Especially when she was in a hurry.
The limo dodged through London traffic and sped to the airport. Agatha and Chandler found two tickets booked under their names at the VIP check-in desk. Within minutes, they boarded a luxurious Egyptair Boeing 777, nonstop to Luxor. Surrounded by cool air conditioning, they took their seats and placed Watson’s carrier in the seat reserved for Dash.
The Siberian cat was used to flying and was already fast asleep. Agatha buried her nose in a book. She had brought the two volumes on cacti and poisons, along with some guidebooks on Egypt. She began with the book about poisons, looking for more information about her new Indionigro petrificus. Chandler shifted around, trying to make himself comfortable. He was too bulky to fit in his seat and his legs stuck out into the aisle, forcing him to apologize to everyone who tripped over his shoes on their way up the aisle.
They watched as Egyptians and tourists boarded in droves. There were families on summer vacations and young couples going on honeymoons. Soon, the plane was full and the roar of the engines got louder with each passing minute.
“Flight attendants, prepare to depart,” the captain said over the loudspeaker.
Chandler raised his eyebrows. “Where is Dash?” he asked, looking worried.
Agatha twisted around, peering back at the hatch. “He’s arguing with a flight attendant,” she sighed. “Typical!”
They pricked up their ears to listen in.
“I told you, it isn’t a cell phone, so I don’t need to turn it off during takeoff,” Dash was telling a young flight attendant. “It’s a new generation of Nintendo!”
“It’s so small!” she said, frowning suspiciously. “Show me!”
With an impatient snort, Dash unhooked his titanium gadget from the strap of his bag, pressed a button, and handed it to her.
The attendant stared at the flashing screen and seemed to relax. “And it plays Super Mario, too?” she asked. “Where can I buy one?”
Dash scooped it out of her hand with impressive dexterity. “It’s kind of a prototype model,” he told her. “It isn’t on sale yet.”
“But…but…”
“So, I can go now, right?”
Without waiting for an answer, Dash strode down the aisle. The fake screen trick had worked perfectly. He felt like a real secret agent.
Agatha waved at him, but he was whistling happily, lost in fantasies of becoming the world’s greatest spyware designer.
“Watch out!” warned his cousin.
“Huh, what?!”
Too late.
Dash didn’t see Chandler’s leg poking into the aisle. He tripped and fell onto the carpet, yelping in pain. Then he started frantically scrabbling around on the floor, searching under the other passengers’ seats.
“Where is it?!” he screeched. “I can’t find it!”
Agatha tried to calm him. “Find what? Can I help?”
“My EyeNet! It’s gone! So much for our mission.”
So that was why he was freaking out.
The EyeNet was the state-of-the-art gadget the Eye International Detective Academy gave to its students. Dash never let his EyeNet out of his sight, and he felt lost without it.
“It fell into Watson’s carrier,” Chandler reassured him.
Dash lunged to retrieve it, forgetting one minor detail: the cat hated his guts.
Sure enough, as soon as he stuck his hand into the case, Watson recognized his scent and chomped down on his finger.
“Owww!” Dash groaned. But at least he’d retrieved his precious gadget, and that was the main thing he cared about. He sank into his seat with a sigh of relief.
“Tough life, this detective gig,” Agatha deadpanned.
“You know it, cousin!”
Moments later, the plane taxied onto the airstrip and angled up into the sky, piercing the pale London cloud cover. Above it, the sky was a peaceful, clear blue. Time to find out more about Dash’s mission.
“Tell me everything, Agent DM14!” Agatha urged him.
“Oh yeah, right. I nearly forgot…”
“Come on, spill!”
Dash told her about the message he’d gotten from his school that morning. It was his final exam for Investigation Techniques: he had three days to find out who’d stolen an artifact from an archaeological dig in the Valley of the Kings. “It’s some kind of tablet about some mysterious pharaoh,” he added.
“Some kind of tablet? Could you be any less vague?”
“That’s all I know, Agatha!”
“Are you sure?”
