Snyder, Zilpha Keatley (14 page)

Fear Strikes

THE NEXT TWO OR THREE DAYS THE EGYPTIANS MET

in Egypt as usual, but they didn’t play games or consult the oracle. It was damp, drippy weather but with no real rain, and they all just sat around on the floor of the temple in the darkening late afternoons and talked and talked. Toby and April wanted to try the oracle once more to see what would happen, but no one else seemed very enthusiastic. Oh, they said “okay,” but somehow it kept getting put off. They talked about it-but that was all.

They talked about a lot of things, actually. Christmas wasn’t far away, and that’s always a good topic for conversation. But, there was one subject they kept coming back to-Security. Where had Security been? How had he gotten from wherever Marshall had left him to the hiding place beneath the altar of Set?

And who had written the message? There were dozens of theories, more or less realistic, depending on the mood of the moment.

There were times when they all favored practical theories. Some other kids might have found out about the game and tried to be funny. But, as time went by, and no one burst in on them to gloat about the successful trick, that seemed less and less likely. Or, some one of their own group might have been guilty, just as Toby had been at first; but no one would confess, and there just didn’t seem to be any reasonable how and why to support a conclusion of that sort. Then there was the man Toby had seen in the alley-but no one could come up with an even slightly reasonable explanation of who he was and how he could have known about the oracle.

Of course, the subject of the murders and the murderer came up, as it often still did throughout the neighborhood. It was still an unsolved mystery, and a terribly real and dangerous one. But fortunately, here again, there seemed to be no logical reason to believe that that mystery could have any connection with the mystery of the oracle. Why would a murderer fool around writing messages about a missing toy? There seemed to be no possible answer.

At other times, when the afternoon was almost over and disturbing shadows crept across the storage yard, a different kind of theory went the rounds.

Somebody brought up the story of the Curse of King Tut, and pointed out that lots of people actually believed that a mysterious magic power from the days of the pharoahs was strong enough to do terrible things to anyone who stirred it up. What if somehow, in their ceremonies and things, they’d managed to stumble on a way to do some stirring-up themselves? Things like that had happened. Everyone had read something or seen something on TV like that. And, they all began to remember strange things that had happened. Once when Melanie had touched the Crocodile Stone, she was sure she’d felt it move under her fingers. And another time, when Toby had gotten to Egypt early and alone, he’d had the strangest feeling that someone was watching him.

Once they got going on that sort of thing, they all had stories and experiences to tell. That is, all except Marshall. He just sat, holding Security on his lap and listening, and if he had any theories about mysterious powers or hidden watchers, he kept them strictly to himself.

Then one evening there was to be a concert at the university and the Rosses decided to go. They were planning to take Melanie, but since Marshall had a way of going to sleep at concerts, it seemed best to leave him at home. April had some homework to do anyway, and she agreed to come down and babysit until the Rosses got back.

It was around 7:30 when Melanie called to say they were leaving and April said she would be right down. It wasn’t until she started to get her things together that she realized her math book was missing. She looked all over the apartment but she couldn’t find it anywhere. At last she had to give up and go without it.

When April got to the second floor, the Rosses were waiting for her in the hall. As soon as they saw her, they waved good-bye and got in the elevator. Marshall was standing in the doorway.

“Hello,” he said. “They said you were coming to visit.” Marshall didn’t like people to say “babysitter,” but he didn’t mind having someone “visit” him while his folks were away. So April took some time to make it a real visit before she started her own work. They played a game of Mousetrap, and April read aloud a short book about a hippopotamus. Then Marshall went back to something he was doing with a box and two orange juice cans, and April started her homework.

It was just about then that she finally remembered what had probably happened to her math book. That afternoon, in Egypt, she’d put her books down on the edge of the temple floor and Ken had been fooling around and knocked them off. He’d sort of picked them up when she yelled at him, but he must have left the math book on the ground.

