by P. J. Hoover
There was no knob, so I pushed it open the tiniest amount. I had no idea what was on the other side. Hapi, waiting to tear our noses off? Imsety and Qeb, ready to put us in eternal stasis? When it was open a crack, I peeked inside and then stepped through, motioning for Tia and Henry to follow.
We were up on some kind of balcony that ran around the entire perimeter of the room below. I’d been in this exact room six months before, but I’d never noticed the balcony. Of course, I had been worried about getting my head shaved, so I had other things on my mind. I dropped low to the ground, so the railing would hide me, and I crept around until, through the slats, I had a good view of below. Tia and Henry were so quiet that I almost didn’t know they’d joined me. Also, I was pretty focused because Hapi was definitely down there, and it looked like he was in some sort of deep discussion with Imsety and Qeb. Well, at least as deep of a discussion as Imsety and Qeb ever had, which may have been the source of the disagreement they seemed to be having.
Hapi kept putting his baboon head in his hand and shaking it back and forth.
“Why don’t you understand?” I heard Hapi say.
“Calm down, bro,” Qeb said. He was the one with the falcon head, which looked really funny with his jean shorts and Atari shirt. “We totally understand exactly what you’re saying.”
“Then you know I need it,” Hapi said.
“Totally,” Qeb said.
“Then why are you not placing it in my hands right at this very minute?” Hapi said.
I had to agree with his logic. If they had the sun disk and they understood, what was holding them back—not that I wanted Hapi to get the sun disk at all. Maybe they knew I needed it, and this was a ploy to keep it away from him and save it for me. Yeah, I knew this possibility was slim, but I couldn’t help the small daydream. It would be so nice for something to really go my way, just once.
“That’s just it,” Imsety said, slapping Hapi on the back, like they were getting along like the best brothers in the world. Hapi was not the least bit amused. “We can’t give it to you. We understand, but we just can’t.”
Hapi glanced at the sign on the wall, the one that threatened anyone who took an object from the Hall of Artifacts. “There is no such thing as eternal stasis,” he said.
“Shhh,” Imsety whispered. “Don’t tell anyone.”
Hapi threw up his hands. “Who would I tell?”
“That’s why you were able to steal the scroll,” I whispered to Tia.
She only smiled in reply.
Qeb narrowed his falcon eyes at Hapi. “I don’t know. Who would you tell?”
It was ridiculous. I wished they would just get on with it.
Hapi must have had the same sentiment because he bared his teeth. “Give it to me now. You took it. It’s mine. I buried it in the first place. I want it back.”
“Yes, but all artifacts—” Imsety began.
“Now!” Hapi screamed. I’d never heard him scream in all my life. Never even thought it was possible. Him with his lack of emotions. But here, around his two extremely frustrating brothers … well, I guess it brought out the worst even in gods.
Imsety put his hands up. “Okay, here’s the deal. And don’t get mad when I tell you this.”
Hapi took a step forward. We were beyond the point of mad.
“We don’t have it,” Qeb said quickly.
“What do you mean, you don’t have it?” Hapi said.
“They don’t have it?” Henry whispered.
“We don’t have it, bro,” Qeb said. “That’s what we mean.”
Hapi bared his teeth as if the entire conversation were worse than torture. “Then who does have it?”
Imsety made a calm-down motion with his hands. “Okay, that’s the good news. What Qeb meant to say is that we don’t have it … here.”
Hapi looked from one to the next, as if he was trying to figure out which brother he could trust more. Or which he wanted to kill more.
“Then where do you have it?” he asked as calmly as possible for an angry baboon.
“Off-site storage,” Qeb said. “That’s where it went when we uncovered it.”
Hapi looked like he was going to start pulling Qeb’s feathers out of his head. “Why did you dig it up in the first place? It was fine where it was. Totally safe.”
Imsety laughed in that cocky way that always grated on my nerves. “Safe? In that swamp?”
