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Overview
As Emily considers how shell spend her time on this years summer vacation, her father presents her with a very interesting prospect. Mr. Witherspoon, a very important man, is on his way, and he may have a surprise in store for her. Al-though he doesnt look very important when he arrives, Mr. Witherspoon offers Emily the chance to embark on the adventure of a lifetimeif her mother agrees, that is.
Unsure at first, Emily finally summons her courage and sets off on a voyage of mystery, danger, and discovery with Mr. Witherspoon to uncover the hidden secrets of Arabias ancient ruins. Their journey leads them to the lost Egyptian city of Urguphome to an ancient pyramid with inner chambers full of jeweled statues and lost history.
But she and her companions are not alone on their search. A band of shady thieves is out to claim the riches of lost city, and they will stop at nothing to learn the whereabouts of her discovery.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781475937633 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 08/03/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 112 |
| File size: | 311 KB |
| Age Range: | 9 - 12 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
EMILY and the Lost City of Urgup
An Adventure in ArabiaBy Gerry Hotchkiss
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 Gerry HotchkissAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-3762-6
Chapter One
To Be Made A Fool Of* * *
Emily Darrow lived in a small New England town. It had a college where her father was a Professor of English and her mother was the town's librarian. So it was not a surprise that her house was full of books. Books were found in virtually every room of the house, even the bathroom. Where there were no books there were newspapers and magazines.
"Mom," Emily said to her mother, "do you know what my friends call our house? "Emily's bookends", because we have wall to wall books."
"Well, it's better than being called the house of the do-nothings," her mother replied. School had just ended for the summer and her mother was preparing dinner. "Would you add another chair to the dining room table, Dad's invited some old Professor to dinner." "A roommate of your grandfather's when he was at college," she went on. "By the way, take off those scruffy blue shorts and purple shirt and put on your Liberty Lawn dress with the white collar, it goes so well with your blue eyes and hair. Emily's father called it "dirty brown", which she hated. Her hair wasn't dirty, just a mixture of blonde and brunette colors. Emily had on her dreamy look, as though she were gazing off at some far distance, as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom. Her mother would say, "Emily's in another world." She changed clothes. Her dress came down four inches from the floor and showed off her new white sandals, shoes that were both comfortable and practical. She was the second tallest girl in her classroom and still growing.
"With school out, what shall I do this summer?" Emily mused. New England summers always started out well, but by August the hot sun and the long days never ended. By then, she couldn't wait to get back to school and see all of her friends.
"Well hello, my favorite girl, why the pensive look?" asked her father as he walked into the house. "I was just thinking about what to do this summer," she answered, giving her father a big hug and squeeze until he pretended to be out of breath.
"If your mother agrees, I may have a great surprise in store for you this summer," her father told her, "but it will have to wait until Witherspoon arrives." "Witherspoon?" she asked. "He is a very special man, you might even say a very great man and you will meet him soon," her father relied.
Emily wanted to know the secret her father wouldn't mention but she bit her tongue and helped her mother set the table for five people. Her mother and father, her baby brother, Seth, and the very important person, Mr. Witherspoon.
When he arrived, he certainly didn't look important, If the truth were known, he looked sort of seedy. He took off an old crumpled hat and his white hair sat on the top of his head going this way and that way. He was skinny so the collar of his shirt sagged away from his neck and he had a small mustache that covered his upper lip and below that not much of a chin at all. His tweed coat hung loosely and his arms hung well beneath the cuffs of the coat. His shoes needed polishing unlike Emily's father who kept them as shiny as when he was a marine in the Great War.
A small pair of glasses covered most of Mr. Witherspoon's eyes, but when he looked straight at Emily, the smile on his face, the twinkle in his eyes, the energy that seemed to explode from his trim frame captured Emily by surprise. She seemed overwhelmed. He seemed full of joy!
"You must be the Emily I have heard so much about from your granddad," he noted. "I am Professor Ernest G. Witherspoon, your most humble servant." What could Emily say after such a strange introduction. She put out her hand which was clasped into what Emily felt was a very strong grip, indeed. So she squeezed back as hard as she could. The professor laughed.
