by P. J. Hoover
“It’s not heathen spirits. It’s Gil’s heart,” I said, swatting away the match. It fell on the arm of Gil’s chair and started smoking. One of the shabtis doing the fanning jumped on it and put it out, but not before it left a huge burn mark in the patched fabric. “What time is it anyway?”
“Five a.m., Great Master,” Colonel Cody said. He glanced quickly behind me.
An odd smell hung in the air, but I couldn’t quite place it. Maybe it was the residual incense.
“Some breakfast?” Lieutenant Virgil said. He, like Colonel Cody, was standing in a completely awkward place, making me have to turn my head to see him.
“What are you guys hiding?” I asked.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, Great Master,” Colonel Cody said.
I’d known Colonel Cody a hundred years. He knew exactly what I was talking about. I spun around, even as the shabtis tried to distract me. And then I saw why.
Gil’s door, previously black with a giant red X, had been repainted, which explained the odd smell. Instead of being black, it was now bright blue with gold stripes running horizontally across it and a shiny gold star in the middle.
“What did you do?” I asked.
Captain Otto hopped onto the stair railing. “A brilliant thing,” he said. “We are building Great Pharaoh a media room. Only top-of-the-line audio and video equipment will be good enough for—”
“You’re not turning Gil’s room into a media room,” I said.
“Perhaps an exercise room?” Colonel Cody said.
I shook my head. “No! Gil is coming back. We are going to find him, and if he gets here and his room is…” I waved my hand in the direction of the blue and gold door. “Just … no. Put it back how it was.”
Captain Otto’s face fell. “But think of the movies…”
“And popcorn!” Lieutenant Virgil added.
“No movies! When Gil gets back, he is going to need his room.” I spun back around. “And, yes, I would love some breakfast.”
* * *
The doorbell rang at eight a.m. sharp. The shabtis checked through the peephole to see who it was.
“Should we allow Great Master’s questionably immortal friend to enter?” Major Rex said.
Ugh. Henry. Not today.
“I’m not going to science camp,” I yelled through the closed door.
The knob turned, and Henry opened the door, peeking inside. “Not to worry. It’s Thursday.”
I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, but I didn’t ask.
Henry took my silence as an invitation and stepped inside. He was eating a powdered sugar doughnut and had sugar all over his chin and red shirt. Today’s shirt read, . If I’d still been hungry, I’d have asked Lieutenant Leon to make me some.
“Camp is only Monday through Wednesday,” Henry said. “Thursday and Friday we can do whatever we want.”
What I wanted to do was find Gil and save the world.
“So you’ll help me look for Gil?” I said. With me not meeting Hapi until Saturday, I still had two days to spend searching for Gil.
Henry took another bite of the doughnut. “Sure. You have any ideas?”
I flipped to a page in my notebook. “I have a whole list. Today I’m hoping to hit most of the places near Georgetown. Oh, and I need your help with something Saturday night.”
“Saturday?” Henry said. “What time?”
Oy. After the thing about Henry’s parents, this was going to be tricky. “Ten o’clock. Tell your parents you’re sleeping over.”
“I told them that three days ago,” Henry said, brushing the powdered sugar from his shirt onto the floor. Lieutenant Roy and another shabti immediately ran over with a small broom and dustpan and started sweeping up the mess.
“So? Tell them again.”
Henry pulled out his phone but stopped before typing anything. “Wait. Why? What do you need help with?”
After the whole thing with the giant scorpions trying to kill us, I couldn’t blame him for asking. So I told him about my conversation with Horus. And I told him about the Sun Disk of Ra.
“I don’t think Hapi likes me very much,” Henry said.
“That’s because you called him a monkey when you met him,” I said.
“That was six months ago,” Henry said. “I’ve been doing tons of research on simians, and now I can totally see that Hapi is a baboon. Baboons have a longer nose and their eyes are way closer together. You know that almost gives them binocular vision? Oh, and they’re nocturnal. There are tons of differences. I don’t know what I was thinking before.”
