His hair sprang up again. There were a few giggles. He coughed. This was not an auspicious beginning.
After his stint on the big stage in Las Vegas, Max-Ernest had expected a mere middle-school graduation (or, as he thought of it now, a gig) to be no big deal. But looking out at all the people who had been characters in the story of his life for the last eight-odd years, he found himself unaccountably nervous.
“For the last few months,” he began reading again, “I’ve been racking my brain trying to find the perfect joke to open this speech. Well, I think I came up with something that’s going to really, really shock you.”
The audience tittered nervously. A few teachers gave him warning looks. This was not the occasion for an off-color joke.
“I’m not going to open with a joke at all.”
Everybody laughed with relief.
“See, I told you it would be shocking.” Max-Ernest looked up at the audience and smiled mischievously. “Well, now that I’ve opened without a joke, I’m going to tell a joke anyway. Bet you didn’t see that coming!”
“No, don’t do it, dude!” “Stop!” “Just say no!” his friends shouted good-naturedly.
“Kidding! I’m actually going to skip right to the serious part.” He looked down at his speech again. “When I was younger, I had a lot of trouble relating to other kids. People who know me know that I didn’t always understand my peers, and they didn’t understand me. That’s a polite way of saying they thought I was really annoying.”
“We still do!” yelled Glob.
“See, and that’s one of my best friends,” said Max-Ernest. “Sometimes, I thought everybody else had a secret sense that I didn’t have. Something besides the usual senses—smell, hearing, taste, sight, and touch. A sixth sense, in other words. But what was that secret sense? I used to wonder. Telepathy? Seeing dead people? Was that what was really happening on the schoolyard all that time, so I didn’t know what the other kids were talking about? They were seeing ghosts?”
The audience laughed. Cass and Yo-Yoji exchanged looks. The speech was getting a little too close to home.
“As most of you know, I like to tell jokes and riddles. A lot. I’ve always been interested in jokes, but I’m not sure I ever understood why. As I think about it now, though, I think jokes were my way of trying to learn or acquire this secret sense that other kids have. To me, the sixth sense is not something especially supernatural. It is something that binds us together as people. And makes us human. It’s a sense of humor.”
He paused to make sure he still had everybody’s attention. He did.
“Friends don’t have to have a lot of things in common. One of them might like, oh, solar flashlights. Another might like Day-Glo sneakers….”
He smiled at Cass and Yo-Yoji. Cass smiled back. Yo-Yoji gave him a thumbs-up.
“Another might like chocolate. Lots of chocolate. I’m not naming names—” Casually, he pulled a chocolate bar out of his coat pocket, unwrapped it, and took a big bite.
There were more laughs—his biggest yet.
“But there’s one thing friends usually do have in common—a sense of humor. That doesn’t mean they have to find all the same things funny. Sometimes, they might even laugh at each other. But at the end of the day, friends can always laugh with each other.”
Cass and Yo-Yoji turned to each other and smiled. Their friend was doing great. As they turned back, their hands accidentally brushed. Cass was shocked to find their pinkies interlocking—just the way her mother’s and Albert 3-D’s had! She froze, the blood rushing in her ears. Max-Ernest might have been speechifying about the sense of humor, but it was the sense of touch that now occupied Cass’s attention.
After an agonizing moment, she and Yo-Yoji pulled away from each other.
“Are you still wearing that ring?” whispered Yo-Yoji, not looking at her.
“No. Why?” she whispered back, not just her ears but her whole face bright red with embarrassment.
“I just thought I felt, uh, a jolt or something. Never mind,” said Yo-Yoji quickly.
“Quiet, lovebirds—your friend’s talking,” said Glob from the row behind them.
Daniel-not-Danielle giggled. “Yeah, show some respect.”
Mortified, Cass and Yo-Yoji sat stiffly in their chairs, neither able to muster the slightest comeback.
