Egyptian Curse. Chris Blake

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      Tom was wondering whether the words ‘ill tides do flow’ and ‘breach the bank’ had anything to do with the River Nile, when a gruff voice shouted, “You two! Get over here and stop slacking!”

      Swinging round, Tom spotted a short man with a bald head and an enormous pot belly that hung over his loincloth. In his hand was a large whip.

      “Somebody’s been eating more than his fair share of cake,” Isis giggled.

      With the pot-bellied foreman cracking his whip at their heels, Tom and Isis were forced to join a group of workers pulling a sledge across rolling logs. The sledge held a giant lump of stone.

      Tom grabbed the rope.

      “HEAVE!” the foreman yelled. His whip snapped on a worker’s back. “HEAVE!”

      The sledge hardly moved an inch, even with everyone pulling. Tom could feel the scratchy rope biting into his hands. To make matters worse, the sun blazed down on his head.

      “This is not a job for a princess!” Isis gasped.

      Crack! went the whip. “Get on with it, boy!” the foreman barked at her.

      Isis’s eyebrows bunched together. “Boy? I’m not a boy – I’m a princess. I’m going to teach that bully a lesson!” she hissed, throwing the rope to the ground.

      “No, Isis! Don’t—”

      Tom reached out to stop her, and lost his grip on the rope.

      “No!” he cried.

      Too late! Tom stumbled and several huge, muscly builders piled on top of him and Isis, as the entire line gave way. From underneath the mountain of workers, Tom spied a very angry-looking foreman.

      “You! Get over here!” he snarled at Tom, cracking his whip. “I’m going to give you the thrashing of your life!”

      

      Snap! The foreman’s whip whizzed through the air and cracked on the sand, right by Tom’s feet.

      “I don’t have time for weaklings!” the foreman shouted, grinning nastily.

      Tom braced himself for the whip’s sting. But suddenly a young man, dressed in a pleated loincloth, ran up to the foreman. He whispered urgently in his ear.

      The foreman frowned at Tom and Isis. “It’s your lucky day – I don’t have time to give you a beating. Get over to the old temple wall and help chisel off the picture of Aten!” He pointed at a stone building in the distance.

      Tom, Isis and Cleo ran off before he could change his mind.

      The temple was full of workers hacking away at a picture of a large disc carved into a lump of pink granite.

      “Yikes. That was close,” Tom said. “Who’s this Aten?”

      Isis shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said.

      One of the workers, who’d stopped chiselling to wipe his sweaty brow, looked at Isis and chuckled. He pointed to the disc.

      “This is Aten, silly!” he said. “The Sun God, of course.”

      “Nonsense!” Isis scoffed. “Everyone knows the Sun God and creator of all things is Ra! Amun-Ra!”

      “What? Where have you two been?” the man asked. “The whole reason we’re getting rid of this carving is because the old pharaoh made everyone worship just one god, Aten. His son, the new pharaoh, has gone back to worshipping the old gods – so there’s a lot of work for us changing all the temples back.”

      “Quite right,” Isis said, frowning at the giant carved disc. “Whoever heard of having just one god? How ridiculous!”

      Seeing a new foreman glaring at them, Tom and Isis each picked up a chisel and hammer and began chipping away at the rock. Even Cleo scratched at the carving СКАЧАТЬ