Mummy by Caroline B. Cooney Read Free Book Online

later on Greeks and Romans who lived in Egypt, practiced mummification.
    X-rays showed who had been murdered (Tutankhamen) and who had had arthritis (Ramses).
    Dental studies proved that Egyptians ground their flour for bread with sand, and wrecked their teeth, and lived in pain.
    Emlyn felt the plump part of her palm beneath her thumb. Once a girl named Amaral, breathing the scent of the Nile, writing on papyrus, laughing among lotus blossoms—had also been happily planning her tomb and looking forward to death, when she could dry out like an apple core in the sun.
    And then, of course, the big treat—lying forever, staring at the ceiling of her pyramid.
    Ancient Egyptians.
    You could show up at that Egyptian Room every rainy Saturday for your whole childhood and not be any closer to understanding what these people had been thinking of.
    Emlyn was shocked to find that she had spent the entire afternoon leafing through children’s mummy books.
    She went to the pay phones on the lower level of the library where the little coffee shop and the magazine room were. She said hi to several high school friends. What if they knew what she was planning? Would they find her despicable? Or just a good ole classmate setting up a good ole class prank?
    She phoned the museum, which had recorded messages from which you could exit to more detailed explanations. It would certainly be a kick in the teeth if plans were made for a day on which they couldn’t get in to start with. Emlyn listened to every sentence of every choice.
    And that was a good timing, because the Friends of the Museum were having a meeting that very night. Emlyn glanced at her clothing. She did look like a person who might show up for a Friends’ meeting: tailored and academic.
    Her parents were members, but it was just for the get-in-free card; she could not recall that they ever actually attended anything, and they wouldn’t tonight, because her brothers’ school had its open house. Her parents would be rushing from room to room, trying to meet every science, math, language arts, history, music, phys. ed. teacher, and administrator. They would be saying to each other, Isn’t it wonderful that our daughter is a good girl and we never have to worry about her?
    When Emlyn called home, her younger brother answered, which was nice. He certainly never cared where his sister was, and all she had to say was, “Tell Mom and Dad I’ll be home by ten.”
    He said, “Sure,” and that was that.
    Next she hit the Internet, and as was often the case she was drowned in too much material. “Egypt” produced five hundred sites; “mummy” more than fifty. And because absolutely everything could be counted on to turn up on the Net, there was a site dealing with museum theft. Another site for Classical Antiquities Theft. Even a discussion of “movable cultural property.”
    Well, if she took Amaral, she would know where to look for insider updates.
    Skipping dinner gave Emlyn exactly enough time before the Friends’ meeting to go back to the children’s room and glance at The Children’s Guide to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
    Two sentences destroyed everything
    “As soon as the museum closes in the evening, cleaners get to work with mops and brooms and buffing machines. The cleaning goes on all night.”
    Emlyn had never dreamed that the museum would not be empty and silent at night. She had pictured hiding out in the ladies’ room until all staff and visitors were gone. But that was the first place a cleaning crew would go. They would go everywhere. And they’d have every light on, to see the dust by.
    Her museum was probably not a tenth the size of New York City’s famous museum. Certainly nobody had ever bothered to write a book about it. But cleaning was cleaning.
    She stopped off at a pizza counter and had a single slice of cheese pizza.
    Would Dr. Brisbane want some floor polisher whining during a Friends’ meeting? Surely he would not want an important Friend