Читать книгу Egyptian Curse - Chris Blake - Страница 6

Five thousand years ago

Princess Isis and her pet cat, Cleo, stood outside the towering carved gates to the Afterlife. It had been rotten luck to fall off a pyramid and die at only ten years of age, but Isis wasn’t worried – the Afterlife was meant to be great. People were dying to go there, after all! Her mummy’s wrappings were so uncomfortable she couldn’t wait a second longer to get in, get her body back and wear normal clothes again.

“Oi, Aaanuuubis, Anubidooby!” Isis shouted impatiently. “When you’re ready, you old dog!”

Cleo started to claw Isis’s shoulder. Then she yowled, jumping from Isis’s arms and cowering behind her legs.

“Calm down, fluffpot,” Isis said, bending to stroke her pet. “He can’t exactly woof me to death!” The princess laughed, but froze when she stood up. Now she understood what Cleo had been trying to tell her.

Looming up in front of her was the enormous jackal-headed god of the Underworld himself, Anubis. He was so tall that Isis’s neck hurt to look up at him. He glared down his long snout at her with angry red eyes. There was nothing pet-like about him. Isis gulped.

“‘WHEN YOU’RE READY, YOU OLD DOG?’” Anubis growled. “‘ANUBIDOOBY?’”

Isis gave the god of the Underworld a winning smile and held out five shining amulets. She had been buried with them so she could give them to Anubis to gain entry to the Afterlife. There was a sixth amulet too – a gorgeous green one. But Isis had hidden it under her arm. Green was her favourite colour, and surely Anubis didn’t need all six.

Except the god didn’t seem to agree. His fur bristled in rage. “FIVE? Where is the sixth?” he demanded.

Isis shook her head. “I was only given five,” she said innocently.

To her horror, Anubis grabbed the green amulet from its hiding place. “You little LIAR!” he bellowed.

Thunder started to rumble. The ground shook. Anubis snatched all six amulets and tossed them into the air. With a loud crack and a flash of lightning, they vanished.

“You hid them from me!” he boomed. “Now I have hidden them from you – in the most dangerous places throughout time.”

Isis’s bandaged shoulders drooped in despair. “So I c-c-can’t come into the Afterlife then?”

“Not until you have found each and every one. But first, you will have to get out of this …” Anubis clicked his fingers. A life-sized pottery statue of the goddess Isis, whom Isis was named after, appeared before him.

Isis felt herself being sucked into the statue, along with Cleo. “What are you doing to me?” she yelled.

“You can only escape if somebody breaks the statue,” Anubis said. “So you’ll have plenty of time to think about whether trying to trick the trickster god himself was a good idea!”

The walls of the statue closed around Isis, trapping her and Cleo inside. The sound of Anubis’s evil laughter would be the last sound they would hear for a long, long time …