I can hear the pat-pat-pat of her feet. Fine dust hanging in the air is the only sign of her.
‘IMI! ’
I take a step, then another down the long straight street and try to look straight ahead. My footsteps paff-paff through the dust, beating out the words: angry, hungry ghouls; angry, hungry ghouls. Outside the houses are the dried-up remains of meals left for the dead: empty bowls, sheaves of grain, the odd goose bone . . . Some of the doors have crumbled or been kicked in and even though I don’t want to look, I can see long pale shapes in the darkness.
Mummies.
My heart starts whacking away inside me like it wants to escape and my stomach’s chasing it up my throat. I reach the place where Imi turned off the main street. It’s an alley between buildings so narrow I have to turn sideways to fit. Another lane crosses it in a T.
Left or right? I think I hear the patter of Imi’s sandals and follow the sound, but the alley jinks around a corner and stops dead at a sagging wall. I want to howl with despair.
‘IMI. This isn’t a joke!’ I do the shouty whisper again and look up. The sky’s darker now and I can see stars behind the pyramids rising above the rooftops. I jump as something flaps off into the air. Too big for a bat. An owl. It must be an owl.
Imi, I hate you!
I backtrack and take the first turning in the direction of home. It’s another alleyway, very dark and narrow, but the gloom seems to lessen in the distance. Perhaps I’m nearly on the other side. But when I get there I stop dead. I could not be more wrong. Instead of heading out of the City of the Dead, I’ve been going right into the middle of it.
I’m looking down a wide, straight street lined with the grandest buildings I have ever seen. They’re built of stone with pillars and porches. The walls inside the porches are painted. I can just make out a man fishing, a woman being waited on by dancing girls. The relatives of the rich dead folk didn’t just leave meals, they left feasts: piles of grain, pitchers of beer, jars of wine – all dry, all dust, all pecked by birds and gnawed by dogs. Under the blown sand, I feel smooth flagstones beneath my feet.
Ahead of me the pyramids loom above the rooftops. They’ve never seemed so big and black and jagged. The ghouls are gathering – I know they are – and I can’t see Imi anywhere.
My steps slow. I am awed by the grandeur of everything around me. I’m sure I can hear dark things calling me in whispers. Dread seeps through cracked walls. I stare into a doorway under a wide porch and am backing away from it when something clutches my ankle . . .
I stumble and fall backwards, too shocked to make a sound. A hand flutters over my mouth. I screw my eyes shut, feel breath on my face . . .
‘Sssss! ’ the ghoul hisses. ‘Shhh.’
Then: ‘Open your eyes. It’s me!’
I open my eyes. Yes, it’s Imi, but she looks terrified.
‘Shh! People. Here!’
When you’re well-behaved like Imi, getting caught is unimaginably bad – even worse than ghosts – but I’m so relieved to see her that I stop being scared for a moment. Her beautiful new tunic, once so white it glowed, is filthy now, but I don’t care.
Then I hear the voices too. They’re coming from both ends of the street so we’re trapped. Some families hire guards to watch over the graves. If it’s them, we’re in trouble. I look for places to hide. The porches are wide open to the street. It’ll have to be inside one of the houses of the dead.
The nearest door is twice my height and set with copper panels. It scrapes open just enough for us to slip in. Half the roof has fallen in so I can just make out a broken chair, a bed, furniture, musical instruments, smashed jars. There are shelves all the way round stacked with mummies – people on the left, cats and other animals on the right. They’re lying this way and that, like there’s been an earthquake, and the floor is crunchy with shattered tiles. The air is musty and musky.
Imi starts to whimper. ‘I don’t like it, I don’t like it.’
I almost snap, IT’S YOUR FAULT, but control myself.
The voices outside are getting closer. Greetings are called. I lift Imi on to a shelf, clear a space, then slide her behind a family of mummified cats.
They’re right outside now. I dive behind a mummy lying on the bottom shelf, but it’s so light it falls to the floor. Something quick and dark scrabbles away.
‘What was that?’ A startled voice comes from right outside the door. There’s no time to pull the mummy back on to the shelf, so I roll off and pull it on top of me. It’s big enough to hide me, but I’m breathing in mummy scent and mummy dust. I’m breathing in . . . someone dead.
‘It came from in there.’ A second voice, cold and sneering.
They heard me. They’re coming in.
I hear a third voice: ‘What? In here?’ I think I’ve heard it before, but I can’t quite remember when. It sounds slow and rather stupid.
Three voices then: one cold and sneery, one worried and jittery, and one slow and stupid.
‘What do you think it is?’ Worried and Jittery asks.
‘Only one way to find out,’ Cold and Sneery answers.
‘What?’ Slow and Stupid joins in.
‘Go and look,’ Cold and Sneery snaps.
‘Why is it always me?’ Slow and Stupid grumbles.
Where have I heard him before?
‘Because you’re so brave,’ Cold and Sneery sneers coldly.
The door scrapes across the floor. I hope and hope and hope it’s too dark for them to see our footprints in the dust.
‘Anything?’ Worried and Jittery sounds, well, worried and jittery.
‘Can’t see,’ Slow and Stupid says. ‘It’s dark and I don’t like it. It’s full of . . .’
‘You’re not scared, are you?’ Cold and Sneery interrupts. ‘Just get a move on.’
Footsteps shuffle across the floor. Something skitters away in the darkness. Slow and Stupid shrieks out a sound like WHUFFLE! which brings the others running. I pull my mummy as close to me as possible and then it starts to move, with a scraping and a scratching, as if the body inside is trying to get out.
A scream gathers in my chest.
‘What?’ says Worried and Jittery. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Something’s moving. It ran across the floor!’
‘It’s just a rat! Come out, you idiot!’ Cold and Sneery laughs.
The mummy shifts. Squeaks. Then I realise it’s not a dead person trying to get out of the mummy, it’s rats – a disturbed family of rats. I feel around until I find the rat hole. The last thing I want is baby rats crawling out all over me and the first thing I want is for those men to go away.
But they stay. Of course they stay. They go back outside, stand under the big covered porch, and they start to talk.
Cold and Sneery starts off with, ‘Well? I told you it was a good place to meet in secret. I’d have thought you were used to tombs by now.’
‘Not with bodies in, I’m not,’ Slow and Stupid says. ‘Not like Jatty.’
‘Oh, I forgot. You just dig the tombs and leave the hard work to everyone else. And don’t use names, you idiot,’ Cold and Sneery says.
‘It’s