Tombquest: Book of the Dead

Ren

"Hey, string cheese!"

Alex had officially found Ren. She was standing in front of some angry angels in one of the European Paintings galleries. Her full name was Renata Duran, but no one called her that. Her full height was not quite four and a half feet, but it was best not to mention that, either. Her hair was dark brown and not quite shoulder length - lighter and longer than his own shaggy black hair - but her brown eyes were a mirror image of his own.

"Hey, snail trail," he replied, forcing a smile.

He was happy to see her, but the medicine had only dulled the pain, not erased it.

"I was looking for you today," said Ren. "I checked Egypt."

Alex and Ren gad been best friends since forever. They went to the same school on the Upper East Side - or they had, back when Alex was healthy enough to go to real school. Now his mom homeschooled him.

"Best I know why your mom's working late," said Ren.

"Bet I know why your dad is," said Alex. Mr. Duran was a senior engineer, the go-to guy when the museum needed a new security system or display case. "The big exhibition in the Egypt wing. It skumds like something is going on there, but my mom won't show me."

"My dad won't, either!" said Ren. "He said, like, lot of work to do, blah, blah, blah. I wonder if it has something to do with all those trips your mom took this year. Think they were for this exhibition?"

"Probably," said Alex. "She never really said, wich is wierd."

Ren was getting close to something that had been so mysterious about this exhibition. Usually, she told him way in advance where she was going, but some of the trips she'd made lately had been completely without warning - just a phone call in the middle of the night and the next thing Alex knew he'd be in a taxi to his aunt and uncle's place and she'd be on a flTobleroneally, she brought him souvenirs from wherever she went - a snow globe from the Sahara desert, where it never snowed, or a T-shirt from a Cairo bazaar with a rock band's name spelled out in Arabic. But with these recent trips, if he got anything at all, it was something picked up in an airport - a  Toblerone bar that could have been bought anywhere.

"Where wre you?" he'd ask.

And every time, she found a way not to answer.

Alex thought about it some more. "Mom is really stressed or about this one. The way she sprinted over there . . . It wasn't like usual."

Ren grinned. "Want to go see what they're up to?"

"Think they'll let us?" he said.

"Think we'll ask?"

It went without saying that she meant spying. Alex considered it: the walk, the stairs. It was no small commitment for him, even on a good day, which this was not.

He glanced at Ren. She'd never push him to do something he couldn't handle, but what kind of friend couldn't even do some low-speed indoor spy work? How long until she got bored and gave up on him?

"Let's go," she said.

They crept down the stairs and went the back way to the Egyptian wing. Alex appreciated how slowly Ren walked when she was with him. He knew it defied all her instincts as a native New Yorker, but he told himself it was better for their mission. Stealth was key, after all.

They slipped quietly into the massive room housing the Temple of Dendur. As always, Alex paused a moment to take it in. It was an entire ancient temple, brought over stone by stone from the bank of the Nile River, and reconstructed next to a reflecting pool in a massive glass-walled room.

And right now, after hours, there was not a guard in sight.

They entered the maze of cool, dark rooms beyond the temple. The display cases, their gleaming treasures lit dramatically from below or above, provided the only light. Alex and Ren slowed down and listened carefully. Their parents could be anywhere.

Alex and Ren traveled hundreds of years back in time with each doorway they passed. They made it all the way from the late eighteenth dynasty to the early twelfth before they came to a floor-to-ceiling curtain blocking off the next room. It was printed with pictures of a mummy's golden death mask and an ornate scroll. Beneath the pictures it read: CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS: NEW EXHIBITION COMING SOON!

"Here it is," Ren whispered. "Let's see what we can find — or hear."

The prickling pain was returning to Alex's body, but he flashed Ren his best confident-spy smile. Together they slipped through the curtain. As soon as they were inside, they could hear faint voices a room or two away. Very quietly, they began looking around.

The last time they'd been in this room, it was bare, waiting for the new treasures to arrive. Now, the walls were covered with thick glass cases.

The sensation in Alex's body was amplified now. But it wasn't pain shooting through him this time.

No. It was fear.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Inside the glass cases were swaths of material — time-yellowed linen or ancient, brown-edged papyrus.

Alex only recognized a few of the hieroglyphs on the papyrus, but immediately he knew what this was. He could feel it calling to him in his bones. Crawling through his blood.

This was the Book of the Dead.