The Mummy's Curse Read online

  With our plastic bags full of trinkets, we headed back through the bazaar toward the hotel. That afternoon we’d go to the Cairo Museum and finally see the mummies—one last memory of our time here to take home with us.

  “Please, come inside! I have all the latest videos and CDs!”

  “No, thanks,” I said. “We can get CDs back home.”

  “Oh, no—not these,” the merchant said. “Please, come in, and I will show you.”

  He was short and fat, had thick, tinted glasses, and wore a red Turkish cap on his head—a fez, I think they call it.

  I pointed to the cap. “I’ll buy one of those if you’ve got any.”

  Not realizing I was joking, he said, “No, this is my hat. I do not sell hats. Only CDs and DVDs. Please, come.”

  “Look,” Frank broke in. “We’re tired, it’s almost lunchtime, and we have to get back to our hotel. Maybe some other time.”

  “Wait!” the man called after us as we tried to leave. “At least look at one DVD! Here—this one!” He pulled one from the pocket of his long white robe and held it out to us.

  The DVD, a video game, was entitled “Adventure in the Desert.” It had a picture of two guys on camelback riding through the desert. Chasing them were five men on horseback, holding swords high in the air.

  “Hey,” I said, “that reminds me of last night—two of us, five of them.”

  “You know what else?” Frank said, staring hard at the drawing. “Those two guys on the camels look familiar.”

  “Huh?” I stared at them closely. One had blond hair, one dark. “Hey, wait a minute….”

  “Ah!” the shopkeeper said, his eyes lighting up behind the thick glasses. “You see? I told you!”

  “Frank,” I said, “those two guys—they’re us.”

  “A bright boy. A very smart boy,” said the shopkeeper, nodding his head. “You will enjoy this game very much, I am sure.”

  “How much?” Frank asked.

  “Special price,” said the man in the fez. “For you? Free.” He shoved the game into my hand.

  “Thanks!” Frank said. “Come on, Joe. We’ve got business.”

  This was no ordinary video game. It was our next case!

  Back in our hotel room, I took out our video game system and slipped the DVD in. The game began to load.

  ADVENTURE IN THE DESERT! A NEW ATAC ADVENTURE STARRING FRANK AND JOE HARDY!

  Nice title.

  Q.T.’s round, smiling face filled the screen. He’s our boss at ATAC—American Teens Against Crime, the secret crime-fighting organization our dad founded and we work for as secret agents.

  “Hello, boys,” he said. “Or should I say, as they do over there, As Salaam Alaikum—peace be with you?”

  “Wa Alaikum Salaam,” Frank and I said together in response. And with you also.

  “Sorry to bother you while you’re on vacation, but it so happens we need a pair of agents over there, and since you’re already in Cairo, we thought we’d save ourselves the airfare and put you on the case.

  “We’ll need you to stay over there for another week. I’ve already cleared it with your father, although you’ll have to figure out how to break the news to the rest of your family.”

  That was always the deal with ATAC; we couldn’t let anyone but our father in on our cases. Our work was top secret.

  “So what’s the case?” Frank asked the screen impatiently.

  “The case has to do with the legendary Tomb of the Golden Mummy. Perhaps you’ve heard the story? It says that somewhere in the heart of the desert, beyond the Valley of the Serpents, lies the richest tomb in all of Egypt, a maze built into the side of a cliff.

  “It is the tomb of Pharaoh Semerkhet III—known as the Golden Mummy, because he was supposedly buried with more golden implements and statues than any other pharaoh before or since.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That would be cool, to see something like that.”

  “Forget it,” Frank said. “Didn’t you hear him say it was legendary?”

  Q kept talking as the screen showed scenes of archaeological digs near the pyramids. “Until last year, everyone assumed that the Golden Mummy and its tomb were just legend. Then rumors started going around that Roger Corson had found the tomb.”

  I hit the pause button. “Roger Corson? He’s that explorer guy who dates all the supermodels, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. He’s always in the news.”

  “Hey, Frank, didn’t Corson—”

  “Good memory, Joe,” Frank said. “The papers said he died ‘under mysterious circumstances.’”

  “Whoa.” I sat down on the edge of my bed and hit play.

