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. Excerpted from The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
