by P. J. Hoover
Henry had been researching way more than animals this past month. He challenged me daily with odd science facts and quizzed me on obscure vocabulary words like “phrontistery” and “podobromhydrosis.”
“Okay, one more,” Henry said. “Did you know there’s this weird jellyfish that’s basically immortal?”
I laughed. “Yeah, whatever.”
“No, it’s true, Tut,” Henry said. “Its cells can revert back to their original form moments after being injured. And if we look at the principles in this immortality versus scarab hearts—”
I put up my hand to stop him. “Enough.” Immortal jellyfish were nothing like scarab hearts. I was willing to bet that the jellyfish would die if someone accidentally put it in a blender, immortal or not.
Okay, that would probably be pretty uncomfortable for me, too. I had no intention of testing the theory.
“But what if it’s true, Tut?” Henry said. “What if all your god stuff can be explained with science?”
This is what Henry’s research came down to. He was convinced that all the crazy stuff he’d seen in the last year had a perfectly scientific explanation, even things like Horus talking. I hadn’t shared this little tidbit with Horus yet. It would only make him grumpier when Henry was around.
“Where are we supposed to go, anyway?” I asked.
Henry pulled up some sort of camp brochure on his phone and zoomed in. At the top of the screen were the words SCIENCE MADE FUN—YOU’LL NEVER WANT TO LEAVE.
This was completely not true. I already wanted to leave, and it hadn’t even started.
“It says here to meet at the elephants,” Henry said. “We’re supposed to look for a camp counselor with the red shirt that says, ‘Science Rocks.’”
This was much easier than I would have thought. The camp counselor stood by the elephants, camera ready. The second we walked up and Henry asked about camp, she snapped a picture of each of us and printed out badges, laminating them on the spot with our names. TUT JONES was printed in block letters. But the picture of me was horrible. She’d totally caught me off guard. My hair in real life was dark brown and fell wavy to just below my ears, and my skin was sort of a dark tan color. But in the picture, my hair looked yellow and my skin looked green. I thought about asking her to retake it, but seeing as how I’d only be here one day, I guess it didn’t matter.
“I’m Camp Counselor Crystal,” she said, pointing to her name badge, which, unlike my photo, looked like one of those glamour shots. In the photo, her bright red hair was piled on top of her head, like it had been styled for a wedding. But here, in real life, she had a ball cap on, and her hair looked tangled and stringy. “Wear your badges at all times so we know you’re part of the group.” She eagle-eyed us until we clipped them on.
Maybe if I took it off later, I could sneak away.
Thanks to Henry’s promptness, he and I were the first ones to get to camp, but other kids filed up as the minutes passed. There were at least five kids I recognized from school, including Joe Hurd and Brandon Knauss. I’d never pegged them as science nerds. Their parents must have signed them up. I was friendly enough with them at school, so they came over and stood by Henry and me.
“Science camp sucks,” Joe said.
I completely agreed. I was going to have the shabtis put sour milk in Horus’s bowl to get back at him for making me come.
“Give it a chance,” Henry said. “It’s going to be awesome.”
“What would be awesome is being home playing video games while my parents are at work,” Joe said. “Do you have any idea what game just got released?”
If Gil were around, he’d have told me. Between the two of us, Gil was the one who was way more into video games. I played mostly so we could hang out together. The thought kind of depressed me. Why did Gil have to go away in the first place? Playing games hadn’t been the same since.
Just then a girl I’d never seen before skipped up to join us. Her hair was blond and so super-curly that it bounced up and down with every step she took. It was like she had a cumulus cloud attached to her head.
“Am I late?” she asked, completely out of breath.
Henry took one look at her and grinned like a puppy dog letting its tongue hang out. And then I saw why. She had the exact same T-shirt on as Henry. It was like they’d texted each other ahead of time and planned it.
“I’m Henry Snider,” he said, sticking his hand out like he was some grown-up or something.
The girl grabbed it and shook it so hard that I thought Henry’s arm might fall off.
