The very next day, Mr Carter decided to ‘put the record straight’. He offered Mrs Mendoza and Alex an exclusive interview, the only condition being that no children should be present. I was very glad to hear it: frankly, I’d had enough of his stories. In a hired room at the Winter Palace, Mr Carter came clean about what he called their ‘preliminary viewing’ of the tomb that night. He had, without meaning to, put a piece of ancient plasterwork in his jacket pocket. But that was all accounted for now, no harm done.
I imagined Mrs Mendoza and Alex furiously writing all this down in their notebooks. They were certainly pretty thrilled with their final story, which was wired not to Mr Pemberton at the Washington Post but to the Cairo Gazette. An Egyptian story deserved an Egyptian publication, Mrs Mendoza said.
Neither Lord Carnarvon nor Lady Evelyn took part in the interview. The exclusive deal they were pushing for was with The Times. According to Pepe, though, the real reason was that Mr Carter and Lord Carnarvon had been arguing over how best to clear the tomb.
All their good fortune came at a price.
You see, nobody, not even Mr Carter, had expected the tomb to be so jammed full of treasure. Bizarrely, by being such a rushed, un-royal-looking grave, Tutankhamun’s official resting place had remained untouched like no other tomb before it – not even Kyky’s. Mr Carter was very confident that when they opened the inner chamber, they’d find the young pharaoh’s remains intact.
We kept quiet about that.
Suffice to say the story in the Cairo Gazette made life difficult for Mr Carter. The call for more Egyptian involvement in the dig grew, and Mr Carter, stubborn as the donkeys he rode, locked the gate on the dig and declared the excavation season over until spring. Things were definitely not going to plan. Or, as Pepe put it, ‘Tutankhamun’s curse has turned its sights on Mr Carter at last.’
*
When Mrs Mendoza announced it was time for us to go home, I was both excited and apprehensive. I’d had no more news about Grandad, so I wasn’t sure what exactly I’d find when I got to London. There were farewells to say, to three old friends now together in their little clifftop tomb, and to three new ones – Pepe, Charlie and Chaplin, who’d made me think about many things, including camels, in a whole different light. Tulip sobbed like a baby saying goodbye to Chaplin.
‘I’ll write,’ she promised him. The look on Pepe’s face was a picture.
On our very last evening, when everyone else had gone to bed, I stayed up on deck by myself. As I lay there, listening to the river lapping gently against the boat’s hull, I heard a rustling coming from the reeds on the riverbank. I sat up just in time to see a dog creep to the water’s edge. It was only a couple of feet away. Close enough to touch.
I could see it wasn’t a normal dog. It was bigger and quieter than the mangy strays from the town, and its ears stuck up on the top of its head like the Anubis on Kyky’s jar. I wondered if it might be a jackal. I hoped it was – it felt right that it should be, somehow.
As the jackal started drinking, I kept absolutely still. Then it heard something in the distance and its head went up. It saw me watching it. For the tiniest moment, we stared right at each other, before it turned tail and vanished.
I’d like to think it was a sign that the gods of ancient Egypt were protecting Kyky. Despite all Mr Carter’s digging and cataloguing, the real Tutankhamun finally was free.
*
Six and a half days later we were home. London was upon us all too quickly. In the suburbs we passed acres and acres of new houses being built. After Cairo, the view from the window as we came into St Pancras station was grey, cold, dreary. Yet there were Christmas lights twinkling prettily in all the shops, and a definite cosiness to all the lamp-lit windows and smoking chimney pots. Dear London: how I loved it. I was glad to be back.
Mrs Mendoza had wired ahead to say we were returning. And there they were, both Mum and Dad, waiting at the ticket barrier. They had on their best coats and hats, and their faces when they saw me coming made me well up with tears. I hesitated, though, when I spotted who else was there with them, wrapped up against the cold. Though he looked small and pale, it was definitely an improvement on when I’d last seen him in a hospital bed. Besides, I’d have known those twinkling blue eyes anywhere.
‘Grandad!’
I ran the last few yards, suitcase thumping against my leg. Grandad reached out his arms and I went straight into them. I buried my face deep into his coat. He smelled of old things and Nefertiti.
‘Oh, Lily!’ He hugged me tightly, drew away to look at me, hugged me again. Hands patted my shoulders; I heard Mum say my name, then Dad clear his throat. We were all having a bit of a cry.
There were more hugs, hands being shaken as the Mendozas joined us at the barrier. In the hustle and bustle of it all, I noticed Grandad go very still. He’d been pale before, but now the colour completely went from his face. I panicked, thinking he was about to collapse or something.
‘Do you need to sit down?’ I asked him.
But, it wasn’t that he was ill: he’d seen someone behind me, over my shoulder. I turned around, and there was Alex, looking every bit as startled himself.