“That swamp is a sacred battleground,” Hapi said. “You shouldn’t be disturbing anything in there, let alone the very item that defeated Apep to begin with.”
“Sacred battleground,” Imsety said. “Did you think to even place one protective ward on it? Even one?”
“There were plenty of protective wards,” Hapi said. “You shouldn’t have been able to get past them. No one should have. No one even knew what was there.”
Imsety chuckled. “Well, I guess that’s where your logic is flawed, little brother. Because somebody did know it was there. They came here and told us about it. Asked us to … relocate it.”
“Who?” Hapi said, keeping a completely deadpan face.
Imsety turned to Qeb and flicked his hands dismissively, like the answer was irrelevant. “I don’t know. Some lady. Do you remember who?”
“Of course I remember,” Qeb said. “She wasn’t just some lady. She was the First Lady, married to the president.”
“Which president?” Hapi asked.
“You want me to remember her name?” Qeb said. “Sorry, that’s a little too much record-keeping, if you ask me.”
Great Amun, it was a miracle Imsety and Qeb kept anything safe in this place.
“Okay, fine,” Hapi said. “Do you at least remember when it was?”
I guess he couldn’t let it go that someone had discovered his secret hiding place.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Imsety said. “That’s easy. You remember when they opened Tut’s tomb?”
I held my breath. Suddenly this conversation had turned to me. I knew very well when my tomb had been opened. Nineteen twenty-two. The headlines had reached America in days, but I had felt it, deep in my soul, as if some part of me had remained in that tomb for thousands of years and had finally seen the light of day. It’s the day my uncle Horemheb had been released. The day my worldly possessions had started being photographed. And cataloged. The day my peaceful immortal life had changed forever.
“Of course I remember,” Hapi said.
“Who was the president then?” Qeb said. “Harking? Harwell?
“Harding,” Henry whispered next to me, unable to keep his mouth shut. When it came to trivia, Henry would win any contest Imsety or Qeb put before him.
“Harding,” Hapi said, almost like he’d heard Henry. I hoped he hadn’t heard Henry. We did not need an angry baboon after us. Not today.
“Right. Harding,” Imsety said. “So his wife comes here. She’s the First Lady, you know. That means she’s married to the president.”
Hapi made a motion with his hand for Imsety to hurry up.
“So anyway, she stops in to visit, coming through the side entrance like she’s been here a million times. And she tells us about this object. How it’s buried in some swamp over across the river.”
“That’s impossible,” Hapi said. He scratched behind his ears as if this whole conversation blew his mind.
“Not impossible,” Imsety said. “And she says that we have to get it for her.”
“So you got it,” Hapi said. “Where is it?”
Qeb scratched his feather head. “That’s the weird part. She told us that we couldn’t keep it here, ‘by order of Ra.’” He said it all funny and spooky and used finger quotes as if to mock Ra. “Like anyone’s seen or heard from Ra.”
“That dude’s totally never coming back,” Imsety said.
“Never coming back,” Qeb echoed. “But hey, we’re not stupid. What if it is Ra? It’s not like we want to get on the bad side of that guy. So we give it to the lady—”
&nb
sp; “She was really cute,” Imsety said. “You remember how cute she was?”
“She was married,” Qeb said, silencing his brother. “Anyway, we give it to her, and you will not believe what she does with it.”
“What?” Hapi said. He was trying really hard to keep his temper; I’d seen him enough that I could tell. “What did she do with it?”
Imsety laughed. “She used it as her ‘First Lady China.’ You know how all those presidents’ wives have their special dishes they eat their doughnuts off of each morning for breakfast? She turns Ra’s sun disk, possibly the most powerful Egyptian artifact in the world, into a plate.”
Hapi didn’t say a word. I wasn’t sure what he would say, anyway. A plate? The sun disk was a plate?
“So let me be really clear here and ask a simple, straightforward question,” Hapi finally said. “And I want you to do your very best to answer it. Just answer it.”