Max-Ernest, meanwhile, had reached full stride. “The official theme of this speech is supposed to be ‘The Secret of Success,’ ” he said, with a nod toward Mrs. Johnson. “Well, I don’t know if a sense of humor is the secret of success. So far, I haven’t made a lot of money as a comedian. In fact, I’ve been booed off the stage. But life is full of boos, not just for comedians, and it’s a sense of humor that gets you through the boos. And the blues, too.”
The audience groaned at the pun.
“Sorry, couldn’t resist. If you can’t see the ridiculous side of things, it’s awfully hard to deal with the serious side. A sense of humor may not be the secret of success, in other words, but I’m pretty sure it’s the secret of life.”
Max-Ernest glanced at Cass. She shook her head slightly, as if to say, You’re skating on thin ice with this secret stuff, buddy, but he could see she was smiling.
“So here we are, about to graduate from middle school,” he continued. “We’ve crossed one bridge, and we’re about to cross another. Speaking of which, that reminds me of a joke—”
There were more groans. “No, don’t do it!” “Spare us!”
Max-Ernest laughed. “You didn’t really think I wouldn’t tell one, did you? Actually, the joke I’m thinking of is the oldest joke in the book: why did the chicken cross the road? You all know the answer: to get to the other side. But think about it—that isn’t really an answer; it’s a statement of the obvious. In a sense, it’s a restatement of the question. That’s why it’s funny. But that’s also why it’s mysterious.”
He paused, slowing himself down. The one piece of advice Mrs. Johnson had given him was not to read too quickly.
“On some level, we don’t really know why we do anything. Even less do we know where we’re going. What lies on the other side of the road? We don’t know until we get there. As the saying goes, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey. Whatever lies on the other side of the road, even if there’s nothing much there at all, I’ve learned a lot along the way—from all of you. And now, like the rest of you, I’m getting out of here and I’m going to go take my act on the r—”
As he pronounced that last word, his voice cracked. Not so much from emotion, I’m afraid, but in that way that the voices of boys Max-Ernest’s age so often do. Max-Ernest’s voice was changing at the very moment he was finding it.
“Road,” he squeaked out.
Nobody laughed at him this time. Not so much because they were being nice, but because they had tears in their eyes. So did he.
“I’ll miss you all,” said Max-Ernest.
And he walked off the stage to a standing ovation.
Amid the tears and applause, nobody noticed as Amber slipped away from her seat on the edge of the bleachers—least of all her parents. Nor did they see her climbing into the limousine that waited just outside the school gates.
Ms. Mauvais welcomed her with barely a nod, then waved to the driver with her gloved hand.
In silence, they drove off in search of a never-setting sun.
Well, what did you think of my speech? Not bad for a kid, right?
I know, I know, I should never have started a sentence with as the saying goes. (If you ever give a graduation speech, please stay away from that awful phrase.) But all in all…?
Oh, what’s that? It’s not the speech—you’re just surprised to hear me admit it outright? You mean admit that I, a man of such vast wisdom and experience—not to mention wit, intelligence, taste, and discernment—that I, your not-so-humble narrator, Pseudonymous Bosch, I was young once, too?
Ah, well. You knew it all along anyway.
Th
e story of how that boy became this man—I am not going to tell it now. (But if you can string together the words volcano, ambidextrous, rhinoceros, spiderweb, mucus, and swim—then, my friend, you are a much more inventive writer than I.) And I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not going to tell you any more about the lives of Cass or Yo-Yoji or anybody else, either. Not right now.
I want to protect what little is left of their privacy; the Midnight Sun, as you know, is still at large, and our friends are still in danger. But I also want to protect something else: your imagination.
Think: do you really like it when a book or a movie tells you what happens to characters after the end of a story? I don’t like it at all. Usually, I get the feeling that the author or filmmaker is just making up the characters’ fates on the fly. Is that really what happened? I wonder. Or did he just want to wrap up everything in a nice, tidy package?
In my experience, life rarely proceeds so neatly. It has a tendency to go off in all sorts of unexpected directions. Which is exactly where I like it to go.
