نفرین آرامگاه مومیایی فصل 7

The Curse Of The Mummy’s Tomb - Chapter 7

“Let’s go. This way,” I said, shielding my eyes from the bright sunlight with my hand.

“It’s so hot,” Sari complained.

The street was crowded and noisy. I couldn’t hear anything over the honking of car horns.

Drivers here lean on their horns the minute they start up their cars, and they don’t stop honking till they arrive at their destinations.

Sari and I stayed close together, making our way through the crush of people on the sidewalk. All kinds of people passed by.

There were men in American-style business suits walking alongside men who appeared to be wearing loose-fitting white pajamas.

We saw women who would look right at home on any street in America, wearing colorful leggings and stylish skirts and slacks. Women in jeans. Followed by women dressed in long, flowing black dresses, their faces covered by heavy, black veils.

“This sure doesn’t look like back home!” I exclaimed, shouting over the blare of car horns.

I was so fascinated by all the interesting-looking people crowding the narrow sidewalk that I forgot to look at the buildings. Before I knew it, we were standing in front of the museum, a tall, stone structure looming above the street behind steeply sloping steps.

We climbed the steps and entered the revolving door of the museum.

“Wow, it’s so quiet in here!” I exclaimed, whispering. It was nice to get away from the honking horns, the crowded sidewalks, and shouting people.

“Why do you think they honk their horns so much?” Sari asked, holding her ears.

“Just a custom, I guess,” I replied.

We stopped and looked around.

We were standing in the center of an enormous open lobby. Tall marble stairways rose up on the far left and far right. Twin white columns framed a wide doorway that led straight back. An enormous mural across the wall to the right showed an aerial view of the pyramids and the Nile.

We stood in the middle of the floor, admiring the mural for a while. Then we made our way to the back wall and asked a woman at the information desk for the mummy room. She flashed us a nice smile and told us in perfect English to take the stairs to the right.

Our sneakers thudded loudly over the shiny marble floor. The stairway seemed to go up forever. “This is like mountain climbing,” I complained, halfway up.

“Race you to the top,” Sari said, grinning, and took off before I had a chance to reply.

Of course she beat me by about ten steps.

I waited for her to call me “slowpoke” or “snail face” or something. But she had already turned to see what lay ahead of us.

A dark, high-ceilinged room seemed to stretch on forever. A glass case stood centered in the entryway. Inside was a detailed construction of wood and clay.

I went up close to take a good look. The construction showed thousands of workers dragging enormous blocks of limestone across the sand toward a partially built pyramid.

In the room behind the display I could see huge stone statues, large mummy cases, displays of glass and pottery, and case after case of artifacts and relics.

“I think this is the place!” I exclaimed happily, rushing over to the first display case.

“Ooh, what’s that? Some kind of giant dog?” Sari asked, pointing to an enormous statue against the wall.

The creature appeared to have a fierce dog’s head and a lion’s body. Its eyes stared straight ahead, and it seemed ready to pounce on anyone who came near it.

“They put creatures like that in front of tombs,” I told Sari. “You know. To protect the place. Scare away grave robbers.” “Like guard dogs,” Sari said, stepping up close to the ancient sculpture.

“Hey—there’s a mummy in this case!” I exclaimed, leaning over an ancient stone coffin. “Look!” Still staring back at the enormous sculpture, Sari walked up beside me. “Yep. It’s a mummy, okay,” she said, unimpressed. I guess she’s seen a lot more of them than me.

“It’s so small,” I said, staring at the yellowed linen wrapped so tightly around the skinny head and body.

“Our ancestors were shrimps,” Sari replied. “Think it was a man or a woman?”

I glanced at the plaque on the side of the coffin. “It says it’s a man.”

“Guess they didn’t work out in those days,” she said and laughed at her own remark.

“They did a great wrapping job,” I said, examining the carefully wrapped fingers on the hands, which were crossed over the mummy’s chest. “I was a mummy the Halloween before last, and my costume completely unraveled after ten minutes!” Sari tsk-tsked.

