”

  “Who needs a stinking bug,” he said, and ran.

  Let me tell you, watching a bully run away is as beautiful as finding bugs under rocks.

  Amelia hopped up, grinned, pulled a handkerchief out of her backpack, and wiped the blood off her hands.

  Now it was our turn to be speechless.

  She pulled a package out of her pocket. “Fake blood capsules. Just slap your hands together and it oozes blood. You should always carry one around—you never know when you’re going to need it.”

  We agreed that Orville’s pocket was a good place to carry the scarab. “I’ve got plenty of cracker crumbs in there if it gets hungry,” Orville said.

  “Let’s name it Scary the Scarab,” I suggested.

  “Excellent idea,” Amelia replied. “Are we ready for an adventure?”

  “Bingo bug-go!” Orville said.

  THREE

  Toot, Toot, Tootsies

  Here is a question for you. How clean are your toes? Ours are the cleanest toes on the entire planet.

  You may be wondering why I am talking about toes. Well, you’ll find out soon if you just keep reading.

  After our successful scarab expedition, we ran into our house to plot our next move.

  “We have everything we need,” Amelia said, “so let’s get cracking.”

  “Where do we go to find a lost mummy?” Orville asked. “Egypt?”

  “Too expensive. Not enough time,” Amelia answered.

  “How about a cemetery?” I suggested.

  “Brilliant!” Amelia exclaimed.

  Getting a compliment from your own brother is nice. But when a new cousin notices your brilliance, it makes you feel good all the way down to your clean—or dirty—toes.

  We were just about to go find a cemetery when Mom stopped us. “Just the kids I was looking for,” she said. “I’m going to take you to the history museum. There’s an exhibit on—”

  “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I cried.

  “But there is a fascinating exhibit on—”

  “Mom!” Orville pleaded. “We don’t have time. If we spend all day at a museum we’ll never have time to . . .”

  “To what?”

  I elbowed Orville. He couldn’t tell her our mission. (Riot Brother Rule #2: Do not tell anyone your true mission.)

  Mom was waiting for an answer. “Orville, if we go to the museum, what won’t you have time to do?”

  Some people get ideas from their brains. Orville gets his from his feet. He looked at his feet and said, “We won’t have time to scrub our toes, of course! We were looking forward to spending a long time on it.”

  “You want to scrub your toes?” Mom looked doubtful.

  Orville nodded and stuck one foot in the air. “We put on our running shoes before washing our feet, which was a big mistake.”

  You’re probably wondering what I was thinking. Well, I was thinking that poor Orville had come up with a clunker. No way would our mom believe that we were planning to scrub our feet.

  But before Mom could say anything, Amelia jumped in. “It was my idea. Our feet really are in need of freshening up, which is why it’s so great that I brought my homemade foot scrub.” She pulled a jar of green goop out of her backpack. “It contains peppermint, green tea, thyme, and Dead Sea salt. My mom and I make it ourselves. It exfoliates and invigorates.”

  Mom laughed. “Wow. I thought I’d heard everything. Well, I guess you better go wash your feet, then.”

  We couldn’t believe it! We were off the hook.

  But then she stopped us. “After you scrub your feet, you can put your shoes back on, and then we’ll go to the museum. Clean feet and a field trip.” Mom grinned. “What a way to kick off the summer.”

  We marched into the bathroom.

  “I never thought I’d spend time on the second day of fun and freedom washing my feet,” I admitted.

  “Sorry,” Orville said. “It was the first thing that popped into my head.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Foot scrubs are fun!” Amelia chimed in.

  I looked at Orville, and Orville looked at me. Sometimes one brother can tell what another brother is thinking. Orville could probably tell that I was thinking, Hmmm, maybe, just maybe, our cousin Amelia doesn’t always have the best ideas, after all. As for Orville . . . he was probably thinking about candy.

