The desert was silent. The storm clouds overhead had disappeared.

The Prof patted her wiry eyebrows. “My own eyebrows!” she beamed. “I still have my favourite face. Perhaps part of the Void is still active?”

Bab sat up and checked himself in the blazing sunlight.

Still made of stone, he thought. Dammit. And Dad’s still painted on my belly.

The good news was, he’d shrunk back to his normal size.

Bab looked around for the pyramid and saw it looming nearby. With a deafening squelch, all its bricks squeezed and stretched. The hieroglyphs bloomed and blurred, like fresh paintings splashed with water.

Then suddenly they faded, the bricks became solid, and the trapped people vanished.

The pyramid’s purple glow died away, and its walls became blank stone. It sat still, looking pretty much like its former self, only a bit melted and slumped to one side.

“The pyramid’s not quite in the same spot it used to be,” Bab observed.

“Tourists won’t mind, though,” Richard pointed out. “It’s closer to the bus stop.”

The Prof turned to Bab. “It’s finally done,” she said. Her voice sounded feeble. “The Beard is gone, and the Spongy Void along with it. It’s just as Osiris said, the Void existed only until my project was complete. The trapped people have returned to the times from which they came.”

Bab frowned. “You said part of it’s still active, Mum. That’s us – Dad and I are still sponge-stone. I think we became a separate Void-chunk when the Beard pulled us out.”

Richard adjusted his painted shorts. “I take it this wasn’t part of your plan, was it, Susan? Us getting yanked out of the Void and Egypt’s greatest pyramid becoming a nose?”

Susan sighed. “Of course not, Richie.”

Bab felt bewildered. “How much of Mum’s plan did you know, Dad?”

“Nothing much till you were six, Bab,” Richard said. “Do you remember which cake you wanted that year?”

Bab sure did. His mum and dad had always thrown him very cool birthdays, letting him choose an Egyptian-themed cake each year. He’d ordered a pyramid for his third birthday, a Tutankhamen cake when he turned four, and a mummy when he was five.

When his sixth birthday was coming up, he’d requested a cake shaped like Osiris. “Boss of the gods!” he’d said.

“I panicked when you asked for that, Babby,” his mum said. “I thought something awful might happen to you in your Osiris year. That night I told Richie everything, all about my long life and the Spongy Void.”

“I was so surprised,” said Richard, “I nearly leaped out of my shorts. Me, married to an ancient sorceress! A lovely funny one, sure, but still. And I got very cross about Osiris. How dare he trick your mum like that? And threaten to take away our son!”

Bab could guess the rest. “I know you, Dad. I bet you gave Osiris a piece of your mind, am I right?”

“Bingo, pardon my French. Your mum and I didn’t want to lose you. So I snuck off to the Abydos temple and summoned Osiris myself. I handed him a cucumber to butter him up, ’cos he’s a god of plants, and then I said, ‘Oi, Greenie. You want the life of Susan’s son? Well that’s me. I’m Susan’s son. I realise we look the same age, but she’s been mucking about with lifespans, as you well know. So take my life. Take me, leave her be, and your bargain’s done!’”

Oh, man, Bab thought. My dad sacrificed himself for me.

“Problem was, the green nitwit didn’t believe me for a second,” Richard continued. “He dragged me to the Spongy Void and threw me in for trying to mess with his ‘rules’. Told me our son’s life would be taken no matter what. So I’ve held a pretty major grudge against him ever since, pardon my French.”

Bab frowned. “But Mum, you said Dad took a team to the Void and vanished inside.”

“A little white lie to protect you from a world of gods and magic, Bab,” she said with a sad smile.

“I see. But I found that world anyway.”

Bab’s mum tapped on Richard’s hieroglyph. “I’m still furious with you for rushing off that day, Richie. And I love you for it too. You’re infuriatingly loveable!”

Richard adjusted his wide-brimmed hat and grinned. “Yes, well. So are you, love!”

Bab was just starting to feel a bit better when he sensed a stirring of icy breeze.

FWISK-A-FRISSSH!

Prof Sharkey dived aside as a vast tangle of reeds and branches and mud appeared. An old, tired-looking man in a knobby white hat stood amid the growth.

“Ugh,” Bab moaned. “Osiris! Talk about a stick in the mud.”

Something told Bab this would be Osiris’s nastiest visit yet.