Right, I said to myself. I’m tied up in a SOMETHING and it’s dark and I don’t know the way out. But there’s no need to worry. As soon as Phredde and Bruce find out I’m gone, they’ll PING! up a Prudence-locating device or maybe just PING! me safely back to my room again.
How long would it take though for them to miss me?
Maybe whoever had kidnapped me had told Phredde and Bruce that I’d gone hippopotamus hunting, or fish harpooning, or for a sail in one of the reed boats. They’d think I was still angry with them and had gone off by myself. They might not expect me back for ages.
But Phredde and Bruce would find me sometime, I told myself firmly. There was absolutely nothing to worry about. Well, except for the dark and the mud and the smell and the …
Slither. Slither. Slither …
No need to panic. Earthworms liked mud, didn’t they? Maybe it was just a really BIG earthworm …
Slither, slither, slither …
Something brushed against my arm. Something smooth and dry and COLD and it wasn’t an earthworm it was a …
‘Snake!’ I shrieked, leaping into the air, except I couldn’t leap because I was tied up so I just fell on my face in the smelly mud. And now I knew where I’d smelt that smell before. On Princess Nut! And I knew what the mud smelt of too.
Snakey doo-doo!
Which is worse? A mouth full of muddy snake doo or poisoned fangs in your backside?
Well, if you don’t know the answer to that in 1.5 seconds, you’ve never been trapped in a dark tomb in Ancient Egypt with a snake slithering about your legs. Snake doo may taste yuck (double yuck in fact), but you don’t die of snake doo, whereas a pair of fangs in the bottom …
If snakes could slither, so could I! I flung myself down on my tummy and inched my way frantically through the mud, listening for the slither, slither, slither all the time …
Maybe I’d frightened the snake away when I screamed and fell down, I thought desperately. Maybe it was slithering that way while I slithered this way.
I hoped so, anyway!
Slither, slither, slither … but that was me, not the snake. Suddenly my elbow banged against a wall. I stopped slithering and tried to feel the wall, but my hands were tied behind my back. Turn round then, Prudence, I told myself, and press your back against the wall …
Yes, it was a wall. So maybe if I followed it I’d come to the door or the cave entrance or whatever it was that would GET ME OUT OF HERE!
And no panicking, I told myself firmly. No panicking at all.
It was harder slithering and keeping close to the wall. I kept on bumping bits of me — and getting mud in all sorts of places I was sure had never been muddy before. I don’t know how far I got, or how much time passed, either. It’s really hard to tell what time it is when you’re tied up in the dark with nothing but mud and a far-off snake for company.
Was it lunch-time already? My tummy said it was, in spite of a mouthful or two of snake doo. (Snake doo does NOT stop your tummy rumbling. Trust me on this.)
Maybe it was dinner-time, or even breakfast-time again. Maybe I’d slept a whole day — or a week! Maybe Phredde and Bruce had thought I’d gone home without them and gone back to school and now they didn’t know whether I was in the past with them and they’d NEVER find me! In fact they wouldn’t even look for me!
Stop panicking! I told myself. Phredde and Bruce would never go off without me! All I have to worry about is being tied up in a dark muddy tunnel with a snake and an evil prince and princess who were going to come back for me any second and who knows what they planned to do with me!
But there was no need to panic, I told myself again. All I had to do was think of a way to untie myself and get out of the tunnel and find Phredde and Bruce and …
I kept slither, slither, slithering along the floor as I tried to think. Maybe I could escape before they came back again.
Slither, slither, slither … maybe they’d just forget about me. Huh. And maybe pigs would learn to do my maths homework.
Slither, slither, bump, ow!, slither … maybe I’d NEVER get out of here! I’d just go slithering in the smelly darkness forever and ever and ever and ever and …
Light shone at the end of the tunnel.
Huh? I heaved myself up and stared at it. It was light! And if there was light, there must be a door or the mouth of the cave or the tomb or whatever it was I was in! I just had to get to it and I’d be free!
Slither, slither, bump, bump, ow!, OW!, bump, slither — it seemed I’d never reach the opening. But slowly the light grew brighter, and brighter still, till finally it was so bright I had to blink and wait for my eyes to get used to it.
Sunlight! A big round door of sunlight! And there was blue sky and even a wisp of cloud.
