Snyder, Zilpha Keatley Read Online Free PDF Page B

going to offer him as a human sacrifice on the crocodile altar to-what was that evil god’s name?”
    “Set?”
    “Yeah, that’s the one.” April jumped to her feet. Throwing up her arms she chanted, “Almighty Set has promised his servants, the crocodile gods of the Nile, the bloody heart of the young Pharoah, Marsh -uh, Marshamosis!” She dropped to her knees. “Oh mighty Set, god of evil, we hear and obey.”
    Marshall had stopped digging, and now he stood up and started toward the opening in the fence. The girls ran after him. He didn’t struggle when they caught him, but Melanie was familiar with the expression on his face. His funny little baby-round chin was sticking out defiantly and his black eyes glared. “Leave my bloody heart alone,” he said.
    The girls giggled. “You know, he’s pretty sharp for a four-year-old,” April said.
    Melanie got down on her knees and tried to take Marshall’s hands, but he wouldn’t turn loose of Security. “Marshall, honey,” she said, “it’s just a game. Just pretend. We wouldn’t really hurt you.”
    “What’s a pharoah?” Marshall asked suspiciously.
    “A king,” Melanie said, “king of all the Egyptians.” Marshall’s frown lifted a little and his chin began to go back into its normal position.
    “A terribly important kind of king,” April said. “Everybody had to bow down to him and do exactly
    what he said.”
    Marshall nodded soberly. “I’ll play,” he said So that was the way Set started-Set the god of evil and black magic. At first he was just supposed to be a character in that particular game, and that
    first day he was represented by a picture of a man with an animal’s head that Melanie drew on a piece of cardboard and tacked to the wall. But once he got started, he seemed to grow and develop almost on his own, and all out of control; until he was more than evil, and at times a lot more than Egyptian. For instance, at different times, his wicked tricks included everything from atomic ray guns to sulphur and brimstone.
    But, actually, that was the way with all of . Nobody ever planned it ahead, at least, not very far. Ideas began and grew and afterwards it was hard to remember just how. That was one of the mysterious and fascinating things about it.
    On that particular day, the game about Marshamosis, the boy pharoah, and Set, the god of evil, didn’t get very far. They’d no more than gotten started when April and Melanie decided they just had to have some more equipment before they could play it well. So they postponed the game and went instead to scout around in the alley for boards and boxes to use in making things like thrones and altars. They found just what they needed behind the doughnut shop and the furniture store in the next block, and brought them back to Egypt. And it was on the same trip that they had the good luck to rescue an old metal mixing bowl from a garbage pail. April said it would be just the thing for a firepit for building sacred fires.
    When they had everything as far as the hole in the fence, they ran into a problem. The bowl and boards went through all right, but the boxes were just too big. The only solution was to throw them over the top of the fence. It wasn’t easy, and in landing they made quite a bit of noise.
    It wasn’t long afterwards that the curtain on the small window at the back of the Professor’s store was pushed very carefully to one side. But April and Melanie were so busy building and planning that they didn’t notice at all. Only someone with very sharp eyes would have been able to see the figure that stood silently behind the very dirty window in the darkened room.

Eyelashes and Ceremony
    THE NEXT DAY WAS THE LAST BEFORE SCHOOL WAS TO
    start. It was also Melanie’s last chance to put into effect her plan to get rid of the eyelashes. So after dinner she went up to Mrs. Hall’s apartment to see April. She took the library book that she was reading and one that she knew April wanted