بازگشت مومیایی فصل 03

Return of the Mummy - Chapter 3

“Gabe! Gabe! Over here!”

I heard a voice calling my name. Glancing past the angry man, I saw Uncle Ben and Sari. They were waving to me from in front of the reservations counter.

The man’s face turned bright red, and he shouted something at me in Arabic. I was glad I couldn’t understand him. He kept muttering as he pulled up the hood of his burnoose.

“Sorry about that!” I cried. Then I dodged past him and hurried to greet Uncle Ben and my cousin.

Uncle Ben shook my hand and said, “Welcome to Cairo, Gabe.” He was wearing a loose-fitting, white, short-sleeved sportshirt and baggy chinos.

Sari wore faded denim cutoffs and a bright green tank top. She was already laughing at me. A bad start. “Was that a friend of yours?” she teased.

“I—I made a mistake,” I confessed. I glanced back. The man was still scowling at me.

“Did you really think that was Daddy?” Sari demanded.

I mumbled a reply. Sari and I were the same age. But I saw that she was still an inch taller than me. She had let her black hair grow. It fell down her back in a single braid.

Her big, dark eyes sparkled excitedly. She loved making fun of me.

I told them about my flight as we walked to the baggage area to get my suitcase. I told them how Nancy, the stewardess, kept slipping me bags of peanuts.

“I flew here last week,” Sari told me. “The stewardess let me sit in First Class. Did you know you can have an ice-cream sundae in First Class?” No, I didn’t know that. I could see that Sari hadn’t changed a bit.

She goes to a boarding school in Chicago since Uncle Ben has been spending all of his time in Egypt. Of course she gets straight A’s. And she’s a champion skier and tennis player.

Sometimes I feel a little sorry for her. Her mom died when Sari was five. And Sari only gets to see her dad on holidays and during the summer.

But as we waited for my suitcase to come out on the conveyor belt, I wasn’t feeling sorry for her at all. She was busy bragging about how this pyramid was twice as big as the one I’d been in last summer. And how she’d already been down in it several times, and how she’d take me on a tour—if I wasn’t too afraid.

Finally, my bulging, blue suitcase appeared. I lugged it off the conveyor and dropped it at my feet. It weighed a ton!

I tried to lift it, but I could barely budge it.

Sari pushed me out of the way. “Let me get that,” she insisted. She grabbed the handle, raised the suitcase off the floor, and started off with it.

“Hey—!” I called after her. What a show-off!

Uncle Ben grinned at me. “I think Sari has been working out,” he said. He put a hand on my shoulder and led me toward the glass doors. “Let’s get to the jeep.” We loaded the suitcase into the back of the jeep, then headed toward the city. “It’s been sweltering hot during the day,” Uncle Ben told me, mopping his broad forehead with a handkerchief. “And then cool at night.” Traffic crawled on the narrow street. Horns honked constantly. Drivers kept their horns going whether they moved or stopped. The noise was deafening.

“We’re not stopping in Cairo,” Uncle Ben explained. “We’re going straight to the pyramid at Al-Jizah. We’re all living in tents out there so we can be close to our work.” “I hope you brought bug spray,” Sari complained. “The mosquitoes are as big as frogs!”

“Don’t exaggerate,” Uncle Ben scolded. “Gabe isn’t afraid of a few mosquitoes—are you?”

“No way,” I replied quietly.

“How about scorpions?” Sari demanded.

The traffic grew lighter as we left the city behind and headed into the desert. The yellow sand gleamed under the hot afternoon sun. Waves of heat rose up in front of us as the jeep bumped over the narrow, two-lane road.

Before long, a pyramid came into view. Behind the waves of heat off the desert floor, it looked like a wavering mirage. It didn’t seem real.

As I stared out at it, my throat tightened with excitement. I had seen the pyramids last summer. But it was still a thrilling sight.

