“Hoo-haaaachhh!” the Unpharaoh laughed.
Attached to her, Cainus smiled from pointy ear to pointy ear. “I am so pleased to feel your sense of joy is back, Your Happiness,” he fawned. “Such a welcome break from the constant stream of rage I was absorbing.”
Bab and the Prof madly tried to wriggle free from the Unpharaoh’s spike-legs, but it was no use. They were pinned like food under chopsticks and running out of breath.
The Animal Mummies were returning. Bab recognised all his old friends. Ned the Crocodile Mummy, Celeste the Cat Mummy, Boovus the Hippo, and little Quacker the Egg Mummy, who used to hug Bab’s legs. Bab saw their ragged claws and green teeth getting ready to rip him to shreds.
I can’t move, he thought. I can’t breathe! Mum . . . help . . .
The Prof reached out and grabbed Bab’s hand. She looked weak and pale but squeezed his fingers so tightly he feared they’d break.
Perhaps it was selfish, but Bab shut his eyes and thought, I’m glad my mum’s here.
A great force tore the Prof’s hand out of Bab’s.
BAMP! BOOF!
A mound of earth ballooned under Prof Sharkey, bumping her out from under the Unpharaoh’s spike-leg. But Bab remained pinned.
Scaler burst from the ground in an arcing leap. In mid-air, she cast the fish hook from her lip. It spooled out towards Prong on the end of a bandage fishing line, but missed. Instead, Scaler’s line whipped around and around Cainus’s patchy head, till her fish hook buried itself in his snout.
“Yaaargh!” yelped the jackal.
The Fish Mummy yelled at Bab and the Prof. “While I’m trying to kill Prong, I’ll try and save you Pharaoh dudes!”
Twirling, she unlooped her fishing line from Cainus and dived into the sand once more. She poked her head out again just beside Bab.
The Unpharaoh cackled with glee. “What a glorious battle!”
Prong spun in the air and shot towards her fish friend like a dart at a dartboard. Scaler jumped aside and Prong’s beak lodged into the prickly spike-leg that was pinning Bab down.
“Yowch!” cried the Unpharaoh. “Get off me, you pathetic bird!”
The Unpharaoh Beard plucked Prong from her spike-leg with a giant hairy hand and shook her like a can of spray paint.
Prong honked in protest, her voice juddering. “B-b-buutttt I-I-I haaave to kill-l-ll myyyy best-t-t friend-d-d-d-d!”
Scaler reattached her limbs and leaped onto the Unpharaoh’s shaking arm, trying to climb along it and reach Prong.
“Musstt-t-t unwrap-p-p P-p-pronggggg!” she stuttered as the hairy arm rattled her from side to side.
SPLOOSH!
Prof Sharkey raced up, pulling the broken water pipe along with her. She used it to spray a jet of water over the Unpharaoh’s spike-legs.
“Blecch, what is this?” demanded the queen.
“Who needs a magic nostril hose,” the Prof chuckled, “when a real one will do?”
Because the spike-legs were made of hair, the water left them soggy. They now dangled wetly from the Unpharaoh’s head, and Bab was at last able to roll free.
The Prof hurled the pipe aside. She wrapped Bab in a hug and the colour returned to his cheeks.
But the Animal Mummies were nearly upon them.
With air finally in his lungs again, Bab’s mind sprang into action. I don’t want to hurt my friends. Even if they are trying to kill us.
“Beard,” he said, “shield me and Mum with . . . what’s soft and cottony, Mum?”
“Giant teddy bears,” the Prof replied without missing a beat.
“With teddy bears!”
Fuppa-foop!
The Cotton Beard expanded into six fluffy white teddies, each the size of a house. Sitting side by side, they formed a protective ring around Bab and the Prof.
Outside the ring of stuffed toys, the Unpharaoh was getting smothered by the Animal Mummies. Her own army was clambering over her to get to Bab and Prof Sharkey. Her giant hands had stopped shaking about, weighed down by bandaged elephants and hippos. She toppled over, and camels, bulls, crocodiles and falcons pushed her hairy face into the cracked pavement.
“Phfeeff, pheff,” she spat. She couldn’t command her army to get off her because her hairy mouth was stuffed with crawling Animal Mummies.
“Yowwwweee!” Cainus shrieked. “Get off my queen, you bedraggled oafs! Hey! Watch where you put those hooves!” Several Gazelle Mummies trampled his face on their way to the Cotton Teddies.
“Prong!” shouted Scaler. “Where are you? I can’t see you through this stampede!”
With the Unpharaoh flailing, Prong had wriggled out of her hairy hand. “I’m over here,” she honked, “among the other Fish Mummies. Come find me so I can destroy you!”
The swarming mummies reached the giant Cotton Teddies. They scratched and picked at the fluffy feet and legs, pulling out chunks of stuffing with their teeth and spitting them aside.
Bab knew it was only a matter of time before they carved their way through.
I can’t stop thinking about the way Cainus senses the Unpharaoh’s feelings, he thought. Her feelings must go right through the Beard hairs and into his chin.
An idea hit him like a nostril fireball.
“Mum,” he said. “Andica was so hurt when you said you never loved her. Her rage went next level.”
“I tried to love her Babby,” sighed the Prof, “I really did. But the purple magic warped her so badly that loving her became impossible.”
“I think that’s behind everything – everything she’s ever done. It drives her anger, her need to be number one. So maybe if we make her realise she is loved, she’ll feel the opposite.”
The Prof smiled sadly. “It’s a lovely idea, Bab. But after all she’s done to you and the world, who could possibly love her now?”
Bab grinned. “There is somebody.”
Bab seized the back of one of the Cotton Teddies and began to climb it. By grabbing fistfuls of cotton and jamming his feet in to make footholds, he was able to clamber right up to the teddy’s shoulder.
Below, the Animal Mummies swarmed around the teddy ring. Soon it was completely surrounded. They chewed and ripped at
