5

WHERE HOMEWORK IS LIKE A VIRUS

I tried to pretend things were normal the next day at school, but my life had taken a wrong turn down Crazy Street. All I could think about was Horemheb. And the obelisk exploding. And the secret I knew Horus was keeping from me.

“Can you work on our project today after school?” Henry said when he sat down next to me in World Cultures. He had a black shirt on that read, PLUTO: NEVER FORGET, and in addition to his notebook, he had ten different-colored Sharpies clenched in his fist.

Ugh, the project. That was just one more thing to add to my growing list of annoyances in life. Maybe it was time for me to drop out of school. Gil was the only reason I was here in the first place. He bet me I couldn’t go a week without asking the shabtis to wait on me, and sure enough, he was right. I’d failed miserably after two hours and ended up back in public school.

“I’m kind of busy today,” I said. Making friends wasn’t my top priority in life. Been there, done that. If someone wanted to be my friend, they could help me get revenge on Horemheb.

“Too bad, amigo,” Henry said as he arranged the Sharpies on his desk. “We need to get it done. Unless you want us to fail.”

If Henry flunked eighth grade it would only mean one more person who understood the tortures of repeating the same subjects time and time again.

“We’re not going to fail,” I said.

“Maybe you will fail,” Seth said from behind me. “You could be the oldest kid in eighth grade.” He snickered like he’d made a funny joke.

If only he knew.

Tia stomped up in her combat boots just then and sat down behind me, next to Seth. The chair on the other side of me was empty, but she completely ignored that.

“Who’s the oldest kid in eighth grade?” she asked.

“Tut,” Seth said. “But he’s also the shortest.”

I gritted my teeth and let the short comment slide.

Tia had on basically the same outfit as yesterday, except her shirt was lime green and the streak in her dark hair had magically changed to match. If it was possible, she had more jewelry on. In addition to the ankh pendant, she had a feather pendant and a circle pendant that looked an awful lot like a sun. All three were Egyptian symbols. I was going to ask her about it when Henry opened his mouth.

“So, today after school?” Henry said.

“I guess,” I said, against my better judgment.

“What’s today after school?” Tia asked.

“We’re working on our project,” Henry said.

Tia punched Seth in the arm. “We should work on our project today, too.”

Which is how it worked out that at four o’clock that day I was sitting on the second floor of Martha Washington Public Library next to Henry with Tia and Seth across from us. By the time I dragged myself there, half our class was already deep into project research.

“I think we should do the creepy death box,” Henry said.

“It’s a funerary box,” I said.

“Funeral. Death. Same thing. What are you guys doing your project on?” Henry said.

Seth was picking dirt out from under his fingernails, and Tia was playing with the ends of the green streak in her hair. They didn’t have a notebook or a pencil between the two of them.

“What project?” Seth said.

“World Cultures, idiot,” Tia said. “Remember? We’re supposed to pick some object from the King Tut treasures and present to the class on it.”

“Oh, that,” Seth said. “We’re doing that kick-butt statue of Set, the most awesome god ever. It was either that or one of those ugly statues of the boy king.”

I let pass the way he emphasized boy king. Whoever came up with that title should be executed. I also let pass the ugly comment. But most awesome god ever?

“What do you know about Set?” I said. How was it that Seth, who didn’t know how the sun managed to come up each morning, knew who the god Set was?

“I know he destroyed anything that got in his way,” Seth said. “Unlike those other pansy gods who made flowers and stuff grow.”

My scarab heart begged for retaliation, but I held it in check. The last thing I needed was some vines or flowers sprouting in response. Even with my efforts, a bunch of roaches crawled out from under the bookshelves. Tia slammed her combat boot down on a nearby roach, leaving a giant smear of guts all over the tile.

“Maybe we should get some books,” Henry said, scooting his feet away from the guts. “Before they’re all gone.”

Anything to get away from Seth.

But Tia stood up before I had a chance to, yanking Seth along with her. “What’s the Dewey decimal number for King Tut?” she said.

“Nine-thirty-two point zero one four,” I said, failing miserably at keeping any pride out of my voice. The number of books written about me was beyond flattering.

