Mummy

by Caroline B. Cooney

  And they say the ancient Egyptians were weird, thought Emlyn.

  She was aching all over. Every muscle felt strained and sickish. She had just been wondering if she was about to come down with the flu when she realized that the aches were from lifting a mummy over her head and running around with it. That would be an interesting reason to give the sports doctor.

  She felt loose and unraveled, like the edges of Amaral’s outer bandages.

  Lovell and Maris had known about the television. Had publicity been part of the plan all along? What kind of team was this, anyway?

  But I knew from the beginning, she thought. We weren’t a team.

  “We’re going to be on television,” sang Maris. She had a lovely voice, and Lovell joined her, a third lower, so they were a duet “We’re going to be on television,” they sang together.

  The four who were a team beamed at one another and put their arms around one another and rocked a little bit. Emlyn sat slightly behind them, her back supported against the teddy-occupied couch.

  She felt dry and sick. Was the mummy really all right where they had left her? Donovan had implied that everybody around the entire lake kept keys hanging inside light fixtures, and if you needed a toaster or an old TV you could just walk in and take it. What would stop somebody from climbing that ladder and inspecting the loft? What would stop them from peering under that bunk?

  Sensible robbers are after ATM machines, she told herself. Breaking into shiny new four-thousand-square-foot houses with landscaping. They are not in shabby little summer communities, climbing vertical ladders and poking in corners that can’t have anything better than old beach towels.

  Lovell’s hostess technique was to lower bags of chips, tubs of sour cream, handfuls of chocolate bars, and boxes of cookies and doughnuts onto the floor. She tossed down some paper napkins and plastic cups and opened a huge plastic bottle of ginger ale. People who wanted ice struggled to their feet and ran to the freezer.

  Emlyn just drank hers warm. She read the bag labels and settled on honey mustard pretzel bits. This would not have passed for dinner at her own household. Then she remembered that not only had everybody else had dinner, she herself had had a hamburger.

  “Quiet, quiet!” yelled Donovan. “Here it comes! We’re on!”

  “Good evening!” said the anchor. As always, she addressed her fellow newscaster instead of the actual audience. “James!” she cried. “Tell us about the dreadful, mysterious event at the museum!”

  “Well, JoAnne,” said James joyfully, “this evening, while the museum was occupied by more than seventy-five people at a fund-raising party and while guards were patrolling both inside and out, a very daring theft took place.”

  “That’s you, Emmy!” shrieked Maris, spilling Cheez-Its on the carpet. She ate them anyway.

  “Rhonda,” cried James, “over to you!”

  Rhonda, excited and laughing, was at the museum, standing by the pedestal on which the mummy had rested. “Forget Washington,” said Rhonda happily, microphone against her mouth, notebook in hand, “forget scandal, forget Wall Street. We have something in our city immensely more surprising and interesting. The only mummy in the museum collection has been stolen.”

  Rhonda certainly did not regard this as a crime. Rhonda regarded this as a cool, neat event. Thank you, grave robber, was Rhonda’s approach.

  “The mummy was taken sometime between eight and nine, when the museum theater was in use for a private party. The guard had just walked through the Egyptian Room. Dr. Brisband, director of the museum, was in his own office, hard at work. The thief is presumed to have entered and exited through the basement, where a door was found propped open with a black knit glove. With us tonight is Dr. Harris Brisband. Dr. Brisband, please tell us about the mummy. What is it worth? What are these thieves going to do with it?”

  Gone was the distinguished urbane gentleman with his clever remarks, his jaunty bow tie, and his audience appeal. In front of the camera stood a horrified, heartsick, middle-aged man. His hair had tracks where he had been running his fingers through it. He definitely looked like a man coming down with the flu.

  “I’m terribly shocked by this,” he said. His voice trembled. He was shocked. “The mummy is one of our prized possessions. She is presumed by some of the hieroglyphs on her linens to have been royalty, but her connections have never been precisely established. However, the extraordinary care with which she was wrapped would indicate—”

  “But what is this mummy worth?” interrupted Rhonda.

