Mummy by Caroline B. Cooney Read Free Book Online Page A

in need of a bathroom to have to wait till the floor dried. Perhaps tonight there would be no cleaning crew.
    I can take the mummy tonight, thought Emlyn.
    There were about seventy-five people at the meeting which was seventy more than Emlyn would have expected to show up. She saw no guards. They must be around but keeping a low profile. You did not want potential donors to feel they were not trusted.
    She wondered if Dr. Brisband would recognize her. She doubted it. On the other hand, people who loved publicity and people who gathered donors (and Dr. Brisband must be both) had to be excellent at remembering names and faces.
    Well, he had never known her name, but he might know her face.
    With a sinking heart, Emlyn realized that she had given a name to the secretary. Regrettably, she did not remember the fake name she had given.
    Wonderful, thought Emlyn. Brilliant strategist cannot even recall name.
    She distracted herself by estimating the age of the other people at the meeting. She was the youngest by fifty or sixty years. The rest of the Friends looked as though they never remembered their names, either.
    Should she pretend to be the same Girl Reporter she had been during her last pass through the museum? She had her notebook. She would have to be sure nobody saw the pages mapping grille locations.
    Harris Brisband looked wonderful. Tall and elegantly slim, in a starched pale yellow shirt and a charcoal jacket woven through with an occasional red thread. His bow tie was bright and jaunty. He was definitely in love with his microphone. Emlyn could always tell when a person was crazy about the sound of his own voice.
    “We are not a small, unknown city,” said Dr. Brisband, “and we should not have a small, unknown museum. We, tonight—you and I—are setting a new goal and heading in a new direction. We in this city must rise to the same rank as Cleveland’s great art museum or Baltimore’s!”
    Emlyn did not think it sounded particularly exciting to be Cleveland or Baltimore.
    “Our museum must cry out!” said Dr. Brisband, taut with excitement. The excitement looked real to Emlyn. Dr. Brisband was proud of this building, and all that was within it, and all that was to come. He was the kind of speaker who made eye contact with every person in his audience, drawing them into his arms and heart, and hoping also to draw their checkbooks.
    Emlyn never looked away from a teacher’s gaze, but she looked straight into her lap and pretended to be taking notes for her article about the museum when Dr. Brisband turned toward her.
    “Our museum must tell the world: We have great art! We have magnificent sculpture! We have history and beauty and truth!”
    Oh, that’ll bring high school students by the carload, thought Emlyn.
    She gazed up at the ceiling of the Great Hall, where the gold glinted back and the tiny windows were shiny from the night sky. The folding chairs were delightful old things: wooden slats and learner seats, and each seat back had a neat little learner pillow, like a dentist’s chair, so you could rest your neck as you gritted your teeth. Emlyn rested her neck.
    “Very few of the artifacts we possess are on display,” said Harris Brisband. “We have so many things in storage. It’s a crime. Boxes and crates of fine artifacts, none of which you have ever seen. Or ever will, unless we raise the money to increase our staff and expand our exhibit potential.” He paused, and when he spoke again his voice had changed dramatically. “However, no matter how much money we require, we must honor the will and the intent of the founder of this museum. We must never be unworthy of his trust.”
    Emlyn slid into a coma.
    What was she going to do with this mummy after she took it?
    Suppose she got out of here, mummy in hand. Then what? The mummy was large and stiff. Emlyn lived in an apartment building where dozens of tenants used the same front door. They would notice her. At any hour of the day or night, the