  Q resumed his narration. “Corson never admitted it publicly, but the story got out that he’d made a map of his discovery and was going to return and find the treasure. As far as anyone knew, it was only a rumor. But somebody must have believed it—because last month Corson was found murdered in his bed in his London apartment, with a four-thousand-year-old dagger stuck right through his heart.”

  “Sheesh!” I said.

  “That really bites,” Frank agreed.

  “The apartment was ransacked. And a woman on that floor of the building says she saw a blood-soaked mummy fleeing the scene. Oh, by the way, according to the legend, the Golden Mummy, in addition to its priceless treasures, also comes with a curse.”

  “Whoa!”

  “Cool,” I said.

  “The police reached a dead end and shelved the case,” Q went on. “And that might have been the end of it too—if it hadn’t been for Samantha Chilton. I trust you’ve heard of her.”

  “Samantha Chilton?” I repeated. “Is he kidding? Who hasn’t?”

  In case you just dropped in from Mars, Samantha Chilton has been all over the TV screen for the past year or so. She’s the incredibly rich, beautiful, and temperamental daughter of Lady Ernestine Chilton, who got famous years ago for unearthing some pharaoh’s tomb. Samantha herself is more famous for her good looks, her partying, her shady boyfriends, and her outrageous antics.

  “Ms. Samantha,” Q said, “was Roger Carson’s girlfriend at the time he was murdered. For a while police thought that she herself might have killed him. But witnesses saw her on a plane bound for Rome at the time of the murder. She then dropped out of sight before the police could find her to interrogate her.

  “Until the day before yesterday, no one knew where she was. Then Lady Chilton received a troubling phone message. Here, let me play it for you….”

  While a slide show of Sam Chilton’s greatest poses flashed on the screen, we heard her voice on the phone machine, excited, bubbly, and familiar:

  “Mom, hi! It’s me—your daughter, Samantha? Remember me? Sorry I’ve been out of touch, but I had to, like, disappear? ’Cause Roger said it was important. Roger, my boyfriend?

  “See, he gave me this map he made? Of the tomb of the Golden Mummy? And he said to take good care of it because it was worth billions and jillions. So I went to Rome and stayed with Pookie and Sly for a week, but then Roger didn’t call, and he didn’t call, and so I figured, ‘Who needs Roger, that jerk? I can find this stupid mummy’s tomb myself.’

  “So that’s what I’m calling to tell you, Mom—you’re gonna be so proud of me when I find the tomb and the mummy and the treasure and everything!

  “Don’t worry, I told the Egyptian Antiquities people, and they said it was okay—in fact, Dr. Mounir himself is coming with me! So is that famous guy, you know, that expert you think is so smart, Dr. Igor Volsky? Oh, and so is Tommy. He’s my new boyfriend, and he’s totally cute. He was actually Mr. Universe once!

  “Oh, yeah … about that? If Roger calls, tell him I’m breaking up with him. I can’t deal with it when guys never call me. So anyway, we leave the day after tomorrow. And don’t worry—I love you, and I’m so excited! Bye! Oh, P.S., I’ve got a video crew with me to document the whole trip, so you won’t miss a thing. It’s gonna be the best reality TV show ever! Love y
ou—bye!”

  The slide show dissolved back into Q’s face. “We have reason to believe that Ms. Chilton really knows nothing of Roger Corson’s murder. Lady Chilton tried to reach her daughter, but apparently, she’s out of cell phone range. Given everything that’s happened, however, Lady C thinks her daughter is in grave danger, and we at ATAC tend to agree.”

  “Me too,” Frank said. “Whoever killed Roger Corson wanted that map, and now she’s got it.”

  “What, you don’t think it was the mummy’s curse that killed him?”

  He gave me a look. Frank doesn’t believe in curses. He believes in science, and in hard, cold facts.

  “We’ve traced the phone call to the town of Ras Khalifa, on the Nile,” Q said. “The call came in on the fifteenth. Ms. Chilton says she’s leaving ‘the day after tomorrow.’ That would be the seventeenth.”

  “Hey, that’s tomorrow!” I realized.