“I can’t believe the pyramids are over four thousand years old!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah. That’s even older than me!” Uncle Ben joked. His expression turned serious. “It fills me with pride every time I see them, Gabe,” he admitted. “To think that our ancient ancestors were smart enough and skilled enough to build these marvels.” Uncle Ben was right. I guess the pyramids have special meaning for me since my family is Egyptian. Both sets of my grandparents came from Egypt. They moved to the United States around 1930. My mom and dad were born in Michigan.

I think of myself as a typical American kid. But there’s still something exciting about visiting the country where your ancestors came from.

As we drove nearer, the pyramid appeared to rise up in front of us. Its shadow formed a long, blue triangle over the yellow sand.

Cars and tour buses jammed a small parking lot. I could see a row of saddled camels tethered on one side of the lot. A crowd of tourists stretched across the sand, gazing up at the pyramid, snapping photographs, chatting noisily and pointing.

Uncle Ben turned the jeep onto a narrow side road, and we headed away from the crowd, toward the back of the pyramid. As we drove into the shade, the air suddenly felt cooler.

“I’d kill for an ice-cream cone!” Sari wailed. “I’ve never been so hot in my life.”

“Let’s not talk about the heat,” Uncle Ben replied, sweat dripping down his forehead into his bushy eyebrows. “Let’s talk about how happy you are to see your father after so many months.” Sari groaned. “I’d be happier to see you if you were carrying an ice-cream cone.”

Uncle Ben laughed.

A khaki-uniformed guard stepped in front of the jeep. Uncle Ben held up a blue ID card. The guard waved us past.

As we followed the road behind the pyramid, a row of low, white canvas tents came into view. “Welcome to the Pyramid Hilton!” Uncle Ben joked. “That’s our luxury suite over there.” He pointed to the nearest tent.

“It’s pretty comfortable,” he said, parking the jeep beside the tent. “But the room service is lousy.” “And you have to watch out for scorpions,” Sari warned.

She’d say anything to try to scare me.

We unloaded my suitcase. Then Uncle Ben led us up to the base of the pyramid.

A camera crew was packing up its equipment. A young man, covered in dust, climbed out of a low entrance dug into one of the limestone squares. He waved to my uncle, then hurried toward the tents.

“One of my people,” Uncle Ben muttered. He motioned toward the pyramid. “Well, here you are, Gabe. A long way from Michigan, huh?” I nodded. “It’s amazing,” I told him, shielding my eyes to gaze up to the top. “I forgot how much bigger the pyramids look in person.” “Tomorrow I’ll take you both down to the tomb,” Uncle Ben promised. “You’ve come at just the right time. We’ve been digging for months and months. And at long last, we are about to break the seal and enter the tomb itself.” “Wow!” I exclaimed. I wanted to be cool in front of Sari. But I couldn’t help it. I was really excited.

“Guess you’ll be really famous after you open the tomb, huh, Dad?” Sari asked. She swatted a fly on her arm. “Ow!” “I’ll be so famous, the flies will be afraid to bite you,” Uncle Ben replied. “By the way, do you know what they called flies in ancient Egypt?” Sari and I shook our heads no.

“I don’t either!” Uncle Ben said, grinning. One of his dumb jokes. He had an endless supply of them. His expression suddenly changed. “Oh. That reminds me. I have a present for you, Gabe.” “A present?”

“Now, where did I put it?” He dug both hands into the pockets of his baggy chinos.

As he searched, I saw something move behind him. A shadow over my uncle’s shoulder, back at the low opening to the pyramid.

I squinted at it.

The shadow moved. A figure stepped out slowly.

At first I thought the sun was playing tricks on my eyes.

But as I squinted harder, I realized that I was seeing correctly.

The figure stepped out from the pyramid—its face was covered in worn, yellowed gauze. So were its arms. And its legs.

I opened my mouth to cry out—but my voice choked in my throat.

And as I struggled to alert my uncle, the mummy stiffly stretched out its arms and came staggering up behind him.