Slitherslitherslitherslither … I was getting pretty good at slithering now. Another twenty slithers, I reckoned, and I’d be outside!
Slitherslither … heeeeyyyyyyyyyyyy!
I stopped slithering two seconds before I fell into the hole.
The deep dark hole.
The deep dark SLITHERING hole!
And they weren’t Prudence-type slithers, either.
Nor were they ‘one big snake in the darkness behind me’ slithers.
They were ‘there are hundreds of poisonous snakes down there and you nearly fell right into them, Prudence’ type slithers!
I stayed totally still, while I tried to get my breath and wait for my heart to find its way back from wherever it had leapt.
Right, I thought. Let’s be businesslike about this. The open air and sunlight is THERE. But to reach it I either have to jump over the snake pit, except I’m not a kangaroo, or fly over the snake pit, except I’m not a phaery. Or climb up the walls and across the ceiling over the snake pit, except I’m not a spider and, oh help, what if there are spiders here too …
Of course if Bruce had been there instead of me he could have jumped it easily. Frogs are GOOD at jumping. And Phredde could have flown … but what was I thinking? If Phredde or Bruce had been there they could have gone PING! and we’d have been back at the palace or even back at school, all safe with the rest of our class and our nice vampire teacher, Mrs Olsen, and the exploding volcano.
But Phredde and Bruce weren’t here. It was just me and the snakes and …
‘Where in Hades has the brat got to?’ muttered a voice.
It was Princess Nut, who’d fed half her family to the crocodiles, and now was going to start on me.
! I muttered.
Chapter 22
The Prince and Princess Arrive
‘She has to be here somewhere!’ said another voice.
I groaned silently. (You try groaning silently. It isn’t easy.) Prince Methen was here too! Maybe they’d quarrel about the best way to get rid of me, I thought hopefully. Maybe Princess Nut would want to feed me to a hippopotamus and Prince Methen would want to poison me — and did hippopotamuses eat people, anyway?
Not that it mattered. I tried to keep very, very still against the wall. Maybe if I was totally still they wouldn’t notice me. I must just look like a pile of mud now, anyway, I thought optimistically. How could anyone recognise a Prudence-shaped blob of mud from all the other blobs of mud?
Snap!
I froze, even frozener than I was before. (Yes, I know there isn’t such a word as frozener because Mrs Olsen told me so last term, but it’s the best word I know to describe how I was then!)
‘Snapper!’ Princess Nut’s voice rang out with approval. ‘GOOD crocodile! You’ve found her, then!’
‘Thanks, mate,’ I muttered to Snapper. ‘And if you eat me, I hope you get indigestion. In fact, I’ll make sure you get indigestion! I’ll be the most burpy meal you’ve had in your entire life!’
Snap! The crocodile’s jaws closed around my tracksuit pants. It slowly tugged.
‘Hey!’ I yelled. Tracksuit pants aren’t made to be tugged by crocodiles! It was bad enough being tied up in a muddy cave covered in snake doo wi
th two evil Ancient Egyptians wondering whether to feed me to the crocodiles or toss me out of a chariot, without having my pants pulled down too.
‘You leave my pants alone, you overgrown lizard!’ I yelled, as I felt them slip slowly, slowly off my bum and down my legs. I wondered frantically which underpants I had on. The ones with the redback spiders? Or the yellow ones with baby ducks that Mum gave me last birthday?
Please, I thought, don’t let them be the baby ducks! I’ll die of embarrassment if anyone sees my baby ducks!
But then I thought, hey, I’m on the edge of a snake pit in a cave in Ancient Egypt with a crocodile pulling off my tracksuit and two murderous members of the Ancient Egyptian Royal Family wondering how to bump me off and I’m worried about my UNDERPANTS!
But I still did. A bit.
‘Well!’ Suddenly Nut and Methen were right beside me. Nut gazed down at her crocodile fondly, then glanced over at me. ‘How do you like your new bedroom, Oh Wondrous Heroine?’ Princess Nut’s voice dripped with honey — the sort that’s filled with one hundred wasps just waiting to sting you.
‘You wait,’ I said. ‘When Phredde and Bruce find out I’m here, you’ll be sorry!’
