Read an Excerpt
An Excerpt from The Egypt Game
All through the month of August, Melanie and April were together almost
every day. They played the paper-families game and other games, both
in the Rosses' apartment and in Caroline's. They took Marshall for
walks and to the park while Mrs. Ross was gone to her class, and almost
every day they went to the library. It was in the library in August
that the seeds were planted that grew into the Egypt Game in September
in the Professor's deserted yard.
It all started when April found a new book about Egypt, an especially
interesting one about the life of a young pharaoh. She passed it on
to Melanie, and with it a lot of interest in all sorts of ancient
stuff. Melanie was soon as fascinated by the valley of the Nile as
April had been. Before long, with the help of a sympathetic librarian,
they had found and read just about everything the library had to offer
on Egypt--both fact and fiction.
They read about Egypt in the library during the day, and at home in
the evening, and in bed late at night when they were supposed to be
asleep. Then in the mornings while they helped each other with their
chores they discussed the things they had found out. In a very short
time they had accumulated all sorts of fascinating facts about tombs
and temples, pharaohs and pyramids, mummies and monoliths, and dozens
of other exotic topics. They decided that the Egyptians couldn't have
been more interesting if they had done it on purpose. Everything,
from their love of beauty and mystery, to their fascinating habit
of getting married when they were only eleven years old, made good
stuff to talk about. By the end of the month, April and Melanie were
beginning work on their own alphabet of hieroglyphics for writing
secret messages, and at the library they were beginning to be called
the Egypt Girls.
