Bab found himself back on the Beard Travelator, back in his stone body with his dad painted on his stomach. And gee, his stomach hurt.

“Ow!” Bab cried.

He realised he’d just flung Osiris’s atef off his head. The fancy white hat plummeted down through the clouds below.

“Sorry, mate,” said Richard. He was clutching his archaeological scraper in his unfrozen arm. Bab realised his dad had jabbed it into his belly.

“What?” Bab spluttered. “Why did you do that, Dad? My life as Shoshan wasn’t finished. What happens next?”

Osiris stood tall on the Beard Travelator. His voice boomed through the Egyptian sky. “What did I say about breaking my rules, Richard Sharkey? How dare you stop my thrilling helmet story!?”

“I had to snap him out of it,” Richard said. “Bab mustn’t see any more of that story. He’s seen enough to know what the Void’s all about. Why put him through the rest of it?”

Osiris heaved an ancient, tired wheeze. “He must learn to appreciate the rules. As must you!”

He narrowed his eyes at Richard and dived headfirst into Bab’s stone belly. Bab gasped as he felt himself absorb Osiris, who became a second painted figure moving about on his belly.

Osiris whipped his painted flail and froze Richard’s legs in green ice.

SCRIPP!

“That’s one arm and two legs, Richard Sharkey,” said the green god. “Break another rule and I’ll freeze your head, making you a permanent hieroglyph.”

I do not like this green bully, thought Bab.

Richard harrumphed. “You may be a god, Greenie, but now you’re a hieroglyph like me. And I still have my archaeological scraper!”

Richard began scraping Osiris’s green face. The god’s paint flaked away into the sky.

“What are you doing!?” roared Osiris.

“What’s your problem?” asked Richard, scraping madly. “Is there a rule against scraping painted gods?”

“No,” admitted Osiris. “I didn’t think of that particular situation.”

“And you know what, Osiris?” Bab yelled at his tummy. “I didn’t ‘escape the spongy stone’ anyway. I’m still in stone, so I didn’t even break your Void Rules!”

“Another good point,” Osiris admitted. “Haargh, that hurts! Stop it!”

“Then leave us be,” demanded Richard, “or I’ll scrape every last green flake off you!”

By now, Richard had indeed removed most of Osiris’s head and shoulders. “Oh, very well,” Osiris snapped. “I have too many new rules to think up, I don’t have time to sit around being scraped!”

Defeated, the painted Osiris faded away like a gust of wind.

The chill in Bab’s blood disappeared and the Beard Travelator started moving again.

“Pity,” honked Prong, “I was hoping to get his gardening tips.” And she flapped off ahead.

Bab’s dad winced at his frozen legs and sighed. “Sorry, Bab. I just don’t want you any more hurt than you are already.”

Bab couldn’t help smiling at Richard. “Dad? That. Was. Awesome. Standing up to the boss of the gods armed with nothing but a scraper. Not bad at all.”

Richard shrugged as if it were nothing.

“The life I lived inside that hat,” Bab went on. “That’s the life of the Unpharaoh’s twin, isn’t it? The . . . Secret Sister?”

“It’s a corker, don’t you think? Well, not all of it. Especially not the brain-sucking part, I’m not fond of that.”

“So you know the story too, Dad?” Bab asked quietly.

His dad nodded. “Some of it, anyway.”

“Why can’t you tell me what happens next?”

Richard’s free hand rapped on Bab’s tummy, hard. “Bab! The Beard Travelator!”

Bab gasped. He looked up and saw that the Beard Travelator ended a short distance ahead, still high in the clouds.

“Prong!” he cried.

The Ibis Mummy was hovering just ahead of the truncated Beard. “The Tomb of the Jackals is directly below,” she honked cheerily.

“But the travelator just ends, Prong. It needs to slope down to the ground!”

“It’s okay, Bab. I’ve become so fit on this treadmill, I’m strong enough to fly you down now.”

“You’d better be,” replied Bab. “Whooaaa!”

The hairy moving walkway sent the stone Bab straight off the end. Prong seized his head in her talons . . . and immediately dropped him.

“Oh,” she honked as she watched Bab plummet into the darkness. “I guess I’m not fit enough yet. Hold on, I’ll run another lap!”