The Mummy's Curse

by Penny Warner

  Wouldn’t it be awesome to uncover a forgery? Cody thought. But if this expert hadn’t found one in his own museum yet, she and the other Code Busters probably wouldn’t either. Oh, well. She’d stick to cracking codes for now.

  Melissa from Cody’s class raised her hand. “Why do people copy the paintings? Why don’t they just buy them if they like them?”

  Dr. Jordan smiled at the girl. “Mainly because the originals cost too much. That’s why some art lovers settle for a fake and pretend it’s real. Other times, forgers pass off the fakes as real and sell them for a lot of money. And sometimes they even switch the real ones for the fake ones, thinking no one will ever discover the truth. Forgers can make a lot of money by copying and selling their work to art galleries, museums, and private collectors. Believe it or not, one forger even tried to create a fake mummy!”

  The room filled with whispers. Cody shivered.

  “What about the Mummy’s Curse?” Matt the Brat called out without raising his hand.

  While Ms. Stad shot Matt a look, Dr. Jordan grinned at him. Cody had a feeling he got that question a lot.

  Before he could answer, Ms. Cassatt stepped forward, holding her Eye of Horus pendant in her hand. “I think we better get back to the topic—”

  Dr. Jordan turned to her. “It’s okay, Mirabel. Mummies are fascinating, and there are a lot of superstitions associated with them.” He returned his attention to the students. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there’s no such thing as a Mummy’s Curse. Only in the movies. That rumor started when an archaeologist named Howard Carter discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun—King Tut—back in 1922. It was quite an exciting find. Imagine entering an Egyptian tomb filled with treasures that were hidden for over three thousand years!”

  Cody heard mumbling from her classmates.

  “What happened?” asked Lauren.

  “Well, after the tomb was opened, they found not only gold and treasure but walls inscribed with curses. They were probably written to scare away tomb robbers, but the writing promised that desecraters would die by snakebite, scorpions, or crocodiles. As a matter of fact, several people who were at the opening did die in the next ten years. But it was mostly of natural causes.”

  Ryan raised his hand. “I heard there were deadly gases in the tombs and that’s why everyone died.”

  Dr. Jordan shook his head. “While it’s true that some of the ancient mummies carried mold, scientists say there were no deadly gases and the mold wasn’t dangerous. But I’ll admit, I do love movies where the mummies come back to life. They give me chills!”

  “Why can’t we go in the tunnel and see the mummy?” Matt shouted out.

  Ms. Cassatt stepped forward. “I’m sorry, but that exhibit is … undergoing maintenance.” Cody noticed she looked uncomfortable answering the question. “It … could be dangerous.”

  “But that’s what I really want to see,” Matt argued. “It’s supposed to be like a real pyramid in there. And I heard the mummy is awesome, all decayed and stuff.”

  Dr. Jordan took over for Ms. Cassatt, who suddenly seemed tongue-tied. “The truth is, they found vermin in there—rats—so Ms. Cassatt has called in exterminators to treat the problem. You wouldn’t want to run into one of those nasty little creatures in that dark tunnel, would you?” He grinned. It seemed as if he enjoyed giving the students a little thrill.

  “Dr. Jordan,” Ms. Cassatt said, “I don’t think the students need to know all of that.”

  Dr. Jordan rubbed the tattoo on the back of his neck, as if Ms. Cassatt had suddenly given him a pain there.

  Matt the Brat spoke again without being called on. “What does your tattoo say?”

  “Matthew!” Ms. Stad snapped at the boy, but again Dr. Jordan grinned. He didn’t seem to mind being asked a personal question.

  “You noticed, eh? These are hieroglyphs that spell out a word. I understand you students have been studying the hieroglyphic symbols.”

  They nodded.

  “Good. So, does anyone know what my tattoo says?”

  Cody and several others raised their hands. Dr. Jordan called on Cody.

  “Sphinx?” she said.

  “Correct! Do you know what a sphinx is?”

  “It’s that big statue in Egypt that looks like a lion with a human head,” Cody said. “There’s a picture of it on your shirt.”