As the saying goes, there’s another side to every story. (Oops! Well, as that other saying goes, do as I say, not as I do.) If you take anything away from our time together, other than a toothache from all that chocolate, I hope it’s the sense that what lies on the other side of a story is always a surprise.
Whether the other side itself is the Secret or whether the Secret is on the other side is a distinction without a difference. Either way, there’s a new secret to discover.
The Secret is in your hands now. Don’t let anyone spoil the ending.
—PB
CONTENTS
FRONT COVER IMAGE
WELCOME
DEDICATION
THE OATH OF TERCES
PREFACE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO: THE FIRE SALE
CHAPTER THREE: THE BIG STUFF
CHAPTER FOUR: MUMMIES, MIDDLE SCHOOL, AND ME
CHAPTER FIVE: A FIELD TRIP
CHAPTER SIX: THE MYSTERY MUMMY
CHAPTER SEVEN: SHERDS, NOT SHARDS
CHAPTER EIGHT: A SCREAM IN THE DARKNESS
CHAPTER NINE: BLOODY FiNGERS
CHAPTER TEN: A THING
CHAPTER ELEVEN: VIDEO STARS
CHAPTER TWELVE: A HEAD WRAPPED IN BANDAGES
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE MUMMY’S LAUGH
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: CURIOUS CASE OF THE WALKING MUMMY
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE LIBRARY
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: A VISITOR AT THE CIRCUS
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: HOBO MARKS
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: A MIDNIGHT MEETING
CHAPTER NINETEEN: AN EXAM
CHAPTER TWENTY: THE HEIST PART ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE HEIST PART TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: REVENGE OF THE CAT MUMMY
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE IM-NEVER-GOING-TO-GRADUATE GRADUATION SPEECH
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: TOUCHY
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: A BIRD, A SCORPION, AND A BABY
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: THE EYE IN THE SKY
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: PAWNS
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: NILE NAILS
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: A SPECIAL NOTE TO THE MIDNIGHT SUM
CHAPTER THIRTY: THE GOLDEN FINGER
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: THE RING OF THOTH
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: SHOW TIME!
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: THE PRIESTS OF AMUN
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: CHICKEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: THE OTHER SIDE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: ON THE ROAD
EPILOGUE
COPYRIGHT
* THE CORRECT ANSWER IS (E) RUN!, AS IN RUN AWAY FROM THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU.
* BORIS KARLOFF WAS AN ACTOR WHO BECAME FAMOUS IN THE 1930S PLAYING DEAD BODIES THAT COME BACK TO LIFE. IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH HIS OEUVRE, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THE CLASSIC HORROR FILMS FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MUMMY. (IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH THE WORD OEUVRE, IT IS THE BODY OF WORK OF AN ARTIST, WRITER, OR COMPOSER—LIVING, DEAD, OR OTHERWISE.) IN THE MUMMY, KARLOFF PLAYS IMHOTEP, A MUMMY REAWAKENED WHEN AN ARCHAEOLOGIST ACCIDENTALLY READS AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SPELL. BY FAR KARLOFF’S SCARIEST ROLE, HOWEVER, WAS SANTA CLAUS. HE DRESSED AS THE RED-SUITED HOUSEBREAKER EVERY CHRISTMAS AND HANDED OUT PRESENTS TO NEEDY CHILDREN, DOUBTLESS TERRIFYING THEM HALF TO DEATH.
* BOG MUMMIES, IF YOU’RE CURIOUS (AND I CAN’T IMAGINE THAT YOU AREN’T), ARE USUALLY FOUND IN THE BOGS OF NORTHERN EUROPE. THE PEAT IN THE BOGS ACTS AS A UNIQUE PRESERVATIVE—AND LEAVES THE FACES OF BOG MUMMIES UNIQUELY LIFELIKE
* THE EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD, ALSO KNOWN AS THE PAPYRUS OF ANI, IS THE ESSENTIAL FUNERARY GUIDE THAT NO SELF-RESPECTING AMATEUR EGYPTOLOGIST CAN DO WITHOUT. TO QUOTE NO LESS AN AUTHORITY THAN ONE PSEUDONYMOUS BOSCH (SEE THE SECRET SERIES, BOOK 1), “IT INCLUDES MANY IMPORTANT SPELLS AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUCCESS IN THE AFTERLIFE—A USEFUL INTRODUCTION TO ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LIFE ABOVEGROUND AS WELL!”