Imsety and Qeb nodded. “Sure, bro,” Qeb said.
“Good,” Hapi said. “Where exactly is the sun disk right now?”
It was the question that should have been asked ten minutes ago. Finally we were going to get an answer.
“Oh, that’s what you want to know,” Imsety said. “That’s easy.”
Hapi waited. Henry, Tia, and I watched silently from the balcony above.
“It’s in the First Lady Plate Collection,” Qeb said. “Like we said, off-site storage.”
“That’s in the National Museum of American History,” Henry said, and he looked like he wanted to jump up right then and run over to the museum and grab it.
“Thanks for your help,” Hapi said, and he turned to walk away.
“Oh, but the same rules apply, bro,” Qeb called after him. “You can’t take anything from the Hall of Artifacts. Not even from off-site storage. Doing so will result in stasis for all of eternity.”
Hapi didn’t bother responding. He had no intention of listening to that stupid threat, and neither did I. Now I just had to find a way to get to the sun disk before Hapi.
20
WHERE HENRY MAKES A TRIP TO THE HOSPITAL
We held our breath, waiting until Hapi tore up the stairs, but the second he was out of sight, I dashed after him. I had to get the sun disk before he did. Otherwise, Gil would be as good as dead. I ran up the steps, taking them three at a time. Henry and Tia both kept up, even given my immortality. When we got to the top of the stairs, I shoved the maintenance door open, not caring if the entire world heard.
There was no sign of Hapi, curse that stupid baboon. But Blair was right there, as if she’d been waiting for us.
“There you guys are,” she said. “Where have you been? You’re missing the best part of this place.”
I didn’t care about science camp or whatever botanical revelation I wasn’t hearing. All I cared about was getting Gil back. But then it occurred to me how weird it was that Blair happened to be right here, waiting for us. We’d been gone for at least a half hour.
“We were looking for the bathroom,” Tia said, stomping past Blair and back onto the main path. I followed her, but blood pumped through me so fast, I started to lose control of my powers. Powers I barely had regained control over. Vines on the ground sprouted new leaves. The points on nearby cacti doubled in size. And the carnivorous plants began to grow, which was not going to end well. They were already as big as my fist. Any bigger and people were going to start losing hands.
“Stop it, Tut!” Tia said.
I tried. I really did. But all I could think about was Gil and how I was going to lose my chance to save him. And if I didn’t do something, I’d never get another chance. Mortal meant mortal. There was no coming back from the dead. It would be the end for Gil.
The carnivorous plants kept growing. The vines continued to twist.
“I can’t,” I said. Henry was still back near the door talking to Blair. They hadn’t noticed anything weird was going on. But the more I tried to stop it, the less control I seemed to have. I tried to reach for a fireball, for Gil’s powers, but they slipped out of my grasp.
“Tut!” Tia said. “What are you doing?”
“They won’t stop,” I said, trying to focus on something else. But it was useless. The Venus flytraps were now big enough to devour a rat. A large rat.
I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping that would help. And it did, because before I knew what was happening, Tia kissed me, an amazing, awesome, see-stars kind of kiss right on the lips, sending all sorts of crazy emotions through me. I couldn’t think about anything else.
My heart pounded. My face got really hot. I wanted it to last forever.
But once again, I didn’t get what I wanted. Tia pulled away and stepped back.
“Well, that worked,” she said, nodding at the carnivorous plants, which had stopped growing.
Here my heart was pounding faster than a jackhammer, and Tia was acting like nothing had just happened. Or was her face just the tiniest bit red? Great Osiris, why did Tia have to be so perfect and so complicated all at the same time? It made everything so confusing.
“Um…” I said, because nothing else would come out of my mouth.
Thankfully I was saved from any further embarrassment because Henry and Blair had joined us. His shirt was never more appropriate. I should have been the one wearing it today.
“I had no idea there was something between the two of you,” Blair said.
“That’s because there isn’t,” Tia said. And that was the end of that. She continued down the path and back to our science camp group.