“Blair,” she said. “Blair Drake. And, seriously, I can’t believe today is finally here. I have been waiting for this camp, like, forever. Did you see the list of places we get to go?”
“It’s not at the zoo every day?” Brandon said.
I was glad I wasn’t the only clueless one around.
“Did you not check the camp website?” Henry said, as if Brandon’s comment topped the stupid scale.
“There’s a website?” Brandon said. “Joe, did you know there’s a website?”
“For what?” Joe said.
Blair stared at them like they should actually live at the zoo.
“I’m Tut Jones,” I said, pointing to my name badge.
“That’s kind of a weird name,” Blair said.
The name thing was nothing I hadn’t heard about a gazillion times before. “Yeah, Jonas was my first choice, but my parents didn’t listen. They didn’t go for the whole Jonas Jones thing.”
“You don’t look like a Jonas,” Blair said.
I guess that meant I looked like a Tut.
Now might be a good time to mention why I continued to use my real name. You might argue it would be easier to just pick a fake name and go with it. Like John. Or Mike. Or even Jonas. But I really liked my name. It defined me. And it was something I was not willing to give up. I’d lost so many other things in life: my family, the throne of Egypt. My name was staying forever. Anyway, plenty of people had weird names these days.
“My sister’s name is Atlas,” Brandon said, helping my case without even realizing it.
“Oh, yeah, and did you see that some Hollywood star named their kid Saber?” Joe said. “That’s what I’m going to change my name to when I turn eighteen. Saber Hurd. Man, I love the sound of that.”
He, unlike me, would turn eighteen someday. And he was right. Saber Hurd did sound pretty cool.
“Hey, what ever happened to that girlfriend of yours, Tut?” Brandon asked. “Did she get in a fight and get kicked out of school again?”
“What girlfriend?” I asked, even though I knew exactly who he was talking about. Tia was this amazing, awesome girl I’d met at the beginning of the school year, back during the Uncle Horemheb fiasco. I hadn’t seen her since before school let out. And I had no way to get in touch with her.
Joe looked at me like I was a few fries short of a Happy Meal, but I kept up the act because I didn’t trust myself when talking about Tia. My heart was already thumping in my chest.
“You know,” Joe said. “That girl who wore the combat boots and dyed her hair a different color every day? She dropped off the face of the earth.”
I shrugged. “Oh, that girl. I have no clue. The last time I saw her was probably the last time you did, too. I totally forgot about her.”
Complete lie. I thought about Tia all the time.
“My dad owns a carnival,” Blair said, as if somehow that was the next obvious direction for the conversation. Or maybe she didn’t like us talking about some girl she didn’t know.
“I love carnivals,” Henry said, moving right along in the conversation with her. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her.
“What carnival?” I asked. I was happy not to be talking about Tia or the oddness of my name anymore. Normally I could pull together a combination of herbs and scents and say a small spell, and people around me would forget small things that didn’t really make sense. Powers like that came from my scarab h
eart. From my patron deity, who happened to be Osiris, god of plants and bugs. Osiris was also why my skin did actually look green from time to time, like in the badge picture.
But ever since I gave Henry all the energy from my scarab heart, my immortal powers had been sporadic and weak. I couldn’t even make grass grow anymore. I’d tried to recharge my heart—to fill it with immortal energy by channeling that energy through an obelisk—but it hadn’t made me feel any different, which was weird. Recharging my scarab heart used to be one of the best feelings in the world.
Blair pulled a handful of brochures out of her pocket and handed us each one. “You know. That new one over across the river. It’s a charity carnival. We’re raising money to save endangered snake species around the world. Do you know people hunt snakes and kill them for horrible things like voodoo rituals and fake medicine? It has to be stopped. And my dad and I … we are totally doing our part.”
“It sounds … um … interesting,” Joe said. He glanced at the brochure like he wasn’t sure if he could stick it in the nearest trash can or if that would be too rude.