  “It is not possible to put a dollar value on the mummy. The mummy cannot be replaced.” He turned to the camera, leaving Rhonda on her own. “I beg of you,” said Dr. Brisband, and he was begging, his face was ashen, “do not damage the mummy. She is very fragile. She must be kept flat. She cannot be—”

  Emlyn had not kept Amaral-Re flat, even after the second time something fell or broke. He is begging me, thought Emlyn. He is looking into that camera, praying that I am watching and listening.

  The realness of having taken the mummy was even more horrifying. She could not reassure Dr. Brisband that Amaral-Re was fine. Nor that she would be kept flat. Bell tower hangings were not gentle activities.

  Rhonda broke in. “Dr. Brisband, we have spoken with the insurance company that covers the museum. They could not give us a dollar value, but you certainly can. What is that dollar value of that stolen mummy?”

  All around Emlyn was the crunching of chips. Eyes were glued to the screen and hands moved blindly toward the sour cream and dipped messily. Soda was slurped.

  “Dollar value?” whispered Lovell. “I never thought of that! Like, we could get a ransom!”

  “Is it true,” said Rhonda, “that you had CAT scans and X rays done on that very mummy only a few weeks ago? Is it true that those X rays proved that the mummy is hung with gold and precious gems, hidden by the linen wrappings all those thousands of years?”

  “Oh, wow,” breathed Jack. “Gold!”

  “It’s gotta be true,” said Donovan. “Because that was definitely gold on her mask!”

  It is true, thought Emlyn. I felt the gold in my heart when I held her.

  Dr. Brisband said wearily, “A radiologist has examined the mummy. The X rays show solid material where one might expect a female Egyptian to have worn amulets, bracelets, anklets, and so on. But an X ray cannot distinguish between gold and tin or between gold and copper. Nobody knows whether the mummy is adorned with gold. Nobody will ever know.”

  “But if you believe she is a princess,” said Rhonda, “you surely believe a princess would have been buried in real jewels. She would need them for her afterlife.”

  Dr. Brisband ignored Rhonda. He said to the camera, “The integrity of the mummy is what matters, not a few amulets we will never see. The mummy can so easily be destroyed. It is imperative that—”

  “Now why,” said Rhonda, as fiercely as if Dr. Brisband spent his time bilking innocent old couples of their retirement money, “was the thief able to pry open the case? Why weren’t there alarms?”

  Dr. Brisband looked exhausted. “Clearly that was my error. I should have—”

  “How do you expect to locate the mummy, Dr. Brisband? The police are still searching for clues, aren’t they?”

  “The integrity of the mummy,” said Dr. Brisband, “precludes—”

  “Listen to the jerk,” said Maris. “‘The integrity of the mummy.’ Come on. Why can’t he talk like a normal person?”

  The integrity of this mummy, thought Emlyn, is my responsibility. I’m the one whose plan was not to have integrity.

  Rhonda was wearing that little frown reporters had when somebody back at the studio was giving orders through an earphone. She erased her frown, gave a shiny smile to the camera, and cried, “And this is live at the museum, where the city’s only mummy has just been stolen. Back to you, JoAnne!”

  JoAnne tried to be serious but failed. “James,” she said, thoroughly enjoying herself, “ne
ither the police nor the insurance company will comment further, so we are left to speculate. Why was the mummy stolen? Will it be returned safely? Are there real gems and valuable gold beneath those frayed linen wrappings?”

  They were no longer announcing facts. They were announcing that the mummy had a lot more value than being a mummy. If anybody thought they had only taken some bones wrapped in linen, they knew better now.

  Jack had guessed right. The museum didn’t want publicity. Well, thanks to Jack and the stupid TV crew, Dr. Brisband had publicity now.

  And try as she might to remember the integrity of the mummy, Emlyn could not help wondering what the rattles inside Amaral-Re had been. A magnificent ring sliding off her finger? A ruby or topaz falling from her necklace? What if Amaral-Re really was adorned with treasure? Tutankhamen’s tomb-type treasure? What if, only an inch or two down inside that linen, was a fortune?

  Suddenly JoAnne and James were almost hopping out of their chairs. Gloating, JoAnne giggling out loud, they announced that their network, and their network alone had found the radiologist who had taken the X rays.