Before dessert, when coffee was being served, Emily's dad got up, went into the den and returned with a sheaf of papers. "Sarah, please come and sit down," he said to her mother. "Professor Witherspoon has something special to propose to us."
"Ernest, please, Ernest," said the professor. Then he went on, "as you know, I am an archaeologist, having spent my lifetime studying ancient civilizations. Early this year I received an invitation from a colleague of mine in Egypt to come to Arabia and look for what we believe to be important lost cities. I plan to be there from the middle of June until August 15th, two months. And I would like to take Emily along with me."
"Emily?" queried her mother. "A twelve year old is to go away, across half the world, with an almost sixty year old man I have never met before, for two whole months." "Is this some sort of joke?" she went on.
Emily's father had heard how abrupt Professor Witherspoon was known to be, but he hadn't expected him to offer quite that simple an explanation. "Sarah," he said, "let me elaborate, if I may." "This idea isn't some sort of last minute concoction. Ernest and my dad and I have talked about it for months. The Middle East is the beginning of our civilization, our culture, our art, and our writing. You know how Emily is always being teased by her friends about the books and magazines and newspapers that clutter this house. Here is a golden opportunity for her to see how it all started. The very roots of our love of literature."
He had reached the core of Emily's mother's heart and soul.
"Put yourself at Emily's age. Wouldn't you have died for such an opportunity?" he added.
He had angled out the perfect fly for Sarah. Now he had to wait and see if she would take it and then be very careful pulling her into his net. "Okay, let's talk about it," she said.
Emily was confused. She had always been told not to go out with any stranger and Professor Witherspoon was certainly a stranger to her. The trip to Arabia sounded so exciting. What could she do?
She remembered the stories of knights from foreign lands who wanted to marry a king's daughter. The knights had to perform all sorts of tests to win her hand. She decided that if the Professor wanted to take her on the trip, he would have to pass four tests. Skipping rope, jacks, hop scotch and, she thought for a minute, a brain test, 'I packed my grandmother's trunk'.
She proposed the tests to Professor Witherspoon. He looked at her with a bemused and quizzical face. "You will discover, Emily, that I am not the most coordinated person you may have the pleasure of knowing. But I shall try my best."
She went to her bedroom and in the closet underneath shoes and books and clothes she hadn't put away properly she found a jumping rope and a set of jacks. They went out side. "The first test," announced Emily, "will be the Jumping Rope Test." "Watch me." She jumped 'one, two' on both feet and then "three, four' on first her right and then her left foot. Professor Witherspoon tried but the rope was too short and it hit the back of his neck.
"Jacks, will be the second test," Emily decided. She rolled the jacks in a tight grouping on the sidewalk by her house. She tossed the small red ball up in the air, picked up one jack and caught the ball. Then she gave it to the professor. He tossed the ball so high it bounced off the limb of a maple tree overhead and landed in the gutter of her house, rolled down a gutter pipe and into the prickly bushes. By the time they found some work gloves in the garage to use to get the ball out of the prickers, Emily decided to move on to test three, Hop Scotch.
She went up stairs to Seth's room where he had a blackboard on a stand. She found a piece of chalk and scampered back down, outside to the sidewalk. She drew a pattern of squares on the sidewalk then looked around for a small flat stone. Explaining the game to the professor, she tossed the stone onto a square and then, on one leg, hopped onto another square and bending over on one leg retrieved the stone. The professor's turn came next. He took the stone in his hand. It disappeared between has long fingers and thumb. Then he flipped it like a marble and it sailed out of sight. This happened with three other stones and Emily gave up the test.
There was only one test left and so far the professor had not passed even one of the others. She explained that she and the professor would "pack my grandmother's trunk' with either fruits or vegetables starting with the letter 'A' and going through the alphabet ending with "Z". Each person had to remember all the fruits and vegetables. She started. "I packed my grandmother's trunk and in it I placed an apple." He went on, "I packed my grandmother's trunk and in it I placed an apple and a banana." When Emily got to the letter I, she seemed stuck. She said timidly, knowing the answer wasn't exactly proper, "Idaho potato. "Well done," said the professor. This surprised Emily; her father would have protested that answer.
