The History Mystery

by Ana Maria Machado

  The

  History

  Mystery

  Little Island received financial assistance from

  The Arts Council (An Chomhairle Ealaíon), Dublin, Ireland.

  The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Ministério da Cultura do Brasil / Fundação Biblioteca Nacional.

  Obra publicada com o apoio do Ministério da Cultura do Brasil / Fundação Biblioteca Nacional.

  The

  History

  Mystery

  Ana Maria Machado

  Translated by Luisa Baeta

  THE HISTORY MYSTERY

  Published 2012

  by Little Island

  7 Kenilworth Park

  Dublin 6W

  Ireland

  www.littleisland.ie

  First published as Mensagem para você by Editora Ática in São Paulo in 2008

  Copyright © Ana Maria Machado 2007

  Translation copyright © Luisa Baeta 2012

  The author has asserted her moral rights.

  ISBN 978-1-908195-22-7

  All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owner.

  British Library Cataloguing Data. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Cover design and typeset by redrattledesign.com

  Printed in Poland by Drukarnia Skleniarz

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  1. Project Mystery

  2. Nefertiti

  3. The Brainy Joker Strikes Again

  4. A Clue – Maybe

  5. Double Trouble

  6. A Matter of Strategy

  7. Message in a Bottle

  8. Model What?

  9. Camille’s Friend

  10. Rhythm, Poetry and Death

  11. A Frozen Window

  12. Gregorio Alvarenga’s Dedication

  13. Like a Movie

  Think About It!

  1. Project Mystery

  2. Nefertiti

  3. The Brainy Joker Strikes Again

  4. A Clue – Maybe

  5. Double Trouble

  6. A Matter of Strategy

  7. Message in a Bottle

  8. Model What?

  9. Camille’s Friend

  10. Rhythm, Poetry and Death

  11. A Frozen Window

  12. Gregorio Alvarenga’s Dedication

  13. Like a Movie

  Answers to Think About It

  3 – The Brainy Joker Strikes Again

  Answers to quiz

  About the Author

  Ana Maria Machado was born in 1941 in Rio de Janeiro and is one of the most significant children’s book authors in Brazil. She has written more than a hundred books for children and adults. She started her career as a painter, worked as a journalist for Elle magazine in Paris and for the BBC in London. In 1979, she opened the first children’s literature bookshop in Brazil.

  In the year 2000, Ana Maria Machado was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the most significant international prize for children’s literature, for her life’s work.

  Before you start …

  This book was originally written in Brazilian Portuguese and published in Brazil. You might never have been there, though you might have seen TV programmes from or about Brazil, and you will know that it is a very large country in South America, and the only one where Portuguese is the main language. (You probably know what the main language is in the other countries of South America, so we don’t need to tell you that.)

  Brazil is an unusual country. It is vast, and there are parts of the country that are so far from the coast, it takes hours to get there, even by plane. It’s also a very varied country. There are some extremely rich people in Brazil, and then also a lot of people living in poverty. It is a very racially mixed country as well, with people from all kinds of backgrounds. A lot of people live in the cities, of course, but there are also people living a traditional way of life in the remotest parts of the country, in the rainforest for example.

  This book is set in the city, and life there is not all that different from life in the United States or Europe. Kids go to school and use computers and listen to music and visit each other’s houses and so on. But as you read this book, it might be interesting to watch out for things you think are a bit different from the way you live.

  So now you know a bit about Brazil – but actually, the first chapter is mostly about ancient Egypt!

  Quiz on Brazil

  (The answers are at the back of the book.)

  1: What is the capital city of Brazil? (Watch out! It might not be the one you expect.)

  2: What is the name of the famous city on the south coast with beautiful beaches and a famous statue of Christ the King? (Hint: there are three words in the name of this city.)

  3: What is the main language of Brazil?

  4: Brazil has always been very good at football. Has it ever won the World Cup?

  5: Brazilians love to dance. What is the most famous kind of dancing from Brazil?

  6: Brazil is famous for certain food products. Can you name one thing that comes from Brazil that you would find in most people’s homes where you live?

  1 – Project Mystery

  ‘William’s team has done the best project,’ announced the history teacher.

  Will could hardly believe his ears. The others must have been really terrible. He knew perfectly well that his team had made a mess of their time management, which meant they’d had to do a lot of the work in a rush at the end. The project had to have been pretty slapdash.

  On the last day, they had been practically kicked out of Sonia’s place by her mother because it was so late, and they still hadn’t got as far as putting all the bits and pieces of work into the right order on the computer before printing it out. There was still a whole lot of stuff that needed to be finished. It just couldn’t have turned out good. So how on earth could a teacher as demanding as Mr Costa possibly think their work was the best in the class?

  Will stole a glance at Pedro, who had an even more amazed look on his face. And that same astonished expression was repeated on the faces of all the other members of the project team – Matt, Faye and Sonia.