  Dr. Jordan pulled open his lab coat to show the students his T-shirt. “You noticed that, too. Very good. Yes, the Great Sphinx of Giza, also known as ‘the Terrifying One,’ is the largest monolithic statue in the world. It was probably built around 2500 BC. Unfortunately, even with all that we’ve learned about Egyptian history, we still don’t know much more about the Sphinx—why it was built, what it means. It’s quite a mixture of science, art, and mystery. You’ve heard of the Mummy’s Curse, so I assume you’ve also heard the Riddle of the Sphinx?”

  The students shook their heads.

  “Ah, well. Some say the Sphinx guarded the entrance to the city of Thebes,” Dr. Jordan explained. “Travelers who wanted to go inside were asked a riddle before entering.”

  “What was the riddle?” M.E. asked.

  Ms. Stand shot her a warning look, and M.E. blushed.

  “You want to try to solve it, eh?” Dr. Jordan grinned. “Well, here it is: Which creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening? But I must warn you. If you can’t answer the riddle, the Sphinx will devour you!”

  The kids laughed.

  “Does anyone know the answer?” he asked.

  Matt the Brat’s hand shot up. “A Tyrannosaurus rex?”

  Dr. Jordan shook his head. Cody rolled her eyes. Ms. Stad grimaced.

  “A lizard,” said another kid. “ ’Cause it has four legs, and then it can lose two legs, but then maybe it only grows back one …” The boy drifted off, lost in his own answer.

  “Nope,” said Dr. Jordan. “Give up?”

  The students nodded.

  “It’s man—or woman. First man crawls on four legs as a baby, then he walks on two feet as an adult, and finally he uses a cane when he gets old.”

  The kids groaned.

  “That was hard! I would never have guessed that,” M.E. said.

  Dr. Jordan raised a dark eyebrow. “Then I’m afraid, young lady, you’d have been devoured.”

  The class burst into laughter. When the roar died down, Dr. Jordan turned back to Cody. “As for the tattoo, I chose the word sphinx because it’s a mysterious riddle, much like ancient Egyptian artifacts still are. And much like art continues to be.”

  “I think we’re about out of time,” Ms. Cassatt said. “We need to let Dr. Jordan get back to his work.”

  “All right, students in my class,” Mr. Pike said. “Did you find the spider and all the thirteens on the dollar bill homework assignment I gave you?”

  Luke and Quinn raised their hands, along with several others from Mr. Pike’s class. The boys held up their homework sheets, which displayed the hidden objects, all circled in red.

  “Great! Whoever found the most thirteens connected with the bill and U.S. history wins a make-your-own-mummy kit from the museum store.”

  Mr. Pike’s students counted up their finds. Luke and Quinn tied for first place. Quinn read his list: “Thirteen original colonies, signers of the Declaration of Independence, stripes on the flag, steps on the pyramid, letters in E pluribus unum, stars above the eagle, bars on the shield, leaves on the olive branch, fruits, and arrows.”

  “Nice work, boys! Congratulations!” Mr. Pike said. “You win the make-your-own-mummy kit.”

  Ms. Stadelhofer turned to her students. “How about my class? Did any of you figure out the hidden message in the triangle/eye picture that I gave you for today’s homework?”

  A few students offered their guesses, everything from “eye of the mountain” to “eye love triangles” to “eye-gyptian pyramid.”

  Ms. Stad shook her head. “I don’t
think those are quite right. Keep thinking. Meanwhile, I have a new puzzle for you to solve.” She passed out a map of the museum layout to each student. To Cody, the map resembled the inside of a pyramid, with pathways winding around in a maze.

  “In a few minutes, you may explore the four rooms of the museum,” Ms. Stad said. “But first you need to decode the anagrams below. Once you’ve done that, then you must locate each name and mark it on the map. You’ll also find a clue hidden near each one. Collect the clues, then try to decode the final message. At the end of the hour, bring the map with your answers to the gift shop for a prize. Good luck!”

  Sweet! Cody thought. Ms. Stad even made visiting a museum a mysterious adventure!

  * * * * *

  Under the watchful eye of the two security guards, who seemed to be everywhere, the Code Busters found a spot in the lobby and sat down to decode the message. There were ten anagrams, each with a brief definition as a clue. The Code Busters went to work on the puzzle.