I wasn’t sure what Henry was thinking much of the time.
“So you’ll help me?” I asked. After the spell and the way Henry had paralyzed the scorpions, I really wanted him as backup. Plus, I liked hanging out with Henry. With Gil gone, and Horus permanently grumpy, things had gotten pretty quiet around the townhouse.
“I’ll help you,” Henry said. “If…”
“If what? Isn’t science camp enough?” This was the fate of the world we were talking about.
“If you go somewhere with me during the day on Saturday,” Henry said.
It sounded easy and straightforward, but I could tell by the way Henry wouldn’t look me directly in the eye that he had some ploy going on.
“Where?” I asked.
“I want to go to Blair’s dad’s carnival,” Henry said, pulling the brochure she’d given us from his pocket.
“The carnival? You’re kidding.”
Henry shook his head. “Blair keeps asking us to go, and she’s really cute, and I don’t want her to think I don’t care about her charity. It sounds like it’s a really great cause. Do you have any idea how many endangered species of snakes there are?”
Great Osiris, help me. If I ever acted this way about a girl, I’d mummify myself.
“Please don’t te—” I started.
“Hundreds,” Henry said, cutting me off. “And if I don’t even do something like go to the carnival to support her cause, she’s going to think I’m a horrible person.”
I knew that agreeing was the only way Henry would help me.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll go with you to the carnival on Saturday. But until then, you have to help me look for Gil.”
This must’ve been totally cool with Henry, because he beamed and did some little cross-your-heart thing I’d seen girls in our grade do when they made promises. And so our plans for the next few days were set.
* * *
Henry and I spent all day Thursday and Friday searching one place after another on my list, looking for Gil, but we came up completely empty. I tried not to let it get me down. But when I thought about how every single place I looked was a dead end, it made me feel like I had a giant pit in my stomach that was growing bigger with each failure. I had to find Gil.
I wanted to spend Saturday looking, too, but I had made a promise. I remembered this time for sure. Plus, all Henry could talk about was the carnival. He showed up super-early on Saturday morning with a bag of doughnuts, ready to go.
I’d seen the carnival going up for the last month. It was across the Potomac, on the Virginia side of the water. The Ferris wheel was tall enough to see all the way from my townhouse. And I liked a good carnival as much as the next immortal.
“You want a doughnut?” Henry asked, holding the bag out to me.
Even though I loved doughnuts, Lieutenant Virgil’s chocolate chip scones from earlier were still sitting in my stomach. “Maybe later.”
“There’s only one left,” Henry said.
“Then it’s yours.” I didn’t want to interfere with Henry’s insatiable appetite.
We walked south, toward the National Mall. The Fourth of July was next week, so they were setting up tents and stages everywhere. Hundreds of porta-potties lined the sidewalks, ready for the huge crowds that were sure to come. We crossed over the Mall and had almost reached the Jefferson Memorial when something sla
mmed into me, coming out of nowhere.
I landed flat on my back, and stars filled my vision. When the stars cleared, I barely had time to register the giant blob of drool falling toward my face.
I closed my eyes … too late. Humbaba, the Sumerian monster from my basement, towered over me. And then he lowered his head and licked me across my entire face, taking the drool and most likely a layer of my skin with it.
“What is that thing, Tut?” Henry said. He stood ten feet away and didn’t look like he was moving in to help.
“Good Baba,” I said, but I still couldn’t move. I had no clue where he’d been for the last few days. Truthfully, I hadn’t expected him to come back.
Humbaba jumped up and landed back on me, knocking the wind from my lungs. And then his giant snake tail started wagging. It was so long that it hit the ground on both sides of me, the snake head hissing with each impact.
“Good boy,” I said. The gender part was a guess. I didn’t want to inspect Humbaba that closely. “Time to let me up.”
Humbaba didn’t move.
“Seriously, Baba,” I said. “Time to get off.”