His letter 'J' was jicama which was sounded with an 'H', not a 'J' He explained that jicama was a tuberous root of the pea family and when eaten raw in salads in the Southwest tasted quite sweet. They continued on. Emily was astounded how quickly the professor rattled off the fruits and vegetables in a staccato voice without ever pausing to remember one. But he got the letter 'X'. The dreaded letter. Even her father lost when he got 'X'. He paused, as if he were reading the dictionary in his mind. "Aha," he said, "although I am not sure this is really proper." Then he added 'xanthan gum', a natural gum used by companies to stabilize manufactured foods.
Finally he got 'Z', the other tough letter. "Zinfandel," he completed the alphabet proudly, explaining it was a black grape used in making wine. Emily beamed. Not because he finally passed one of her tests. Rather that in each she had learned more and more about this older friend of her grandfather's. He was awkward and he was shy. But he was modest and incredibly bright and most important of all, he was so kind and gentle and thoughtful. He had all the attributes one would wish for in a friend.
Even her mother was taken by the professor. Watching him attempt to pass her daughter's tests without ever being condescending, she saw a wonderful teacher.
The professor outlined the trip. He and Emily would sail on the lie de France from Boston to Le Havre on the 15th of June. The sailing would take six days. From there they would take a train to Marseilles to board a smaller boat of the French Line and sail to Beirut in Lebanon. Professor Dasam would meet them there to arrange the rest of the journey.
To insure that Emily used the time to good advantage, the professor had hired a Madam Babbette Boissiere to instruct her in French, which was the main language of the Levant, although they would for the most part be in Arabia.
Sarah looked at her daughter, her eager eyes, her imploring face. How could she deny Emily a trip of a lifetime.' "All right," she said, "but Ernest, if anything happens to Emily I will go to the farthest corner of the globe, put you in stocks in the middle of the Boston Commons for everyone to mock you. Do you understand me." Emily had never heard her mother talk like that. Even her father looked totally surprised. "A little over-dramatic, but I think the professor understands your feelings, Sarah," he commented.
"What are stocks?" Emily asked. "It means, dear girl, should I not return you safe and sound, your mother will have me placed with my face and hands and feet sticking out through wooden holes in a fence, to be made a fool of by every person passing by," Witherspoon answered.
Even her mother was embarrassed by his description.
Chapter Two
"You Naughty Boy"* * *
The days flew by as Emily prepared for her summer in Arabia with Professor Witherspoon. Her father bought her a large steamer trunk and her mother packed her clothes for two months. The days would be hot, so she had shorter skirts and cotton blouses and socks that would go up to her knees. The nights would be cold, so she had warm woolen nightgowns, sweaters, long dresses and full length sleeves on her blouses. She even had a hat with an very large brim that was wider than her shoulders. Her mother said it was to keep the sun off her pale face.
She also packed several quarts of maple syrup as presents to Professor Dasam and Madam Boissiere. Her dad said that they would enjoy them because there were no maple trees in that part of the world. Emily thought about that - how sad not to see the glorious colors of Fall when the maple trees turned every color of yellow and orange and red.
The day before the ship left, Emily and her father and Professor Witherspoon drove to Boston and stayed at an elegant hotel called the Ritz Carleton. Her mother stayed at home with Seth and when she hugged and kissed Emily goodbye, Emily could feel a shudder and gasp in her mother's voice as she whispered, "I love you, my dearest, and I shall count the days until you come home."
Boston was so much bigger than Emily's town. Around the Commons there were several churches, hotels, stables for horses, garages for automobiles, a pond with swans and a place to rent row boats. Do you know why they call this area the "Commons"? Professor Witherspoon asked and then answered. "Originally this was common land for all the people of Boston to feed their sheep and goats and cows. Later on when the number of citizens of Boston were too many for all of them to use the Commons, they made it a park.
