Secrets According to Humphrey Read Free Page A

just like my friends did!
    And oh, what I saw was pawsitively amazing.
    Egypt is a country in Africa, located on the Nile River—the longest river in the whole wide world! It runs through ten countries and that’s not all—there is a White Nile and a Blue Nile.
    Ancient Egypt was quite a place.
    Thousands of years ago the Egyptians built pyramids, which are buildings shaped like huge triangles, in honor of their kings. The kings were called
pharaohs.
(“Pharaoh” rhymes with “arrow.”)
    The pyramids held a huge secret—there was treasure inside. Lots and lots of treasure!
    But there were also mummies, which were bodies all wrapped up from head to toe.
    â€œEEEK!” I squeaked when I saw pictures of them. These mummies were not like mothers or fathers or anything I’d seen!
    That’s not all. There was also a strange-looking statue of a very odd creature. It had a body like a huge lion, but the head was like a human!
    This was a
Sphinx
. (Which rhymes with “inks,” “pinks” and “winks.”)
    The voice said that in ancient Greece, they had a legend about a Sphinx.
    The Sphinx guarded a city. When a traveler wanted to enter the city, the Sphinx asked him a riddle. If the stranger didn’t know the answer, then he couldn’t come in—or worse!
    By the time the words “The End” came up again, my tail was twitching, my whiskers were wiggling and my fur was standing up on end.
    I hit the top button on the remote control and the screen went black.
    I scurried down the shelves, slid under the door a little more easily and RAN-RAN-RAN through the halls of Longfellow School.
    Believe me, I was happy to get back to Room 26, where there were no mummies or pyramids and not one single Sphinx.
    Of course, there was a frog waiting to hear all about my adventure. He greeted me with a “BOING-BOING-BOING!”
    I scurried across the room, grabbed the cord of the blinds and swung myself back up to the table.
    By the time I got to Og’s tank, I was out of breath.
    â€œOg!” I panted. “Desert, treasure, Sphinx, a riddle! And a mummy is
not
somebody’s mother!”
    My froggy friend splashed loudly. “BOING-BOING-BOING!”
    I guess frogs don’t like the desert, where it’s very dry.
    I yawned. “I’ll explain it all tomorrow.”
    I was unsqueakably tired and the sky was getting light outside. So I hurried over to my cage and was very happy to close the door behind me.
    I checked to make sure that the lock-that-doesn’t-lock was fastened tightly.
    Then I dived under my soft, warm bedding and fell asleep right away.

    Humans might think that hamsters don’t dream, but they’d be wrong.
    In my dream that night, I rode a camel with a huge hump across the desert, past the pyramids and right up to a gigantic Sphinx.
    And you know what ? It
talked
to me!
    â€œTell me your secrets,” the Sphinx said in a ghostly voice. “And I’ll tell you mine.”
    â€œBut I don’t have any secrets,” I squeaked to him.
    â€œThen you cannot pass,” the Sphinx said. “You will stay here in the desert . . . forever!”
    And then
he
or
she
or
it
laughed.
    It laughed so hard, I woke up—thank goodness.
    It was almost time for school to start, so I decided it would be better to stay awake than to stay in ancient Egypt with the Sphinx forever.
    I grabbed my notebook from behind the mirror and began to write down all the secrets I’d learned so far.
    HUMPHREY’S TOP SECRET SCRIBBLES
Just thinking about meeting up with a mummy
Makes me feel funny in my tummy.

3
    Secret Guest

    E ven if I’d wanted to forget about ancient Egypt for a while, I couldn’t. Everything we did in Room 26 had something to do with that subject!
    Mrs. Brisbane divided the class into four groups: the Scribes (those were people who wrote things down), the Builders, the Traders and the