Humbaba only pounced on me again. This was not going well.
I dug through my mind, trying to remember anything I could about dog training, but Horus had never let us have a dog. He said they barked too much and peed all over the place, marking their territory. But from back in Egypt, when I did have dogs, there were a few basics that came to mind. I had to let Humbaba know who was boss. And I had to reward good behavior.
“Give me your doughnut,” I said to Henry.
Henry held the powdered sugar doughnut back, out of reach. “It’s the last one.”
“Yeah, and I have a monster on top of me. He wants a treat. Give me the doughnut.”
Henry glanced longingly at the doughnut one more time and then edged forward, placing it in my outstretched hand.
I looked Humbaba directly in the eyes. “Okay, here’s the deal, Baba. If you get off me and be a super-good boy, then you get this yummy, yummy treat.”
Humbaba’s ears perked up at this and his huge lion eyes swiveled to the doughnut in my hand. I tensed for a second. I did not want him to bite the doughnut and accidentally take my hand with him. Another huge drop of drool fell onto my face.
“Come on, Baba. You know you want to be a good boy.”
He wagged his snake tail, and his black tongue lolled out. His eyes roved back and forth between me and the doughnut. And then he jumped off, lifting so high in the air, he would have registered on the radar for low-flying airplanes. I finally sucked in a breath.
Humbaba landed next to me, sat on his haunches, and started panting, eyes fixed on the doughnut. His tail wagged so fast I could hardly see it.
“Tut?” Henry said. He still hadn’t moved.
“It’s Humbaba,” I said. “I don’t think he’ll hurt you.”
“You don’t think so?” Henry said. “That’s no reassurance.”
“Good boy, Baba,” I said. “You want the treat now?”
His snake tail wagged even faster, and he let out a roar that shook the ground around us.
“Here you go!” I tossed the doughnut to him.
He caught it easily and inhaled it. And then he tilted his head at me, like he was asking for more.
“That was the last one.” I reached forward and scratched Humbaba on the head between his giant ears. He let out a low roar, and his back right leg started twitching.
“Is it a dog?” Henry said. “Because if it is, it doesn’t look like any dog I’ve ever seen before. And I’ve seen a lot of them, Tut.”
“It’s not a dog.” I kept scratching Humbaba because he seemed happier than a puppy at the park. “It’s a Sumerian monster. He’s the guardian of the Cedar Forest.”
“A monster? You’re scratching a monster’s head? What? Are you going to rub his tummy next?”
At this, Humbaba’s ears perked up. He rolled over immediately onto his back and exposed his super-hairy stomach. And he did really remind me of a dog, so I figured there was nothing to lose. I started scratching his stomach.
Drool oozed out of the sides of Humbaba’s mouth, and his eyes rolled back in his head. It was like he’d died and gone to monster paradise.
“Who’s a good monster?” I said. “Who is? Baba is, that’s who.”
“Are you kidding me, Tut?” Henry said. He’d finally dared to inch closer. “That thing looks like he could swallow me whole.”
“Then don’t make him mad,” I said.
“Can you just make him go away?” Henry said.
“Go away? He’s so cute.” It was hard to believe the terrifying monster from my basement was now enjoying a tummy rub.
“Seriously, Tut,” Henry said. “He’s like a pit bull on steroids.”
From behind us a car drove by, blowing its horn like an idiot. Humbaba must’ve taken this as a challenge, because he got up and lowered himself onto his front paws. His tail stopped wagging. And the roar that had been simmering in his throat began to grow.
I figured this was a good time to stop playing. Henry was right. Humbaba was bigger than a smart car. If he landed in the middle of traffic, that would definitely make the evening news.
So, like I’d done it a million times before, I summoned a fireball in my right hand.
“Ready, Baba?” I said.
He snapped his head in my direction. Thankfully his snake tail started wagging again. He let out a roar that sounded a lot like a bark. And then another one.