* YOU MAY BE INTERESTED TO LEARN THAT IBIS MUMMIES ARE QUITE COMMON. IN THE NECROPOLIS OF SAQQRA—THE EGYPTIANS’ FAMED CITY OF THE DEAD—ARCHAEOLOGISTS DISCOVERED THE MUMMIES OF ONE AND A HALF MILLION IBISES. IT IS BELIEVED THAT THE IBISES WERE RAISED ON RANCHES SPECIFICALLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF BEING MUMMIFIED AND OFFERED TO THE GODS. UPSETTING?. PERHAPS. BUT CONSIDER THE FATE OF A CHICKEN.
* A CANOPIC JAR, AS YOU NO DOUBT REMEMBER FROM YOUR OWN STUDIES, IS A JAR IN WHICH THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS STORED AND PRESERVED THE ORGANS OF THE DEAD.
* MAX-ERNEST MUST HAVE BEEN VERY PREOCCUPIED WITH THE MUMMY IN FRONT OF HIM. OTHERWISE, HE WOULD HAVE MENTIONED THAT THERE IS NOT JUST ONE PAINTING CALLED THE SCREAM; THERE ARE SEVERAL. THE ARTIST, EDVARD MUNCH, PAINTED THE SAME IMAGE MANY TIMES, AS IF HE COULD NEVER QUITE GET IT RIGHT. THE MESSAGE IS CLEAR: IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED… SCREAM. AND SCREAM AGAIN.
* THE IDEA OF THE MUMMY’S CURSE BECAME POPULAR WHEN SEVERAL MEN INVOLVED IN THE DISCOVERY OF KING TUTANKHAMEN’S TOMB DIED SOON AFTER HIS DISINTERMENT. LATER, PEOPLE SPECULATED THAT THREE-THOUSAND-YEAR-OLD BACTERIA RELEASED FROM TUT’S TOMB MIGHT HAVE BEEN TO BLAME, BUT FRANKLY THERE IS EVEN LESS BASIS FOR THAT THEORY. I WOULD GO WITH THE CURSE.
* SPEAKING OF CRIMINAL CARELESSNESS, I FEAR I MAY HAVE JUST EXCEEDED MY ALLOWABLE ALLITERATION ALLOTMENT…. OOPS. THERE I GO AGAIN!
* I BELIEVE THE LEARNED PROFESSOR HERE WAS REFERRING TO A PARTICULAR PRIVATE PART OF KING TUTANKHAMEN’S. (YOU CAN GUESS WHICH PART I MEAN.) APPARENTLY, THIS PART WAS INTACT AND FULLY ATTACHED WHEN HOWARD CARTER FIRST EXHUMED THE MUMMY OF THE YOUNG PHARAOH IN 1922. IN THE 1960S, IT WAS NOTICED THAT THE PART HAD MYSTERIOUSLY BROKEN OFF, AND FOR YEARS NOBODY KNEW WHERE IT HAD GONE. MORE RECENTLY, HOWEVER, A CT SCAN OF KING TUT REVEALED THAT THE ROYAL APPENDAGE HAD FALLEN INTO THE SAND BENEATH THE MUMMY AND HAD LAIN THERE QUIETLY FOR YEARS, AWAITING DISCOVERY.
* I KNOW, YOU RECOGNIZED HER IMMEDIATELY. THE LONG DESCRIPTION WASN’T NECESSARY; I JUST FELT LIKE WRITING IT.
* I THINK MOST PEOPLE WOULD AGREE. THE QUESTION IS WHETHER THOSE ARE DESIRABLE TRAITS IN A BOOK.
