Snyder, Zilpha Keatley Read Online Free PDF

was coming, they shoved the whole stack out through the hole in the fence. Then they scouted around and found a trash bin that was nice and roomy and not too full to hold an extra donation of dead weeds. When, at last, the loose stones and broken bits of things had been cleared away, Egypt looked clean and bare and ready for whatever might be going to happen.
    Next they turned their attention to the lean-to shed, or the Temple, as they were already beginning to call it. It was actually only a wooden platform about a foot off the ground, across one end of the yard. A roof of corrugated tin was supported in the front by a few wooden posts and on the other three sides, walls were formed by the tall boards of the fence. Already the bird-bath altar of Nefertiti, the fancy pillars from the porch of some Victoria mansion and the crumbling statue of Diana by the entrance, were beginning to create a temple-like atmosphere. But there was much more that could be done.
    April and Melanie were sitting on the edge of the Temple’s floor resting for a moment, and planning, when April pointed out the only real door to the storage yard. It was on the opposite site from the loose plank and was apparently locked with a latch and padlock from the outside. “I wonder where it goes to,” she-said.
    Melanie thought a moment. “I guess it goes to the rest of the Professor’s backyard,” she said. “You know, that part with a driveway so trucks and things can back up to his store for deliveries. You can see Jnto that part from the alley.” It was right then when she mentioned the Professor that Melanie, for the first time, had an uncomfortable feeling. “What do you suppose the Professor would do if he caught us in here,” she wondered out loud.
    April shrugged. Melanie had told her how most
    of the children in the neighborhood felt about the Professor. While she had to admit he’d been a little bit creepy, she didn’t see what all the fuss was about. But Melanie seemed to feel that April’s short talk with the old man had made her an authority on the subject, so she was more or less obliged to come up with an opinion. “I don’t think he’d do a thing,” she said. “I just don’t think he’d even care, as long as we don’t bother him or hurt anything. Besides, how’s he going to know? You could tell by the weeds and everything that no one’s been in here for ages. I’ll bet the padlock on that door’s rusted so tight he couldn’t get in if he wanted to. And that window isn’t the kind that opens. He’d have to break the glass if he wanted to get through.”
    “He might be watching us through it though.” Somehow that thought was almost more scary than the possibility of the Professor’s actually entering the yard. With one accord the girls moved warily towards the window. Closer and closer until their noses were only inches from the dirty panes. Then Melanie breathed a sigh of relief. “There’s something like a heavy curtain hanging clear across it. He couldn’t see through that.”
    “Besides, I don’t think he could see through the dirt even if there wasn’t a curtain. I’ll bet this window’s in some little back room he doesn’t even use any more. Otherwise he wouldn’t leave it so dirty.”
    Feeling pleasantly safe and secure, the girls sat back down and began to make plans. Marshall was busy digging a little hole in the middle of the yard with a sharp stick. He had knotted two of Security’s legs together around his neck so his hands would be free for digging. Security’s pear-shaped plush body and six of his black legs were hanging down Marshall’s back.
    “I know,” April said suddenly, “Marshall can be the young pharoah, heir to the throne of Egypt. Only there’s a civil war going on, and the other side is trying to kill him.”
    “Okay. And we can be high priestesses of Isis who are assigned to protect him.”
    “Ummm,” April said. “Or else we could be evil high priestesses who are