  Anyway, we took off our shoes and got our feet wet, then she put a dollop of her foot scrub onto each foot. It was goopy and gritty, but it smelled so minty and delicious I was a little nervous that Orville would try to eat it.

  “Rub and scrub, boys!” Amelia said. “Nothing like clean feet.”

  We rubbed and scrubbed the goop into our feet and toes.

  “Wow!” Orville cried. “My feet love this stuff!”

  I could feel the ingredients sinking into my skin cells and exfoliating with vigor. It didn’t feel just good. It felt fabulous.

  Orville starting scrubbing his toes with a toothbrush and singing,

  We laughed.

  Mom came in. “Orville! It’s disgusting to use your toothbrush for that.”

  “I’m not using my toothbrush,” he said. “I’m using yours. And my little piggies love it!”

  Mom made Orville’s little piggies march over to his little piggy bank. He had to give her his own money to buy a new toothbrush.

  “Oh well,” he said. “It was worth it. Our feet have never looked, smelled, or felt so good.”

  We washed off the goop, and I looked down at my gleaming toes. “I got to hand it to you, Amelia. You can even make foot washing fun.”

  Amelia wiggled her tootsies and took a bow.

  “Unfortunately, we will have to put our mission on hold while we go to that museum.”

  Amelia put the foot goop back in her pack. “I was just thinking that a history museum might be the perfect place to find a lost mummy. Maybe there’s a basement in the museum or a storage closet that no one has looked in for a long time. We could—”

  A rustling noise and a thunk came through the open bathroom window.

  Thankfully my reflexes are extremely quick. I ran to the window and peered through the blind.

  “Someone was spying on us!” I exclaimed.

  “How can you tell?” Amelia asked, peering out the window. “Did you see somebody?”

  “No, but look!” I pointed to our recycling bin, which had been turned over and put directly under the bathroom window. “The spy used our bin to stand on so that he or she could listen in through the open window.”

  “Why would someone be spying on us?” Orville asked.

  Amelia frowned. “No doubt it is another explorer who wants to find the lost mummy before we do and take all the credit.”

  “Either that,” Orville said, “or it’s somebody who likes to hear me sing about my toes.”

  “Come on,” I said. “We’re going to be the ones to find a lost mummy, or we aren’t the Riot Brothers. Let’s get to that museum before the spy does.”

  FOUR

  I Want My Mummy

  “MOM!” Orville yelled. “Let’s get rolling!”

  “Wow,” Mom said. “I didn’t think you were that eager to go.”

  “We are!” Orville said. “We can’t wait. If we don’t go this minute we’re going to explo—”

  I nudged Orville. Sometimes he can go just a bit too far.

  The phone rang. “Well, let me get that,” Mom said. “And then we can go.”

  While our mom answered the phone, we ran to the front door and stopped dead in our tracks. An envelope was sitting by the door. Someone had pushed it through our mail slot while we were busy washing our feet.

  “Looks like the mail came,” Orville said, picking it up.

  “But the mail already came today,” I said.

  Orville flipped it over so we could see the writing on
the front.

  It was addressed to Amelia E. Hart!

  Amelia gasped. “Who would be sending me a letter?”

  “Open it and we’ll find out,” I suggested. “But be careful in case we have to dust it for fingerprints later.”

  Carefully, Amelia opened the envelope. “Look,” she said. “It’s a word scramble.”

  Fifteen squares of paper were in the envelope, each with one letter of the alphabet printed on it.

  “I think it’s a riddle,” Amelia said. “We’re supposed to put the letters together to form words to solve it.”

  “It must be a message from the spy,” I said.

  “Either that or from somebody who likes to play word games,” Orville said.

  We spread the letters out and stared at them.

  Let me just take a moment here to say how thrilling it is to get a secret riddle through your mail slot when you are on a mission of epic proportions. If the message was from a spy who wanted to beat us to a lost mummy, I had to admit that I liked his style.

  “I see a word,” Amelia said. “Look.” She took five of the letters and formed the word GHOUL.

