Spiders on the Case (6 page)

J
o Bell glanced at the remaining silverfish twirling slightly in the still air of the display case. Edith had just finished an addition to their regular web that extended from the southeast corner of the case to the southwest corner, where one of the most beautiful books in the entire library rested on a velvet cloth. The book, a tenth-century volume from China, was set in a fantastically crafted metal box. On the edges of the book's pages was a painting that only became visible when the book was shut. The painting depicted a winter landscape of billowing, snow-covered mountains. This type of book art was called fore-edge painting, and the delicacy of the work was remarkable. Edith claimed that although she generally did not like the “great outdoors,” as she called it, she felt quite peaceful when dangling over the fore-edge painting of this book. Her peace was about to be shattered.

“Mom,” called Jo Bell. “Felix … uh, Julep and Buster and I have something to tell you.”

Edith inhaled sharply. “Oh, no! You haven't been seen. Please don't tell me that. My poor heart can't take it.” The anguish in Edith's voice was so strong, one could almost touch it.

“No, Mom, we haven't been seen.”

In Edith's mind, there was absolutely nothing worse than being discovered by humans — humans other than Tom Parker. Edith had spent her youth on the run, fleeing E-Men with their gleaming silver tanks of poison attached to snakey fumigation hoses. When she became a mother herself, she vowed this wandering would cease. The worst thing in Edith's mind was to be unsettled.

“Edith?” Fatty called.

“Oh, Fatty, you've come back again!”

“I missed all of you so much.”

“Well, I'm afraid you've come when …” Edith's voice dwindled away.

“Oh, dear!” Fatty said. “What's the problem?”

“We don't quite know yet. Jo Bell, will you continue?”

Jo Bell took a deep breath. “I witnessed something pretty awful a few days back. A person tearing a page from the fashion portfolio.”

“What?!?” Edith gasped.

“Yes, Mom, Agnes Smoot. And that's not all. Her husband, Eldridge Montague, has been stealing maps out of old books for years. We have to stop them somehow.”

“Why didn't you tell us sooner? We could have helped,” Edith said.

“Well,” Jo Bell's voice cracked a bit. She wobbled on at least three of her eight legs.

“What is it, dear?”

She began again. “I wanted to do this all by myself. Well, I mean with Buster's help, but we needed to figure out a plan. These criminals have gone undetected for a long time. No one ever really checks out those old map books or the fashion portfolios. So the problem is how to draw Tom's attention to the crime.”

“And do you have a solution?” Felix asked. There was a hint of huffiness in his voice.

“We're going to leave Tom a message.”

“Just how are you going to do that?” Felix asked with a sneer.

“Felix!” Edith said sharply. “I don't like that tone. Let Jo Bell explain.”

“I think it would be best if I let Julep do the explaining,” Jo Bell said, standing aside to give Julep the floor.

“Julep!” Edith, Felix, and Fat Cat all exclaimed at once.

“Yes! Me! Yours truly here. While Felix has been studying military history, and Mom has been crawling through old Bibles, I have spent quite a bit of time in the Egyptian pop-up books. I picked up a bit of hieroglyphics along the way.”

“You understand hieroglyphics?” Fatty marveled.

“A bit, and I'm learning more every day. And Jo Bell says that I am to teach all of you,” Julep said, with a pointed look at her bossy brother.

“We have to learn hieroglyphics to do this?” Felix said.

“Don't worry,” Jo Bell replied. “Not that much. The message should be short and simple. But we don't have any time to lose.”

Jo Bell turned to her mother. “This morning, Tom saw the silverfish threaded through our storage web. And do you know what he said, Mom?”

“No, dear. What?”

“He said, ‘rather festive'!”

“Really?” Edith said with wonder.

“Quite remarkable,” Fatty added. “A human being so attuned to something like that.”

“It got us thinking that the silverfish are the perfect shape for making some of the letters,” Julep said.

“Julep, show everyone how you can write your name,” Jo Bell suggested.

