How to Curse in Hieroglyphics (15 page)

The Princess's vulture entanglements bought them precious time. The barn loomed up in front of them, a hulking black shape in the darkness, and the trio screeched to a stop in front of the doors. Tweed heaved the bar closure up and swung the door open just enough for them to slip through, and then pulled the door shut behind them, purposely leaving it unlocked. Turning around, she saw Pilot and Cheryl standing in front of the stack of pet carriers, which, by sheer coincidence, they had earlier piled up … in the shape of a
pyramid.
Cheryl was shaking her head, a wry grin on her face, and Tweed knew her cousin was thinking the exact same thing.

Pilot brought them back to reality. “Come on! They'll be here any minute now. We gotta get this trap here ready to spring!”

They huddled for a brief moment and decided that the most effective use of the cats would be to unleash them all at once. Cheryl found a ball of twine in the workbench drawer and, working together with the kind of lightning speed and precision that their regular super-sitter training drills had given them, she and Tweed threaded it through all the carriers' cage-door latches,

then sent Pilot up into the loft with the twine ball. The twins would act as “bait” and, once they had the Princess exactly where they wanted her, Pilot would pull the string, freeing the kitty commandos to leap forth and vent their righteous wrath on the vengeful undead!

At least, that was the plan.

If everything went according to the script …

As soon as Pilot was in position, the girls took up a back-to-back stance in the middle of the barn floor, flanked by the Moviemobile on one side and the wall of cats on the other. Silence descended in the gloom. They could hear the pattering and scratching of their adversary's forces, no doubt scouting out the best way to attack.

“Cee?” Tweed whispered in the darkness.

“Yeah, Tee?” Cheryl whispered back.

“I may not get a chance to tell you this later—”

“Don't talk like that, partner!” Cheryl interrupted her. “We're gonna make it through this. You gotta believe.”

“I do. I do! I just … I just wanted you to know .”

“What?”

“That was some grade A hero patter back there in the lot.”

Cheryl turned to her cousin, blinking in surprise. “It was?”

“Oh yeah. Seriously choice. ‘Target that chicken's six'? ‘Tea time'?” Tweed's grey eyes were wide, her gaze serious and brimming with genuine respect. “And the ‘hot wing' quip … masterful.”

“Will you two quit yakking and pay attention?” Pilot whispered from where he was hunkered down in the hayloft. “I think I heard something .”

On the floor of the barn, Cheryl and Tweed froze.

The gloom was absolute. The shadows deep and dark.

Stillness descended, tense and crackling with anticipation .

Suddenly, Bingo the croc-tot darted across the barn floor, spitting out his pacifier to snap and scrabble at Cheryl's sneakered foot as he zipped past and disappeared once more into the shadows beneath the hayloft!

Both girls, to put it kindly,
freaked.

There was jumping and screeching and flailing and the reckless pointing and shooting of Nerf bolts and staccato bursts of Day-Glo Silly String arcing through the air. After a moment … stillness descended once more. The croc-tot had vanished back into the murk, leaving the girls to wonder if he was the only one who'd managed to wriggle his way into the barn.

The girls stood back to back again, breathing heavily, weapons drawn.

When the scaly little Bottoms Beast didn't reappear, Cheryl and Tweed lowered their cans and crossbow. Cheryl laughed (only a little nervously).

“All-righty,” she whispered. “That was a pretty close one. Let's just—”

“Gasp!” Tweed said, gasping for added effect just in
case she hadn't made her point, which she also reinforced by pointing.

“What?” Cheryl turned in a full circle. “What are you pointing at?”

“You've been bitten!”

“What?” Cheryl stopped spinning and blinked at Tweed. “No, I haven't!”

Tweed reached for the flashlight she'd shoved into her belt and clicked it on. By the light of the weak and flickering beam, they saw that Cheryl's ankle, indeed, sported a crescent-shaped line of tiny, raised red dots on the pale, freckled skin between the rolled-up cuff of her overalls and the top of her sneaker. Aghast, Cheryl looked back up at Tweed.

“Wait,” she said, holding out a hand.

Tweed edged toward the gear bag, her stare never leaving Cheryl's face.

“Tweed …”

Tweed's grey eyes were wide. And brimming with regret. “I wish it didn't have to end up this way, partner,” she said, her monotone growing squeaky with emotion.