Dash ran his hands through his messy hair, looking embarrassed. “Well, I haven’t checked out all the video files yet. I wanted to watch them with you…”
“So what are we waiting for?”
“Um, right. Here goes!”
Dash pulled all the gear out of his backpack: two sets of earbuds, an adapter, and a USB cable. He connected the various pieces to the EyeNet, then switched on the television screen on the back of the seat in front of him. He proudly switched on his device.
Onscreen, an older man with a basset-hound face and a mustache appeared, introducing himself as agent UM60. “That’s my Investigation Tech teacher,” said Dash.
“Luxor, the ancient capital of Egypt, was once known as Thebes,” the teacher intoned. “It’s renowned for its temples honoring the sun. But you, agent DM14, must go to the opposite shore of the Nile, where the sun sets and the pharaohs have slept in their tombs for thousands of years: that endless necropolis known as the Valley of the Kings. I assume you’re familiar with Tutankhamen’s curse?”
Dash squirmed. Apparently not.
Agatha was hypnotized by the slide show of images on the screen. It was like a crash course in Egypt’s archaeological wonders.
“Remember, this is an exam, not a vacation,” the teacher warned. “You must discover the culprit within three days, agent DM14, or I will be forced to fail you!”
Dash jolted back in his seat, beads of sweat popping up on his forehead. Exams always made him incredibly nervous. That was why he always brought Agatha with him whenever he had to go out on a mission.
Meanwhile, Agent UM60 wrapped up his speech: “Obviously you will have access to all of our data on Egypt, but the clues must be found in the field. Do I make myself clear?”
The video clip came to an end, and the professor’s long face was replaced with an endless menu of files: satellite maps, coded messages, and footage from spy-cams.
“It’s worse than I thought!” Dash moaned. “I’ll never get through this!”
Agatha patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry.” She grinned. “Piece of cake. This is going to be fun!”
They pulled out their earbuds, and only then noticed that all the other passengers were staring at them, irritated.
The flight attendant who’d been so excited by the Super Mario game now looked angry. “Which one of you is Agent DM14?” she demanded, crossing her arms.
Absolute silence.
Dash shrank into his seat, dipping his chin so his hair flopped down over his eyes.
“I am,” lied Chandler. “Is there a problem, ma’am?”
“Can’t you see what a mess you’ve made?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your bizarre documentary is playing on every TV screen on this plane!”
“Really?”
“Our passengers have the right to watch whatever in-flight movie they choose, and I’ll thank you not to take over the airwaves!”
There was a roar of agreement from the other passengers. A few even clapped.
Chandler didn’t blink. “Whatever you say, ma’am. My sincerest apologies.”
What a disaster.
As soon as the flight attendant took off, Agatha thanked Chandler for his quick thinking and turned to her cousin. “Let’s bag on the research till later, okay, Dash?” she said with a smile.
“Good plan,” he agreed. “We’ll check out the files in the shadow of the pyramids. Sounds pre
tty cool, right?”
Agatha looked at him, amused. “Very cool. Just one problem: there aren’t any pyramids in Luxor or in the Valley of the Kings. Unless you mean the mountain peak of al-Qurn.”
Dash scowled. “No pyramids?” he muttered under his breath. “Some detective I am!”
Not in her wildest dreams could Agatha have imagined the splendors of Luxor. The airport was brand-new, and its vast plate-glass windows looked out over a colorful city that seemed to vibrate with life.
Even Dash, who’d been snoring for four hours straight, rubbed his eyes in amazement.
“Awesome!” He stopped to exclaim every couple of steps. “Did you see that jackal-headed statue? And check out that giant sphinx!”
“Dash, they’re just copies,” Agatha said. “The real statues are inside the Temple of Luxor and in Karnak.”
“How do you know?” Dash frowned.
“I read up on them while you were sleeping.”
He spun around in alarm. “You didn’t use my EyeNet, did you?”
Agatha held up a guidebook. “No, Dash. Sometimes you can find answers in things without screens.”
Tailed by a silent Chandler, who was dragging the two biggest suitcases, they passed through the automatic glass doors and into an ocean of people.