  “I know that doesn’t leave you boys much time to prepare,” Q went on. “But I have complete confidence in you. Ms. Chilton’s boat, the Ramses II, leaves the Ras Khalifa dock at seven o’clock in the evening. You must be on the boat with her. Lady Chilton is very worried about her daughter. Your job is to see that no harm comes to her.”

  I grabbed the controller and pushed the pause button. “Hey, Frank, how are we supposed to do this? Sam Chilton is never going to let us come along on her expedition—she doesn’t know us from a hole in the wall!”

  “Why don’t we just listen to the rest of what Q has to say?” he suggested. “He usually knows what he’s doing, right?”

  “I guess so,” I said, already thinking ahead. “Ah, yes … Sam Chilton and me in the desert, under the stars …”

  “Don’t get too excited, lover boy,” Frank said. “She’s got her new boyfriend with her, remember?”

  “Like that matters? Once she meets me, she’ll forget all about him.”

  “Right,” Frank said. “Your muscles are much bigger than Mr. Universe’s. Especially the one between your ears.”

  “Very funny.” I pushed play.

  “Since Ms. Chilton has been known to never consent to a bodyguard, or even a chaperone, you’ll need to have some sort of other cover in order to join the expedition. We’ve arranged for you to pose as teen reporters for Beautiful People magazine, doing a feature on the expedition to find the Golden Mummy.

  “As we’ve all seen, Ms. Chilton cannot resist publicity of any kind. If you play your parts well enough, I’m sure she’ll arrange for you to come along.”

  “Reporters, huh?” I said. “We can do that, right, Frank?”

  “Whatever it takes, bro,” he said, smiling.

  “Your press credentials, notebooks, cameras, cash, plane tickets for tomorrow morning’s flight to Ras Khalifa, proper identification, and a few other goodies are in a package being held for you at the hotel desk. You can pick it up anytime.”

  Q gave us one of his famous cheerless smiles. “Well, boys, that’s about it. Good luck. Oh, yes—as usual, this information will obliterate itself in five, four, three, two, one …”

  The screen went blank, and loud Arabic music blasted out of the speakers.

  “Time to get busy,” I said, getting up.

  “There’s just one problem,” Frank said.

  “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

  “How in the world are we going to explain this to Mom and Aunt Trudy?”

  3A Cruise Down the Nile

  Getting permission to go on the expedition turned out to be a piece of cake. In fact, it was the only thing about our entire trip to Egypt that went according to plan.

  Dad had already laid the foundation, telling Mom and Trudy how fantastic it was that we’d been hired as “Guest Reporters” by Beautiful People magazine and directed to cover Samantha Chilton’s search for the Tomb of the Golden Mummy.

  Mom, of course, thought it was wonderful that we’d won such a great honor—although she was a little curious about why we hadn’t told her weeks ago, when we’d written those essays for the contest about why we wanted to be reporters. In fact, she said, she never even knew we were into journalism!

  Aunt Trudy, as usual, was not buying into anything without an argument. “I think it’s too dangerous,” she said as we all ate breakfast at the hotel’s buffet. “What if they get lost in the desert? Or bitten by snakes or scorpions? Or attacked by bandits?”

  “Well, Trudy,” Dad said with a chuckle, “you’re welcome to be their chaperone if you like. I can arrange for you to go along.”

  “Me? Oh, no—certainly not,” Trudy said, reddening. “I’m not going to rough it at my age.”

  Which is a joke, really, because Aunt Trudy is as rough and tough as anybody. No snake or scorpion or bandit could stand up to the likes of her. Dad must have known, though, that she’d turn down the offer. She couldn’t come with us.

  “Besides, I’m sure Playback would miss nesting in my hair,” she added with a smirk.

  Playback is our pet parrot. The neighbors had been watching him while we were gone, but I knew Trudy didn’t trust anyone but herself to take care of her “baby.” She had a love/hate relationship with Playback—but it was mostly love.

  Trudy still wasn’t finished. “And this Samantha Chilton person,” she went on. “Isn’t she best known as a publicity-hounding hussy? I don’t think the boys should get mixed up with her.”

  “Oh, but Trudy, it’s an honor to win first prize in a nationwide essay contest!” Mom argued.

