Free Knight Quest (Time Hunters, Book 2) by Chris Blake Page A

wasn’t fair! No one else in Tom’s class was beginning the new term knowing that the mummies of an Ancient Egyptian princess and her pet cat were at their home, snooping around and generally causing havoc. Mum and Dad couldn’t see Isis and Cleo, so if the mummies made a mess, Tom knew he would get the blame.
    â€œI’ll just fetch your P.E. kit,” Mum said, disappearing into the kitchen.
    Tom rounded on Isis. “Listen! You mustn’t touch anything while I’m out. We don’t know when Anubis will send us on our next mission. So…” He scratched his shock of blond curls as he searched for the right words, “… just keep out of trouble.”
    Isis leaned over the banister. “Don’t get all bossy with me. You’re the whole reason I’m here. It was you who smashed my statue at your dad’s museum.
You
set me free again. Remember?”
    Tom threw his hands in the air. “Yes, but aren’t you forgetting the bit where I risked my neck travelling back in time to help you find your first amulet? It was
you
who tried to trick Anubis by keeping one of the amulets for yourself, but now
I’m
the one who’s been roped into babysitting a dead princess and her cat!”
    Isis made a huffing noise and tossed her head back with a crack. “There are still five amulets left to find. And until Anubis sends us on our next challenge, I might as well enjoy myself. So if
you
won’t entertain me, I’ll make my own fun.” She poked herself in the chest and accidentally put her finger right through her crusty ribs.
    Cleo mewed in agreement and pawed at the banister spindles.
    There was no way Tom was going to let Isis rummage through his belongings. There was only one thing for it.
    â€œLook, just get in the car, will you?” Tom groaned. “You’ll have to come to school with me.”
    Tom sat at his desk and looked down at Cleo, who was curled up asleep underneath his chair.
    â€œFun holiday?” Tom’s classmate Jodie asked him.
    â€œOh, it was out of this world,” Tom said, smiling. “Literally.”
    But he stopped smiling pretty quickly when he saw what Isis was doing. She was wandering round the room, fiddling with everything. She looked over at Tom.
    â€œThis is much more fun than being cooped up in your boring house,” she shouted above the noise of the chattering children.
    Tom looked around. Nobody seemed to have noticed the fact that the globe had started spinning on its own, or that the cold tap had just turned itself on and off. But how long would that last?
    He got out of his seat and went to the front of the room, pretending that he needed to sharpen his pencil. “Can’t you just sit quietly somewhere and stop messing with things?” he whispered to Isis over the noise of the pencil sharpener.
    When Tom returned to his seat, Isis sat down on the windowsill, crossed her bony, bandaged legs and started to leaf through the pages of a book. This time, the teacher, Mr Braintree, noticed.
    â€œShut that window, James!” Mr Braintree shouted to the boy sitting closest to Isis.
    James looked at the window and screwed up his face. “But it is shut, sir.”
    The teacher pushed his glasses up his nose and frowned. “There must be a draft. I’ll have to report it to the caretaker. I can’t have books flapping around. It’s very distracting.”
    For a full five minutes, Isis sat still. Tom started to relax, but then Mr Braintree began to take the register.
    Isis jumped off the windowsill, shuffled stiffly to the front of the class and stood behind Mr Braintree.
    Oh no! What is she going to do now?
Tom wondered.
    When he noticed Isis drawing a rude cartoon of Anubis on the whiteboard, he faked a coughing fit to distract her.

    Isis shuffled over to him and thumped him on the back.
    In between coughs, Tom hissed, “Look, Isis, if you don’t stop messing around, I