The hot air hit them like a blast from a furnace. If London was having a summer heat wave, it was nothing compared to midday in Luxor. The square was a jumble of palm trees and souvenir stands selling postcards, beads, and embroidered robes. Taxi drivers blared their horns happily, and the spicy smells of roasting kebabs wafted through the still air.
Through the riot of color and chaotic voices shouting in various languages, Agatha thought she heard somebody call out her name.
“Did you hear that, too?” she asked.
Before Dash and Chandler could answer, she heard a loud, “AGATHA! YOO-HOO!”
In the center of the square, under an ancient stone obelisk, was a squadron of camels that would have made Lawrence of Arabia jealous. Sitting upright on a carved wooden saddle surrounded by blankets and fringe, a plump, forty-year-old woman in orange embroidered pajamas and a straw hat was waving her hand.
Agatha knew right away who it must be: Aunt Patricia!
“Yoo-hoo, Auntie! We’re here!” she called, making a megaphone with her hands.
Patricia Mistery’s eyes gleamed with joy. She dismounted in no time and pushed her way through the crowd, charging forward with open arms.
“My dear children!” she said, misty-eyed. “At long last we meet in person! I’m a great friend of both your dads, Arthur and Edgar!”
She gave Agatha a giant hug, planting a loud smacking kiss on her cheek. Then she moved on to Chandler with open arms.
“Ah…I’m just the butler,” he stammered, embarrassed.
Aunt Patricia took a step backward, assessing his size. “Actually I did think you were a bit…mature to be Edgar’s son.” Her attention shifted to the teenage boy hiding behind the ex-heavyweight. “So you are young Dashiell?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dash replied, shrinking back from her hug.
Aunt Patricia burst out laughing and ruffled his hair. “Are you a shy boy? Too bad. You must break all the girls’ hearts!”
Dash blushed as red as a tomato.
“I hope you’re all hungry and haven’t been stuffing yourselves with that hideous airline food. I’ve prepared a grand feast for this special occasion,” Aunt Patricia barreled on, as unstoppable as the Nile in a flood. “Quick, hand your bags to my camel drivers and hop in the saddles.”
Agatha nodded and catapulted herself onto the back of a camel. It was a little like sitting on top of a draft horse, if the horse had a grain bag stuffed under its saddle. Dash and Chandler had a harder time mounting their camels. Dash’s camel snorted and spat at him. “None of that, Nero!” Aunt Patricia said sternly, and the camel obeyed. Chandler’s camel sagged under his weight as if he were a slab of stone.
The caravan wound its way slowly through the city traffic, setting off colorful protests from people in cars. They turned onto an avenue lined with palm trees and stopped in front of an imposing gate decorated with hieroglyphs.
They had arrived at Patricia Mistery’s sumptuous villa.
Inside the courtyard, the children refreshed themselves with water from a splashing fountain and followed their aunt into the dining room, which looked like a royal tent for Cleopatra. The floor was covered with rich carpets and silken cushions. A sweet smell of incense wafted through the air.
Watson wandered about, curiously sniffing a sculpture of a cat goddess, losing interest when he realized it smelled of old rock, not of cat.
“Later today I’ll take you to see the Temple of Luxor,” said Patricia, popping an almond-stuffed date in her mouth. “And tomorrow we’ll head out to Karnak. Does that sound like fun?”
Dash swallowed a mouthful of couscous the wrong way and started to cough.
“Auntie, we’re terribly sorry.” Agatha came to his rescue. “Dash and I need to leave right away for the Valley of the Kings.”
“Well, I was planning to take you there right after Luxor, but we can do it in whatever order you like!”
Dash took a long sip of water, thumping himself on the chest.
“So sorry, but we need to go by ourselves,” said Agatha. “I mean, just the two of us—plus Chandler and Watson, of course.”
Patricia realized something was up. “Aha! An adventure in the usual Mistery style.” She beamed. “Tell me, what’s your destination?”
“Tomb 66,” Dash said, suddenly remembering a detail from his EyeNet.
