by P. J. Hoover
Henry started prodding at it. Clumps of dirt fell to the floor.
“My lord, I don’t know,” Colonel Cody said.
I rolled my eyes. “You don’t know how to open it, or you don’t know if you want to tell me?”
“That is an interesting question,” Colonel Cody said.
“And the interesting answer is…?”
“The answer to what?” Colonel Cody said.
I blew out my breath and put my hands back on the chest. Henry hadn’t made any more progress than I had. “Let’s take this one step at a time. Do you know how to open the chest?”
Colonel Cody crossed his hands over his chest. “No, Great Master.”
“Okay,” I said. “Do you know how to find out how to open it?”
He shook his head. Behind him, more shabtis scuttled to the basement steps with other things I didn’t recognize.
“Nothing else goes to the basement,” I said. “Didn’t you guys learn anything from the monster? And bring anything that was Gil’s to me right now.” I fixed my eyes on Colonel Cody. “Even stuff already in the basement.”
He snapped his fingers, and the little clay men began to obey.
“Did you ever see Gil open the chest?” I said.
Colonel Cody’s face fell. “One time, Great Pharaoh, but I swear I don’t know how he did it.”
I smiled. Finally I was getting somewhere. “Do you think there was a key?”
Colonel Cody frowned. “No, there was no key. But…” He scratched his head. “I do remember something. He spoke some word and the next thing I knew, the lid popped off.”
“It just popped off,” I repeated.
Colonel Cody nodded and smiled like he’d solved world hunger.
“What word did he say?”
Colonel Cody sighed. “I don’t remember. But the cat was here. Perhaps he would remember.”
Horus opened his eye from the top of his scratching post.
“He’s a god,” I whispered to Colonel Cody, hoping Horus wouldn’t hear.
“Yes, the cat god. He should know,” Colonel Cody said. It was the best I was going to get out of him.
By now a pile had started growing in front of me. Sure, there were things like Gil’s toothbrush and his dingy old Washington Bullets sweatshirt that he refused to get rid of, but there were also lots of other things I’d never seen before in my life. Like a bunch of clay tablets and a rusty old crown.
“Horus, do you know the word to open this chest?”
Horus put on his best bothered look. “What do I look like? A wordsmith?”
“No, you look like a cat,” I said. “But that only cloaks your secret identity. You could be a wordsmith, too, for all I know.”
I’d been around Horus forever, but he still remained a mystery. He wasn’t just any god. He was a super-important god, the son of Osiris and Isis, who were kind of the king and queen gods. And he hung around with me for some strange reason. Not that I was complaining. I liked Horus—most of the time.
“Gil never opened that thing around me,” Horus said. “Maybe it was for decoration.”
Given the fact that it was secretly locked, I highly doubted that.
“Can you try to remember?” I asked Colonel Cody.
He nodded happily. “It would be my greatest pleasure.”
But if he was going to remember, it wasn’t happening right away.
“What about science camp?” Henry said.
I stood up and brushed the dirt and dust that had come from the chest off my jeans. Or maybe it was still some of the incense powder.
Henry stood up next to me. A shabti ran by with a paintbrush. It must have had something to do with repairs in the basement. On the scratching post, Horus again closed his eye.
“What about it?” I said.
Henry didn’t say anything. He only stared me down. And as he stared, I remembered the weird vision I’d had about Gil from the day before. Maybe the shake-up in my normal routine had triggered it. As much as I hated to admit it, Horus could be right. Maybe I did need a change of pace. That could be the best way to find Gil.
“I have other things to do,” I said, in one last-ditch effort to not go to camp.
“Great,” Henry said. “We’ll do them together after camp.”
And so day two of science camp loomed before me.
5
WHERE THE GODS VANDALIZED D.C.
Science camp day two was at the Tidal Basin. Across the water sat the Jefferson Memorial, glistening in the sun. Bright and shiny and polished. That’s what Egypt used to look like, back when the buildings were new. Most people thought of them as always being a bunch of crumbling ruins, but that’s completely not how it was. Egypt had been a shining star. It made me kind of sad when I thought about how it would never be restored to its full glory ever again, just like I’d never again be the king of Egypt. But, hey, I got to relive middle school forever.
Yeah, you feel my pain.
“Best shirt ever, Henry,” Blair said, running up to us the second we crossed the street and met up with our science camp group. Here at the Tidal Basin, tourism was definitely picking up. There were already at least fifteen paddleboats out on the water, but none of them was moving very fast.
I glanced over at Henry’s bright yellow T-shirt. It read, .
Nitrogen. Erbium. Dysprosium. I couldn’t have hand-picked a better shirt for him.
“Thanks,” Henry said, turning thirty different shades of red. “Do you know what happens when you mix two atoms of nitrogen with three atoms of dysprosium?”
“Please don’t tell me,” I said.
Blair looked at me, and it was like she really saw me for the first time. Like yesterday I’d been more of an accessory to Henry, but today I’d magically turned into a real person.
“You smell funny,” Blair said. She leaned close and sniffed me.
I took a step back, bumping into Joe. The weird vibes were kind of rolling off Blair. Or maybe it was just the pungent odor coming from the Tidal Basin.