  1. Sisi – “Goddess of love and magic, with a throne on her head.”

  2. Numa – “Hidden one who takes the form of a hawk.”

  3. Subain – “Protector of mummies from evil forces, in the form of a jackal.”

  4. Bettas – “Cat goddess in the shape of the moon.”

  5. Shour – “Falcon god in the shape of a triangle with an eye in the middle.”

  6. Atam – “Goddess of truth and justice, wearing an ostrich feather on her head.”

  7. Rissio – “King of eternal man, in the form of a mummy.”

  8. Themesk – “Goddess of war and healing, with a lion’s head.”

  9. Skobe – “Crocodile-headed river god.”

  10. Hotth – “Lord of the moon and time and inventor of writing.”

  Code Buster’s Solution found on this page.

  After Cody deciphered two of the anagrams—Isis and Horus—she realized these were taken from her spelling words. The rest took a little more work, but soon the kids had a list of names they were to find in the museum. The first clue led them to a sculpture that looked like a hawk. First, the Code Busters noted the location on the map. Then, they checked the wall behind the object and found a sticky note written in hieroglyphs.

  “An arm?” M.E. said. “What’s that supposed to mean? The letter e?”

  The kids used their hieroglyphic decoder cards to finish deciphering the word and wrote the translation on the back of their maps.

  Cody shrugged. “We need more clues. Let’s keep going.”

  Winding through the labyrinthine corridors, the kids continued to hunt for the objects on the list. At each spot, they found another clue and jotted it down. Soon they had all ten clues.

  They sat down on a bench in the lobby and reviewed the clues, using the hiero-alpha decoder card.

  “Okay,” Quinn said, “first there’s an arm, which is the letter e. Then there’s a square turning inward, the symbol for the letter h.…” He continued reading the rest of the list until they had a series of what seemed to be random letters. “So what does this all mean?”

  “I’m stuck,” Luke said, shaking his head.

  “I don’t get it either,” M.E. added.

  Cody took a deep breath. She hated giving up, especially when it came to code busting. After all, this was her passion.

  Cody looked at the letters. “Maybe it’s an anagram,” Luke said. Luke and his grand-mère loved to solve anagrams together.

  Cody rearranged the letters. “Youre foshe?” she said aloud. “Hoo see fury?” She tried several more combinations. Finally, one word made sense: “Horus!”

  “That’s it!” Quinn said. They quickly completed the two other words.

  Cody sat up, excited. “Talk about steganography. The answer has been right in front of us the whole time!”

  Code Buster’s Solution found on this page.

  So, did we solve the puzzle?” M.E. asked.

  “The Eye of Horus,” Quinn said. “That has to be it.”

  “I guess so,” Cody said, looking over the answer, “but it seems like something’s missing. It was almost too easy.”

  “Well, there’s only one way to find out,” Luke said. “We show it to Ms. Stad and see what she says.”

  The kids found their teacher in the museum lobby, checking the papers of a few other students who had also completed the puzzle. Ms. Stad read over their paper, but instead of a prize, they each received a small card with a question mark on the front. Cody took her card and flipped it over. On the other side was another drawing of an eye, but this one looked different from the one in the triangle. It was fancy, with black strokes around the lid, a long eyebrow, a curl coming out of the eye, and what seemed like a tear. It reminded her of the necklace Ms. Cassatt was wearing.

  On the bottom of the picture were the words “How many Eyes of Horus can you find in the museum?”

  Cody read aloud the note written underneath the drawing. “The Eye of Horus was often found carved or drawn on an amulet, and was used for protection, power, and health. If you look closely, you’ll see the design is actually made up of seven different hieroglyphs used for mathematical measurement.”

  “Interesting,” Quinn said, after Cody finished reading. “Well, let’s go see if we can find all the Eyes.”

  They returned to the first of the four rooms and began scouting for Eyes of Horus. It wasn’t an easy task, since there seemed to be Eyes all over the place. After locating as many as they could find, the Code Busters marked them on their papers and headed for the next room. Finally, in the last room, Cody spotted another Eye of Horus artifact, but there was something odd about this one. It sat alone on a pedestal inside a clear case the size of an upended shoe box.