  In a moment, the X ray was in front of the camera for the world to see. It was definitely Amaral-Re. The elbows stuck out at the sides, just where they had poked into Emlyn. The film showed a remarkable amount of jewelry.

  A necklace extended from the mummy’s shoulders halfway down her chest. It appeared to be a row of tiny dolls, and the radiologist explained that these were amulets, to keep her safe.

  “Well, if they had value,” snickered James, “it’s in the gold, because those amulets sure didn’t keep that girl safe.”

  “Oh, my god!” whispered Maris over and over. “Look, look, look!”

  At the mummy’s waist was a beltlike curve, dripping with more solid things. One arm must have had twenty bangle bracelets, going from wrist to elbow, and twenty more from elbow to shoulder. The other arm, above the elbow, wore a large band. All ten fingers had solid tips, as did all ten toes.

  “What’s on her fingers and toes?” JoAnne asked the radiologist. “They don’t seem to be rings.”

  “Those are finger caps. Gold cylinders to keep the fingernails from falling off when the mummy’s flesh dries out.”

  “Oooooh, that’s sick,” said JoAnne, loving it. “So you are saying that it’s definitely gold?”

  “Well, no, you can’t identify a metal in an X ray. But when unwrapped mummies are found with finger and toe caps, they usually are gold.”

  “And so the thieves—” said James.

  “Thieves!” said the radiologist. “They’re grave robbers. They’re no better than the scum of ancient days who ripped open tombs. The integrity of—”

  “Here we go again,” said Lovell.

  “Grave robbers,” said Jack. “I love it. That’ll be our secret nickname.”

  As if Jack believed in secrets.

  And then, sorrowfully, JoAnne and James had to discuss a school board meeting, in which it had been determined …

  Jack, in possession of the remote, clicked JoAnne and James away, and they vanished into their dark screen like mummies into tombs. “Yea, Grave Robbers!” he yelled.

  “Wow,” said Maris, totally content. “We got everything. We got the mummy, we got the publicity, we got extra publicity because our mummy is extra, extra special. Emlyn, you are a wizard.”

  “Tell us every single detail, Emlyn,” said Lovell. “Don’t leave anything out.”

  “And don’t pretend you weren’t scared,” said Maris, “because you had to have been scared. So include the scary parts.”

  Emlyn felt as if they were trying to unwrap her. Trying to rip off her outsides and reach into her belly for her gold.

  What did happen at that museum? she wondered. I am different. Amaral-Re is certainly different.

  “Come on, Emmy,” said Donovan, nudging her. “Start with when you’re alone in the office. It’s dark. You have hours to wait. Start with that.”

  Emlyn said, “It was straightforward. The only problem was that the door I thought I could get out of I couldn’t get out of. I took the freight elevator into the cellar and went out that way.”

  They sat staring.

  “Emlyn,” said Maris. “That’s not fair. We want to know. It can’t have been that simple. Donovan said on the phone from the car that you were terrified and sweating and running and falling.”

  They would interrogate her all night. She remembered to her dismay that she was spending all night here. It would be torture. The last thing she wanted was to be near Lovell hour after hour. Nobody had spare bedrooms—she’d be in Lovell’s room. Maris might stay over, too.

  “Donovan exaggerates,” said Emlyn. “Now. Let’s talk about getting the mummy up to the bell tower.”

  For a moment, she didn’t think they would let it go.

  But eventually Donovan said, “I was thinking that we should just go in broad daylight. Barge right in and don’t make any secret of what we’ve got and what we’re doing.”

  “It’s just like the museum, in a way,” said Maris. “We used the old mansion to get into the new museum, and now we’re going to use the new high school to get into the old bell tower. There’s a nice symmetry there.”

  “You mean, walk right through the guidance offices holding the mummy in the air while the guidance counselors are sitting there? So they know who took it?” demanded Emlyn.

  “Of course, he doesn’t mean that,” said Jack. “We’ll decoy them away, that’s a cinch. Then we’ll go in.”

  “During the day?” said Emlyn. “No, we won’t!”

  “Okay, we won’t,” said Maris quickly.

  They were treating her like the team captain. She relaxed a little.

