Chapter 8

A Crowded Picnic

Bump, bump, bump … You don’t get nearly as smooth a ride on a golden litter as you do on a magic carpet, or even in a car. But it beats walking along a dry gully. Besides, these two girls came up behind us with great fans made of feathers and fanned us as we went.

It was the coolest thing you’ve ever seen!

‘They’re peacock feathers,’ said Bruce, as the fans gently brushed through the air and we were carried slowly through the bowing crowd.

I let the peacock feather breeze waft over me. It was hot here with the bare hills around us — that sun was fierce — and the breeze felt great.

‘Mmm,’ said Phredde. ‘This is a zillion times better than school!’

The litter wended (I used that word in my last essay and Mrs Olsen said it was really descriptive) its way through the crowd and down the gully, then between some cliffs, all high and rocky like some great beast had chewed them. And suddenly we were in open country.

It didn’t look like much, to be honest. I’d thought Ancient Egypt would look, you know, exciting looking. Just more red dirt and a few straggly dull green bushes, all twigs and thorns and hardly any leaves, and distant red hills on either side, and in front of us a green smudge that might be grass or trees (or even green carpet).

The crowd trudged after us, with old Sennufer leading them, and everyone walked and walked and it got hotter and hotter still, even with the fanners fanning so fast that I thought the peacock feathers would fall to bits, but they didn’t, and I could see the sweat rolling down the bearers’ muscles. I mean if I was hot, they must be burning up! And no one in the crowd was wearing a hat and I bet they hadn’t put on any sunblock either. (Mum would spiflicate me if I went without a hat and sunblock in that sort of heat.)

‘Stop!’ I yelled.

The bearers stopped. The fanners stopped. Old Sennufer stopped. The crowd behind us stopped too, then they all bowed down again.

Old Sennufer raced up to me. ‘You wish something, oh Gracious One?’

I liked that. I wondered if I could get my brother Mark to call me ‘Oh Gracious One’. Somehow I doubted it.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It’s HOT! Phredde, could you PING! up a lemonade for everyone? And a hat each too!’ I shook my head. ‘It’s almost like none of you have even heard of skin cancer!’

‘What’s skin cancer, oh, Wondrous Pru?’ queried Sennufer.

‘It’s when … oh, never mind.’ I didn’t feel like repeating Mum’s skin cancer lecture right now.

PING! Suddenly the whole crowd — bearers and all — held glasses of ice-cold lemonade and had hats on their heads.

‘Er, Phredde,’ I said.

‘Mmm?’ said Phredde. She was already drinking her lemonade.

‘Did you have to PING! them THAT sort of hat?’

‘You just said “hat”,’ said Phredde defensively. ‘You didn’t say what sort of hat.’

I gazed out at the sea of dark blue school caps with special neck-protection flaps at the back. ‘They just look a bit odd with those white things.’

‘Loin cloths,’ said Bruce.

‘Those loin cloths, then.’7

‘I can change them if you like,’ said Phredde helpfully.

I looked out at the crowd. Some of the people had bowed down again and some were tasting their lemonade or inspecting their hats like they were magic — well, yeah, I suppose they were magic — and all of them looked like they’d be REALLY unhappy if we took the hats away from them.

Sennufer’s eyes were so wide all his wrinkles had to crowd together. ‘Oh, Powerful One!’ he began, bowing down again. ‘Provider of Cool Drinks, Bringer of Blue Hats …’

‘Nah, it wasn’t me,’ I informed him. ‘It was my Official Phaery.’

‘It was nothing,’ said Phredde modestly, as Sennufer bowed to her too.

‘Hey, how about I get the chance to do the next bit of magic?’ protested Bruce. ‘I wouldn’t mind people bowing to me for a change!’

‘Be my guest!’ I said. ‘How about something to eat?’ It looked like being a long time till lunch.

PING! Suddenly a great horde of fat black flies was buzzing round our faces.

‘Bruce!’ I yelled. ‘Food that humans like! Not froggie tucker!’

‘Oops, sorry,’ croaked Bruce. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

PING! Six hundred iced watermelons, already chopped into slices, hovered in the air.

‘Now that’s more like it!’ I agreed, grabbing the first slice. I nodded at Sennufer and the bearers and the fanners and the crowd beyond. ‘Go on, tuck in.’

So they did.

It was all a bit like a birthday party, only without the birthday, and in Ancient Egypt. I’d thought that maybe a few people might have fainted from shock when the watermelon appeared, or at least screamed and had hysterics, like Mrs Sprout on the P & C Committee did when Phredde’s giant octopus got loose. (Phredde did her last term’s assignment on giant octopuses and, like she said, a real-live giant octopus looks much better than just sticking a picture of one onto the page.)

But I suppose everyone expected a Wondrous Heroine to be able to wave up sliced watermelon and hats and cold lemonade out of thin air.

Anyway, twelve thousand slices of watermelon later, we got under way again.