Snyder, Zilpha Keatley (4 page)

“All clear?” Melanie asked looking both ways.

“Yes, for the time being,” April breathed. “But they almost had us. That was a close call back there in the tunnel.”

“Close,” Melanie agreed, “but we fooled them.” With that they shoved Marshall through the hole in the fence and crawled in after him.

The Evil God and the Secret Spy

WHEN APRIL AND MARSHALL AND MELANIE SQUEEZED back through the fence for the second time they found everything just as they left it. They started out by pulling the rest of the dead weeds and stacking them in one corner of the yard. While Marshall stood guard halfway down the alley to see if anyone was coming, they shoved the whole stack out through the hole in the fence. Then they scouted around and found a trash bin that was nice and roomy and not too full to hold an extra donation of dead weeds. When, at last, the loose stones and broken bits of things had been cleared away, Egypt looked clean and bare and ready for whatever might be going to happen.

Next they turned their attention to the lean-to shed, or the Temple, as they were already beginning to call it. It was actually only a wooden platform about a foot off the ground, across one end of the yard. A roof of corrugated tin was supported in the front by a few wooden posts and on the other three sides, walls were formed by the tall boards of the fence. Already the bird-bath altar of Nefertiti, the fancy pillars from the porch of some Victoria mansion and the crumbling statue of Diana by the entrance, were beginning to create a temple-like atmosphere. But there was much more that could be done.

April and Melanie were sitting on the edge of the Temple’s floor resting for a moment, and planning, when April pointed out the only real door to the storage yard. It was on the opposite site from the loose plank and was apparently locked with a latch and padlock from the outside. “I wonder where it goes to,” she-said.

Melanie thought a moment. “I guess it goes to the rest of the Professor’s backyard,” she said. “You know, that part with a driveway so trucks and things can back up to his store for deliveries. You can see Jnto that part from the alley.” It was right then when she mentioned the Professor that Melanie, for the first time, had an uncomfortable feeling. “What do you suppose the Professor would do if he caught us in here,” she wondered out loud.

April shrugged. Melanie had told her how most

of the children in the neighborhood felt about the Professor. While she had to admit he’d been a little bit creepy, she didn’t see what all the fuss was about. But Melanie seemed to feel that April’s short talk with the old man had made her an authority on the subject, so she was more or less obliged to come up with an opinion. “I don’t think he’d do a thing,” she said. “I just don’t think he’d even care, as long as we don’t bother him or hurt anything. Besides, how’s he going to know? You could tell by the weeds and everything that no one’s been in here for ages. I’ll bet the padlock on that door’s rusted so tight he couldn’t get in if he wanted to. And that window isn’t the kind that opens. He’d have to break the glass if he wanted to get through.”

“He might be watching us through it though.” Somehow that thought was almost more scary than the possibility of the Professor’s actually entering the yard. With one accord the girls moved warily towards the window. Closer and closer until their noses were only inches from the dirty panes. Then Melanie breathed a sigh of relief. “There’s something like a heavy curtain hanging clear across it. He couldn’t see through that.”

“Besides, I don’t think he could see through the dirt even if there wasn’t a curtain. I’ll bet this window’s in some little back room he doesn’t even use any more. Otherwise he wouldn’t leave it so dirty.”

Feeling pleasantly safe and secure, the girls sat back down and began to make plans. Marshall was busy digging a little hole in the middle of the yard with a sharp stick. He had knotted two of Security’s legs together around his neck so his hands would be free for digging. Security’s pear-shaped plush body and six of his black legs were hanging down Marshall’s back.

“I know,” April said suddenly, “Marshall can be the young pharoah, heir to the throne of Egypt. Only there’s a civil war going on, and the other side is trying to kill him.”

“Okay. And we can be high priestesses of Isis who are assigned to protect him.”

“Ummm,” April said. “Or else we could be evil high priestesses who are going to offer him as a human sacrifice on the crocodile altar to-what was that evil god’s name?”

