Snyder, Zilpha Keatley (12 page)

There was no doubt about it, Toby made a great high priest. The other Egyptians were so caught up in his smooth solemnity and exalted priestly expression that they found themselves almost believing-well, half-believing that Toby was actually talking to an ancient and powerful being, and that something strange and supernatural was about to happen. So, when Toby turned to them a moment later and

thundered, “Kneel and bow low-O ancient Egyptians-before the miracle of the oracle!” they hurried to obey.

A moment later, when they lifted their foreheads from the temple floor, the scrap of paper was hanging in Thoth’s curved beak, and Toby was backing away from the altar, bowing at every step.

When Toby had backed to where the other’s were kneeling, he got them up and hustled them out of the temple. Out in the middle of the storage yard, he dropped his high-priest expression. In his normal voice he said, “Well, I guess we might as well cut out. If we hang around, somebody’s going to read what’s on Ken’s question before tomorrow and that would ruin everything.”

April’s eyes flattened. “Like what for instance?” she asked. “Just what do you have in mind that might get ruined, Mr. Oracle?”

“Have in mind?” Toby said, giving her the wide-eyed-innocence treatment. “I don’t have anything in mind. It’s just that I don’t want anybody else to either. At least, not until we find out what the oracle can do all by itself.”

“Wait a minute, Tobe!” Ken said, looking worried again. “You don’t mean you think there’s a chance it might? How about what you said before-about the gods not getting the message and all that? Sheesh! Sometimes I think the whole bunch of you guys are

going off your rockers.”

Toby gave Ken a reassuring grin. “Cool it,” he said. “I don’t think anything. At least not anything for sure. I just think we ought to give it a chance. Then if nothing happens, we can take turns being the one who makes up the answers. But what I do think is, you never can tell about a thing like this.” He lowered his voice mysteriously. “After all, it used to work didn’t it? I mean all those other oracles weren’t just kid stuff. Even kings and generals and all sorts of other adults used to go for this oracle stuff, didn’t they? Well-“

As one person, the six Egyptians turned and looked back into the temple-shed. The sun was very low and the shade was deep in the back of the temple where the new altar to Thoth had been built. The huge tattered owl seemed to be leaning forward staring into the incense burner; and as they watched, a final twist of fragrant smoke curled upward like a dancing snake and seemed to wind itself around the head of Thoth.

Someone moved towards the opening in the fence, and the other five followed so quickly that it was almost as if nobody much wanted to be the last one out into the alley.

The Oracle Speaks

THE NEXT DAY, BY PREARRANGEMENT, ALL THE

Egyptians met in the alley and entered the land of Egypt together. Toby said that was necessary so no one would have a chance to fool around with the oracle before everyone was there. Once inside the yard, everyone looked at Toby, but Toby looked at April.

“Okay, Bastet,” he said, “you wanted to be the oracle priestess, so today it’s your turn. You can do the Ceremony of Returning to the Oracle for the Answer. That is, unless you don’t think you can think up a good answer.”

“I can think of answers to anything,” April said. “But I thought you were expecting the oracle to do its own answers. Or did you change your mind?”

“Oh no,” Toby said. “I didn’t change my mind.

I just thought you ought to have some good answers ready, just in case. So, let’s get going.”

So April took charge. To get everyone in the mood, she got the box of costumes out of the shed and had everyone put something on, a headdress or a robe or at least some jewelry. Then she set the scene. “Okay,” she said, “Horemheb, the famous general, has come on a pilgrimage to the grotto of the Oracle of Thoth to ask a terribly important question. He arrived at the grotto a few days ago and asked his question, and since then he has been fasting in a holy cell while he waits for the answer. You know, people who were going to the oracle had to prepare themselves very carefully, so they usually shut themselves up for days without any food and meditated until they felt very pure and sort of dizzy, and then they were ready to go. So that’s what you’ve been doing, Ken.”

. Ken looked self-concious, and Melanie made a funny, smothered sound. April was careful not to catch her eye. She knew that Melanie was trying not to laugh at the idea of solid old Ken being “pure and dizzy.” April hurried on.