  “This looks almost exactly like the necklace Ms. Cassatt has on,” Cody said. “And like the Eye of Horus Dr. Jordan was working on. Only the iris is green like Ms. Cassatt’s necklace, not blue like the one in the lab.”

  Cody tapped one side of the case that protected the valuable artifact. A small side door popped open.

  Cody jerked her hand back and glanced around.

  “Whoa!” Quinn said, staring at the case.

  “What’s wrong?” M.E. asked.

  “The side of the case—it opened!” Cody said. She glanced around for security guards, but they were nowhere in sight.

  “Uh-oh. You busted it,” Luke said, his eyes wide.

  “I did not!” Cody protested. She tapped the door to close it, but instead it ricocheted and bounced back open again. “Somebody left it unlocked!”

  “Seriously?” M.E. said, staring at the Eye.

  “Dude!” Luke said. “Anybody could just walk in here and steal this thing!”

  M.E. reached up as if in a trance and stuck her hand inside the case. She lifted the artifact before Cody could stop her. “It’s so beautiful.”

  “Put that back!” Cody whispered to M.E. She glanced around to see if anyone was watching, but the other students were busy hunting for other Eyes and didn’t seem to notice them. “You’re going to get us in trouble!”

  To Cody’s horror, M.E. flipped over the Eye of Horus and studied it up-close. “I just want to look for a moment. Look, there’s something written on the bottom!”

  M.E. raised her palm and showed the tiny carved drawings to the others.

  “Hieroglyphs!” Cody whispered, suddenly excited to see the hidden inscription.

  “What’s it say?” Luke asked.

  Cody pulled out her decoder card and quickly translated the symbols:

  Code Buster’s Key and Solution found on this page, this page.

  “How weird,” Cody said. “What’s it supposed to mean?”

  Quinn spoke up. “ ‘An eye for an eye’ means that when someone hurts another person, he or she gets a similar punishment—or something like that.”

  “That’s weird,” M.E. said. “I wonder why it says that.”

  “Guys, watch out!” Luke whispered. “One of the security guards j
ust came into the room. You better put that thing back! Fast! Or he’ll think we’re trying to steal it.”

  The kids huddled around the display case to block the view of anyone nearby. M.E. set the Eye back on its small stand, and Cody forced the slightly warped door closed.

  Just then a voice came from behind them. “So, what are you students up to?”

  Cody jumped. The Code Busters spun around to find Dr. Jordan staring down at them. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Cody thought she saw an odd smile on his face, as if he knew what they’d been doing. Had the security guard said something to him? Or had it been her imagination, and her guilty conscience?

  “We were … just looking at this Eye,” she said. “It’s pretty cool.”

  “Ah, yes. That’s one of the artifacts I was working on this morning. It’s beautiful, isn’t it, now that it’s all cleaned up and back on its pedestal?”

  M.E. started to ask, “What does the writing on the bot—”

  Cody cut her off. “—on the bottle … over there—” She pointed wildly across the room, hoping at least one of the displays contained an antique bottle, since she’d seen several throughout the museum. They couldn’t let Dr. Jordan know they’d opened the display case and touched the Eye. If anything happened to it, they’d be blamed.

  Cody led Dr. Jordan over to another case where a few students lingered, found a bottle that happened to be covered in hieroglyphs, and pointed to it. Moments later, more students entered the room, distracting Dr. Jordan from the display case. The Code Busters quietly backed out of the room.

  “That was close,” Cody whispered.

  “Sorry,” M.E. said quietly. “I almost gave us away!”

  “No problem,” Quinn said to M.E. He turned to Cody. “Good thinking, Cody, distracting him like that.”

  “Should we tell someone that the door on the case is loose?” Luke asked. “I mean, anybody could steal that Eye of Horus with that door unlocked.”

  Cody thought for a moment. “Good point. How about we tell Ms. Stad, and she can tell Ms. Cassatt, since she’s in charge of the museum? Hopefully, Ms. Stad will leave us out of it.”