Free Snyder, Zilpha Keatley by The Egypt Game [txt] Page B

followed her example, doing exactly the same things. Then came Elizabeth’s turn and finally Marshall’s. Then they all sat down in a circle on the floor.
    As soon as everyone was seated, Elizabeth raised her hand and shook it frantically. She was looking excited and pleasantly surprised with herself. She had just had a terribly daring idea and she couldn’t wait to tell it.
    “All right, Elizabeth first,” Melanie said. “Okay April?”
    April nodded. “Go ahead, ,” she said, “but put your hand down, for heaven’s sake. You’re not in school, you’re a lady pharoah.”
    Elizabeth snatched her hand down and suggested eagerly that Set’s message was that they should stick their fingers with a needle and write him a letter in their own blood.
    April and Melanie exchanged surprised and appreciative glances, and Elizabeth beamed proudly. She didn’t think it was necessary to mention that her teacher had just read Tom Sawyer to the class-and just possibly Set had had a little help from Mark Twain.
    However, there was one small detail-nobody had a needle. Elizabeth looked crushed. “Don’t feel bad,
    Bethy,” Melanie said. “It was a neat idea.”
    “I’ll say,” April agreed. “It was a terrific idea.”
    “It was a dumb idea,” Marshall muttered. “When you stick your finger you get infested.”
    “Infected,” Melanie corrected. “You go next April.”
    April made a trance-like face. “When I stood before the altar,” she chanted, “I heard the voice of the Crocodile god. He said the object to be sacrificed must be something very dear to us. It must be something we hate to part with. Otherwise it won’t count. The Crocodile god has told me that we must sacrifice-” she pointed dramatically, “-Security!”
    “NO!” Marshall shouted jumping up and hugging Security to his chest. “NO! NO! NO!” With every shout he stamped his foot. All three girls were around him in a moment, shushing and begging him to keep still. He shushed, but he went over to the edge of the shed and stood with his back to them.
    “All right, Marshall. We won’t sacrifice Security. Will we April?” Melanie said.
    April went into a quick trance with her fingers to her forehead. “The gods have changed their minds,” she announced in a moment. “They say they don’t want Security. But just don’t yell like that any more. Somebody will hear us, and we’ll get caught.”
    “Somebody already heard us,” Marshall muttered darkly.
    “What do you mean, somebody already heard us?” Melanie gasped. But Marshall only shrugged and said nothing more.
    “Come on back to the circle,” Melanie coaxed. “We take it all back about Security. Besides, it’s your turn to say what the message was.”
    Marshall allowed himself to be led back to the circle, but his chin was still sticking out, and he was glaring at April. He put his hand to his forehead the way April had done and then jerked it away. “Let’s sacrifice April,” he suggested.
    That gave everybody the giggles, and finally Marshall broke down and smiled, too. Then it was Melanie’s turn. Melanie said that she had read about some people who cut off their fingers as sacrifices. At that point even April looked shocked, and Elizabeth almost fainted. But Melanie only laughed. “I didn’t mean we should do that,” she said. “It just gave me an idea. We could pull out some hairs-and maybe cut off some fingernails.”
    “No scissors,” Elizabeth reminded with just a touch of satisfaction.
    “We could bite them “off,” April suggested. “I do it all the time.”
    A few minutes later a small fire of twisted paper was burning in the mixing bowl firepit, and the high priestesses (and junior high priest) of Egypt were parading in a circle before the altar. They were walking in the Egyptian manner-one shoulder forward, arms bent at the wrist-except from time to time when they had to chew off another fingernail. Now and then one or another would approach the altar,