“It’s the water,” I said. I didn’t smell the least bit funny. Colonel Cody never let me leave the apartment without deodorant.
Blair glanced over my shoulder at the mucky water and wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, maybe.” But she sniffed me again. And then she sniffed Henry. And then she moved on to Joe and Brandon. She tried to act casual, like she wasn’t doing it, but there was no missing it.
Behind me, Joe whispered, “Cray-Cray,” and Brandon laughed.
I cringed, hoping Henry hadn’t heard. We didn’t need him threatening to pick another fight.
Henry started muttering words under his breath, things that sounded like they’d come right out of the Book of the Dead. Around us, the air started to churn. It was like he was chanting some spell and actually making it work. Like maybe powers were finally coming out of him as a result of all the immortal energy I’d pumped into him. I had to do something.
I grabbed Henry’s arm and started dragging him. “Come on, Henry. Let’s get up front so we can hear better.”
I couldn’t believe the words had actually come out of my mouth. The things I would do for friendship amazed me. But it worked. Henry stopped whispering the spell and the air settled down.
“That was weird,” he said. He seemed as surprised as I was.
“Yeah,” I said. “We can talk about it later.”
Henry let me lead him up to where Camp Counselor Crystal was already deep in lecture mode. She droned on and on about the waters in the Tidal Basin, talking about the directions they flowed, where they came from, how its whole purpose was to safely release water captured during the high tide. She was trying to make it sound fun, like all the different currents were racing at the Indy 500, but she kept glancing back at the water and frowning. I didn’t give it much thought until I actually looked at the water myself.
Here’s the thing. I’d been living in D.C. for over two hundred years, ever since it was built. I knew the place pretty well. The Ti
dal Basin had only been around for about a hundred of those years. But in those hundred years, I’d never seen the water acting this way. The tides around here were always predictable. Always the same. Except for today. Because today the water was almost not moving. There were some places where it was so still, I could see the ground through the water. I glanced toward the inlet bridge that let in the water, but the water looked completely still. And then my vision sort of clouded over, where I couldn’t see anything at all. But I could hear all sorts of things. There was a bunch of pounding, almost like construction noise. And two people talking, arguing.
“It’s your turn to watch him,” one of the voices said. It was super-high and thin, to the point where it almost squeaked. I still couldn’t see anything.
“I watched him already,” the other voice said. Unlike the first voice, it was deep and gruff. “I’m sick of watching him. It’s boring watching him. He’s not doing anything.”
In the vision, I felt really groggy, almost like I’d been drugged. My head was heavy, and all I wanted to do was lay my head down and sleep. But I also knew I had to listen. I tried to summon fire to the tips of my fingers, but it didn’t work.
“What do you want him to do?” the first voice said. “Better for him to sit here doing nothing than to try to escape. I hear these immortals are ninja masters.”
Escape? What was that about?
“He can’t escape,” the second voice said. “We got him secured pretty good.”
The words faded and the darkness disappeared. The real world returned around me. I was still at science camp. Still watching the water. It had just been some kind of daydream. Another vision like I’d had at the zoo.
I was sure the vision was about Gil again, but what was it trying to tell me? Gil wasn’t immortal anymore. And I couldn’t imagine where he’d need to escape from. Maybe I was just going crazy and it was all a bunch of weird stuff my mind was making up.
If anyone noticed me slip out of reality, they didn’t let on. Henry was caught trying to split his attention between the lecture and Blair. The words he’d been muttering flitted around in my mind. If he did have powers, I’d have to work with him on getting them under control. I’d also have to get my own under control.
I still couldn’t get over the fireball thing with Humbaba. Gil would be completely impressed. When I found him, it would be the first thing I told him. Speaking of which, I wondered where Humbaba had gone off to. I hoped he wasn’t wreaking havoc on some small country.
I edged away from our camp group, wandering over to the inlet bridge so I could get a better look at the water. I sat down in the dirt, watching the lack of waves. Something was definitely up. The tides should not be acting this way. What was it Horus had said this morning, when I’d asked him where he’d been? Watching the tides. So he’d noticed it, too.
My phone buzzed, stirring me from my thoughts. It was probably Henry, telling me to get back to the group. I almost didn’t look at it. But when I finally did, my heart started pounding like a herd of gazelles running across the plains. The message was from Tia.
did you miss me?—tia, she texted.
Finally, after six months of not seeing her, she decided to get in touch. How was it that she had my cell phone number? I didn’t have hers.
A million possible responses ran through my mind. Things like “hardly” to declaring my undying love for her. I opted against that since I could almost see her roll her eyes.
tia who? I finally texted.
ha, ha, she responded.
where’ve you been? I typed.
busy looking for something, she texted.
what?
Her reply came quick. it’s secret. Sry tut. gtg.
Perfect. Just when Tia finally gets in touch with me, she ditches me once again. My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I typed out will you call me? but I deleted it before sending. I didn’t want to seem pathetic, even if I was. Then I typed out call me but I deleted that, too. I settled on simplicity.
bye, I typed, and I hit send. Then I added her number to my contacts and pocketed the phone before I typed anything else and ruined my cool image.