“Do you have jugglers?” Brandon asked. I guess the charity aspect wasn’t a big enough draw.
“Do we have jugglers?!” Blair said. “We have jugglers and a Ferris wheel and even a funhouse.”
I was about to ask something else, but then she turned back to Henry, and their eyes locked. And I swear I could almost see little hearts floating in the air above their heads. Which was good news, now that I thought about it. I could ditch science camp after today and get back to looking for Gil. The problem was that if Gil wanted to be found, he would have left me clues. It was like he’d been erased from the same reality as me.
Still, I had no intention of giving up that easily. I could visit Auntie Isis. Maybe she knew where Gil went. Not that any part of me wanted to visit Horus’s mom. The last time I’d seen her, she’d tried to mummify me. I didn’t particularly want to give her the chance to finish the job. Maybe Horus could check with her. Even if she was the queen of the gods, she was still his mom. I’d ask him when I got home.
“You should totally come to our carnival,” Blair said, licking her lips like she was checking if she had lip gloss on, which I don’t think she did; her lips were really pale. “But if it’s not your thing, my dad has a bunch of other businesses that all raise money for the same charity. Like a wax museum. And a restaurant. That really nice new place in Old Town. It’s reservation-only. I’ll bring you guys some information tomorrow. And next year, my dad is running for senator of Virginia. He’s going to make a difference. If I were eighteen, I would totally vote for him.”
“He’s running for sena—” Henry started, but he got cut off by Camp Counselor Crystal.
Camp Counselor Crystal launched into a ten-minute-long speech about all the amazing places we were going to go for the next two weeks. Sure, they were all cool places, but my summer was not about going to camp. I needed to find Gil.
“Stop staring at her,” I whispered to Henry while our group walked through the zoo. Henry hadn’t taken his eyes off Blair, not even to listen to the science counselor lady.
“Huh?” I don’t think Henry even blinked.
I smacked him on the arm. “Blair. You’re completely staring at her.”
He didn’t reply.
“Henry,” I said, a little louder, trying to get his attention.
Camp Counselor Crystal whipped around. “Quiet voices,” she said, putting her finger to her lips. “We’re getting ready to enter the reptile house. Reptiles do not like loud sounds. It makes them agitated. Very, very agitated.”
The last thing we needed was some angry iguanas chasing after us, so I let it drop. I’d give Henry a hard time later. But the weird thing was that Blair was also sneaking looks at Henry. She was barely even glancing at me. It made no sense. People were always drawn to me. I was King Tut. I’d been the pharaoh of Egypt.
But as soon as we entered the reptile house, Blair looked away from Henry and started staring around at everything else. Her eyes got super-wide, and I’m pretty sure she stopped blinking. Slowly she edged her way to the back of the group. Henry looked at her, then at Camp Counselor Crystal. It was a huge dilemma for him, but nice timing for me. I could finally get his attention. I wasn’t here to stare at lizards.
“You need to help me find Gil,” I said. “I’m not having much luck on my own.”
“Uh-huh,” Henry said, still glancing back at Blair. She’d stopped at one of the displays—I think it was for a Gaboon viper—and she had her cheek pressed up against it, like she was trying to listen through the glass. Maybe it had something to do with her endangered-snake charity.
But before I could comment on this, images of a snake began to flash through my mind. A giant snake, devouring something, like the stories I’d heard growing up. Snakes were revered back in ancient Egypt, but they were also feared. One bite from the wrong kind of snake—which in my opinion was any kind of snake—could be deadly, at least for a mortal. I didn’t have anything to worry about. Except then the images became way more real. I was sitting in the dark, and things slithered around me, making hissing noises like snakes. And in the vision I wasn’t me. I was Gil.
I tried to jump up, to get away from the slithering, but I couldn’t move. Everything was really foggy, and my head felt so heavy I was having problems holding it up. My eyes were closed and I fought to open them, using every bit of strength inside me.
I called on my scarab heart powers. They didn’t work.
