After tracking the footsteps through the whole museum they suddenly stopped outside a small door in one of the giant hallways. As I picked up the last scrap of bandage, it suddenly dawned on me that the mummy probably wasn’t covered up any more. My hand hovered over the door handle while I decided if I still wanted to know how crinkly a mummy was under its bandages.
But I was more curious than scared, and because I was probably already in trouble I didn’t want it to be for nothing, so I took a deep breath and opened the door.
Instead of facing a scary, nudie, mouldy mummy, I was confronted by a load of mops and brooms sticking out of a bucket like a dreary bunch of flowers.
‘Hello?’ I whispered, poking my head inside.
‘Hello,’ replied the brooms and mops.
Now I’ve seen many strange things during my unbelievable adventures but I’ve never seen talking brooms and mops before. I looked closer and noticed one of the mops was smaller than the rest and had arms and legs and a head, and a pair of eyes that were peering back at me.
‘Are you the mummy?’ I gasped, realizing it was a bit of a silly question.
‘Er, yes, I suppose I am,’ said the mummy. (You might be wondering why the mummy was speaking English and not ancient Egyptian. I did too but decided he’d probably picked it up from all the people who passed through the museum to gawp at him.)
‘Someone woke me up,’ said the mummy. ‘Someone with a very loud voice.’
‘That was my mum,’ I sighed.
‘Your mummy?’ said the mummy.
‘Yes, my mummy, well, my mum, but she’s not a mummy.’
‘Your mummy’s not a mummy?’
I nodded uncertainly. I was beginning to confuse myself when a horrific sound thundered through the museum. I froze to the spot and felt my blood run cold.
‘JAKE CAKE, WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?’
‘That’s my mum,’ I gulped.
‘Oh,’ said the mummy, in a way that suggested his own mum had a similar angry voice that made camels stampede into the Nile (which my workbook says is a famous river in Egypt).
Mum marched down the hallway and stood over me with her arms folded. ‘I assume you have a good explanation for wandering off on your own?’ she said tapping her foot impatiently on the marble floor.
‘I lost my workbook where the mummy was, but when I went back it wasn’t there any more,’ I blurted out.
Mum reached over my head and plucked the workbook from my rucksack. ‘This workbook wasn’t there?’ she said, eyeing me suspiciously.
‘Yes! I mean no! I mean the workbook was there but the mummy was gone! So I followed the dusty footprints and tracked it here inside the broom cupboard.’ I held up the pile of dirty bandages as proof. ‘Look, these are his clothes!’
Mum snatched the bandages from me and threw them into the cupboard. ‘The janitor will be very cross if he finds you playing “mummies” with his cleaning rags…’
I won’t bore you with the rest of what Mum said because it would just be a big long rant about ‘making up stories’ and ‘noses growing long’.
Mum led me back to the group and sat me down at the back.
All the other kids were asking Mrs Marsh questions about ancient Egypt and I decided the best plan would be to keep quiet. That was until a small brown head poked out through the top of my rucksack and said, ‘Sorry I got you into trouble with your mummy.’
I gasped and quickly shoved it back inside. There was a mummy in my rucksack – and all I could think about was how much more trouble I would be in if Mum caught me with one of the ancient Egyptian exhibits!
‘It’s not your fault,’ I whispered. ‘I always get into trouble anyway, but you must go back before someone notices you’re missing or we’ll both be in more trouble than we can handle.’
‘I can’t go back without Phelix. He’s meant to be with me but someone has moved him,’ said the mummy. He sounded quite upset. ‘That’s why I got out in the first place, so I could find him and get him back.’
‘Who’s Phelix?’ I asked.
‘He’s my cat,’ said the mummy. ‘I can’t go back to sleep without him.’
‘But the museum’s huge!’ I said. ‘How will you find him before someone notices you’re missing?’ ‘JAKE CAKE!’ snapped Mrs Marsh from the other side of the room. ‘Am I to understand from your mumbling that you have something fascinating to share with us about the ancient Egyptians?’
GULP!
Looking around I could see everyone had been watching me talking to my rucksack. Mrs Marsh fixed me with a stare that said she was waiting for an answer, and the look on Mum’s face told me that it had better be a good one.
‘Er…’ I said.
‘Come along!’ demanded Mrs Marsh. ‘Stand up and share your thoughts with the class. I’m sure we’re all very keen to know what unique insights you’ve gleaned from your own private little tour.’
