The Cursed Scarab, Page 4

  Jason spoke first. “What just happened?”

  “Those people looked like the thieves at the Haunted Museum exhibit,” Taylor said. “They were all pale and wearing sunglasses.”

  “That’s true,” Jason said.

  “What did they want?” Mrs. Mason asked.

  “To rob us,” Jason’s mother said. “What a shame. I’ve heard of gangs here that target tourists, but it hasn’t happened to one of our university groups yet.”

  Her parents nodded, but Taylor didn’t think Helen was right — at least not completely. Those strange people were after something, and Taylor was pretty sure it wasn’t money. There were people on the street who would have been easier to rob.

  They thought she still had the blue scarab from the Haunted Museum collection. That had to be it.

  But how did they even know she was in Cairo?

  IT HAD been a very long trip, and by the time the Masons finally reached the hotel that the university had booked for the school group, all Taylor wanted was to go to sleep.

  “You take this pull-out bed in the main room,” Mrs. Mason said, pointing to the sofa bed that had already been prepared for her by the hotel staff. “We’ll be in the room here if you need anything.”

  Taylor nodded and tossed her suitcase on the bed.

  Professor Mason kissed the top of Taylor’s head. “Good night, kiddo. See you in the morning.”

  “ ’Night,” Taylor replied as he disappeared into the bedroom.

  Mrs. Mason sat on the edge of the sofa bed. “How are you holding up?” she asked.

  Taylor nodded. “Okay. You?”

  “Nervous about my play,” Mrs. Mason admitted. “I meet the people from the Egyptian Museum tomorrow.”

  “Don’t worry,” Taylor said, sitting beside her mother. “They already love the play, and they’ll love you, too.”

  Mrs. Mason squeezed Taylor’s hand and smiled.

  “Sweet dreams,” her mother said from the doorway. From inside Taylor could hear her father’s snores.

  Taylor stretched toward her suitcase to get out her pajamas. It felt as though she’d been in the same shorts and T-shirt forever. It would feel good to wash up and change.

  But when she placed her hand on her suitcase, she stopped.

  A low hum came from the bag.

  She’d brought her computer. Maybe it had somehow turned itself on?

  Still, it made her uneasy. It sounded just like …

  Carefully, Taylor unzipped the top of the suitcase and slowly lifted it open.

  Hundreds of the same chattering black bat bugs swarmed from the suitcase, emitting a deafening sound, and Taylor scrambled away from the bed.

  “Mom! Dad! Mom!”

  Her parents appeared at the bedroom door, horrified expressions on their faces.

  Taylor screamed as the creatures began to climb up her legs.

  TAYLOR SLUMPED over on a worn purple velvet couch in the lobby. She couldn’t stop rubbing her bare legs. Even though her parents had swatted the batlike insects off as they fled the room, she had the sensation that they were still crawling on her. Above her, flickering electric bulbs on chandeliers were meant to give the impression of candlelight but simply imparted a disquieting feeling to the otherwise dimly lit lobby.

  Across the way, she could hear her parents arguing with the clerk at the front desk, who claimed that there was no insect problem at the hotel. Taylor felt sorry for him because she suspected that what he said was true. Those bat insects had come from her suitcase, not the walls.

  Had she brought those creepy bugs with her from home? But they hadn’t been in her suitcase at the airport. Wouldn’t security have found them?

  “Well, there’s a swarm of bugs in the room, and we can’t sleep there tonight,” Professor Mason told the clerk, his voice rising angrily. “You have to find us another room.”

  “But there is no other room,” the desk clerk argued.

  “Then find us a room at another hotel,” Mrs. Mason said.

  Taylor felt a poke on her arm and turned quickly. A child of about eight with long, silky black hair wearing a dark purple caftan sat on the couch beside Taylor.

  But Taylor hadn’t noticed her enter the lobby. Where had she come from?

  The girl gazed up at Taylor, saying something in a language Taylor didn’t know.

  “Sorry. I don’t know what you’re saying.”

  The girl cupped her hand and presented it, but Taylor just shook her head, frustrated that she couldn’t understand.

  Taking a pad and pen from a nearby table, she drew a circle, and then filled in the wings, pincers, and antennae of the scarab.