  Sonia’s expression was the most amazed of all. She had her hand clapped across her open mouth and her eyes were wide with surprise. More than any of them, she knew that their project on the ancient Egyptians had been a patchwork of bits and pieces, all cobbled together any old way.

  Mr Costa continued with his feedback: ‘Although it is poorly structured …’

  For sure, they all thought. It really was a total mess. ‘… the work was very interesting and quite original …’

  Who ever would have thought it!

  ‘… especially the part about Akhenaten’s monotheistic experience.’

  Wait … What? Who did that bit? I never even saw it! was the thought going through all the teammates’ minds.

  Sonia remembered how she had stayed up until almost four in the morning working on the computer after her classmates had left. She was so tired, she could barely concentrate enough to put the pages in order. And in the end there had been an extra bit of material that she had been unable to identify. Sonia didn’t know which of her teammates had written that part and sent it to her, how it had appeared there or even what it was about. She couldn’t find a way to make it fit in with the rest of the work and ended up leaving it out, like in one of those cartoons where somebody tries to fix a clock a
nd when they’ve finished they realise there are a couple of nuts and bolts left over.

  ‘The only reason you are not getting an A+ for this is that it is sometimes slightly confused …’

  Slightly? It’s totally confused, they all thought.

  ‘… and because it doesn’t refer to the sources used in this part of the research. But the idea of including this theme in your project was really creative, and the subject was very well introduced. I will read the beginning out loud so the whole class can see what I mean.’

  None of the team had any idea what Mr Costa was talking about, but the teacher cleared his throat and began reading.

  ‘“Although in your day …”’ he began. ‘Meaning our day,’ he muttered. ‘I missed this error the first time I read it …’

  He stopped and made a correction on the page with a pen, then carried on.

  ‘“Although in our day the name of the pharaoh Tutankhamun has become very well known and he has become a real celebrity, due to the discovery of his tomb and the fantastic fortune of the treasure enclosed with it, the truth is that for the people of his time he was not very important.

  ‘“He started to rule while he was still a teenager, and he was weak, sickly and passive. He reigned only for a short period of time and died before turning twenty. He came to the throne through a series of court intrigues, and was simply a puppet in the hands of political and religious forces interested in reclaiming the power that Akhenaten, the deposed pharaoh, had …”’

  The friends exchanged glances. They’d never even heard of this Akhen-whatever-his-name-was.

  ‘“But history has not forgotten Akhenaten,”’ Mr Costa was droning on. ‘“He was a cultured man, a thinker. With him, for the first time, the idea of a single god was formulated – Aten, the Sun-god, the source of light, heat and life. Akhenaten showed a mind way ahead of his time.”’

  While Mr Costa went on reading, the people on William’s team continued to look at each other in amazement. None of them had researched that. It must have been Sonia, the others thought. After they’d left, she must have found that part in some book or online and stuck it in without telling them. Luckily, it had worked like a charm.

  ‘“He also valued the role of women: his wife, Queen Nefertiti, had an active part in government. She was able to read and composed many religious hymns and poems celebrating Aten.”

  ‘I’m not going to read the whole paper now,’ Mr Costa said. ‘I just wanted to give you all a little taste of it. I even learned a few things myself from this project. I have to admit that I didn’t know much about Nefertiti, except that she was married to Akhenaten and that she was very beautiful.’

  Somebody must have made a smart remark, because laughter could be heard from the back of the class. But Mr Costa took no notice and carried on, all excited.

  ‘Yes. A model of Nefertiti’s head, in a museum in Berlin, is one of the most gorgeous and well-preserved objects we have from the ancient world. But I had no idea about the intellectual role Nefertiti played. I looked all this stuff up and found that what you say here is quite accurate. But tell me, where did you find all of this information?’

  Silence.

  The teacher repeated the question and William answered vaguely, ‘Well, Mr Costa … we researched so much stuff it’s hard to remember. Maybe one of us wrote down the source somewhere, but I think possibly it got thrown out by accident. Sorry about that.’

  ‘That’s a shame, William,’ said Mr Costa. ‘These things should not happen. As I always say, it’s OK to do your research on the internet, but you always have to quote your sources so that I can check if they are reliable.’

  There he goes again, thought William. Mr Costa was always banging on about how the most important thing that the school can teach is not the facts, but the ‘formation of dignified social attitudes’ and the ‘transmission of ethical values’ and ‘rigour and enthusiasm in the search for knowledge’, blah, blah, blah.

  They’d all heard that speech a thousand times. Once he got started on it, it seemed like he was never going to let up.

  ‘That’s why a bibliography is essential too,’ Mr Costa was saying. ‘You always need to identify the source and quote the reference.’

