Free The Case That Time Forgot by Tracy Barrett Page B

evening?”
    Xena and Xander assured their parents that nothing was wrong, that they’d tell them if there was a problem, that school was fine, all the while backing out of the kitchen and into the living room, leaving their parents talking to each other.
    â€œOkay, this is getting serious.” Xena’s voice was grim. “Someone is after the amulet. They stole our casebook, they made threatening calls, they put a scorpion in your backpack—”
    â€œAnd don’t forget, someone’s following us around. It’s possible that these things aren’t being done by the same person, but it would be a really weird coincidence if they weren’t. Let’s try to narrow it down, okay? I bet whoever wasin the locker room is someone on the soccer team. That way, if he was caught in school late, he would just say he was practicing.”
    â€œOr someone who hangs around the soccer team a lot.” Xena couldn’t help thinking of Hannah.
    Before Xander could answer, the fax machine whirred and spewed out a piece of paper. She leaped on it. “It’s from Andrew!”
    â€œFinally!” Xander joined her at the fax machine and ran his eyes down the page. “It’s about the hieroglyphs, from someone named Dr. Bowen. He says the writing is gibberish. What’s that? I thought it was Egyptian!”
    â€œâ€˜Gibberish’ means ‘nonsense,’” Xena explained. “Great. Another clue that leads nowhere.”
    Xander was still reading. “Dr. Bowen says that the Egyptian symbols don’t make any words, just letters. Look, he wrote them out here.” He pointed to the row of hieroglyphs with letters underneath them:
f-t-h-r-n-g-l
, then a space, then
s-m-y-t-h
.
    â€œWell,
that’s
a big help.” Xena was discouraged. “We have to go back to The Cat and Crown. There
must
be something there. We went five hundred yards along the line and found a pubthat was there in Sherlock and Amin’s time and that shows a cat like Bastet as a ruler. It can’t be a coincidence.”
    â€œLet’s go now,” Xander said, but Xena shook her head.
    â€œIt’s too late. All that scorpion talk took a lot of time. Let’s work ahead on our homework, okay? And then tomorrow we’ll ask Mom if we can go out for an hour or so after school. Why don’t you call Karim later and see if he can go?”
    â€œI want to look for the casebook,” Xander said stubbornly.
    â€œWhoever took it must have something to do with the amulet, right? So if we solve the amulet problem, we’ll also find out who took the casebook.”
    â€œMaybe not. Maybe it was the school thief who stole the casebook.”
    Xena threw her hands up. “Come
on
, Xander. The school thief takes only expensive things that are small and easy to hide, like a watch, Jill’s MP3 player—”
    â€œThat graphing calculator,” Xander added.
    â€œRight, and the necklace that girl left in her desk, and money. It’s
possible
that the same person took the casebook, but not likely. It’s too large. It couldn’t be hidden in a pocket.”
    Xander nodded. “Either the thief took the casebook after everyone went home so that he wouldn’t be seen lugging it down the hall, or it’s still there, in someone’s locker.”
    â€œToo bad we can’t stake out the lockers all day.” Xena’s voice showed her frustration, which she was trying to hide. “Let’s assume it was someone who was at school after hours.”
    â€œIn that case, it’s most likely the same person who was listening to me and Karim.”
    â€œRight! Like I said, if we solve the amulet problem, we’ll also find the casebook thief.”
    Xander sighed heavily, and Xena took pity on him. She put her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll find it. I just know we’ll find it.”
    But Xander wasn’t comforted. He reached for