April sat there fuming for a few minutes, getting madder and madder at Ken. It was all his fault. For the first time in her life she had been getting pretty good grades in math, and now her record was going to be ruined-all because of Ken. Mrs. Granger was terribly strict about getting assignments in on time. All of a sudden she jumped up. “Marshall,” she called. “Do your folks have a flashlight?”

When Marshall came back with the flashlight, she told him what she had in mind.

“Aren’t you scared?” Marshall asked.

Now that he’d mentioned it, April had to admit to herself that she was. But being scared and chickening out were two different things. Being scared to do something had always made April more determined to do it than ever. Besides, if Toby could go down there all alone at night, so could she.

“Me? Scared?” she said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Wait,” Marshall said. He went in the bedroom and came out with his sweater and Security.

“Now, just a minute,” April said. “You can’t go. I won’t let you.”

Marshall put his sweater on inside out, all by himself. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.

“Your folks wouldn’t like it,” April argued. “I’ll only be gone a minute. You’re going to wait right here.”

Marshall was puzzling over his buttons, which

were on the wrong side, and he didn’t answer.

“I mean it,” April said. “Whether you like it or not, you are only four years old, and I am taking care of you and you have to do what I say. And I say that you are going to stay right here and-“

Marshall gave up on the buttons. He picked up Security and walked out the door, into the hallway. He aimed himself down the stairs toward where the landlady lived. “I’ll yell,” he said.

For a few seconds April stared at him in silence. Then she said some things under her breath and, because there didn’t seem to be anything else to do, she took Marshall by the hand and they started out.

It was very quiet and very dark in the alley and familiar things loomed up suddenly, huge and out of shape. The flashlight beam, none too steady in April’s hand, made trash bins crouch and garbage pails lurk, and a length of hose slither against a wall. Imagination is a great thing in long dull hours, but it’s a real curse in a dark alley, and April’s imagination had always been out of the ordinary. She would have hated to admit it, but right at that moment, even a four-year-old was a little bit comforting. Especially, a four-year-old who could march steadfastly by a garbage can that had suddenly developed a hunchback and great lopsided eyes, without even seeming to notice.

It was April’s imagination that made trouble when

they got to the fence; because if she hadn’t been imagining she wouldn’t have been so nervous. And if she hadn’t been so nervous, she wouldn’t have pushed the board the wrong way. All the Egyptians always pushed it to the right, and it no longer squeaked when it swung that way.

But that night, probably because of the nervousness, April grabbed the board and shoved it the wrong way. And the big crooked nails, on which it swung, let out a wild rusty shriek.

April and Marshall froze into a shocked silence. In the dark quiet alley the shriek of the nails seemed unbelievably loud. It seemed perfectly possible that people a half-block away had heard it and would come running. But a half-minute passed, and then perhaps a whole minute, and nobody came and not a sound was heard. At least, not a sound that was loud enough to be sure of. There was something-a faint and far away click and then a dragging shuffle-so soft as to be almost entirely lost in the distant drone of traffic and the beating of a racing heart.

Finally, biting her lip, April pushed the board the other way and shoved Marshall through. Then she handed him the flashlight and squeezed through herself. Inside Egypt, April didn’t feel very much better. Ever since the unsolved mystery of the oracle, Egypt, although still fascinating, had ceased to be an entirely comfortable place. She went directly to the side of

the temple where her books had been.

“Marshall,” she whispered, “shine the light over here. I can’t see a thing.” Marshall for some reason had turned around and was aiming the light in the opposite direction, on the wall of the Professor’s store, but at her whisper he turned back. The book was right where she thought it would be, shoved part-way back under the temple floor. She snatched it up and with a hurried glance at the temple, where the three altars were only blobs of darkest black on a black background, she hurried back to the fence.

As Marshall held the light on the right spot, April reached through, shoved the board to the right side, and squeezed out. She was holding the board open for Marshall when, out of the darkness and silence behind something grabbed her with crushing strength, and big hard fingers smothered the scream that sprang into her throat.