  A shiver ran up my spine.

  I moved the letters around until a cool five-letter word popped out. “Sooty!” I exclaimed.

  “Excellent adjective!” Amelia said.

  “Okay,” Orville said. “It’s my turn to make a word. Nobody say anything.” He stared at the letters and then he jumped up. “I got one!” He pulled one letter out of the pile and set it down. “A!”

  “It may be little, but it’s still a word,” I said. “So we have a sooty ghoul so far.”

  We stared at the remaining four letters. Amelia moved them into place. “Live. A sooty live ghoul!”

  “Or . . .” I rearranged the first four letters. “Evil. A sooty evil ghoul!”

  “What does it mean?” Orville asked.

  “I think it means we’re on to something big,” Amelia said. “There is probably a filthy evil ghoul guarding the lost mummy. The spy whose mission is to get there first probably wants to scare us off with this message.”

  Orville rubbed his hands together. “This is going to be good.”

  Mom walked in. “Now I’m ready to go,” she said.

  “So let’s step on it,” Orville said.

  Mom laughed.

  Unfortunately we never got the money to actually manufacture our one-of-a-kind Riot Brother Carpeted Carjet, which is a car that turns into a jet and has very plushy carpeting. So we had to drive to the museum the regular way. Fortunately, it’s not a long drive.

  Before we could sing all the way down from “100 Jars of Foot Scrub on the Wall,” we were pulling into the parking lot. A big banner across the museum entrance read, EXPEDITION TO EGYPT: SECRETS OF THE TOMBS!

  We were stunned by our good luck.

  “Wow, Mom,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell us it was an ancient Egypt exhibit?”

  She shrugged. “I tried.”

  Guys dressed up like pharaohs were showing us where to park, and the people taking the tickets were dressed up like Egyptian gods and goddesses.

  “Look, there’s Queen Nefertiti!” Amelia exclaimed.

  This museum knew how to do it.

  We went inside. There was another exhibit on Rome, which Mom made us roam through first. Finally, we got to the Egyptian exhibit.

  The first room was filled with all sorts of cool objects. Orville pointed to a jar with a lid shaped like the head of a jackal. “That would make a cool cookie jar.”

  “That’s a canopic jar,” Amelia said. “It was used to store a dead person’s stomach.”

  Orville’s eyes popped out. “If we ever go to Egypt, let’s pack our own snacks. Okay, Wilbur?”

  “Check this out.” I pointed to a whole case full of scarabs made out of gems.

  Orville whispered into his pocket, “Hey, Scary, you’re famous!”

  “Wilbur,” Mom asked, “why is Orville talking to his pocket?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?” I asked. And then I told my pocket to be quiet and pay attention.

  Amelia pulled our arms and whispered with great excitement, “Look!”

  We did what any Riot Brother would do. We looked without looking as if we were looking.

  What did we see?

  “Let’s go!” Orville said.

  FIVE

  Stares and Stairs

  Mom was busy reading every little sign in every little room. We told her that we wanted to go ahead in the exhibit, and she agreed to meet us in the mummy room in fifteen minutes.

  “Let’s take a quick look at the mummy room and then head to the basement and see if we can discover a lost mummy of our own,” Amelia suggested.

  The mummy room was darker than the other rooms and much spookier, even though it was crowded. Coffins shaped like people were standing up all around; and in a big glass case was a horrible-looking thing badly wrapped in the dirtiest blankets I’d ever seen.

  “Man, this guy could use some foot scrub,” Orville said.

  “She’s a real mummy, Orville,” I said.

  Amelia added, “She’s been dug up, so of course she’s filthy!”

  “How do you know it’s a she?” Orville asked.

  Amelia and I pointed to the sign: MUMMY, FEMALE.

  Orville started dancing. “We found a filthy lost mummy!”

  I put my older and wiser hand on his shoulder. “Don’t get excited, O-bro.”