We’d missed nearly forty-five minutes. It was lunchtime, so everyone was sitting out front eating their brown-bag lunches. Well, except for Joe and Brandon, who had Spider-Man and Batman lunch boxes, respectively. A huge black stretch limousine pulled up in front of the Botanical Gardens.
“Oh, there’s my dad,” Blair said, nearly jumping up and down. “He’s bringing me lunch. I’ll be right back, you guys.” And she ran off, over to the limo.
“We need to leave,” I said. “We need to get to the museum before Hapi.”
Henry shook his head and mumbled something, but it was hard to hear because his mouth was stuffed full with half his sandwich.
“Can you please speak English?” Tia said.
I tried not to look at how pretty she was while she talked. I tried not to think about the kiss. The last thing I needed to do was sit around staring at her. I had to focus.
“We need a distraction,” Henry said, swallowing his food so this time we could understand him.
“Who are we going to distract?” I couldn’t really see Camp Counselor Crystal tearing off after us if we decided to skip out of camp. Sure, we might get blackballed from ever signing up again, but I was totally cool with that.
“Hapi,” Henry said. “Who do you think?”
Huh. I hadn’t even thought of that. Distracting Hapi would actually be a great idea.
“How?” I started thinking of ways to do this, but Henry was way ahead of me.
“Don’t worry.” Henry pulled out his phone. “I have this taken care of.” He typed in a quick text and smiled.
Less than a minute later—seriously, no kidding: a minute—Thoth skated up and plunked down next to Henry like they were old pals or something. It was weird, my best friend just hanging out with the gods like that was a normal thing. But it was also kind of awesome.
“’Sup, Henry,” Thoth said. He looked like he’d only been using red and black paints today. They covered his gray tank top.
“’Sup,” Henry said.
Henry had gotten to this point with Thoth?
“I’m crushing you in Words with Friends,” Thoth said.
“I’m gaining on you,” Henry said.
“You guys are playing Words with Friends?”
Thoth studied his fingernails. “It passes the time.”
“Passes the time,” Henry scoffed. “Thoth challenged me. I couldn’t back down.”
I hoped Henry knew wha
t he was getting into. Challenges with gods were always matters to be taken seriously.
“Give me a word, Boy King,” Thoth said.
I was still reeling from Tia’s kiss, so the first word that popped out was “soul mate.” It was so lame and pathetic that I wanted to crawl under a nearby bench, but there was no taking it back once it was out of my mouth.
Thoth, to make it worse, chuckled. My face must’ve been redder than the paints on his shirt.
“You, Henry?” he said.
“Polyglot,” Henry said.
A huge smile popped onto Thoth’s face. “Now you’re catching on.”
The only thing I was catching on to was that Henry was becoming more of a word snob than Thoth.
“Polyglot?” I said.
“Soul mate?” he replied.
Okay, that was fair. I shut my mouth.
“And you, Tia,” Thoth said, turning to Tia. I guess he knew who she was.
“Tut,” she said.
I was completely floored. Here she acted so cool all the time, like she never thought about me or anything, and the first word out of her mouth was my name. I would have loved to have said something, but a really smart voice in my head told me to keep my mouth shut.
Henry raised an eyebrow at me and I gave him an almost imperceptible shake of my head.
“Good words,” Thoth said. “And I got one for you guys. Zeiss.”
“Zeiss? Like the microscopes?” I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything except that it was one more science thing. Probably another bonding thing between Henry and Thoth.
“You mentioned a game in your text,” Thoth said, leaving his word just like the others he’d delivered: unexplained. “Are you challenging me again?”
“Not me,” Henry said. “But we’re hoping you’ll challenge someone else.”
“Why?” Thoth said.
“Because he was talking trash about you,” I piped in, now that I’d figured out Henry’s strategy.
“Who was?” Thoth asked.
“Hapi,” I said, trying to keep my face from betraying me. But I really needed Thoth to do this.