  The scarab?!

  With large, expectant eyes, the girl looked up at Taylor, waiting.

  How did she know about the scarab? Who was this girl? Why was she out after midnight?

  Taylor gazed around the lobby but saw no one who appeared to be her parent.

  When Taylor turned back to the girl, she was gazing off toward an elevator across the far side of the lobby, almost as if waiting for someone. But something about her had changed. Her face seemed lined, and dark circles had formed under her eyes. Her cheeks sagged. Rather than a sweet young girl, she looked more like a haggard, very old woman.

  As if she felt Taylor’s eyes studying her, the little girl snapped her head around to face Taylor.

  The dark, peering eyes were sunk deep into a wrinkled, shriveled face.

  And in the next second — she was a child again.

  Had it been a trick of the flickering light? Or maybe her jet lag and fatigue were making her imagination go wild.

  “All right! They’ve found us another room,” Professor Mason announced, heading toward Taylor with Mrs. Mason at his side.

  “There are two bedrooms, which is good news. We’ll just need to share a bathroom with some other guests down the hall,” Mrs. Mason added.

  Taylor stood and the girl scampered behind her. “Don’t be scared,” Taylor told her. “It’s just my parents.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Taylor’s father asked.

  “This little girl who —” Taylor glanced behind her, but there was no one there. Where had she gone? “She was here a second ago.”

  “Oh well,” Mrs. Mason said with a shrug. “I’m exhausted. Let’s go to our new room.” She checked the key card the manager had given her. “It’s room three-thirteen. They’re bringing our bags over now. We have to take this small elevator at the end of this hall.”

  Taylor followed them, still searching for the little girl. As she checked over her shoulder, she saw the pad on which the child had drawn the scarab lying on the hotel carpet. “Go ahead,” she said to her parents as she hurried back into the lobby to get it. “I’ll be right up.”

  “Don’t be long,” her father said.

  As Taylor stooped to pick up the paper, she noticed a light coming from the lobby elevator. Its doors were slowly closing, but she was able to see a tall man in dark glasses holding the hand of the girl who had spoken to her.

  She knew the man, had seen him before. She was sure of it!

  Valdry! He was the man who had tried to steal the scarab from the Haunted Museum.

  Taylor hurried to the main desk. “Excuse me,” she said to the manager.

  The manager noticed her and approached. “How can I be of assistance?”

  “I thought I should tell you that I just saw a man who’s a wanted thief. He steals ancient treasures, and he’s right here in your hotel.” Taylor pointed to the elevator. “He just went upstairs with a little girl.”

  Laughter twinkled in the manager’s eyes. “You must mean Dr. Valdry and his daughter, Simone.”

  “Yes!” Taylor cried. “That’s him! You should call the police.”

  “Dr. Valdry is one of our oldest customers. When he’s in Cairo he always stays here. I’m sure you’re mistaken about him.”

  “I’m not. The police are after him.”

  The manager’s ex
pression became impatient. “I will be certain to inform the proper authorities of your concern,” he said, but his stiff tone told Taylor that he had no intention of telling anyone anything.

  “Thank you,” Taylor said, even though she didn’t believe him.

  The manager bowed slightly from the waist. “Not at all.”

  Taylor rode the elevator to the third floor and found room thirteen. It was a plain room but a bigger suite, and Taylor was happy to have a bedroom to herself. Her mother was still in the small kitchenette area, waiting for her daughter. “Everything all right?” she asked.

  Taylor quickly told her mother everything that had happened. “I’m sure it’s the same guy, Mom.”

  “Well, you reported it to the hotel,” her mother said. “What else can you do?”

  “But what if he comes after me because he thinks I have the scarab?” Taylor asked. She thought of the terrifying people who surrounded the cab that day.

  “You don’t have it, do you?” Mrs. Mason asked.

  “No,” Taylor said.

  Right now it was sitting in a trash bin at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. She’d put it there herself.

  “If you see him again, let us know right away,” Mrs. Mason said. “Now get some rest.”

