05 - The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb Read Free

little nervous.
    I paced back and forth for a bit. I tried playing Tetris on the Game
Boy, but I couldn’t concentrate, and the light wasn’t very good.
    Sari is probably a champ at Tetris, I thought bitterly. Where were they? What was taking so long?
    I began to have horrible, frightening thoughts: What if they can’t find the
hotel? What if they get mixed up and go to the wrong hotel?
    What if they’re in a terrible car crash and die? And I’m all by myself in
Cairo for days and days?
    I know. They were dumb thoughts. But they’re the kind of thoughts you have
when you’re alone in a strange place, waiting for someone to come.
    I glanced down and realized I had taken the mummy hand out of my jeans
pocket.
    It was small, the size of a child’s hand. A little hand wrapped in papery
brown gauze. I had bought it at a garage sale a few years ago, and I always
carried it around as a good luck charm.
    The kid who sold it to me called it a “Summoner.” He said it was used to
summon evil spirits, or something. I didn’t care about that. I just thought it
was an outstanding bargain for two dollars. I mean, what a great thing to find
at a garage sale! And maybe it was even real.
    I tossed it from hand to hand as I paced the length of the living room. The
TV was starting to make me nervous, so I clicked it off.
    But now the quiet was making me nervous.
    I slapped the mummy hand against my palm and kept pacing.
    Where were they? They should’ve been here by now.
    I was beginning to think that I’d made the wrong choice. Maybe I should’ve
gone to Alexandria with Mom and Dad.
    Then I heard a noise at the door. Footsteps.
    Was it them?
    I stopped in the middle of the living room and listened, staring past the
narrow front hallway to the door.
    The light was dim in the hallway, but I saw the doorknob turn.
    That’s strange, I thought. Uncle Ben would knock first—wouldn’t he?
    The doorknob turned. The door started to creak open.
    “Hey—” I called out, but the word choked in my throat.
    Uncle Ben would knock. He wouldn’t just barge in.
    Slowly, slowly, the door squeaked open as I stared, frozen in the middle of
the room, unable to call out.
    Standing in the doorway was a tall, shadowy figure.
    I gasped as the figure lurched into the room, and I saw it clearly. Even in the dim light, I could see what it was.
    A mummy.
    Glaring at me with round, dark eyes through holes in its ancient, thick
bandages.
    A mummy.
    Pushing itself off the wall and staggering stiffly toward me into the living
room, its arms outstretched as if to grab me.
    I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

 
 
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    I took a step back, and then another. Without realizing it, I’d raised my
little mummy hand in the air, as if trying to fend off the intruder with it.
    As the mummy staggered into the light, I stared into its deep, dark eyes.
    And recognized them.
    “Uncle Ben!” I screamed.
    Angrily, I heaved the mummy hand at him. It hit his bandaged chest and
bounced off.
    He collapsed backwards against the wall, laughing that booming laugh of his.
    And then I saw Sari poking her head in the doorway. She was laughing, too.
    They both thought it was hilarious. But my heart was pounding so hard, I
thought it was going to pop out of my chest.
    “That wasn’t funny!” I shouted angrily, balling my hands into fists at my
sides. I took a deep breath, then another, trying to get my breathing to return to normal.
    “I told you he’d be scared,” Sari said, walking into the room, a big,
superior grin on her face.
    Uncle Ben was laughing so hard, he had tears running down his bandaged face.
He was a big man, tall and broad, and his laughter shook the room. “You weren’t
that scared—were you, Gabe?”
    “I knew it was you,” I said, my heart still pounding as if it were a windup
toy someone had wound up too tight. “I recognized you right away.”
    “You sure looked scared,” Sari insisted.
    “I didn’t want to