  “Honor, my foot! I don’t think Frank and Joe should be fooling around with someone so notorious for being bad news.”

  “Now, Trudy,” Mom said, putting a soothing hand on Trudy’s arm. “It’ll be an incredible educational experience. And I’m sure the boys will behave themselves. Won’t you, boys? Promise me and your aunt that you won’t do any flirting with Samantha Chilton.”

  “We promise,” we both said.

  Then I glanced over at Joe and saw that, behind his back, he had his fingers firmly crossed.

  We said good-bye at the airport. Mom, Dad, and Trudy had a long plane trip home to Bayport, and Frank and I had to catch the noon flight to Ras Khalifa, two hundred miles south on the banks of the Nile River, Egypt’s lifeline.

  Thousands of years ago, when the pharaohs ruled and built their pyramids, most of Egypt’s people lived along the Nile. It’s no different today For a few miles on either side of the river, there are towns, farms, and cities. A little farther away from the Nile, there’s nothing but desert for thousands of miles.

  We could see the lay of the land plainly from the air—I could, that is. Joe had his nose buried in the latest issue of Beautiful People. One of the main features concerned Samantha Chilton—“The Air-head Heiress,” as the magazine called her.

  “Listen to this,” Joe said excitedly. “‘Sam Chilton was seen partying at Nightspot on the Nile yesterday evening. Everyone’s wondering who her newest flame is. He sure is a hunk!’”

  Joe showed me the magazine. “You think he’s a hunk?” he asked, letting me know by his tone that he didn’t think so at all.

  I studied the picture Joe held out to me. Gorgeously blond Samantha Chilton, in her micro-mini dancing outfit, was hanging on the arm of a huge blond-haired guy who, I have to admit, didn’t look too “hunky” or bright. Still, it was just a photo by some paparazzo—and those pictures can make anyone look bad.

  “You’re just jealous,” I kidded Joe.

  “You got that right,” he said, taking me seriously.

  “Hey, bro,” I said, “if you’re thinking about using this case as an opportunity to date Samantha Chilton, forget it.”

  “Forget it? No way! Dating her would be the perfect way to protect her—I’d be with her all the time.”

  “She’s already taken, by the looks of that photo,” I reminded him.

  “That’s only temporary. Ah, yes, I can see it now—me and Sam, riding double on a camel’s back….”

  “Dream on, Romeo,�
� I said, laughing. “You’d be better off just treating this as a job. That way, you won’t get your heart broken when she rejects you.”

  “Reject me? Dude, haven’t you noticed? I’m irresistible.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m not saying a word.”

  Ras Khalifa is a dirty, bustling port town, where Nile cruise boats dock for the night, and freighters load and unload. We found the Ramses II docked in the harbor, just as Q had promised.

  We climbed the wooden ramp and went aboard. A uniformed steward greeted us. “Hello, there,” he said, brandishing a clipboard. “Your names, please?”

  Joe and I exchanged glances. Q hadn’t said anything about putting us on a list.

  “We’re journalists,” I said. “Frank and Joe Hardy, with Beautiful People magazine. Here to do a feature on Ms. Chilton.”

  He looked up and down the list—twice. “I’m so sorry,” he said, looking at us as if his heart was breaking. “You are not on the list. Only those on the list are permitted to board.”

  This was going to be a big problem. We knew we had to find Samantha Chilton and talk her into taking us along. “Is Ms. Chilton on board yet?” I asked.

  The steward looked unsure of himself. “I am not permitted to say.”

  Aha! That had to mean she was already here.

  Good.

  “Samantha!” I yelled. “Ms. Chilton! HELLO??”

  I was taking a chance—a chance that she would hear the racket I was making and come out on deck to see what was happening.

  Sure enough, her famous face, framed by that long, sleek, shiny blond hair, leaned over the railing. “Who is that?” she called to the steward. “And why are they screaming my name?”

  “We’re from the press, Ms. Chilton!” I shouted, flashing the phony press card that came in the package Q sent us.

  Come on, fly. Come to the honey.

  “Beautiful People magazine!” Joe added, giving her his best smile. I glanced over at him and saw that his eyes were glazed over with star worship. He’d had a thing for Samantha Chilton ever since he first saw her on the cover of People.