  William disconnected mentally and started thinking how he was going to get to the next level in a new computer game he’d got two days before. Faye was sketching on a piece of paper as usual, playing at being a fashion designer. And Matt was dreaming about the sandwich he was going to have at break, because he was starving.

  When break-time finally came, everyone gathered around Sonia.

  ‘Hey, thanks, you saved the day!’

  ‘Where did you get that sun-god stuff?’ asked Matt.

  ‘And the thing about the model of beauty?’ Faye was probably going to ask about make-up or fashion in ancient Egypt. That’s all she ever thought about.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Sonia answered.

  At first they didn’t believe her, but Sonia insisted it was true.

  ‘After I had printed everything out, I went to bed, and next morning, I was in a rush to gather up the pages before school, and I noticed some weird stuff that I didn’t remember seeing before or talking to any of you about. I thought it must be something one of you had sent on by email. I took out one bit that looked completely random, but I left the bit about that pharaoh in, because it was about ancient Egypt, and that was what we were supposed to be writing about. Our project was way too short, so I thought maybe something about some pharaoh would be useful to pad it out.’

  ‘What about the other bit, the stuff you took out?’ asked Matt. ‘Any chance you might have downloaded a ready-made chemistry project too? We have to hand in Ms Nancy’s work at the end of the month.’

  ‘No such luck,’ said Sonia with a grin. ‘There was nothing like that. There were some poems, a letter – I’m not sure what, exactly. It was nonsense. I threw it all away.’

  2 – Nefertiti

  When she got home, Sonia was still wondering about those other pages. She was curious now and wanted to read the material again. She shouldn’t have thrown it all out without a second thought.

  But had she actually thrown the pages out? Maybe she’d just left them on the scrap-paper pile beside the printer. Everyone in their house did that with paper that was only printed on one side.

  Sure enough, she found the missing pages in the pile of scrap paper. She couldn’t be sure it was all there, but she recognised one of the poems because it was printed in the same font that she’d used for the project for Mr Costa.

  Every day as you arrive

  And call us with birds’ songs,

  All in you is joy,

  Oh one god who dries our tears!

  Oh god who hears the silence of the poor!

  Oh beautiful and magnificent!

  Each day as you unwrap your cloth of light

  And warm the world with the heat of your rays,

  All in you brings life,

  Oh one god who feeds us!

  Oh god who ripens the harvest!

  Oh beautiful and magnificent!

  There were lots more verses like that. There was also a letter. Or … not exactly a letter – there was no date, address or signature. It wasn’t an email either – there was none of the usual stuff you get at the top of an email. But it seemed like a letter because it was written in the first person and was clearly addressed to someone.

  I’m sorry, I know I should not stick my nose into this, but you are so tired that I wanted to help you. Forgive me.

  This sounded as if the person was talking directly to Sonia herself!

  I remembered my own daughters, so dear, whom I loved to play with and to whom I always enjoyed teaching everything. Since I have decided to speak out, though, I will tell the truth. It is more than just a desire to help. It is also a desire to show off a little. And I want to show off because I am very proud of knowing how to write, as you can imagine.

  Well, Sonia couldn
’t really imagine, but she read on.

  I am always thankful to my father for having the courage to teach me. First, one would be taught how to draw. Always the first step, and an essential one. I had a beautiful little case, made of wood, thin and long, where I could keep the quills – that you would later call brushes or pens, I believe. They were made of reed. Some had their tips flattened, opening like a fan, and were good for painting. The tips of the other ones were made into a point, becoming thin and better for drawing lines. The lid of my little case would slide out, opening to reveal four rounded hollows where I kept the pigments.

  My father’s case had nine hollows because, as he worked for the palace, he used many colours. Most scribes had only two: black and red. This case was one of my greatest treasures, even considering all the amazing wonders I had after growing up.

  I have always loved drawing and painting, and I would use any shell, any piece of rock or clay, to practise. My mother allowed me to paint some of the walls in our house. Her favourite picture was of a hippopotamus in the water, with his mouth open. The one I liked the most was of a bird among the reeds, by the river. It was very important to be able to paint and draw well if you wanted to learn how to write in a way that everybody could understand. That’s because our writing was made of drawings, and not of letters like yours.

  And not all the symbols were as simple as the sun disc. Can you imagine if someone wanted to draw a jackal and a cat came out? Or drew a falcon that looked like a quail? It would change the meaning completely and become a different word. That is why I had to practise so much.

  When I was almost the size of your younger sister …

  Sonia did have a younger sister. Was this woman really speaking to her?

  … my father taught me to sit on the floor with my legs crossed, as scribes are supposed to do, to unroll the papyrus and start drawing the symbols carefully, from the top down, from right to left. Slowly, I learned to form the words. My father was a palace scribe, an important man, and he taught me well how to hold the reed correctly and perform the gestures with precision.