  Exhausted though she was, Taylor couldn’t sleep. Her mind raced with memories of everything that had happened — the attempted robbery at the Haunted Museum, Valdry with his flashing sunglasses, the vision of the desert, the swarming beetles. She’d thought coming to Egypt would put her far away from everything that had happened, but there’d been the pale people who had surrounded the cab, the strange little girl, the scarab. It all seemed so unreal.

  Tossing back and forth on the bed until the sheets were a tangle at her feet, Taylor couldn’t settle down.

  Her mother would go to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo tomorrow. Taylor decided to ask if she could go along. Maybe she could learn something there that would make sense of all that had happened. If she could figure out what was happening, maybe she could stop it.

  I WISH I was going to the museum with you,” Jason said that morning when the group met for breakfast. “My mom insists I go for a ride down the Nile with her today.”

  “That sounds like fun,” Taylor said as she spooned a breakfast of yogurt, honey, and almonds into her mouth. “I’d like to go with you but I want to see what I can find out at the museum. Something very weird is going on.”

  She told him about the bugs in her suitcase and the strange old-young girl and seeing Valdry.

  “That man you saw — are you sure it was Valdry?”

  “I’m positive.”

  The Masons joined Taylor and Jason at the table, carrying cups of coffee. “Ready to go?” Professor Mason asked Taylor.

  “You’re coming, too?” Taylor asked.

  Professor Mason grinned with delight. “Half the students are coming, too. I have a real treat planned for us. I contacted the head curator at the museum, Dr. Ardath Bey —”

  “He’s the man who helped Belladonna Bloodstone get the exhibit of Nefertiti’s treasures at the Haunted Museum, remember?” Taylor said.

  “Oh? Is he?” Professor Mason asked. Clearly he didn’t approve. “Well, as a professional courtesy, he’s going to give us a private showing of items on loan from the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, Germany.”

  “That famous bust of Nefertiti is in Berlin,” Jason said.

  “Not right now, it’s not,” Professor Mason said.

  “We’re going to see the real thing?” Taylor asked, growing excited.

  Mr. and Mrs. Mason nodded excitedly. “Let’s go!” Taylor cried. This was something she’d always wanted to see. The thought of it made her throw off her worry and jet lag.

  “You have to tell me all about it,” Jason said. “Take pictures.”

  “If I’m allowed to I will,” Taylor promised, grabbing her daypack and pushing back her chair.

  The Egyptian Museum in Cairo was a huge, red stone building that took up blocks. Taylor and her parents climbed the wide steps and passed through the arched entryway. The inside was cool and sunny, lit by sunlight beaming through the large skylight on the roof. The first floor was two stories high with a balcony that wrapped around the second floor and reached another two stories.

  At the inside front entrance, two uniformed guards checked the handbags and backpacks of the people entering. After they searched Mrs. Mason’s straw purse, Taylor presented the daypack she had slung over her shoulders.

  “What are you carrying this marker for?” the guard asked, lifting a thick black marker from her pack.

  “I forgot that was even in there,” Taylor said. “I was using it to make posters back at school.”

  “I’ll have to take it,” the guard said. “We can’t risk anyone marking up the artwork.”

  “I would never!” Taylor cried, horrified by the idea.

  The guard smiled.

  “Yes, take the marker. Definitely take it,” Taylor said as the guard went back to searching the rest of her bag before returning it to her.

  Taylor caught up to her parents in line.

  “The guard thought I was going to ruin the art with my marker,” she told them. “Who would do that?”

  “Better to be safe than sorry,” Professor Mason said.

  They stepped inside the museum. In the center of the lobby were two huge statues of a seated pharaoh and his queen. Taylor and her parents were moving toward it when a man stepped in their path.

  “Professor Mason?”

  The man was very tall and dressed in a long, white cotton robe and wearing a rounded red tassled hat called a fez. He had white, short hair and a deeply lined face. When he spoke, his voice was deep, almost soothing. “I am Ardath Bey.” He extended his arm to shake Professor Mason’s hand. “You contacted me about the Berlin treasures.”

  Professor Mason shook his hand and introduced Mrs. Mason and Taylor. Dr. Bey beckoned for them to follow him through the museum, past gigantic statues of pharaohs and queens, reconstructed temples, and hundreds of glass cases housing items from ancient Egypt, some from royal palaces, others simple everyday items from common life.

