Trapped in a Tomb

“Open up! ” I meowed to the children. “Immediately! ”

Khepri was crawling the walls. “They’re not listening to you, Ra. I don’t think they can even hear you. This model’s made out of stone. ”

“Then I’ll just have to meow louder. ” I gave it all I had. “Enough is enough, children! This is Pharaoh’s Cat speaking. Get me out of here. ” Khepri clicked in my ear.

“And the beetle, too! ” I added.

Nothing happened, except I noticed how dark it was. And how quiet.

“I think maybe they’ve gone away, ” Khepri said.

I stretched, trying to dislodge the lid of the tomb, but it wouldn’t budge. Same with the walls.

“It’s solid, ” Khepri said. “I think we’re stuck. ”

“Great. ” I slumped down on the tiled floor. “How long will the air last? ”

“I don’t know, ” Khepri said, “but I guess we’ll be okay for a while. ”

“You guess? Khepri, this is a matter of life and death. A guess isn’t good enough. ”

“It’s all I’ve got, ” he chirped. “Anyway, look on the bright side: you can get that nap you wanted. ”

“How can I nap, knowing I’m about to suffocate? ” I started to feel woozy just thinking about it. I wafted the precious air with my tail. “Is it me, or is it getting hard to breathe in here? ”

“If you can’t nap, then let’s discuss the case, ” Khepri said.

“Khepri, I’m dying! And you want to talk details? ”

“Great Detectives never let themselves get distracted, ” Khepri said. “Now, I know Menwi didn’t want to talk about the Scribe visiting the abandoned tomb—”

“Don’t talk to me about tombs, ” I warned him. “I can only handle one at a time. ”

“Ra, be sensible—”

“I am being sensible, ” I wailed. “If you’re trapped in a tomb, it makes sense to panic! ”

“Ra, please calm down. ”

“What if we die here, Khepri? What if Anubis comes to weigh our souls? ”

All of a sudden the top of the tomb flew off, and something plunged down toward us.

“It’s Anubis! ” I shrieked. “Beware the gods! ”

But it wasn’t a god reaching for us. It was Kenamon.

“Ra the Mighty? I’m so sorry. ” The boy lifted me out and set me gently on the ground, Khepri gripping my tail. “My little sister told me what happened, and I came to rescue you. ”

His little sister had put me into that tomb?

“She didn’t mean any harm, ” Kenamon went on, “and she wasn’t the one who dropped you in there, but I’ve told her and the others that they’re never to treat a cat like that again. Especially not you. ” He turned, and I noticed that there was a small girl standing behind him. Like most little kids, she wasn’t wearing anything at all, and her head was shaved except for one long sidelock of hair—but she had the same alert, worried eyes that Kenamon and his father had.

“It’s okay, Isesu. ” Kenamon put a reassuring arm around his sister. To me, he said, “She is awfully sorry. ”

She should be, I thought. But Isesu looked so sad that I softened. She wasn’t much older than Pharaoh’s own youngest daughter, who was hardly more than a baby. Besides, she had told Kenamon everything—and that was what had saved me. I guessed I could forgive her.

Eyes brightening, Isesu reached for me. “I want that kitty. ” I jumped back. Forgiveness only goes so far.

“He’s not yours, ” Kenamon said firmly. “He belongs to Pharaoh. ”

Isesu pouted. “But I want him. ”

“Maybe someday we’ll have a cat, ” Kenamon told her. “A different one.

Not this one. ”

“Someday when we’re rich, ” the girl said happily. “Are we rich now, Kenamon? ”

“Hush. ” Kenamon pulled his sister closer to him. “Father doesn’t want us talking about money. ”

Isesu wrenched herself free. “Then let’s play! ”

“In a minute. ” Kenamon set a cup down before me, with a tiny portion of what smelled an awful lot like spiced goose. “It’s all I could take from my meal without Father noticing, ” he explained to me. “But it’s yours, if you want it. And there’s water in the trough against the wall. ”

“Kenamon? Isesu? ” Pentu called to them from inside the house, and then his anxious face appeared at the door. “Where are you? ” “Here we are! ” Isesu ran toward the door.