“Got it.” She winked at me and then was gone.

I sat in stunned silence, watching her stroll away. I tried to imagine Seth wasn’t right there beside her, because it ruined the whole image.

“Come on, Tut,” Henry said, and then he was off, following them.

“I’ll save the table,” I called.

Henry gave me a thumbs-up. “Good plan.”

Five minutes later, all three came back empty-handed. Henry looked like his world was collapsing around him.

“Where are the books?” I said.

“They’re all gone.” Tia slumped into her chair and went back to fiddling with her jewelry.

“All the books are gone?” I said. There were so many. It wasn’t possible.

“Yep. Every single one,” Tia said.

Henry put his head between his hands. “We’re gonna fail.”

“What about the Internet?” I said.

“No Internet. Don’t you remember?”

I shook my head. I guess I’d missed that part of the project explanation.

“Let’s just go steal a book from someone,” Seth said.

“We’re not stealing a book,” Tia said.

Seth pointed to Joe Hurd at the table next to us. Between him and his project partner, Brandon Knauss, they had six books on King Tut stacked up.

“There’s no way they need all those books,” Seth said, loud enough for Joe and Brandon to hear.

Joe opened his mouth like he was going to snap out some witty reply, but his face turned a sort of funny gray color and his eyes got all watery. He jumped to his feet and covered his mouth and ran.

“That was weird,” Tia said.

The King Tut book Joe had been looking at lay open on the table. Brandon reached out to pull it over to himself, but Seth was faster.

“We’ll look at it while he’s gone.” But no sooner had Seth grabbed the book than he dropped it on the linoleum floor like it burned him, making a loud boom that echoed around the entire library.

Dust lifted up from the book. At least, I thought it was dust until I noticed that it was black and swirling around in circles and smelled like sulfur. But before this had time to register, Brandon threw up all over the floor and the book.

We jumped up from our table to get out of the way.

“It’s the curse of King Tut,” Henry said, grabbing his notebook like he was going to record the whole incident in purple Sharpie.

“It’s not the curse of King Tut. It’s probably food poisoning,” I said. The curse had no interest in the public library. It had bigger things to worry about. Things like Set and Osiris and battles for immortal dominance. I looked back to the book. Whatever black stuff I’d seen there was gone. And the only smell remaining was the contents of Brandon’s stomach.

“You saw what happened. He was reading the King Tut book and then he threw up,” Seth said.

I couldn’t believe Seth was actually agreeing with Henry.

“And what about all these bugs?” Tia stomped on another roach. Her jewelry clinked together like musical instruments.

Wait, she thought it was the curse also? This was the problem with propaganda. It spread faster than a sandstorm and it never went away.

“What about them?” I said. “There are bugs everywhere.”

“They’re part of the curse,” Seth said.

“There is no curse,” I said.

“Right,” Seth said. “And mythology isn’t real, either, is it?” He acted like he’d said something clever and waited for my response.

What did he think I was going to say? That mythology was real? That all the Egyptian gods were among us, even if we had no clue where most of them were? Sure, I knew where Horus was, seeing as how he lived with me, but otherwise, I hadn’t seen a god in the last century.

“Of course it’s not,” I said.

Given the mess on the floor, librarians started clearing us out. I texted Gil to come pick me up. His reply came fast.

already waiting out front he texted, like he’d known something was wrong. He must’ve talked to Horus. I could imagine the lecture I was going to get.

can you meet me in back? I texted back. I knew the reaction he’d get from Henry, Seth, and Tia, and I wanted to avoid it.

No response. I hoped that meant yes.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you all tomorrow,” I said, heading toward the back door.

Henry looked at me like I was speaking ancient Greek. “What about our project?”

“What about it?” I said. “The library is closing.”

“When are we going to work on it?” Henry said.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Soon?”

His face kind of relaxed. “Okay, see you soon.”

Which was not what I said at all.

*   *   *

Gil leaned against his black Mercedes, reading something off a scrap of paper. Like normal, he was decked out from head to toe in black. Black jeans. Black leather coat. Black hair. I’d never asked, but I bet he wore black boxers just to complete the look. He had a couple of scratches on his face, because Gil picked more fights than an alley cat.