  “A lot different from the Haunted Museum, wouldn’t you say?” Professor Mason kidded Taylor.

  Dr. Bey took a key from his pocket and unlocked a door. When they were inside he locked it once again.

  In the center of the room, inside a glass case, was the bust of Nefertiti. Taylor gasped, and then chewed her lip as she walked toward it, drawn to the head-and-shoulder likeness of the queen.

  Mrs. Mason said, coming alongside Taylor, “We’re getting a special sneak peek, thanks to Dr. Bey, since I have to leave early for the play rehearsal. The others from our group will get to see it later this afternoon. Breathtaking isn’t it?”

  Breathtaking was the exact right word, Taylor thought, because she was so awed by the statue that she couldn’t speak, could barely breathe. Nefertiti’s beauty was undeniable, but it was more than that. So much strength, power, and inner life were expressed on her face.

  Dr. Bey lifted something heavy from a drawer and placed it on the table. “Could that gold plate really be what I think it is?” Professor Mason asked, clearly amazed.

  “Akhenaten and Nefertiti with their children under the rays of Aten,” Dr. Bey said.

  Taylor studied the picture etched into the tile. A man and woman sat facing each other. They wore identical cone-shaped crowns. They held five children in their arms and on their laps. Above them was a sun disc with twelve rays beaming down on the royal couple and their children.

  “Why do the people look so strange?” Taylor asked Dr. Bey. “The style is so different from other ancient Egyptian artwork I’ve seen. The children just look like shrunken adults. The sun even resembles some kind of machine.”

  Dr. Bey’s eyes betrayed a quickly shifting emotion. Taylor could tell he was affected by her words, but what was he thinking?

  Suddenly f
rom within her pack, Taylor’s phone buzzed and began playing “Walk Like an Egyptian” by the Bangles. She’d selected the ringtone especially for the trip and thought it was funny. But now it suddenly seemed embarrassing.

  Quickly pulling open her bag, she grabbed for her phone. It was Jason. She declined the call and put the phone back inside her pack. “Sorry,” she said.

  When she looked back to Dr. Bey, he was staring at her phone in her bag. Was he thinking she was rude for not having shut it off? Had she embarrassed her parents in front of Dr. Bey?

  “You were saying about the Amarna period artwork?” Dr. Bey reminded her.

  “Oh yeah — just that I think it’s so weird looking.”

  “It’s a style of art unique to the reign of Akhenaten. It’s not seen before or after their rule,” he explained. “This is one in a series of tiles.”

  “I thought those treasures were on loan to the Haunted Museum,” Taylor said.

  Dr. Bey rolled his eyes. “How that Bloodstone woman talked me into allowing it, I’ll never understand.”

  “I know!” Professor Mason cried. “She told us you owed her a favor.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Dr. Bey said. “At any rate, the remaining tiles have never been seen and no one knows where they are.”

  From the pocket of her shorts, Mrs. Mason’s cell phone buzzed. She took it out and read the text. “They’re ready to meet me in the museum theater,” she told them.

  “Dr. Bey and I are going to be looking over some pieces from the collection, to see what we can make of this style of hieroglyphics,” Professor Mason said. “I’ll catch up with you two in the theater.”

  “Okay. Dr. Bey, thank you so much for inviting us to see the statue! Come on, Taylor.”

  “I’ll have to let you out,” Dr. Bey said, lifting his key.

  “Dr. Bey, what do you think of the theories regarding Smenkhkare?” Taylor’s mom asked as he unlocked the door. “My husband doesn’t believe them.”

  Dr. Bey looked at her sharply, then turned toward Taylor. “What do you think of Smenkhkare?”

  “Me? I don’t know who that is.”

  Mrs. Mason stepped forward. “The ancient Egyptian records report that Queen Nefertiti died in the twelfth year of her husband Pharaoh Akhenaten’s rule, but no one has found her mummy or her tomb,” she explained. “Shortly after Nefertiti’s supposed death, though, a man named Smenkhkare showed up and became very close to the pharaoh. He was an adviser and lived at the palace. It was very mysterious.”