“You know …”

“
Tweed
…”

“You know the rules! You know the monster-hunting rules!”

“Ya but—”

“We've both seen the movies! We both know the science! You're gonna turn, pal. You're gonna turn and
it's gonna get ugly and I can't let that happen to—
Yeoowch
!”

Unnoticed by the twins, and employing the same attack strategy as Bingo the Biter, Crocface George—all scales and snappy teeth—had darted out from behind his car tire and scuttled across the floor on a diagonal trajectory, buzzing straight past Tweed. Now she bent down to examine the rip in her tights—and the row of teeth marks almost identical to Cheryl's.

Cheryl raised an eyebrow at her cousin.

Tweed sighed. “I do appreciate the filmic irony of this moment.”

“Oh, definitely.” Cheryl nodded.

A third, even more tension-fraught moment of silence filled the dark, cavernous old barn …

Then, suddenly, both girls burst into frenzied actionsequence motion, with much acrobatic rolling and confusion and yelling. Tweed did an impressive sideways leap-flip into the back seat of the top-down Moviemobile, firing a double-barrelled blast of chili-darts as she twisted in mid-air. Cheryl threw herself over the car door and into a perfectly executed shoulder roll, landing in the front seat and aiming blindly over her shoulder with the can of string.

Both girls missed with their first volleys, but popped up almost instantly—only to each find themselves staring the other's weapon in the face. Cheryl was nose to nose with Nerf. But Tweed was in her Silly String sights.

“Put that down, Tee!” Cheryl growled.

“You put that down, Cee!” Tweed snarled.

“You first.”

“No you.”

“You.”

“Holster that string!”

“Holster that bow!”

“I'm—”

“telling—”

“POPS!!”

At that exact moment, Pilot stuck his head out over the edge of the loft to see what on earth all the ruckus was about. He clicked on the beam of his flashlight, the only one still working properly, and was astonished to see the twins frozen in a kind of Mexican standoff.

“What in heck has gotten into you two?” he shouted. “We've got a mu—”

On hair-triggers, the twins both spun, unleashing a barrage in his direction.

“Ow!
Hey!
What the?!
Cut it out!!
”

“Whoops.” Cheryl blinked and came to her senses.

“Umm.” Tweed did the same.

Pilot wiped a glop of string from his eyes and plucked off a dart that was suction-cupped to his forehead. “Dang!” he said. “That stuff stings, y'know …”

“Heh. Sorry about that, Flyboy …”

“Yeah, sorry, Pilot …”

The twins sheepishly lowered their weapons.

Cheryl turned to Tweed. “Seeing as how we both seem to be in the same boat, bite-wise, how's about we just leave it up to Pilot to do the right thing the minute either of us starts to go scaly?” she suggested.

Tweed nodded solemnly and said, “Deal. Nice shoulder roll, by the way.”

Then she gave her cousin the C
+
T Secret Signal. Cheryl returned the winky-eye/pointy-finger/nose-nod gesture and, together, they began to climb out of the car—keeping a sharp eye out for the croc-Bottoms as Pilot swept the beam to and fro across the barn floor to keep the critters at bay.

The twins' feet had just hit the ground when, suddenly, the barn door flew inward, crashing against the wall, and in strode Princess Zahara-Safiya, Artie Bartleby shuffling behind her, trailing feathers and bits of string.

“Now, Pilot! Now!” Tweed hollered.

Up in the loft, Pilot yanked with all his might on the twine ball in his hand, and down below, the latches on fifteen cat cages sprang open.

“What the heck?!” Artie exclaimed and jumped back, hiding behind a popcorn cooking oil storage drum. “Shtop, your majeshty! It'sh a trap!”

But Zahara was moving too fast. Fuelled by supernatural mummy magic, she powered through the barn door and was halfway across the floor when the first wave of attack cats rampaged forth! Or, rather …

Ambled
forth …

Pilot and the twins waited in breathless anticipation for the melee of mayhem. But all that really happened was that Boober, Flapjack and Pigwidgeon poked their heads out of their cages; Bubble and Squeak, Calico Pete and Montgomery J. Butterball jumped down and instantly started to bathe themselves; Kittums Fat Fat yawned mightily and went back to sleep without even stretching; and several of the others just stayed in their cages, meowing and waiting to be fed and ear-scratched.