‘Will we?’ Prince Methen cleaned his nails with his dagger. Somehow he didn’t look as handsome as he did before, maybe because he’d lost his giant smile somewhere down the cave. ‘Oh, I’m so scared.’
‘So you should be!’ I said stoutly. ‘I bet Phredde will PING! you into a … a hippopotamus’s toenail! And as for you,’ I addressed Princess Nut, ‘I bet Bruce turns you into a jar of lizard snot.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ purred Princess Nut (she was a better purrer than Fluffy.) ‘I think your Official Frog quite likes me! He certainly looked like he did.’
‘Well, he won’t like you when he finds out I’ve disappeared!’ I yelled.
‘But your disappearance can have nothing to do with us!’ Princess Nut smiled at me. ‘Such a sad thing. The poor Heroine went for a walk in the wrong palace garden and fell into the crocodile pool.’ The smile became a grin. A nasty grin. ‘And I bet even your friends can’t save you when you’ve been digested by a crocodile!’
‘I think we should sell her as a slave,’ argued Methen. ‘We might get half an oxen for her. Or boil her in pomegranate juice.’
‘Or just toss her into the snake pit. That would be fun. We could watch,’ said Princess Nut thoughtfully.
It suddenly struck me. ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘You’re just trying to frighten me into naming one of you king or queen.’
‘Exactly,’ said Princess Nut, sounding satisfied. ‘Is it working yet?’
‘No,’ I said. But my voice shook a bit.
‘Then we’ll have to keep trying,’ said Princess Nut calmly. ‘Maybe we should try a little torture, too. Hang you up by your toes and get my little slithery cutie pies to tickle your feet with their fangs. Or …’
‘Or have me slowly nibbled to death by piranhas!’ I added. ‘But it won’t work! Whatever you do to me, I’m not going to give in!’
‘Piranhas?’ asked Princess Nut fascinated. ‘What are they?’
‘Tiny South American fish that can skeletonise a cow in ten minutes,’ I told her.
‘How sweet! I MUST get some! As soon as I’m queen I’ll send a party to — where did you say they were from?’
‘South America!’ I yelled. ‘And you’ll NEVER be queen!’
‘Oh, yes I will!’ she said sweetly. ‘And, by the way, we want you to declare BOTH of us joint rulers.’
‘Both of you? But …’
Princess Nut and Prince Methen smiled at each other. They were really nasty smiles. ‘Then we will just have to find out who wins between the two of us,’ said Prince Methen softly.
‘Exactly,’ said Princess Nut confidently.
Wow! My brother Mark can be a bit of a nuisance sometimes, but I was really glad I didn’t have a brother or sister like Nut and Methen.
‘Right,’ said Prince Methen impatiently. ‘Let’s get on with the torture. I have a lot of cooking to organise this afternoon — coronation feasts don’t just cook themselves! I’ll string her up by her toes while you go and get the snakes and …’
He broke off and stared down the cave. ‘What’s that noise?!’ he cried.
Chapter 23
The Mummy’s Curse
‘Doom! Dooom!’ The words echoed down the cave.
Princess Nut looked around frantically. ‘Where’s it coming from?’ she demanded.
Prince Methen glared at me. ‘I don’t know!’
‘Hey, don’t look at me like that!’ I shot at him. ‘I don’t know either!’
‘Doom! Doom! Doom!’
I wondered if I should feel any scareder. But, what with being tied up and covered in snake doo and about to be tortured and stuck in Ancient Egypt, I didn’t see how I could fit any more scared in.
‘Who else knows about this place?’ demanded Prince Methen, his voice shaking.
Princess Nut shook her head. ‘No one! It’s my secret snake cave! The only ones who ever come here are me and my snakes!’ She glared at him. ‘You spoon-wielding fool! Someone must have followed you down through the secret trapdoor!’
‘No one followed me! It’s your cave! It’s all your fault!’
‘Doom! Doom! Doom!’ The echoes were even closer now.
‘Quick,’ ordered Nut. ‘Grab the girl! We’ll haul her back down the cave and up the trapdoor! We can hide her in my apartment then …’ She gave a little scream. ‘What’s that? There’s something coming!’ She gulped. ‘What is it?’
‘Doom! Doom! Doom!’
I wriggled round — I was still tied up and covered in mud and snake doo, remember — and tried to gaze down the tunnel. All I could see was darkness, thick and still, and … and … was that a flicker of white?