  Amelia nodded. “We haven’t succeeded because this mummy isn’t lost.”

  “Get lost,” Orville whispered to the mummy.

  The mummy didn’t say anything back.

  We tried to stare at the mummy, but if you’ve ever seen a real mummy, you know it isn’t easy. Mummies aren’t exactly pretty to look at. Their faces are all sunken and disgusting.

  Orville shivered. “Why do we want to find a lost mummy, anyway?”

  “I know what you mean, Orville,” I said. “But according to Riot Brother Rule Number Five, we can’t change our mission in the middle of the day.”

  We were about to leave when something strange happened.

  Have you ever had the feeling that you were being watched? Orville and Amelia and I all got it at the exact same time.

  Of course we were being watched by a security guard, who was dressed like King Tut. (Okay, his hat was a little nicer than ours.) But it wasn’t that. Someone else had his eyes on us.

  “I think the spy is here,” Amelia whispered.

  At that very moment, I glimpsed a dark shape slipping out the exit. “Did you see that?” I pointed.

  The three of us stood for a moment, feeling the electricity of excitement snap between us. Nothing like being spied on to put a little zing in your mission!

  “He might have heard us mention the basement,” Amelia whispered. “Let’s get there before he does.”

  Quickly, we walked through the exhibit to the elevators, which were busy. I noticed a sign on a door that said STAIRS. We stared at it. No doubt they led to a dark and spooky place.

  “Let’s go as quietly as possible,” Amelia said. “He might be waiting for us around any corner. Is Scary ready if we need him to ward off evil?”

  Orville peered into his pocket. “Check!”

  “You go first, Orville,” Amelia said.

  “That’s okay. Wilbur can go first,” Orville said.

  I sighed. “All right. We’ll all go at the same time.”

  It took us a while to squeeze through the door all at the same time, but we made it.

  The stairwell was empty and dim. We began to tiptoe down the stairs, aware that we had never been in more danger.

  Well . . . this seems like a fine place to stop for a chapter break! See you later!

  SIX

  Even Mummies Need a Break

  Welcome back! Where were we? Ah, walking down the stairwell.

  At the bottom of the stairwell was a door. Cautiously we opened it. The door led to a dim hallway
, as quiet as a cemetery, with three doors. Holding our breath with excitement, we tried the first. Locked. We tried the second. Locked. We tried the third. Locked.

  We had reached a dead end, which you’d think would be a good place to find a lost mummy. . . . Get it? Dead end. But it wasn’t.

  The only other objects were a vending machine and several big garbage cans in the hallway. Of course we checked the vending machine.

  We were about to go back upstairs when we heard someone coming down the stairs toward us. Our hearts began to pound again. Quickly we hid behind the garbage cans and waited.

  I don’t know what Amelia and Orville were thinking, but my mind kept drifting back to the vision of that mummy with the sunken eyes.

  Orville must have been thinking along the same lines, because he whispered, with closed eyes, “Tell me if it’s a lost mummy. I can’t look!”

  The door from the stairwell opened just slightly. Would it be a member of the living dead, smelling like rotting flesh, walking in to claim us as zombie victims and drag us to the underworld?

  Amelia lifted her camera.

  A strange odor drifted in through the cracked door. It wasn’t exactly rotting flesh. It was more like . . . aftershave.

  In walked Goliath Hyke!

  I almost fell over. I nudged Orville, who opened his eyes and almost fell over, too.

  For a bully, he looked strange. First of all, he was wearing a very nice shirt, the stiff kind that buttons up. Who in their right mind would wear that kind of shirt on summer vacation? Second of all, he had on sandals. I had never seen him wear sandals. And his feet were extremely clean. To top it all off, he smelled like he had poured a bottle of his dad’s aftershave all over his head.

  He looked around, and then he turned and walked back to the stairwell. We listened until his footsteps were gone.

  “The spy is Goliath Hyke!” I exclaimed.