“What?!” Patricia jumped up in astonishment. “Tomb 66 has never been found!”
Agatha gave Dash a poke in the ribs. “You didn’t mention that little detail,” she muttered. “You said you’d tell me everything!”
“Um, yeah, it was in one of the files I downloaded in London.”
Patricia clapped her hands to summon a servant. He brought in a map of the Valley of the Kings, rolling it out like a magic carpet in the center of the room. “You see?” said their aunt. “There are only sixty-three known excavations, plus two that are still under investigation. That makes sixty-five, not sixty-six.”
“Can I turn the TV on?” asked Dash, edging away.
“Be my guest,” she replied, showing Agatha and Chandler the chart of tomb excavations.
Meanwhile, Dash hooked up his EyeNet and started playing a black-and-white film clip, cranking the volume up with the remote.
Everyone turned around, even Watson.
“We don’t know exactly to whom Tomb 66 belonged,” wheezed a white-bearded Egyptologist with a French accent. “But we speculate it was a pharaoh of the New Kingdom who was disgraced and never recorded in the royal records. This could be a revolutionary discovery, but without the stolen tablet our hands are tied. We must get it back, tout de suite!”
The camera cut to a shot of the sandy route leading to Tomb 66. It wound behind the temple district and climbed high up into the hills.
“So that’s my mission!” exclaimed Dash. “Now I get it!”
Aunt Patricia looked puzzled. “A mission?” she said. “What do you mean by that?”
Agatha felt obliged to explain. “Dash is a student at Eye Academy, the famous detective school and investigative agency. We’re on a mission to help him pass an exam.”
Patricia didn’t need to hear another word. She called a dozen servants, who all came running. “Prepare some provisions and saddle three camels instantly! Book them a barge! And dig up some video cameras and microphones!” she rattled off.
“Video cameras and microphones, Auntie?” Agatha asked. “What for?”
Patricia leaned on a column. “The Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities won’t let just anyone wander around in the Valley of the Kings,” she explained. “The permits are highly restrictive, and there are guards everywhere!”
“But where do the video cameras co
me in?”
“You could pretend to be a BBC film crew, making a documentary on ancient Egypt.” She paused for a moment. “What do you think?”
Agatha was impressed with this ingenious plan. “Great idea, Auntie!” she said. “All right, let’s take a look at you!”
Dash and Chandler stood at attention.
“All right, Dash can be the cinematographer,” Agatha said decidedly. “Chandler, you’ll play the part of the wealthy producer.”
“And what about you?”
“Microphone, notebook, and pen: I’ll be the reporter,” she said, grinning.
Patricia Mistery clapped appreciatively. “That’s the spirit!”
It took them more than an hour to find the equipment and load up the camels. Dash took advantage of the downtime to print out some key documents, handing them to his cousin for safekeeping. He still wasn’t comfortable riding a camel, and he was afraid he might lose precious data if he fell off.
Next, they all went into guest bedrooms to change their clothes. When they came back out, they looked exactly like a professional television crew.
“Perfect!” Patricia exclaimed, handing out press passes. “Now I’ll accompany you to the boat I’ve booked, so you can cross the Nile!”
But as soon as they got to the courtyard, a nasty surprise met their eyes: Hasan, one of the camel handlers in their aunt’s service, sat on the edge of the fountain, stiff as a statue.
His colleagues were muttering, frightened. Nobody dared to touch him.
“What happened?” demanded Patricia Mistery.
“It’s a curse,” they responded in chorus. “The punishment of the serpent Apep!”
Agatha had already guessed what had happened. Inspecting Hasan’s hands, she discovered a needlelike spine stuck in his palm.
“Indionigro petrificus,” she whispered to herself. “Hasan must have touched the cactus while he was loading it into the saddlebags!”
Luckily she had just finished reading the book on poisons and knew an antidote to the paralyzing toxin. “Auntie, have you got a couple of lemons?” she asked.
In a flash, Patricia darted into the kitchen and came back with a basket of lemons.
The Curse of the Pharaoh #1 Page 2
