Bab hadn’t laid eyes on his father in six long years. He hardly dared hope the hieroglyph was him.

The painted man stopped waving and reached forward with one hand, his palm facing out.

“Bab!” the man cried. “Stop!” His voice rang through Bab’s soul.

Bab placed his own, much larger, palm on his dad’s little painted one. The man’s eyes flared and he withdrew his hand, shaking his head. “No, Bab, no!”

Softly, Bab pressed against the painting. The wall gave way a little, feeling spongy, just like the brick at the entrance had.

“Dad?” whispered Bab. “Are you trapped in there?”

The man shook his head faster. He moved his hands in a shooing-away gesture. “Get away from me, mate!”

“Your painted flesh-dad seems to think you’re smelly,” Prong honked. “Or ugly. Probably both!”

Bab’s heart thundered and his mind whirled. What is this place? How did Dad end up painted inside a famous, ancient pyramid?

“Don’t worry, Dad,” Bab said to the painted man. “The stone is spongy. I can reach in and pull you out.” Bab ignored the warning bells ringing in his head. He was desperate to get to his dad.

Gently, he pressed his hand deep into the stone. Once again, it sank in. He kept pushing, slowly, all the way up to his elbow. Only this time, he felt something else. A sort of pulling sensation.

When Bab was little, he used to place his hand over the plughole when the bathwater was draining out. He loved the way it sucked at his skin. This felt a bit like that.

“Don’t do this, Bab,” yelled the dad hieroglyph.

“Prong, grab my other hand,” said Bab, his voice cracking. “I think the wall is . . . pulling me in.”

Prong seized Bab’s free hand with a talon. She was strong, but not strong enough. The spongy wall sucked with greater and greater force, drawing Bab in. Soon his arm was stuck in shoulder-deep.

“Prong!” he cried. “Don’t let it suck me in!”

“I’m trying,” wailed the ibis, her free talon digging into the floor. “Why do all my friends get sucked into walls!?”

Bab noticed that his feet were also sinking into the floor. The combined forces of the wall and the floor were dragging Bab into the corner below.

“Prong, I think this is the void my mum told me about. Dammit, and Scaler’s not here.”

“No one’s here except me, Bab,” wept Prong. “Not even you any more. The wall is taking you and I can’t stop it.”

“Cainus tricked us,” Bab growled. “Beard! Form a rope and pull me b–”

SPLOODGE.

The wall tugged Bab’s hand out of Prong’s grasp, swallowing him up.

“AW-HAWWW!” Prong honked in misery. She beat her wings against the wall. She flapped around the empty room, frantically searching for a way to follow her Pharaoh and friend.

“Bab! Baaab! Where are you? Baaab! . . . Bab?”

Prong stopped wailing and blinked. She’d come full circle, back to the man Bab thought was his dad. Beside him, there was now a new painting: a twelve-year-old boy with spiky hair, wide-eyed with astonishment.

Bab had turned into a hieroglyph.

It looked just like the real Bab but pointier, and painted. And there was one crucial difference – he had no Pharaoh’s Beard on his chin.

Prong looked down.

The Beard lay discarded on the floor.