“The rest of us are priests and attendants of the Oracle. And I’m the high priestess who is the only one who can go into the altar room where the oracle gives out the answers,”

Next, April had everyone help make some twisted paper logs to burn in the sacred fire-bowl, and then

she lined them all up for a procession to the grotto. Ken was in the middle in the place of honor and April demonstrated to him how he should walk-with his hands crossed over his chest and Ms eyes sort of rolled up. April, herself, led the procession; and when they had gone twice around the yard, she lined everyone up on the edge of the temple. Then she approached the altar alone.

First she lit the candles and the incense and the sacred fire, and put the fire-bowl on the floor in front of the altar. On the altar, Thoth still sat with the slip of paper in his beak, exactly as they’d left him the night before. April bowed low before him and started in on an elaborate ceremony, using some of the old things they’d done before and some new ones she’d just thought up. She walked around the altar backwards three times sprinkling holy water. She pulled out three hairs from her head and dropped them on the fire. Then she sat down cross-legged be-CPCJ

tween the fire and the altar and began to chant. Melanie sat down, too, on the edge of the temple floor and motioned for the others to do the same.

“Aie-ie-ie-ie!” April chanted, making her voice go up and down the scale; and along the edge of the temple, the other Egyptians took it up. When the wailing chant was going strong, April suddenly cried, “Stop! The mighty Thoth has heard us. The oracle has spoken!”

Very slowly and dramatically, with her eyes half closed and her face smoothed into a dream-like calmness, April raised her arms above her head and with both hands took the message from the beak of Thoth. Very, very slowly she brought it down to eye level and unfolded it. She read it carefully and then turned it over and read the other’side. Her calmly regal high-priestess expression faded and she frowned as she read each side again. Then she stood up and stomped out of the temple. The rest of the Egyptians jumped up.

The Oracle Speaks

“Okay,” April said. “Who’s the wise guy?”

“Wise guy?”

“What’s the matter?”

“What does it say?”

Everybody was talking at once.

“What did you write on this paper yesterday?” April asked Ken. “What was your question?”

Ken shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Just some dumb stuff about if I was going to be a star in the big leagues some day.”

April held out the slip of paper and everybody crowded around to look. In Ken’s large neat handwriting it said:

“Yeah, that’s it,” Ken said. “That’s what I wrote.” But then April turned the paper over so the other

side was visible. In a very different handwriting, small

and jittery, there was written:

fadAUU Jt4 WW/fojb, OftA. tlotMxd WM (AM

& jwtol, jfr Jtfa only pvfed
HU
K*

“How about that?” April asked. “Did you write that too?”

“Me?” Ken said in amazement. “Heck no. I didn’t have time to write all that. Besides, I don’t even know what it means.”

April and Melanie looked at each other and nodded. It was true-it didn’t sound like anything Ken would do. They turned to Toby.

“Okay, Toby,” April said. “When did you write this?”

Toby looked disgusted. “Let’s not get ridiculous,” he said. “How could I have written all that without anybody seeing me?”

“Well, you must have,” April said, “because I know none of the rest of us did it.”

“Oh yeah?” Toby said. “I’ll bet you did it yourself.”

From there on the argument began to get louder and more personal. There were accusations and counter-accusations, but no one would admit to writing the mysterious and puzzling words that straggled across the back of Ken’s question. It was finally Melanie who made peace by suggesting that maybe they should just try the whole thing again and see what happened, instead of fighting about it. “We can watch to see that nobody writes an answer, and then if we get another answer and we know none of us wrote it-” her voice trailed off and nobody offered to finish the sentence for her. It was the kind of thought that isn’t easily finished.

It was April who won the straw drawing this time, and she thought quite a while before she decided on a question. After she had written it on a piece of

notebook paper, she showed everyone the clean clear back of the paper before she handed it folded, to Toby for the Ceremony of Presenting the Question to the Oracle. Toby presided again as the high priest, and his ceremony was almost exactly the same as the day before.