“I have to go, ” Kenamon murmured.

As he dashed away, I snarfed up the goose stew in one bite. Sure enough, I tasted cinnamon—and a touch of cumin.

“Hey! ” Miu appeared at the top of the wall at the end of the courtyard. She jumped down to us. “I see you found a snack, Ra. ”

“Miu! ” I was glad to see her, but then Old Green Eyes appeared at the top of the wall.

“Oh, ” I said, with less enthusiasm, “I see your cousin’s with you. ”

“We’ve made an incredible breakthrough. ” Miu was so excited that even her ragged ear had perked up. “It turns out Sabu is really good at this detecting business. ” She motioned for us to follow her. “Come on. We have a lot to tell you. ”

“I’m not so sure I want to talk, ” I mumbled as Khepri climbed onto me. But I went ahead and followed Miu over to the next house, where Sabu had staked out a spot by a palm tree.

“Well, look at what the dung beetle dragged in, ” he drawled as I approached. Then he caught a whiff of me. “Whew-ee. Is that some more of your fancy palace perfume? Smells like pig. ”

“Hush, Sabu, ” Miu said. “Tell them what we’ve discovered. ”

“Thanks to my army of cat informants, ” Sabu said, “we’ve narrowed the field of suspects—”

“So have we, ” I announced. “We’re down to Huya the carpenter and Neferhotep the goldsmith and the Scribe of the Tomb. ”

“And Pentu the painter, ” Khepri finished, jumping down between my paws. “He’s a possibility, too. ”

“But not a likely one, ” I told Miu. “Did you know Neferhotep’s uncle was a tomb robber? ”

“That doesn’t mean Neferhotep is one, too, ” Khepri said to me.

“But it’s more likely, ” I said.

Khepri disagreed. “I don’t see why—”

“This is how you guys play detective? ” Sabu gave us a cool flick of his ears. “You make wild accusations and argue about them? ”

“They’re not wild accusations. ” I set him straight. “And we don’t ‘play detective. ’ We are detectives. Great ones. That’s how we found this stuff out. ”

I let Khepri give them the details of our interview with Menwi.

Sabu looked taken aback.

“So much for wild accusations, ” I said. Pharaoh’s Cat might be covered in mud, but he was hard to beat.

“Wow, ” said Miu. “You found out a lot. ”

“It’s easy when you’re a Great Detective, ” I said. “So what did you two discover? ”

“Plenty, ” said Sabu, with just the edge of a snarl.

Miu quelled him with her paw. “We started from the other end, working out who was where on the night of the robbery. Luckily, we had Sabu here to organize the village cats for us. He did an amazing job. ”

The compliment seemed to soothe Sabu. “It was a matter of leadership. I told them there had to be two witnesses for each alibi, and they had to report back to me. ”

“Take Sabu’s human, Bek, for example, ” Miu told us. “Sabu was one witness to the fact that Bek was home last night, and the goose next door was the second. She says Bek’s snoring kept her goslings awake all night. ”

“We cats were having a party ourselves last night, ” Sabu said. “So that made things more complicated. But a smart leader always gets the job done. ”

“We’ve narrowed the field to a few suspects, and they’re the same as yours, ” Miu said. “Pentu the painter, Huya the carpenter, Neferhotep the goldsmith, and the Scribe of the Tomb. They all contributed spiced goose to

the feast, and none of them have strong alibis for later that night. ”

It was an impressive piece of work. Maybe Sabu was worthy of being our sidekick.

But then he said something to Miu that got me in a cat-twist. “You forgot to mention Kenamon, Pentu’s son. He doesn’t have an alibi, either. ”

“Oh, come on, Sabu, ” I said. “He’s too young to be a tomb robber. ”

“If he’s old enough to work in the tombs, then he’s old enough to rob them, ” Sabu said. “Besides, he could have been helping his father. ” “Talk about wild accusations, ” I said.

Sabu twitched his ears in annoyance. “I just told you. The boy’s father is a suspect, and the boy himself doesn’t have an alibi. That’s not an accusation. It’s a fact. And there’s more. ”

“More? ” I didn’t like the sound of that.

Was I wrong about Kenamon and his father?

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