Henry was just walking over. Blair was nowhere to be seen.
“You’re missing everything, Tut,” Henry said.
I’d had another vision about Gil, and Tia had texted me. I was definitely not missing anything. But I let Henry drag me back to the group.
Camp felt like an eternity. I tried to focus on what Camp Counselor Crystal was saying for the next couple hours. I really did. But my mind kept jumping back to the tides and then Gil and then Tia. It was only made tolerable by Joe and Brandon’s unending string of sarcastic comments. They were actually pretty hilarious. Even Henry laughed a couple times. Finally it ended.
“Hey, you guys want to grab a burger or something?” Joe said.
Even though my stomach grumbled at the thought of a juicy hamburger, I had to search the rest of the places on my list for Gil. My scarab heart thumped in reply. Also, I wanted to ask Horus about the tides.
“Not today,” I said, even though Henry looked like he was about to say yes. He’d been eating everything in sight these days. “Henry and I have something to do.”
“Next time for sure,” Joe said. “We should hang out more often.”
It was weird. In the past, I’d always gotten along with everyone. But I’d also remained pretty unnoticed, thanks to my spells. But Gil’s heart was different. It made me feel more visible. More the center of attention. I wondered if it was how Gil had felt all the time.
“Next time,” I said, though I couldn’t imagine having burgers with the guys at school. A year from now, when I wasn’t looking any older, they might not want to be my friend so much.
“I keep having these weird visions about Gil,” I said as Henry and I started back toward my townhouse. I half expected him to laugh as I told him about them, but he nodded and hung on my every word.
“You think he’s in trouble?” Henry asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t want to think that, but it’s like my mind is trying so hard to figure out where he went. But you know how Gil was. He kept his private life so…”
“Private?” Henry suggested.
“Yeah. Which I know sounds obvious, but with Gil it was almost like he was hiding things.”
“So you think he’s hiding now?” Henry said.
I’d thought this out, plenty of times. Sure, there was a part of me that thought Gil was hiding just around the corner, still watching out for me. But Gil was mortal now. He could die. And he would die if he didn’t watch out. This latest vision had mentioned escaping. That wasn’t good. Gil could be in serious trouble.
“Gil would have found some way to get in touch by now. Something to let me know he was okay.”
I was about to go into some lengthy story about all the great times Gil and I’d had together, but a Japanese family stopped us to ask for directions—in Japanese. No problem. I’d lived in Japan for years. I could totally tell them where the Smithsonian was. Before I had a chance, Henry answered instead … in Japanese. Perfectly fluent conversational Japanese.
The family beamed at Henry and must’ve bowed twenty times in thanks. Henry bowed in return, and the family set off toward the museums.
“You know Japanese,” I said, stating the obvious.
“Yeah, weird,” Henry said. “I had no idea I knew Japanese.” He acted like it was no big deal.
“And…?” I said.
“And what?”
“How do you know Japanese all of a sudden?”
Henry shrugged. “Maybe my mom’s been playing those ‘Learn Any Language’ audiobooks for me while I’ve been sleeping. You know scientific data suggests that people can even learn to do things like play the guitar while asleep.”
“You didn’t learn Japanese while you were sleeping,” I said.
“Google Translate?” Henry said, but even he didn’t seem convinced.
&
nbsp; I was about to point out the impossibilities of it being Google Translate, but I never got the chance because we turned the corner and came to a stop along with at least fifty other people.
We’d stopped under a bridge in Georgetown. It was right near where this super-cool music club used to be called the Bayou. They’d closed the club years ago. Gil would sneak me in to listen to music since the entry age was eighteen. It was one more annoying reminder of what a pain it was to be stuck at fourteen.
“I’ve never seen graffiti like that,” Henry said, pointing. It’s what everyone was looking at.
If there was one thing D.C. had plenty of, it was graffiti artists. But the guy in front of us had turned it into a contact sport. He jumped up high on the wall, grabbed hold of the rafters from the bridge above, and hung by one arm as he sprayed more paint. Next he flipped over in the air and landed on the ground, then proceeded to spray the entire base of the wall from left to right while sliding across the pavement on a skateboard. When he finished with one paint can, he snapped it into a belt he wore slung low around his waist, like some sort of Batman utility belt, but with paint instead of grappling bat-hooks, and grabbed another. His white tank top was covered with paint of every color, as were his faded jeans, which hung as low on his waist as his belt.
The crowd started clapping. The guy bowed and waved in reply. A few people even handed him money. It had to be a way more fun way to make cash than bagging groceries.
People took pictures, and the guy posed. The graffiti was amazing. The only problem was, it wasn’t just random graffiti. Not that anyone in the crowd would recognize it. What was written was a bunch of lines and symbols and didn’t look like any language that had been used in the last three thousand years.
It took forever, but finally everyone wandered off except Henry and me.
“Give me a word,” the guy said, snapping the red paint can into place in his belt and turning to us. He was Asian and lean and muscular and only looked a couple years older than me or Henry, about sixteen. His eyes landed on me and narrowed, as if he was searching deep inside my soul.
And even though I had no intention of doing it, a single word popped out of my mouth.