“Go forth!” Cheryl urged.

“Attack!” Pilot ordered.

“Fulfill your mystic destiny!” Tweed exhorted.

Zahara faltered to a stop, hesitating. Her eyes grew wide as she spotted the (less enthusiastic than hoped for, sure) gang of fuzzy foot soldiers, and for a moment, Pilot and the twins thought their plan just might work anyway. Surely the mummy princess would turn and take to her gold-sandalled heels, fleeing in terror when confronted with so many guardians of the underworld.

Well, not
exactly
.
..

As Artie and the trio watched, Zahara-Safiya stood frozen, her gaze fixed on the cats. A long, tense moment passed, and then Mr. Sniffers—a big grey-and-white tom with a feather duster of a tail—padded over to the Princess.

He stared up at her with big golden eyes … then flopped to the ground and rolled over, exposing his fluffy white underbelly in the hopes of getting a tummy rub.

Zahara turned her blazing gaze on the hapless puffball, and Cheryl gasped, thinking that, in all likelihood, they had just managed to put Mr. Sniffers in mortal peril. But the mummy princess's huge dark eyes suddenly welled with big shiny tears and her lower lip quivered. She uttered a single ancient Egyptian word that somehow managed to sound almost exactly like “Kitty!” as she dropped to her knees and scooped Sniffers up into a smothering bear hug, burying her face in his tummy fur.

The sound of purring filled the barn.

11

DRIVIN' MOBILE

“W
ell. That was unexpected.” Cheryl crossed her arms and tilted her head, regarding the Princess, who seemed suddenly oblivious to the presence of any living creature beyond the wriggling, rumbling armload of cat.

Tweed nodded contemplatively. “There was less savagery and mayhem than I was hoping for,” she said.

“Should we just get the heck outta here while she's distracted?” Pilot murmured to Cheryl and Tweed, after climbing down the ladder from the loft.

“Uh, Princessh …?” Artie shuffled a few steps toward her. “Um … shouldn't we be getting a jump on the whole enshlavement thing?”

Zahara continued to ignore them all, petting Mr. Sniffers with such enthusiasm that clumps of fur drifted
through the air all around her, hanging in a thin haze. In the far corner of the barn, the Bottoms crocs had ceased to pose any kind of threat—to humans, anyway—as they chased Bubble and Squeak in circles.

“Is it me,” Cheryl whispered to her companions, “or does she seem a whole lot less, well,
evil
all of a sudden?”

“And a whole lot more sad,” Tweed pointed out.

Cheryl and Pilot saw that Zahara was crying, the tears smudging through the heavy black lines of kohl that circled her eyes. For a long moment, her gaze drifted around the barn, as if she was seeing things that weren't there. Memories perhaps. Her hand stilled on Mr. Sniffers's belly and he pawed at her fingers. She blinked and smiled down at the creature, but her lower lip began to tremble and she started to cry again.

Pilot and the twins looked over at Artie, who lifted his shoulders in a shrug. He took a step forward and crouched down in front of her, his stubby little reptile tail swishing nervously.

“Hey,” he said. “Uh. You okay there, Zee?”

The Princess lifted her chin and said something in a tone that, while she might have been striving for imperious, just came off as watery.

Artie listened for a few moments and then said, “Oh. Well shure. I undershtand. I had a beloved gerbil once myshelf, you know …”

“What's she saying, Art-Bart?” Pilot asked.

Artie shrugged again. “Um. Well. She shaid she misshes her cat.”

As he said it, Zahara nodded and started to cry even harder. Through the tears she spoke, rapidly and breathlessly, and Artie's scaly forehead knotted above his glasses as he concentrated on listening to what she said so that he could interpret. Pilot and the twins stood waiting, trying not to fidget, wondering what on earth the undead princess was going on about. At the end of her monologue, she gulped down a sob and waited, one hand ceaselessly rubbing a furry grey cat ear, the other gesturing to Artie that he should commence his translation.

“What?” Cheryl leaned forward.

“What did she say?” Tweed urged.

“Well, shpeaking as Head Henchman, here …”

Artie turned to the others and they were surprised to see that, whatever the Princess had relayed to him, he was actually kind of frothing in outrage.