Free Horus and the Curse of Everlasting Regret by Hannah Voskuil

little mummy looked delighted. “You came back!”
    “Oh, geez,” Peter said with a gasp. “You scared me!”
    “Apologies, apologies,” said Horus, sounding overjoyed and not at all apologetic. He led Peter to the kitchen. “I’ve been reading the most wonderful book Tunie brought me!”
    In the tiny kitchen, Peter placed his knapsack on the table beside an open book and a mug of tea.
    “I have some magazines and newspapers for you,” Peter said, first taking out WindUp and setting him on a chair. He pulled out several older issues of
Modern Mechanics
as well as the
Harbortown Gazette
and stacked them on the table.
    Horus lifted up a magazine with a photograph of a dirigible on the cover.
    “What can it be? Is it in the sky?” the mummy said. He stared with wonder at the airship.
    Peter laughed. “It’s a dirigible. Wait until you see the issue about submarines.” He took out the ham sandwiches. “These are for you and Tunie. She seemed kind of hungry earlier.”
    “She does appear a bit underfed,” Horus agreed. “She should eat them both. But what is that on your shirt?”
    Peter plucked his collared shirt away from his chest. There was a large, pinkish stain on the front from the soup Larry had launched at him.
    “This is the second shirt my stepbrother has ruined today,” Peter said. He told Horus about the twins’ bullying and the fight over dinner. “My dad says they’re grieving, but so are Tunie and I. We don’t act like that.”
    Horus nodded thoughtfully. “You said Larry is the one who starts the bullying, and he gets Randall involved?”
    Peter picked up WindUp and toyed with a dial on his back. “Yeah. Larry’s the smart one.”
    “Ah,” said Horus. “Or perhaps he
was
the smart one—until you came along.” Horus took a sip of tea. “I was quite jealous of my older brother, Taharqa, you know. He was always telling me I was too little to do things, when what I wanted from him was praise. I yearned for him to acknowledge my strengths.” Horus paused. “I understood him too late. Larry might feel the same about you.”
    Peter was thinking this over when Tunie arrived.
    “Sorry I’m late,” she said breathlessly. Her eyes widened. “Are those ham sandwiches?”
    “They’re for you,” Peter said. “Miss Cook made me my favorite rolls, and there were a lot of them.”
    “Thanks, Peter!” Tunie grabbed a sandwich and took a big bite. “Mmmmm.” She grinned at Horus. “See? Kindness travels.”
    “And so should we.” Peter zipped WindUp into his knapsack. “Time’s running short.”
    “Wait, let me finish these,” Tunie said, reaching for the second sandwich, so she held one in each hand. “I’ve been wondering, Horus, how you got to be a robber in the first place.”
    “Ah,” said Horus. He seemed reluctant to speak initially, but then he said, “I fell in with a village boy everyone called Turtanu, which was a nickname. It meant something like ‘general,’ ” Horus explained. “Turtanu mocked my brother, Taharqa, and I enjoyed that. I was envious, as I’ve told Peter. I began following Turtanu and his crowd, joining in their petty crimes.”
    The mummy looked down at his teacup. Peter thought he’d be blushing, if he were capable.
    When Horus spoke, he sounded embarrassed. “To begin with, we stole only from sleeping soldiers, after they’d kicked out and looted the Assyrians. This seemed all right, as the soldiers had just taken the treasures from someone else. Then Turtanu suggested stealing from tombs, and though most people back then would have disagreed, I thought that was all right, too—those people were dead, after all.”
    Peter asked, “Did you get in trouble? What did your families think?”
    Horus shook his head. “I believe they found us too difficult to handle. There was a lot going on at that time. My mother was busy trying to take care of my siblings. She told me not to leave, but she couldn’t stop me when I snuck out of our