“Set?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.” April jumped to her feet. Throwing up her arms she chanted, “Almighty Set has promised his servants, the crocodile gods of the Nile, the bloody heart of the young Pharoah, Marsh -uh, Marshamosis!” She dropped to her knees. “Oh mighty Set, god of evil, we hear and obey.”

Marshall had stopped digging, and now he stood up and started toward the opening in the fence. The girls ran after him. He didn’t struggle when they caught him, but Melanie was familiar with the expression on his face. His funny little baby-round chin was sticking out defiantly and his black eyes glared. “Leave my bloody heart alone,” he said.

The girls giggled. “You know, he’s pretty sharp for a four-year-old,” April said.

Melanie got down on her knees and tried to take Marshall’s hands, but he wouldn’t turn loose of Security. “Marshall, honey,” she said, “it’s just a game. Just pretend. We wouldn’t really hurt you.”

“What’s a pharoah?” Marshall asked suspiciously.

“A king,” Melanie said, “king of all the Egyptians.” Marshall’s frown lifted a little and his chin began to go back into its normal position.

“A terribly important kind of king,” April said. “Everybody had to bow down to him and do exactly

what he said.”

Marshall nodded soberly. “I’ll play,” he said So that was the way Set started-Set the god of evil and black magic. At first he was just supposed to be a character in that particular game, and that

first day he was represented by a picture of a man with an animal’s head that Melanie drew on a piece of cardboard and tacked to the wall. But once he got started, he seemed to grow and develop almost on his own, and all out of control; until he was more than evil, and at times a lot more than Egyptian. For instance, at different times, his wicked tricks included everything from atomic ray guns to sulphur and brimstone.

But, actually, that was the way with all of . Nobody ever planned it ahead, at least, not very far. Ideas began and grew and afterwards it was hard to remember just how. That was one of the mysterious and fascinating things about it.

On that particular day, the game about Marshamosis, the boy pharoah, and Set, the god of evil, didn’t get very far. They’d no more than gotten started when April and Melanie decided they just had to have some more equipment before they could play it well. So they postponed the game and went instead to scout around in the alley for boards and boxes to use in making things like thrones and altars. They found just what they needed behind the doughnut shop and the furniture store in the next block, and brought them back to Egypt. And it was on the same trip that they had the good luck to rescue an old metal mixing bowl from a garbage pail. April said it would be just the thing for a firepit for building sacred fires.

When they had everything as far as the hole in the fence, they ran into a problem. The bowl and boards went through all right, but the boxes were just too big. The only solution was to throw them over the top of the fence. It wasn’t easy, and in landing they made quite a bit of noise.

It wasn’t long afterwards that the curtain on the small window at the back of the Professor’s store was pushed very carefully to one side. But April and Melanie were so busy building and planning that they didn’t notice at all. Only someone with very sharp eyes would have been able to see the figure that stood silently behind the very dirty window in the darkened room.

Eyelashes and Ceremony

THE NEXT DAY WAS THE LAST BEFORE SCHOOL WAS TO

start. It was also Melanie’s last chance to put into effect her plan to get rid of the eyelashes. So after dinner she went up to Mrs. Hall’s apartment to see April. She took the library book that she was reading and one that she knew April wanted to read.

In April’s room they talked about and about school starting in the morning-what they were going to wear and things like that. Then Melanie suggested they read for a while, so they got comfortable on their stomachs across April’s bed and started in on the books-and sure enough, April got up and took off her eyelashes so she could see better.

But, for once, both the girls had a hard time keeping their minds on their reading. April was thinking about the next day, telling herself that it didn’t

Eyelashes and Ceremony

matter whether the people at Wilson School were friendly or not, because Dorothea would write soon saying she wanted April to come home. Dorothea-it seemed ages since April had seen her. April shut her eyes and tried to picture her, but tonight the picture wouldn’t come clear. It was only a blur-a blur of laughter, talk, movement and color. But a bright and beautiful blur, no matter how distant, was better than a reality that was dull and gray.