‘Doom! Doom! Dooom! Prince Methen, prepare to meet your doom!’
I frowned. Surely I had heard something a bit like that before. But where?
‘Doom! Doom! Princess Nut, you are doomed as well!’
It was a different voice this time. Still booming, but … different.
The glimmer of white came closer and suddenly I could see what it was. I bit back a scream.
A mummy! All white and bandaged and three metres tall, it bore down on us from the blackness.
‘I have come to get you!’ it boomed. ‘Prepare to meet your doom!’
‘But … but …’ stammered Prince Methen. ‘You can’t hurt me! I’m a prince!’
‘You can’t hurt me either!’ yelled Princess Nut. ‘I’ll set my snakes and crocodiles on you!’
‘Snakes and crocodiles won’t help you now! Nor will poisoned hippopotamus! I am the mummy!’
‘You can’t be my mummy!’ interrupted Princess Nut shakily. ‘My mummy’s dead! I fed her to the crocodiles myself!’
‘Not that mummy!’ boomed the mummy impatiently. ‘I am the mummy of …’ the voice hesitated, ‘one of your ancestors, anyway! It’s hard to remember when you’re a mummy. Your brain goes gooey.’
Prince Methen shrank back. For a second I thought he was going to run away. But there was nowhere to run to, except into the snake pit, or into the arms of the mummy. ‘W … w … what do you w … want?’ he stammered.
‘Revenge!’ shrieked the mummy. ‘Revenge for all the people you have killed! Revenge for this girl here that you’ve so cruelly kidnapped.’
I let out a breath of relief. The mummy wasn’t after me, then! Just what I needed! A friendly mummy! I shook my head. There was still something really familiar about all this …
‘You can take her back!’ shrieked Princess Nut. Her face was white and she was shaking. ‘We don’t want her anymore!’
‘That is not enough!’ boomed the mummy. ‘You must promise to stop killing people!’
‘We promise! We promise!’ chorused Nut and Methen.
‘And to let your little brother Narmer be king!’
‘Never,’ bega
n Princess Nut. The mummy raised its giant arms again. ‘Yes, yes, anything!’ she shrieked.
‘I think that’s all then!’ boomed the mummy.
‘No, it’s not!’ I shouted. ‘Tell them to stop torturing people too! And to be …’ I tried to think of how to put it. ‘To be nice to everyone!’
‘Okay!’ boomed the mummy ‘You have to stop torturing people. And frogs and phaeries and cats too,’ it added, ‘and be really, really nice!’
I blinked. I was SURE I recognised the voice now. And some of the words too …
‘But I don’t know how to be nice!’ wailed Nut.
‘Your brother will find you teachers! Now be gone.’
Prince Methen gave a choked sort of sob and dashed past the mummy down the cave. Princess Nut bowed down into the mud and snake doo, then she scurried off as well.
The mummy gazed down at me.
‘Hi, Phredde! Hi, Bruce! What took you so long?’ I demanded.
Chapter 24
Rescue!
PING!
The mummy dissolved. Bandages fluttered down into the mud and there was Prince Narmer, with Bruce sitting on his head and Phredde perched on top of Bruce. Bruce hopped down to floor level while Phredde fluttered, to keep out of the mud and snake doo.
‘How did you recognise us!’ demanded Phredde, peering down at me.
‘Easy!’ I said. ‘Remember that video we saw at my place, The Curse of the Mummy? That mummy kept yelling “Doom, doom” and “Revenge!” too!’
‘I thought we were pretty good,’ said Bruce, hopping over to me.
‘It was my idea,’ said Narmer proudly. ‘Fluffy saw them take you and came and fetched me and I ran across the roof till I found Phredde and Bruce. Hey, that was so much fun! Did you see their faces?’
‘Hey, did you know you stink?’ enquired Bruce.
‘Of course I know!’ I cried. ‘You try being all tied up in a smelly cave and having to slug your way through snake doo and see how sweet you smell!’ I choked back a sob. It was suddenly all too much!
‘Um,’ said Bruce. He hopped a bit closer. ‘You don’t smell THAT bad,’ he muttered. ‘And you always look pretty, even when you’re covered in mud and snake doo.’
Phredde and the Purple Pyramid Page 8