* MY TELL, IN CASE YOU’RE WONDERING, IS A SLIGHT TWITCH IN MY RIGHT EYE, BUT I KNOW BETTER THAN TO LET ANYONE SEE IT. HENCE MY PROPENSITY FOR DARK SUNGLASSES. OF COURSE, EVEN if I WERE TO TAKE OFF MY SUNGLASSES, YOU WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO TELL WHETHER I WAS TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT MY TELL. IF MY EYE DIDN’T TWITCH, IT MIGHT MEAN THAT I WAS TELLING THE TRUTH; THEN AGAIN, IT MIGHT MEAN THAT I WAS LYING, AND MY TELL WAS SOMETHING ELSE—WHETHER A FLARING NOSTRIL OR A TAPPING FOOT. YET IF MY EYE TWITCHED, IT WOULD BE EVEN MORE CONFUSING.
* IN THE EVENT OF ALL-OUT NUCLEAR WAR OR SOME OTHER KIND OF GLOBAL DISASTER, PAPER MONEY WOULD PROBABLY BE WORTHLESS, CASS THOUGHT; GOLD WAS MORE LIKELY TO MAINTAIN ITS VALUE.
* A TOUCHSTONE IS A SMALL TABLET OF DARK STONE, SUCH AS FIELDSTONE OR SLATE, USED FOR ASSAYING (I.E., JUDGING THE COMPOSITION OF) PRECIOUS METALS. DRAWING A LINE OF GOLD ON A TOUCHSTONE LEAVES A VISIBLE TRACE, AND BECAUSE DIFFERENT GOLD ALLOYS HAVE DIFFERENT COLORS, THIS LINE REVEALS HOW PURE THE PIECE OF GOLD IS. IN EVERYDAY SPEECH, A TOUCHSTONE MAY REFER TO ANYTHING
BY WHICH OTHER THINGS OF ITS KIND ARE MEASURED. FOR EXAMPLE, WHEN IT COMES TO LITERARY GENIUS, THE BOOKS OF PSEUDONYMOUS BOSCH PROVIDE A TOUCHSTONE.
* THE PARTING OF THE RED SEA, AS YOU MAY RECALL, IS PART OF THE STORY OF MOSES AND THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. AS YO-YOJI HAD SURMISED, CASS HAD NEVER HAD MUCH OF A RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. NONETHELESS, IN THE COURSE OF HER STUDIES OF SUCH THINGS AS PLAGUES (MODERN AS WELL AS ANCIENT), DYING FROGS (A SURE SIGN OF ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE), AND RED SEAS (THE KIND CAUSED BY ALGAE), SHE’D COME ACROSS THE STORY OF THE EXODUS SEVERAL TIMES.
* GOLDFINGER IS THE VILLAIN IN THE JAMES BOND MOVIE OF THE SAME NAME. OBSESSED WITH GOLD, HE KILLS A WOMAN BY PAINTING HER ENTIRE BODY WITH IT. MIDAS IS A FIGURE FROM GREEK MYTHOLOGY WHO LITERALLY HAD THE GOLDEN TOUCH: EVERYTHING HE TOUCHED TURNED TO GOLD, EVEN HIS FAMILY. AS FOR A SPIDER’S TOUCH, THAT’S SOMETHING I EXPERIENCE ALL TOO OFTEN IN MY CURRENT HIDEOUT. CURSE THESE CREATURES!
* CHINOISERIE MEANS CHINESE—OR, MORE ACCURATELY, CHINESE THINGS—IN FRENCH. THE WORD USUALLY REFERS TO THINGS THAT LOOK CHINESE IN STYLE, THOUGH THEY ARE NOT TRULY CHINESE. JUST AS THIS FOOTNOTE LOOKS LIKE IT CONTAINS USEFUL INFORMATION, THOUGH IT TRULY DOES NOT.
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by Pseudonymous Bosch
Illustrations copyright © 2011 by Gilbert Ford
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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First eBook Edition: September 2011
You Have to Stop This Page 18