My eyes finally snapped open. I was still here, at the zoo. What I’d just seen had been a vision. Some kind of daydream. Everything was exactly as it had been. I stood by Henry, and Blair was still by the snake display with her face pressed against the glass. But the weird thing was that the snake inside was nose to nose with her. And all the other snakes, in the other display cases … they were hissing and looking right at her. It was like my vision had done something to the snakes.
I tore my eyes away from Blair, but the reptile house was hot and muggy and freaky and what I really needed to do was get out of here and get on with finding Gil. That’s what this daydream was trying to tell me.
“Dude, what’s up with that girl?” Brandon said. “She’s a little freaky.”
Henry whipped around to face him. “You’re freaky.” And he looked angrier than I’d ever seen him look. But it wasn’t just Henry’s anger that took me by surprise. It was the confidence that poured off him. Immortal confidence. It had to be coming from the scarab heart energy inside him.
Brandon backed away. He looked like he might pee his pants.
This was a bad situation getting worse.
I rested my hand on Henry’s arm, trying to calm him. The last thing we needed was Henry picking a fight. Whether he was immortal or not, he still had immortal energy pumping through him. Someone could get hurt. And he’d get kicked out of science camp for sure.
Wait, maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.
No. It wasn’t a good plan. Henry would never get over it.
“Henry, come on. You’re missing what Camp Counselor Crystal is saying.” I didn’t care about missing her speech, but Henry would. Or at least he should. But he didn’t move. So I dragged him away from Brandon and out of the reptile house. Maybe the heat was just getting to him, too.
But even as we left the reptile house, images from the vision returned to me. I felt like Gil was in trouble, and I was the only one who could help him. I had to find him.
3
WHERE I PLAY WITH FIRE
“Great Master, we have a problem.”
I nearly tripped over the army of small clay men in front of me as I walked into my townhouse. It was the shabti leader who spoke, Colonel Cody, finally back from whatever errand he’d been running. He stood there wringing his hands frantically. His golden face looked ashen. Or maybe that was my imagination. His face never really changed color, seeing as how it was painted on. Behind him stood twenty shab
tis, also gold, but with green clothing. My special fighting unit. This couldn’t be good.
“What kind of problem do we have?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. I didn’t want to upset the little shabti. Since he’d returned from the underworld, he’d been trying extra hard to please me. I’d almost lost him during the whole Uncle Horemheb debacle. But thanks to Horus, I’d gotten him back. Sure, Horus had to travel to the underworld to retrieve Colonel Cody, but since Horus was a god, it wasn’t as epic as it seemed.
He steadied his hands in front of himself, like he was trying to stay calm. “There seems to be an issue in the basement. We believe your assistance might be required, Great Pharaoh.”
Oh, the shabtis. How I loved them. After nearly a hundred years together, I always knew when they were holding out on me. They never flat-out lied, but they did have an amazing ability to dance around the truth.
“The basement?” I almost never went down to the basement of my townhouse. If there was ever a problem with the plumbing or electrical work, the shabtis took care of it. They were way better at that kind of stuff than me, which made me sure this wasn’t some sort of loose wiring or something like that.
“The basement,” Colonel Cody said, nodding. Since he was the leader of my shabtis, he took charge of pretty much anything that went wrong.
“And you’re sure you need my help?” I asked. I needed to find Gil. I’d already mapped out the places I was going to search for the rest of the day.
“Absolutely certain,” Colonel Cody said. His eyes were wide and unblinking.
Whatever was going on in the basement, I wasn’t getting out of it. So I followed the army of shabtis down two flights of stairs.
Colonel Cody held a tiny torch that looked like it had been constructed from a Q-tip and a Band-Aid. It wasn’t doing much to light up the place, so I let a small amount of light escape from my scarab heart. Gil’s scarab heart. I was still trying to get used to it, and it didn’t feel right to call it my own.
“Open the door, Great Master,” Colonel Cody said. But right as he spoke, something slammed into the wooden door from the other side.