“Why were you already here?” I asked when I reached the car.

Gil crumpled up the paper he was holding and dropped it to the pavement. It burst into flames. That’s another thing about Gil. He got his powers from Nergal, a Sumerian god who had command of war and the sun in all of its destructive glory. Gil could do all sorts of cool things, like throw fireballs and melt metal. Me? I had roses and earthworms.

“What happened when you were recharging?” Gil asked the second the car doors shut.

“Where’d you go last night?” I countered. I’d still been awake when Gil got home, but I’d pretended to be asleep so I wouldn’t have to hear his lecture. My conversation with Horus was bad enough. I heard them arguing down in the family room, and decided staying in my room was a good idea. And then I’d heard Gil storm out of the town house.

“I talked to Horus.” Gil blew his horn and pulled out into rush-hour traffic. “I’m sure you heard. I haven’t seen Horus that agitated in years, and that’s saying something. After that I went out to check the obelisk.”

“Did you see the name on the base of it?” Just thinking about it made shivers run up my spine. Revenge was going to be mine.

“Horemheb,” Gil said. “Horus told me, but I thought maybe it was some kind of joke.”

“Would I ever joke about Horemheb?” There were lots of things I’d joke around about, but revenge was not one of them. Gil knew how important it was to me. If anyone understood, he did. Just like my family had been killed, Gil’s best friend had been killed. It was what bound us together thousands of years ago. Gil had met up with me not long after I’d escaped from my tomb. He told me the gods had sent him to protect me. Yeah, after the whole tomb fiasco, I wasn’t too crazy about any mandate from the gods. Not to mention I didn’t need protecting. So I’d ditched Gil first chance I got, leaving Egypt and heading to China.

Gil had followed. He found me stacking rocks, helping build the Great Wall of China. So I left again.

I’d tried everything: changed my appearance, hid among the people. But something changed along the way. It took centuries before I realized it. I was still hiding from Gil, but I expected him to find me. I wanted him to find me. It became a game. Until the time back in Greece when our immortality had almost been discovered. We’d had to flee, and while we were trying to escape, some kid got killed because of us. We never talked about it after it happened, but the games and the hiding stopped. And from then on, Gil and I roamed the world together, settling down wherever we wanted and living our immortal lives.

“If he’s really back,” Gil said, “then we need to find a way to keep you safe.”

“Keep me safe? Are you kidding? Don’t you see? This is the perfect opportunity.”

“For what?” Gil turned the final corner to our street and started looking for a spot.

“To kill him.” It was so obvious to me. How could Gil not see that?

“There’s no way to kill an immortal.” Gil didn’t look at me when he said it. Instead, he got way too interested in parallel parking in front of our town house.

“That’s what Horus reminded me of last night,” I said. “But he’s wrong. There must be a way.”

Gil shook his head. “Horus is right. It can’t be done.” He answered way too fast. And I was overwhelmed by the feeling that he, like Horus, was lying to me. And maybe Horus wouldn’t tell me, but Gil would.

“But…”

“But what?” Gil said.

“If it can’t be done, then why do we have to worry about protecting me?” I asked.

Gil didn’t have an immediate answer. I’d caught him.

“Well?”

“We just do,” Gil said. “I’ll talk to Horus about strengthening the shields around the town house.”

“Seriously?”

“What?”

“That’s all you have to say?” How was it that both Horus and Gil were keeping secrets from me?

“There’s nothing else to say, okay?” Gil said. “Horemheb back means we need to be more careful.”

Gil was wrong. Horemheb back meant revenge.

“Anyway, I’m going out to get us dinner,” Gil said. “Any preference?”

My only preference was finding a way to kill Horemheb. I’d have to do it without Horus or Gil. I wasn’t sure how I’d do this, but I’d do whatever it took. Talk to other gods—if I could find them. Pray to Osiris. Maybe I had to go back and visit my tomb. There could be some kind of clue there. Whatever it took, I would do it.

“No preference,” I said, and Gil sped off to get us dinner.