Melanie was having trouble keeping her mind on her reading because she was so worried about what she was planning to do. In fact, they both were having such a hard time pretending not to worry, that they were secretly relieved when Caroline came in and suggested it was bed time for girls who were going to school in the morning. The eyelashes were lying on April’s dresser and Melanie managed to walk right past them as she went out. Because of the sticky stuff to make them stay on your eyelids, she only had to brush her hand against them to pick them up. Feeling triumphant and treacherous at the same time, Melanie took the eyelashes home and hid them in her closet. She kept them there until the first few days of school were over. Then she took them back and put them under April’s dresser, so it would look as if they’d just happened to fall. By that time April had gotten out of the notion of wearing them to school.

But even without the eyelashes Melanie had a hard

time trying to translate April into something that Wilson School could understand and appreciate. April was still wearing her hair in a messy upsweep and her mother’s ratty old fur stole, even though her grandmother had given her two nice new sweaters. Besides, she still put on her Hollywood act with people she didn’t know, and worst of all, she got furiously angry when she was teased. Melanie could see that to the kids at Wilson, all the stuff April knew made her a smart aleck; her wonderful different-ness was only kookiness; and her courage only meant she’d punch you in the nose if you kidded her, no matter how many teachers were looking.

At least, that was the way it was for a while. But with Melanie working her hardest as go-between, it wasn’t too long before things began to be a little better. The sixth grade began to find out that April had a way of making life interesting. For instance, when she raised her hand in class, her answer wasn’t always what the teacher wanted, but it was almost certain to be fascinating. And when it came to guts-whether it was hanging by your heels from the highest bar, or putting a stink-bug on the principal’s desk-you could count on April to do it first and best.

By the third week in September, although the sixth graders were still teasing April-from a safe distance -they were beginning to think of her rather proudly, as their own private odd-ball. But it was when Toby

Eyelashes and Ceremony

and Ken gave her a nickname that Melanie knew for sure that the worst was over. Toby Alvillar and Ken Kamata were two of the biggest wheels in class, and if you were really hopeless they simply didn’t notice you-it was as if you didn’t exist. So when they started calling April, February, Melanie knew everything would be all right. It was teasing, maybe, but not the kind you use on outsiders.

In the meantime, in the afternoons and on week ends, was really beginning to take shape. As soon as school was out every day, the girls picked up Marshall at his nursery school and hurried home. Then they were free to spend their time in Egypt, until almost 5:30 when Caroline and the Rosses came home.

The lean-to temple now had two altars and two gods. The bird-bath altar had been moved to the right side, while on the left was the altar of Set, the Evil One. Set’s altar was made from an egg crate covered by a piece of an old bedspread, and the god himself was a rather pear-shaped figure of dried mud. April and Melanie had looked and looked for a suitable Set. For a while they tried a Chinese kitchen-god figurine from Schmitt’s Variety Store, but he was all wrong-much too nice and pleasant looking. At last, they had to resort to making a Set themselves, from some clayey mud from the Casa Rosada’s dead flower garden. Except for his glowing eyes, which

were made of glass buttons of a deep fiery red, he didn’t turn out particularly well. In fact, at first he seemed rather laughable. But as time passed and the game progressed, Set’s face hardened and cracked into a wicked leer, and it became clear that his strange, sunken, formless body was the very shape of evil. Dark and deep as the mud of the Nile, Set brooded lumpily through a mist of sandalwood incense-15^ at Woolworth’s-over all kinds of mystic ceremonies, weird rites and wicked plots.

Opposite the altar of the wicked god stood the bird-bat^, throne of the goddess of goodness. Of course, she was still represented by the plaster bust of Nefertiti, but as the game went on she began to be called Isis most of the time, because she was a goddess and not just a queen. And since the pharoahs were supposed to be related to the gods, it really didn’t matter if Isis and Nefertiti got a little bit confused. Whatever her name, what she stood for was always the same-love and beauty and every kind of perfection.

There was always a great deal to do in the land of Egypt. Right at first April and Melanie got terribly involved in composing and practicing rites and ceremonies for the two gods. The rituals were very complicated and the correct order of processions, chants, prostrations, sprinklings with holy water and sacrificial offerings, had to be carefully written down, so