  “The thing that worries me is,” said Jack, “they’ll take the mummy down as soon as we get it up. The minute the administration sees it there, they’re going to call the museum and the cops. So what we’ll do is, we’ll pour superglue into the bell tower lock once we leave. They’ll have to erect scaffolding to get up to the mummy.”

  “No superglue,” said Emlyn. “That’s vandalism. They’d have to drill out the whole lock to replace it, and I don’t want us to—”

  They were all laughing. “Emlyn,” said Maris, spilling soda on Lovell’s carpet. Lovell just laughed and mopped with a paper napkin. “You who steal from museums are worried about putting glue in a lock?”

  “I’m worried about everything.”

  Lovell cleaned the carpet. Maris folded up the chip bags. Jack stacked paper cups.

  Donovan said, “You’re right, Emlyn. We’re just being silly because we’re so excited. We don’t want trouble, either. Tell you what,” he said. “Since the cottage will still be empty tomorrow and we don’t have school, how about we have a mummy party? Just the five of us? Can you get the van again, Jack?”

  “Yes!” cried Lovell. “A real party, because we really have something to celebrate. And because Maris and I haven’t seen the mummy yet.”

  “We’ve hardly seen the mummy, either,” said Donovan. “Emlyn really hushed us out of there.”

  “We’ll want mummy food,” said Maris. “Mummy drinks. Mummy favors.”

  “And we’ll dress like mummies,” said Lovell.

  “Cut it out,” said Jack. “I’m all for a party, but let’s have regular food. I saw a grill. Let’s have hamburgers. And I’m not dressing like a mummy. I’m dressing like me.”

  “Hot dogs,” said Donovan.

  “Both,” said Jack.

  “The party will really be for you, Emmy,” said Maris. “To celebrate you and your guts. We’ll have a toast to ancient Egypt, and then we’ll figure out how we get that thing into the bell tower without getting caught there, either. You must have a plan, Em, we know you. You’re ready.”

  Fourteen

  THE NEXT MORNING, EMLYN phoned her parents at work to tell them about the lake party. How pleased they were! Parents were always glad to see signs that you were popular. They didn’t
mind at all if the barbecue didn’t start till late because Jack couldn’t get the van until five.

  It was a lovely day, one of those autumn days in which the colors were intense and the wind high, but there was no chill: It was summer saying good-bye.

  The water glimmered. When the sun set, the breeze came up, and sweatshirts were piled on. Between the cottage and the lake was an old brick outdoor fireplace. Donovan made a huge fire, and when it had fallen to white-hot coals, they roasted their hot dogs and their hamburgers and ate standing up and laughing.

  Maris had constructed marshmallow mummies with toothpicks. Using food coloring, she had painted tiny Egyptian symbols. Then she actually sliced a sheet of phyllo dough into tiny food bandages and wrapped the marshmallows into mummies.

  Everybody had worn white after all. White sweatshirts or gray sweatshirts turned inside out and white pants or sweats.

  Maris had an old tape of her mother’s, “Walk Like an Egyptian.” The five of them danced separately, not as if they were boys and girls and not as if two of them dated. Not even as if they knew one another. They danced as Emlyn thought ancient people must have danced, every movement between the dancers and their god.

  Finally, when the coals were almost dead, they toasted their marshmallow mummies golden brown and oozing burnt sugar and sat on the long rim of the narrow deck with their bare toes in the cold water, chewing mummies.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Lovell.

  How different Lovell’s voice suddenly was.

  How careful.

  And how careful Donovan and Jack and Maris seemed to be, also, their posture changed from a moment ago.

  The slanting shadows of purple and black turned cruel and vengeful. The soft fleece of the inside of Emlyn’s sweatshirt, which had made her feel safe and loved, lifted from her skin and left her cold and uncertain.

  “Nobody knows,” said Lovell very softly, “that we have the mummy.”

  “Nobody suspects,” said Maris. “It is ten o’clock on Monday night, more than twenty-four hours after Amaral-Re was removed from the museum by Emlyn. They don’t know. They don’t have a clue. Nobody but us has the slightest idea in all the world that we are the owners of Amaral-Re.”