That is, the things Toby did were just about the same, but somehow the feeling was different. Or perhaps, not so much different as more-so. More spooky and supernatural. Even though all the Egyptians were positive that somebody was fooling and had somehow managed to write the answer to Ken’s question, there are times when being positive isn’t quite enough.

There wasn’t much light in the land of Egypt that afternoon, which didn’t make it all less strange. The days had been getting shorter, of course, but it was something more than a gradual seasonal change, too. As Toby bowed and mumbled and chanted before the altar of Thoth, his high-priest face looking distant and unfamiliar in the deep shadow and flickering candlelight, low black clouds were moving in swiftly from the bay. In the temple it was suddenly so dark that the reflected candles lit Thoth’s glassy stare with points of fire.

Then, just as Toby was finishing his ceremony, there was a huge shuddering thumping noise that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Elizabeth

gave a little scream and everyone rushed out of the temple. It wasn’t until a rain-filled blast of air swept into the land of Egypt a moment later, that the noise was recognized for what it was.

“Thunder! That was thunder!” everybody started saying to each other in voices that were giggly with relief. Somehow, without quite knowing how they’d gotten there, they were all six standing in a rather tight little group in the center of the storage yard.

“And rain! Wow!” somebody added.

That was the day they found out that it really was impossible for more than one person at a time to get through the hole in the fence, no matter how hard they tried.

Where is Security?

THE NEXT DAY ALL SIX EGYPTIANS WAITED WITH

great impatience for the end of school and the time to meet in the land of Egypt. Everyone was anxious to see if April’s question would be answered, but two of the Egyptians had a special reason of their own to be impatient. Marshall had lost his octopus, Security, and there was reason to believe that it had been left in Egypt the night before. Marshall wanted Security back, and Melanie wanted Marshall to quit pestering her and be himself again.

The night before when everyone had left Egypt in such a hurry they had been too busy getting away from the rain-and the darkness and question mysteriously answered-to remember about Security. Not even Marshall had thought of it. And then, just as Marshall and Melanie got back to their apartment,

their Dad had come in early from the university. He had just been promised a teaching assistantship for the spring semester, and he had been in the mood for a celebration. He had rushed Marshall and Melanie into the car and they had driven to the school where their mom taught, and then they had all gone out to dinner. It was an exciting and unusual evening because until Dad got out of school, money was scare, and they didn’t eat out very often. In fact, it had been such an interesting evening that Marshall hadn’i had time to remember about Security until they were home.

Melanie had been climbing into bed when Marshall came into her room. The minute she had looked at him she had known what was wrong-either Security was lost, or the world was coming to an end. It had to be that serious!

Of course, Marshall had wanted to go out right then to Egypt, and Melanie had had a hard time convincing him that it was impossible. It was late, they were both ready for bed, and outdoors the rain was coming down in a great wet roar. Mom and Dad would never let them go alone, and if Dad went with them, the other Egyptians would never forgive them for giving away Egypt to a grownup. Melanie had known that Marshall understood the importance of what she was saying and that he was trying awfully hard to believe that it was all more important than

finding Security. He had gone to the window and stood looking out at the waves of rain that swooshed against the pane. When he came back to-Melanie’s bed his chin was wiggling. “But-but Security will drown if I don’t go get him,” he had said.

Melanie had taken hold of his shoulders. “Marshall honey, octopuses can’t drown. They live in water,” she had said.

Marshall had hung his head. And finally he had sighed and said very softly, “But Security is another kind of octopus.”

Just then Melanie had thought of something that helped. “You know what? I’ll bet you didn’t leave Security in Egypt at all. Now that I think about it, I don’t remember seeing him there today. I’ll bet you left him at nursery school. I’ll bet he’s safe and sound in the playroom at nursery school, and you can get him in the morning when you get to school.”

Then Melanie had taken Marshall back to his bed and tucked him in. She wasn’t at all sure that she believed Security was at the nursery school, and she knew that Marshall didn’t either. But they had both tried to believe it as hard as they could.

In the morning it had still been pouring down rain when it was time to go to school, and Melanie’s dad had insisted on taking everyone to school in his car on his way to the university-so there had been no chance to check to see if Security really was in the