“Well done, Sadie!” Bast purred.
Carter scowled at me. The poor boy gets jealous, you know.
A few minutes later, we were strolling through the campus of a small college: red brick buildings and wide courtyards. It was eerily quiet, except for the sound of a ball echoing on concrete.
As soon as Carter heard it, he perked up. “Basketball.”
“Oh, please,” I said. “We need to find Thoth.”
But Carter followed the sound of the ball, and we followed him. He rounded the corner of a building and froze. “Let’s ask them.”
I didn’t understand what he was on about. Then I turned the corner and yelped. On the basketball court, five players were in the middle of an intense game. They wore an assortment of jerseys from different American teams, and they all seemed keen to win-grunting and snarling at each other, stealing the ball and pushing.
Oh…and the players were all baboons.
“The sacred animal of Thoth,” Bast said. “We must be in the right place.”
One of the baboons had lustrous golden hair much lighter than the others, and a more, er, colorful bottom. He wore a purple jersey that seemed oddly familiar.
“Is that…a Lakers jersey?” I asked, hesitant to even name Carter’s silly obsession.
He nodded, and we both grinned.
“Khufu!” we yelled.
True, we hardly knew the baboon. We’d spent less than a day with him, and our time at Amos’s mansion seemed like ages ago, but still I felt like we’d recovered a long-lost friend.
Khufu jumped into my arms and barked at me. “Agh! Agh!” He picked through my hair, looking for bugs, I suppose [No comments from you, Carter!], and dropped to the ground, slapping the pavement to show how pleased he was.
Bast laughed. “He says you smell like flamingos.”
“You speak Baboon?” Carter asked.
The goddess shrugged. “He also wants to know where you’ve been.”
“Where we’ve been?” I said. “Well, first off, tell him I’ve spent the better part of the day as a kite, which is not a flamingo and does not end in -o, so it shouldn’t be on his diet. Secondly-”
“Hold on.” Bast turned to Khufu and said, “Agh!” Then she looked back at me. “All right, go ahead.”
I blinked. “Okay…um, and secondly, where has he been?”
She relayed this in a single grunt.
Khufu snorted and grabbed the basketball, which sent his baboon friends into a frenzy of barking and scratching and snarling.
“He dove into the river and swam back,” Bast translated, “but when he returned, the house was destroyed and we were gone. He waited a day for Amos to return, but he never did. So Khufu made his way to Thoth. Baboons are under his protection, after all.”
“Why is that?” Carter asked. “I mean, no offense, but Thoth is the god of knowledge, right?”
“Baboons are very wise animals,” Bast said.
“Agh!” Khufu picked his nose, then turned his Technicolor bum our direction. He threw his friends the ball. They began to fight over it, showing one another their fangs and slapping their heads.
“Wise?” I asked.
“Well, they’re not cats, mind you,” Bast added. “But, yes, wise. Khufu says that as soon as Carter keeps his promise, he’ll take you to the professor.”
I blinked. “The prof- Oh, you mean…right.”
“What promise?” Carter asked.
The corner of Bast’s mouth twitched. “Apparently, you promised to show him your basketball skills.”
Carter’s eyes widened in alarm. “We don’t have time!”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Bast promised. “It’s best that I go now.”
“But where, Bast?” I asked, as I wasn’t anxious to be separated from her again. “How will we find you?”
The look in her eyes changed to something like guilt, as if she’d just caused a horrible accident. “I’ll find you when you get out, if you get out…”
“What do you mean if?” Carter asked, but Bast had already turned into Muffin and raced off.
Khufu barked at Carter most insistently. He tugged his hand, pulling him onto the court. The baboons immediately broke into two teams. Half took off their jerseys. Half left them on. Carter, sadly, was on the no-jersey team, and Khufu helped him pull his shirt off, exposing his bony chest. The teams began to play.
Now, I know nothing about basketball. But I’m fairly sure one isn’t supposed to trip over one’s shoes, or catch a pass with one’s forehead, or dribble (is that the word?) with both hands as if petting a possibly rabid dog. But that is exactly the way Carter played. The baboons simply ran him over, quite literally. They scored basket after basket as Carter staggered back and forth, getting hit with the ball whenever it came close to him, tripping over monkey limbs until he was so dizzy he turned in a circle and fell over. The baboons stopped playing and watched him in disbelief. Carter lay in the middle of the court, covered in sweat and panting. The other baboons looked at Khufu. It was quite obvious what they were thinking: Who invited this human? Khufu covered his eyes in shame.
“Carter,” I said with glee, “all that talk about basketball and the Lakers, and you’re absolute rubbish! Beaten by monkeys!”
He groaned miserably. “It was…it was Dad’s favorite game.”
I stared at him. Dad’s favorite game. God, why hadn’t that occurred to me?
Apparently he took my gobsmacked expression as further criticism.
“I…I can tell you any NBA stat you want,” he said a bit desperately. “Rebounds, assists, free throw percentages.”
The other baboons went back to their game, ignoring Carter and Khufu both. Khufu let out a disgusted noise, half gag and half bark.
I understood the sentiment, but I came forward and offered Carter my hand. “Come on, then. It doesn’t matter.”
“If I had better shoes,” he suggested. “Or if I wasn’t so tired-”
“Carter,” I said with a smirk. “It doesn’t matter. And I’ll not breathe a word to Dad when we save him.”
He looked at me with obvious gratitude. (Well, I am rather wonderful, after all.) Then he took my hand, and I hoisted him up.
“Now for god’s sake, put on your shirt,” I said. “And Khufu, it’s time you took us to the professor.”
Khufu led us into a deserted science building. The air in the hallways smelled of vinegar, and the empty classroom labs looked like something from an American high school, not the sort of place a god would hang out. We climbed the stairs and found a row of professors’ offices. Most of the doors were closed. One had been left open, revealing a space no bigger than a broom closet stuffed with books, a tiny desk, and one chair. I wondered if that professor had done something bad to get such a small office.
“Agh!” Khufu stopped in front of a polished mahogany door, much nicer than the others. A newly stenciled name glistened on the glass: Dr. Thoth.
Without knocking, Khufu opened the door and waddled inside.
“After you, chicken man,” I said to Carter. (And yes, I’m sure he was regretting telling me about that particular incident. After all, I couldn’t completely stop teasing him. I have a reputation to maintain.)
I expected another broom closet. Instead, the office was impossibly big.
The ceiling rose at least ten meters, with one side of the office all windows, looking out over the Memphis skyline. Metal stairs led up to a loft dominated by an enormous telescope, and from somewhere up there came the sound of an electric guitar being strummed quite badly. The other walls of the office were crammed with bookshelves. Worktables overflowed with weird bits and bobs-chemistry sets, half-assembled computers, stuffed animals with electrical wires sticking out of their heads. The room smelled strongly of cooked beef, but with a smokier, tangier scent than I’d ever smelled.
Strangest of all, right in front of us, half a dozen longnecked birds-ibises-sat behind desks like receptionists, typing on laptop computers with their beaks.
Carter and I looked at each other. For once I was at a loss for words.
“Agh!” Khufu called out.