Julep bounced up and down with excitement. She cast a dragline, swung up on it, and then dropped another almost parallel. As she spun and swung the silk, she whispered to herself, “Ascend, spin off, rappel, loop … easy on the descent, tie off.”

Lovely shapes began to form in the air above the family. “Atta girl!” Buster called.

“What does it say, dear?” Edith asked when Julep was finished.

“Mom,” Julep said softly.

P
ull that tab on that book, Fatty, and see what happens,” Julep instructed.

The five spiders and Fat Cat had made their way to the pop-up books on the third floor.

“What is it?” Fatty asked.

“I was here the other day when a scholar was fiddling with this book, and I nearly fell off my dragline when I saw what happened.”

Fatty pulled the tab and, suddenly, dozens of little paper Egyptians popped up.

“It's a funeral procession to the pyramid. See, they're putting the coffin — or sarcophagus — on a barge.”

“My, my, Julep, I'm impressed. You've learned a lot in here.” Edith was beaming with delight.

“Want to go inside the Beautiful House?” Julep asked. “There are a lot of hieroglyphs in there and we could begin our lessons.”

“What do they do in the Beautiful House?”

“Make the mummies.”

“How?” Felix asked.

“I'll wait outside.” Fatty had no choice, but he was happy not to be with the group when he heard Julep's little voice explaining the procedure.

“It's very complicated to get a dead person ready for eternal life. First they have to take out all the stuff like the liver.” Julep turned to her mother. “Mom, do we have livers?”

“I … I'm not sure, dear.”

“Anyway,” Julep continued, “they cut all that stuff out and they even weigh the heart. If it's light, it means you've led a good life. If not, you've been bad — weight of sin, you know. Weighs a lot.”

“I bet Agnes Smoot's and Eldridge Montague's hearts put together don't weigh as much as a flea,” Buster said.

Julep had hopped up onto a shelf that held a tiny paper jar with some hieroglyphs on it. “Your first word.”

She tapped lightly on the series of five figures.

“So what does that spell in hieroglyphs?” Jo Bell asked.

“Brain. It's the jar they keep the brain in.”

“Eeeew!” the four spiders and Fatty all said at once.

Julep continued, “The best part is how they get the brain out. You won't believe this.” Julep was bouncing around with great excitement now. “They liquefy it! They take the brain out with little hooks through the dead person's nose.”

“Absolutely revolting,” Fatty said.

Julep had begun swinging on a dragline from one jar to the next. “This one here is for the lungs.”

“Ick!”

“This one is for the guts.”

“Yuck!”

“Why did they save all this disgusting stuff?” Jo Bell asked.

“The dead person needs to have it for his next life. They believed that.”

“I'm not sure what good a liquefied brain is going to do you in the hereafter, and I certainly don't see why knowing how to write words like ‘lung' and ‘guts' is going to help us tip off Tom about these criminals,” Felix muttered.

“Mommy,” Julep wailed. “He's making fun of me.”

“I think,” Buster began, “Julep is teaching us the alphabet so we can write whatever words we want in hieroglyphics. No one will know their meaning except Tom.”

“Yes,” Julep said with a grateful glance at Buster. “We should go to the pyramid. There are a lot more hieroglyphs in there.”

It felt to Jo Bell as if dark shadows were reaching out to grab them as they entered the pyramid. The little group followed Julep down some stairs.

“Please look left,” Julep said in the voice of an experienced tour guide. “You will notice quite a bit of writing on the walls. We are now in the burial chamber. Let's be respectful as we approach the sarcophagus of the lady. She's a princess, Princess Henttawi. It's open so we can see the mummy.”

The five spiders crept forward. Julep turned to Edith. “Mom, meet mummy.”

“The wrapping technique is rather similar to ours,” Edith commented. “She could be a June bug all wrapped up like that.”

There was writing all over the place — on the sarcophagus, the walls, and the boat that was supposed to transport the dead person to the next world. Most important, there was a papyrus scroll called the Book of the Dead tucked at the feet of the mummy.

The five spiders visited the pyramid three times in all, and by the end of the third visit, they had learned enough hieroglyphs to write just about any word they wanted.