Bab could almost hear Prong’s sweet, gentle honks right now. He felt hot tears prick his eyes.
“Are you coming, Bab?” prompted his mum. “I only have one lifespan left, remember. I can’t wait for eternity like I used to!”
Bab lifted up the silver box and rummaged inside. When he pulled his hand back out, three or four black hairs were stuck to his fingers.
Spare hairs, Bab thought. So the Pharaoh’s Beard isn’t all gone.
“Coming, Mum,” he said, popping the hairs back and tossing the box to the floor.
He went to leave but stopped. Something about the box troubled him.
Spare hairs, he thought again, staring at the ancient object. Spare magic hairs . . .
In another dimension, there was a soft sound.
Ploomf.
The silver box fell back onto the sand.
This dimension was a slightly mad place, caught between life and death. Neither Bab nor Prof Sharkey were here. In fact, the entire Sharkey Shack was gone, along with the dig site and its potty professors. Here, there were only the baking dunes of Egypt, looking just as they did four thousand years ago.
Some way off in the distance stood long, yellow walls. The yellow walls of Mumphis.
On the dunes stood two mummified animals, dry and tattered. They stared at the box intently.
One of them was Prong, the sweet-natured Ibis Mummy. Her eyes bulged from her bandaged head and her long beak fell open. “Did you see that!?” she honked at her friend.
Even Scaler the Fish Mummy, normally so cool, raised her painted eyebrows. “I’ve got to admit, Prong, that was kinda weird. We find the old Beard box lying out in the desert, it drifts up into the air all by itself, some black hairs float out of it, some black hairs float back into it, then the box falls.”
“Is that normal behaviour for a Beard box?” Prong asked. She clearly had great respect for her friend’s wisdom in such matters.
Scaler chewed at the hook in her lip. “Say, Prong,” she said to the Ibis Mummy. “You don’t think someone was picking up the box just now, do you?”
“No, I never think,” honked her friend. “The box picked itself up. We saw!”
“I mean someone we can’t see,” Scaler said. Her ancient face broke into a grin full of spiky green teeth. “Like our old Pharaoh dude, for instance!”
Prong gasped and fell to her knees, studying the box in wonder. “You don’t mean . . .”
She leaped back up and began flapping about in a circle, kicking her talons in a joyous dance. “BAB’S HERE! BAB’S HERE! BAB’S HEE-HEE-HERE, WOOHOOOOO!”
Scaler’s grin faded. “Yeah, woohoo,” she said flatly. “We can’t see him or hear him or contact him, but we can watch him pick up an old box. Soooo useful.”
The Fish Mummy looked around. There were a few ancient bits and pieces lying in the sand – some pots, ushabti statues, broken slabs of temple walls.
“Those must be things Shoshan collected in her dinky shack,” Scaler said. “We can’t see the shack, but we can see the old knick-knacks. ’Cos they date from our day, same as the Beard box.”
Prong stopped her dance and began wiping tears away with a rotten wing. “Oh, Scaler, I felt so happy just now but you’re right. We can only see old, cracked things like ourselves. We’ll never get to see our shiny new Bab.”
She broke into a honking sob. “Baw-haw-haw!”
Scaler wrapped her fantail around the sweet ibis in a fishy version of a hug. “I’m not ready to give up yet, Prong. It was your idea to come here looking for his house, and I reckon we’ve found it. That’s a start.”
Prong sniffed. “But why? Bab knew we were coming back with the Elephant Mummies to block that spongy pyramid’s nostrils. Why did he just disappear? Now all we can do is watch Invisible Bab fiddle with boxes and Beard hairs.”
“Beard hairs . . .” Scaler snatched up the silver box. “Prong! That could be the answer – the Pharaoh’s Beard. Bab always said it let him see our world, and us see his. Remember what Shoshan said before we went off to fetch the Elephant Mummies?”
“No, I was too busy admiring her lovely camel face. Baw-haw-haw, I’ll never get to see her camel face again!”
“Shoshan said she was going to destroy the Beard. Maybe that’s why we lost Bab and his shack – the Beard is gone forever!”
In his world, Bab Sharkey heard blood pounding in his ears. He hardly dared believe what he was seeing.
The silver box had launched itself off his bedroom floor and was hovering in the air!
He snatched at it. The box was difficult to move, almost as if an invisible hand was clutching it.
A hand? Bab wondered. Or a claw . . .
“Could it be them?” he whispered. “Scaler and Prong?”
Heart in his throat, he gave the box another tug.
“Yow!” said Scaler. “Something just pulled at the box. Twice.”
“It’s Bab,” honked Prong. “Invisible Bab. Invisi-Babble. I just know it! Oh, Invisi-Babble, we mummies can’t remember how to run Mumphis without you. Everyone’s arguing. Yesterday the whole city erupted in a giant dustburger fight and I got a flying dustpickle in my eye. Please stop being invisible! My eye hurts!”
Scaler ground her spiky teeth. “Even if it is Bab,” she replied, “he won’t hear you. He won’t even know that we’re standing here.”
With a crusty talon, Prong grabbed the box from Scaler. “I can show him, Scaler. Don’t you remember when I drew those beautiful portraits in the Spongy Void? Behold, a self-portrait of Prong, the master artist!”
Bab swallowed as an invisible hand swirled the box around in the air. It traced a pattern:
Bab wrinkled his nose in confusion.
“Gimme the box back, Prong,” said Scaler. “No offence, but your self-portrait is a little
