In his terror, he was blathering. “Please don’t be angry with me,” he went on, “please don’t burn my precious – wait, what did you say?”
“I said it does not matter, Cainus.”
Cainus’s tongue flopped so far out of his mouth, it slapped on the tomb floor. “It doesn’t?” he spluttered.
“Do you remember how you first brought my spirit back to Mumphis, you clueless puppy?”
Cainus peered at the ceiling, straining to recall.
“I remember,” the Unpharaoh said. “The Smoothie of Immortality. You stole a single hair from the Pharaoh’s Beard to make it. And beneath the Pyramid of Mumphis, you poured it into the mouth of my mummified body.”
“Ah yes!” said Cainus. “Happy days, weren’t they? But to make another smoothie, I’d need another hair from the Pharaoh’s Beard. Which, if I’m following this conversation correctly, is hiding inside a coconut.”
“It is not in a coconut, Cainus!” the Unpharaoh snapped. Then her face crinkled into a sickening grin. Cainus could hear her leathery skin creak.
“The Beard is gone forever,” she croaked, “but another ancient relic is not. My mummy! You know from your spying that Bab Sharkey left it in my tomb. And what do you think is inside the belly of that mummy?”
Cainus clutched the stone heart frame with his paws. “You don’t mean . . . the Smoothie of Immortality?”
“Most of its ingredients would have perished, of course. The natron and resin must have oozed out long ago. Even the lollipops would have rotted by now. But one magical ingredient is so powerful, it might perhaps remain.”
Cainus’s body stiffened as he realised. “The hair,” he choked. “The spare hair from the Pharaoh’s Beard.”
“And this time, when I return, I won’t just be taking over my little city. I hear so much of the world beyond Mumphis, and those stories have given me a hunger. Cairo. France. Hoo-haaccchhh, I shall become Pharaoh . . . of the entire world!”
“I know it’s there.”
Or do I?
Bab Sharkey’s eyes were red raw. Maybe he’d stared too long at the shining dunes. Or maybe he’d hunted too long through books of Egyptian myths, searching for answers.
He’d done a lot of both those things, ever since the magic city of the Animal Mummies had vanished.
“I know it’s there,” he repeated to himself, scanning the golden desert beyond his bedroom window. He tried to focus on the precise spot. The spot where the wonky Pyramid used to poke up over the city walls. But so much time had passed.
An entire month. The dunes had shifted, and he was no longer sure exactly where the Pyramid had once stood.
A gentle hand touched his shoulder.
“Bab,” whispered his mum.
Bab turned and grinned at the professor. “Hey, Mum.” Her springy hair was crusted with desert sand. “Back from the dig site already, huh?”
Bab’s mouth tingled as Prof Sharkey popped a lime marshmallow into it. “We’ve nearly packed it up, kit and kaboodle, Bab,” she told him. “Soon the other professors will head home, and we’re going with them. If I can remember the way to the airport.”
Bab winced as he munched on his marshmallow. “Mum, this is home now. I know it’s only a crooked tin shack, but it’s right beside where my friends live. I mean, I can’t see Mumphis any more, but I know it’s there.”
Prof Sharkey gave him a kind smile. “I know Mumphis is there, too. And that’s something, isn’t it? Knowing your friends will always be there, in that special place.”
“I guess so,” Bab said. “But anything could go down in that crazy city. I feel like I’m still their Pharaoh. What if they need me to keep them safe from . . . I don’t know.”
The Prof fixed him with as serious a look as she could muster through her crooked glasses. “My sister can’t return, Bab,” she assured him. “The Pharaoh’s Beard is gone, and the gods will be keeping a very strict eye on Andica in the Afterworld. Especially Osiris, he’s probably thought up at least eighty-three new rules.”
Bab swallowed. “I bet that leathery lady can still find a way to hurt the Animal Mummies, though. She won’t give up till she’s–”
“Ooh!”
The Prof interrupted by scratching madly at her head, sending a shower of sand onto the floor.
“Mum?” said Bab. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes, it’s just the part of my brain that’s missing. It itches inside my head sometimes. I never wanted to tell you, Bab, but . . . sometimes I feel she’s listening.”
Bab frowned. “The Unpharaoh is listening? To your brain?”
He hadn’t completely trusted his mum’s brain since he’d found out that the Unpharaoh had bitten a chunk out of it.
The Prof clapped her hands. “Not to worry!” she chirped. “Now, what say you help me carry your father outside for some fresh air? Even statues need fresh air, you know. If you can find your way out of your messy room, that is – hoo!”
The Prof picked up a few of Bab’s books and games, shook her head, and threw them aside again.
As Bab followed her out, picking a careful path through his stuff, he noticed something among the mess. It made him smile sadly.
It was the silver box. The one Scaler had coughed up when Bab had first met her and Prong. The box had contained the Pharaoh’s Beard.
Bab supposed all the Pharaohs of Egypt kept the Beard in that box whenever they weren’t wearing it, like at night, when it became pretty annoying squashed against your pillow.
He remembered how the Beard had first found him. It had flown straight onto his chin, so fast that the two Animal Mummies hadn’t
