Snyder, Zilpha Keatley by The Egypt Game [txt] Read Free Book Online Page B

game. In the new part, Marshall finally got to be the young Pharoah, Marshamosis, again, and Elizabeth was the Queen, . April and Melanie were priestesses. First they were evil priestesses, leading Marshamosis and into the clutches of the wicked Set. And then they were priestesses of Isis coming to the rescue.
    That was about where they were in the Game, when something happened that almost put an end to ; and not to alone, but to all the outdoor games in the whole neighborhood. On that particular afternoon, the girls had built a dungeon out of cardboard boxes in the corner of the storage yard. Elizabeth and Marshall were languishing in the dungeon, tied hand and foot, victims of the priests of Set. April and Melanie were creeping cautiously from pillar to pillar in the Temple of Evil, on their way to the rescue. Melanie was crouching behind an imaginary pillar, when suddenly she straightened up and stood listening. In the dungeon Elizabeth heard it too, and quickly untied her bonds. April ran to help Marshall with his. They were really only kite string and knotted easily. From somewhere not too far away, perhaps the main alley behind the Casa Rosada, Mrs. Ross’s voice was calling, “Melanie! Mar-68

Prisoners of Fear
    shall! Melanie!” There was something about the tone of her voice that made Melanic’s eyes widen with fear.
    “Something’s wrong,” she said.
    “It’s too early,” April nodded. “She never gets home this early.”
    They scrambled through the hole in the fence and, dragging Marshall to hurry him up, they dashed for the main alley behind the Casa Rosada. From there they could safely answer without giving the location of Egypt away.
    Mrs. Ross met them near the back door of the apartment house. Even though they all clamored to know what was the matter, she only shook her head and said, “There’s been some trouble in the neighborhood. April, you and Elizabeth come up to our apartment until your folks get home.”
    Of course they were all terribly curious, but Mrs. Ross wouldn’t say any more. “We’ll wait to discuss it until we have the facts,” she said. “What I know right now amounts only to rumors. There may not be any truth in the story at all.”
    It occurred to all of them, though, that the rumors had been frightening enough to make Mrs. Ross cancel her after-school remedial reading class-which she almost never did-and come home early. And Melanie noticed a strangeness in her voice and that her hand shook as she put milk and cookies on the table. It had to be something serious.
    By the next day it was common knowledge. A little girl who lived in the neighborhood had been killed. She hadn’t gone to Wilson School, so April and Melanie had barely known her, but her home was only a few blocks away from the Casa Rosada. Like all children in the neighborhood, and in all neighborhoods for that matter, she had been warned about strangers-but she must have forgotten. She had been on her way to the drugstore-the very one where April had purchased her eyelashes-in the early evening, and she had never returned. The next day her body had been found in the marshland near the bay.
    It was a terrible and shocking thing. But there was something else, another circumstance, that made it even more terrifying and threatening to the parents of the neighborhood. It had happened before. Almost a year before a little boy from the same area had disappeared in almost the same way; and the police were saying that it looked as if the guilty person were a resident of the neighborhood.
    As the days passed and no arrests were made, fear and suspicion grew and spread in all directions; and a great silence began to settle over Orchard Avenue and the streets and alleys on either side.
    Twice a day a few children could be seen walking to and from school, but they went quickly and in larger groups than usual; and many other parents arranged car pools, even for children who had only a
    few blocks to walk. Afternoons and