I pulled my hand back and threw the fireball with all my immortal strength. It whipped through the air like a comet. Humbaba didn’t hesitate. He was after it so fast, it was like he hadn’t been standing there one second before.
I brushed off my jeans and T-shirt.
Henry just stared at me.
“What?” I said.
“No more monsters,” he said. “And fireballs? Seriously? You didn’t think to tell me about that?”
It hadn’t come up. Also, I hadn’t been sure. But now I was. I’d summoned the fireball with hardly thinking about it. My powers, or Gil’s powers, were getting stronger.
“I’ll tell you next time,” I said.
“Let’s hope there’s not a next time,” Henry said, and we crossed the bridge to Virginia.
13
WHERE THE FUNHOUSE ISN’T SO FUN
No sooner had we walked through the giant wooden gates of the carnival than Blair ran up to us. Well, she ran up to Henry. Me, she just kind of sniffed the air and shrugged and looked away. But I was covered in monster drool, which isn’t attractive no matter how many fireballs I’d summoned.
“You came to the carnival, Henry. I’m so glad.” She clasped her hands in front of her with glee.
Henry turned a shade of red I didn’t think was humanly possible. It looked exactly like the inside of a pomegranate, splotchy and everything.
“Well, yeah,” he said. “The whole thing with the endangered species … I’ve been doing a ton of research on it, and I can’t believe some of the things they hunt animals for.”
The smile slipped from Blair’s face, and tears filled her wide eyes. “It’s horrible. And snakes are the worst. People don’t care about them as much since they aren’t all fluffy and fuzzy and don’t like to cuddle.”
I kept my mouth shut, but I fell into that category of people. The last animal I’d want to cuddle with was a snake.
“It’s a really great cause,” Henry said. “Your dad must be an amazing person.”
“He’s the best ever,” Blair said.
I cleared my throat because I’d had about as much of this conversation as I could without risking losing my breakfast.
“So … uh … where’s camp next week?” I said, looking for a common thread between us.
Blair whipped her head around so fast that it took her hair a couple seconds to catch up. “You don’t know?”
I took a step back. “Um … no.”
&nbs
p; From how excited she was, I worried it was a snake farm or something.
“We’re going to the Botanical Gardens. I can’t wait!”
“Yeah, you should like that, Tut,” Henry said. “With as much as you like plants.”
He was right. I did like plants—a lot—seeing as how my patron deity was Osiris. Or at least it used to be Osiris. I guess, with the whole fireball thing, maybe it was Nergal now, Gil’s patron deity. But the thought of that made me kind of … I don’t know. Sad. Sure, I was happy to be alive. And fireballs were really cool. I’d always been envious of Gil’s powers. And even though I used to laugh about how silly my own Osiris-given powers were, I missed them. The number of scarab beetles in my townhouse was declining fast. Horus was not happy.
Blair grabbed Henry’s hands. He froze, and the red on his face deepened. His eyes darted sideways to me, but I didn’t say a word.
“Make sure you both visit the funhouse,” Blair said. “It’s the biggest funhouse in any carnival this side of the Atlantic.”
I’d visited pretty much every carnival in the United States. I’d seen lots of funhouses. I was about to tell Blair this, but I stopped myself since she wasn’t paying attention to me.
She started pulling on Henry’s hands. “Henry, you should come meet my dad.”
“Wwwwhat?” he said.
“My dad,” Blair said. “I’ve told him all about you. He wants to meet you.”
This was too much for Henry. He shook his hands loose and took a step back, toward me. “Um … Tut and I are just going to walk around for a little bit.”
I didn’t think this was the right answer. Blair stared at him with wide eyes that didn’t blink, and then she licked her lips.
“Right,” I said. “We’re just going to walk around.”
At this, her eyes snapped to me. She licked her lips again, not breaking eye contact. She was kind of pretty, I guess, but she did have some serious social issues. Finally she looked away.
“Okay, whatever,” she said. “Don’t forget to check out the funhouse.”