I stood up awkwardly and stared around the room, looking for something to say about ancient Egyptians, when suddenly I had an idea. ‘Excuse me, Mrs Marsh,’ I said. ‘I was just wondering if we could go and see the cat mummies?’
There were giggles from the other kids and Mum looked very disappointed because I’d said something so silly, but Mrs Marsh seemed pleasantly surprised.
‘Quiet, everyone,’ she said, waving her arms in the air. ‘Jake has just raised a very interesting historical fact. The ancient Egyptians were indeed buried with their pets,
and if you’d studied your workbooks as Jake obviously has, you would also know they were particularly fond of cats.’
I sat back down and tried not to grin.
‘Now there is only time to see one more collection before we need to catch the bus,’ said Mrs Marsh. ‘So who would like to follow Jake’s excellent suggestion and visit the room of mummified pets?’
Suddenly everyone’s hand went up in the air, including Mum’s, until she realized where she was and quickly put it back down again. Even the mummy’s bony hand shot out of my rucksack and I let out a quick yelp before shoving it back inside.
‘Then it’s decided,’ said Mrs Marsh. ‘Everyone follow me.’
The room of mummified pets was very big and most of the small mummies were roughly cat-shaped.
If I was looking for my cat among the mummies it would be easy because Fatty would be the only one shaped like a football, but finding Phelix would be difficult because all of these looked the same and there were loads and loads of them.
‘There he is!’ said an excited voice from inside my bag and a bony finger popped out and wiggled at a large display case.
‘Which one?’ I whispered. ‘They all look the same.’
‘The one with the missing ear,’ said the mummy. ‘That’s my Phelix.’
I could see Phelix in the middle of a dozen other cat mummies who all had two ears but weren’t as cute. ‘How are we supposed to get him out with everyone watching?’ I said, and it slowly dawned on me that I was probably about to get in trouble again.
‘If you put me down I can get him out, but you need to cause a diversion,’ said the mummy. As I put my rucksack down on the floor a hand landed on my head and started ruffling my hair.
‘Who’s my clever little Angel Cake?’ Mum said, smiling proudly.
‘I am?’ I said helplessly. Helpless because the other kids were sniggering again at the name Angel Cake (which I would definitely never live down), and helpless because I knew I would have to ruin all my good work by causing a diversion.
Now if I’d had time to think about it, I probably could have come up with something clever. Something that would have kept me out of trouble and saved any further humiliation. But I didn’t have time for that, so I pointed across the room and screamed at the top of my voice.
‘AAAARRRRRRRGH! THERE’S AN ESCAPED MUMMY!’
All the other kids suddenly started screaming and running around in a panic.
Mr Jenson, Mrs Marsh and Mum ran after t
hem, flapping their hands in the air as they tried to control the terrified mob.
The room of mummified pets was in chaos, and in all the confusion the mummy snatched Phelix from the display case and jumped back in my rucksack without being seen.
PHEW!
When everything calmed down Mum was too angry to speak. She just grabbed my arm and marched me through the museum. But I still had one thing left to do.
As we passed by the mummy case I dropped my bag beside it without Mum seeing.
‘Ouch!’ yelped the bag. Mum thought it was me moaning about being tugged along by the arm, so she tugged a bit harder. When we got outside I stopped suddenly and Mum nearly yanked my arm off.
‘Oh no!’ I said, in my best ‘acting surprised’ voice. ‘I’ve lost my rucksack.’
I’m not completely sure what Mum was saying as we made our way back through the museum. She was talking through gritted teeth and was growling quite a lot, but no matter how much trouble I was in it was definitely worth it. Grabbing my bag, I looked inside the glass case and saw a hastily rewrapped mummy holding a cat with one ear in his arms. There was a faint smile on his bandaged face and as I moved away his hand gave the smallest wave.
The escaped mummy was all anyone spoke about for a whole week at school, and it took even longer to get back into Mum’s good books. On the plus side I didn’t get called Angel Cake for a very long time afterwards because Mum said, ‘Angels don’t behave like THAT!’
She also refused to volunteer for a school trip ever again, explaining it was far too embarrassing.
And for once, I have to say, I definitely agree with my mummy!
Jake Cake: The Werewolf Teacher Page 3