At ten o'clock the following morning, Emily and Professor Witherspoon boarded the great French liner called the Ile de France. They were traveling "Cabin Class" which was the middle of three classes of state rooms on the boat. The top was called "First Class" and it was reserved for the very richest travelers. The bottom was called "Third Class, which was the least expensive and popular with students and poor families returning home.
As Emily entered her stateroom, she smelled an elegant perfume and turned to her left to see before the most beautiful older woman she had ever met. Her silver hair was piled high into an unusual knot, the lashes of her eyes twice the size of Emily's mother's, outlining large brown eyes. She had high rouged cheekbones and bright red lipstick which should have looked garish but didn't on this lady. Her one detraction was her size. She was hardly taller than Emily
"Emilie, ah mon chere," she said. "I am Madam Babbette Boissiere, but you shall call me Madam Bibi." "It is now 10:45 AM and your first French lesson will begin at 11:30 AM so that we can lunch at the last sitting at 2:15 PM like civilized persons." With that Madam Bibi left the state room. "Civilized persons," thought Emily. She had never eaten lunch that late in her life and she did not appreciate Madam Bibi's suggestion that she and her mother and father were uncivilized.
Nevertheless, at 11:30 Am sharp Madam Bibi arrived at the state room and took Emily to another room for her lessons. "This is the card room," Madam Bibi explained, "but it is not used before the afternoon so it will be our classroom." Emily has never studied a foreign language before and had not the faintest idea how the studies would be done. She soon learned. Like English there were verbs and nouns and all of the other words that modified them but there was much more which Madam Bibi taught with the most engaging manner. She would always place her French in some context of Emily's life or what she approved of for Emily's life.
After lunch, there was a short nap followed by lessons so that they would also eat dinner at 10:00 PM "like civilized persons". Even Professor Witherspoon accepted the Madam's dictates. As he told Emily aside, "you know the French are famous for their cooking."
Not only was lunch and dinner eaten quite late, but Madam Bibi had strict ideas of what "civilized persons" ate. Much of it Emily loved, but when she discovered that she was eating the brains or the pancreas or even the intestines of an animal, she lost her appetite and asked to be excused one evening.
"Ah, Professor," said Madam Bibi, "you Americans have such limited minds, such peasant tastes, such lack of adventure in food." "I suppose you could call us "meat and potatoes," he answered, "and please call me Ernest." "Ah, we shall change that, mon chere Ernest," she replied. "There is a dance this evening. Would you care to escort me?" she went on.
Professor Witherspoon was flabbergasted. Such brazen behavior to almost force him into dancing. Outrageous. He looked at Bibi, who gave him her best fluttering eyelashes, and said, "I would be delighted."
Having gone to bed without supper, Emily found herself very hungry. She peered out of her state room just as a porter was passing. "May I do something for you, miss?" he asked. Emily explained how she had not dined and was hungry. "We can fix that," he answered. "Put on your shoes and follow me." They went past the dining room into a large ballroom with chandeliers lit with hundreds of lights, chairs in plush red fabrics, tables filled with candles and glasses of wine. Couples were dressed in black tie and evening gowns, either talking at the tables or dancing.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from EMILY and the Lost City of Urgup by Gerry Hotchkiss Copyright © 2012 by Gerry Hotchkiss. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Chapter One: To Be Made A Fool Of....................1Chapter Two: "You Naughty Boy"....................9
Chapter Three: A Pyramid....................18
Chapter Four: The Colour of Kidnappers....................25
Chapter Five: The Reign of Hotemhotem....................29
Chapter Six: The Missing Stones....................36
Chapter Seven: Double Trouble....................42
Chapter Eight: No Honor Among Thieves....................46
Chapter Nine: A Lesson in History....................50
Chapter Ten: A Little White Lie....................55
Chapter Eleven: Emily's Falcons....................63
Chapter Twelve: We Have a Plan....................67
Chapter Thirteen: Five Years in the Boiler Room....................72
Chapter Fourteen: The True Facts....................78
Chapter Fifteen: A Trick Overdone....................85
Chapter Sixteen: A Very Long Story....................90