In one terrible moment April found that the shock of certain danger is almost always a battle call. Twisting frantically, she managed to free her arms enough to reach for and grab the loose board that formed the door to the storage yard. She held on desperately and the nails shrieked again as the board swung far to one side. For a fraction of a second April’s eyes, above the hand that gagged her mouth, caught a glimpse of Marshall, still standing just inside the fence holding the flashlight and looking back over

his shoulder at the wall behind him. “What’s wrong with him?” she thought frantically. “Why doesn’t he scream for help?”

The board was slipping slowly from April’s straining fingers, and the arm around her chest was forcing the air from her lungs, when suddenly, from inside the storage yard there was a splintering crash and a strange hoarse shout. “Help!” the strange voice rasped. “Help!”

A window went up with a bang somewhere nearby, and farther away other voices began to call questions. “What? What is it? What’s the matter?” And all the while the first strange voice went on calling for help.

Then there were footsteps and shouts at the mouth of the alley and suddenly the crushing arms were gone. When the rescuers arrived a moment later, they found April lying on the ground and Marshall squeezing out to meet them through the fence. No one else was there, and the only sound was the rasp of April’s breathing as she struggled to force air back into her lungs.

The Hero

AFTERWARDS, GETTING TO THE POLICE STATION AND the first things that happened there, were always hazy in April’s mind. There was a doctor who talked to her and bandaged her hands where she had scraped them on the rough board. Then there were questions. She explained how she and Marshall happened to be in the alley, but the other questions she couldn’t answer and it frightened her to try. “Who was he?” they kept saying. “What did he look like? Where did he go?” and April could only say, “I don’t know. I didn’t see him. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

They tried to make her lie down on a cot but she kept wanting to get up because she was shaking so hard. Whenever she tried to lie still, the shaking would get worse and worse until she ached from trying to stop it. Then the doctor gave her a pill, and

the shaking got a little better and things were clearer in her mind.

Suddenly she remembered about Marshall. “Where’s Marshall?” she asked. “Is he all right?”

The man who had been asking the most questions was called Inspector Grant. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but he was a policeman. When April asked about Marshall, he grinned. “He’s fine,” he said. “He’s right in the next room over there.”

“He’s really all right,” April insisted. “He’s not too scared, or anything?”

“Well, he doesn’t act a bit scared,” the inspectpt said. “He’s sitting in there on a desk holding a big stuffed octopus and looking as cool as a cucumber. But he won’t answer any questions.”

“Won’t he talk to anybody?” April said.

“Oh, he talks to us,” Inspector Grant said. “He’s been asking us a lot of questions, in fact. He just won’t answer any. Every time we ask anything he just says, ‘No.’ We think he might have seen more than you did. Do you suppose he’d answer a few questions if you ask him?”

“He might,” April said. “I don’t know.”

When Marshall saw April he slid down off the desk and came running. “Hi,” he said, giving her one of his rare starry smiles. April hugged him hard. Then she asked what the inspector had told her to ask.

“Marshall, did you see the-the man-the man who

grabbed me?” Saying the words made the shaking start all over again.

“Yes,” Marshall said. “I saw him. I tried to yell but I couldn’t. My throat was stuck.” He looked worried as if he wanted to be sure that April understood.

- “You did fine,” April told him. “But about the man-what did he look like?”

“A man. A big man.”

“Was he young or old?”

Marshall thought a minute. “Old,” he said.

“What color was his hair?”

“Orange.”

April looked at Inspector Grant. “Ask about his .race,” the policeman prompted.

“Was he a Negro or a white man?” April asked.

“No,” Marshall said thoughtfully, shaking his head.

April thought he didn’t understand. She took his arm and rubbed her finger on his skin. “Was his skin like yours or like mine?” She held out her own arm.

“No,” Marshall said, more firmly. “He was spotted.”

“Would you know him if you saw him again?” Inspector Grant interrupted.

Marshall only looked at him without answering. The inspector gave an exasperated sigh and turned to April. “He’s not just being stubborn,” April explained. “I think he just wants to be sure he isn’t telling a secret. Marshall never tells secrets.” She turned to Marshall and repeated the question.