“Do you know how they made mummies?” I asked, moving around to view it from the other side. “Do you know the first thing they did? They removed the brain.” “Yuck. Stop,” she said, sticking out her tongue and making a disgusted face.

“Don’t you know about this?” I asked, delighted that I had some truly gruesome information that she didn’t.

“Please—enough,” she said, holding up one hand as if to fend me off.

“No, this is interesting,” I insisted. “The brain had to come out first. They had this special tool. It was like a long, skinny hook. They’d push it up the corpse’s nose until it reached the brain and then wiggled it back and forth, back and forth, until the brain became mush.” “Stop!” Sari pleaded, covering her ears.

“Then they took a long spoon,” I continued gleefully, “and scooped the brain out a little at a time.” I made a scooping motion with my hand. “Scoop scoop. They scooped the brain out through the nose. Or sometimes they popped off an eyeball and scooped the brain out through the eyeball socket.” “Gabe—I mean it!” Sari cried. She really looked like she was about to hurl. She was green!

I loved it.

I never knew that Sari had a squeamish bone in her body. But I was really making her sick.

Outstanding! I thought.

I would definitely have to remember this technique.

“It’s all true,” I told her, unable to hold back a wide grin.

“Just shut up,” she muttered.

“Of course sometimes they didn’t pull the brain out the nose. Sometimes they just sliced off the head. Then they drained the brains out through the neck and put the head back on the body. They just bandaged it back on, I guess.” “Gabe—”

I’d been staring at her the whole time, checking out her reaction. She was looking sicker and sicker. She was breathing real heavy. Her chest was sort of heaving. I really thought she was going to lose her breakfast.

If she did, I’d never let her forget it.

“That’s really gross,” she said. Her voice sounded funny, like it was coming from underwater or something.

“But it’s true,” I said. “Didn’t your dad ever tell you about how they made mummies?” She shook her head. “He knows I don’t like—”

“And you know what they did with the guts?” I asked, enjoying the startled look on her face. “They put them in jars and—” I suddenly realized that Sari’s startled look wasn’t for me.

She was actually staring over my shoulder.

“Huh?” I turned around and saw why she suddenly looked so surprised.

A man had entered the room and was standing just in front of the first display case. It took me a few seconds to recognize him.

It was Ahmed, the strange, silent Egyptian with the black ponytail who had greeted us in such an unfriendly manner down inside the pyramid. He was dressed the same, in loose-fitting white trousers and shirt with a scarlet bandanna around his neck. And his expression was just as unfriendly. Angry, even.

Sari and I both backed away from the mummy case, and Ahmed, his eyes darting from one of us to the other, took a step toward us.

“Gabe, he’s coming after us!” Sari whispered.

She grabbed my arm. Her hand was cold as ice.

“Let’s get out of here!” she cried.

I hesitated. Shouldn’t we stop and say hello to him first?

But something about the stern, determined look on Ahmed’s face told me that Sari was right.

We turned and began walking really fast away from him into the vast room, Sari a few steps ahead of me.

I turned and saw that Ahmed was jogging after us.

He shouted something to us, his voice angry, threatening. I couldn’t make out the words.

“Run!” Sari cried.

And now we were both running at full speed, our sneakers drumming loudly over the polished marble floor.

We scooted around an enormous glass display case containing three upright mummy cases. Then we ran straight down the wide aisle between sculptures and shelves of ancient pottery and pyramid relics.

Behind us, I could hear Ahmed shouting furiously, “Come back! Come back!”

He sounded really angry.

His shoes clacked against the floor as he ran, the sound echoing in the vast, empty museum chamber.

“He’s gaining on us!” I called to Sari, who was still a few steps ahead.

“There’s got to be a way out of here!” she answered breathlessly.

But I immediately saw that there wasn’t. We were nearly to the back wall. We passed a gigantic sphinx, then stopped.

There was nowhere to go.

No doorway. No exit.

A solid granite wall.

We both turned and saw Ahmed’s eyes grow wide with triumph.

He had us cornered.