Rick Riordan - The Red Pyramid

I blinked. “The cat will guard us? You can’t just leave us here! What about our training?”

“When I return,” Amos promised. “Don’t worry, the mansion is protected. Just do not leave. Do not be tricked into opening the door for anyone. And whatever happens, do not go into the library. I absolutely forbid it. I will be back by sunset.”

Before we could protest, Amos walked calmly to the edge of the terrace and jumped.

“No!” Sadie screamed. We ran to the railing and looked over. Below was a hundred-foot drop into the East River. There was no sign of Amos. He’d simply vanished.

Philip of Macedonia splashed in his pool. Muffin jumped onto the railing and insisted we pet her.

We were alone in a strange mansion with a baboon, a crocodile, and a weird cat. And apparently, the entire world was in danger.

I looked at Sadie. “What do we do now?”

She crossed her arms. “Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it? We explore the library.”

S A D I E

HONESTLY, CARTER IS SO THICK sometimes I can’t believe we’re related.

I mean when someone says I forbid it, that’s a good sign it’s worth doing. I made for the library straightaway.

“Hold on!” Carter cried. “You can’t just-”

“Brother dear,” I said, “did your soul leave your body again while Amos was talking, or did you actually hear him? Egyptian gods real. Red Lord bad. Red Lord’s birthday: very soon, very bad. House of Life: fussy old magicians who hate our family because Dad was a bit of a rebel, whom by the way you could take a lesson from. Which leaves us-just us-with Dad missing, an evil god about to destroy the world, and an uncle who just jumped off the building-and I can’t actually blame him.” I took a breath. [Yes, Carter, I do have to breathe occasionally.] “Am I missing anything? Oh, yes, I also have a brother who is supposedly quite powerful from an ancient bloodline, blah, blah, et cetera, but is too afraid to visit a library. Now, coming or not?”

Carter blinked as if I’d just hit him, which I suppose I had in a way.

“I just…” He faltered. “I just think we should be careful.”

I realized the poor boy was quite scared, which I couldn’t hold against him, but it did startle me. Carter was my big brother, after all-older, more sophisticated, the one who traveled the world with Dad. Big brothers are the ones who are supposed to pull their punches. Little sisters-well, we should be able to hit as hard as we like, shouldn’t we? But I realized that possibly, just possibly, I’d been a bit harsh with him.

“Look,” I said. “We need to help Dad, yes? There’s got to be some powerful stuff in that library, otherwise Amos wouldn’t keep it locked up. You do want to help Dad?”

Carter shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah…of course.”

Well, that was one problem sorted, so we headed for the library. But as soon as Khufu saw what we were up to, he scrambled off the sofa with his basketball and jumped in front of the library doors. Who knew baboons were so speedy? He barked at us, and I have to say baboons have enormous fangs. And they’re not any prettier when they’ve been chewing up exotic pink birds.

Carter tried to reason with him. “Khufu, we’re not going to steal anything. We just want-”

“Agh!” Khufu dribbled his basketball angrily.

“Carter,” I said, “you’re not helping. Look here, Khufu. I have…ta-da!” I held up a little yellow box of cereal I’d taken from the buffet table. “Cheerios! Ends with an -o. Yumsies!”

“Aghhh!” Khufu grunted, more excited now than angry.

“Want it?” I coaxed. “Just take it to the couch and pretend you didn’t see us, yes?”

I threw the cereal towards the couch, and the baboon lunged after it. He grabbed the box in midair and was so excited, he ran straight up the wall and sat on the fireplace mantel, where he began gingerly picking out Cheerios and eating them one at a time.

Carter looked at me with grudging admiration. “How did you-”

“Some of us think ahead. Now, let’s open these doors.”

That was not so easily done. They were made of thick wood laced with giant steel chains and padlocked. Complete overkill.

Carter stepped forward. He tried to raise the doors by lifting his hand, which had been quite impressive the night before, only now accomplished nothing.

He shook the chains the old-fashioned way, then yanked on the padlocks.

“No good,” he said.

Ice needles tingled on the back of my neck. It was almost as if someone-or something-was whispering an idea in my head. “What was that word Amos used at breakfast with the saucer?”

“For ‘join’?” Carter said. “Hi-nehm or something.”

“No, the other one, for ‘destroy’.”

“Uh, ha-di. But you’d need to know magic and the hieroglyphics, wouldn’t you? And even then-”

I raised my hand toward the door. I pointed with two fingers and my thumb-an odd gesture I’d never made before, like a make-believe gun except with the thumb parallel to the ground.

“Ha-di!”

Bright gold hieroglyphs burned against the largest padlock.

And the doors exploded. Carter hit the floor as chains shattered and splinters flew all over the Great Room. When the dust cleared, Carter got up, covered in wood shavings. I seemed to be fine. Muffin circled my feet, mewing contentedly, as if this were all very normal.

Carter stared at me. “How exactly-”

“Don’t know,” I admitted. “But the library’s open.”

“Think you overdid it a little? We’re going to be in so much trouble-”

“We’ll just figure out a way to zap the door back, won’t we?”

“No more zapping, please,” Carter said. “That explosion could’ve killed us.”

“Oh, do you think if you tried that spell on a person-”

“No!” He stepped back nervously.

I felt gratified that I could make him squirm, but I tried not to smile. “Let’s just explore the library, shall we?”

The truth was, I couldn’t have ha-di-ed anyone. As soon as I stepped forward, I felt so faint that I almost collapsed.

Carter caught me as I stumbled. “You okay?”

“Fine,” I managed, though I didn’t feel fine. “I’m tired”-my stomach rumbled-“and famished.”

“You just ate a huge breakfast.”

It was true, but I felt as if I hadn’t had food in weeks.

“Never mind,” I told him. “I’ll manage.”

Carter studied me skeptically. “Those hieroglyphs you created were golden. Dad and Amos both used blue. Why?”

“Maybe everyone has his own color,” I suggested. “Maybe you’ll get hot pink.”

“Very funny.”

“Come on, pink wizard,” I said. “Inside we go.”

The library was so amazing, I almost forgot my dizziness. It was bigger than I’d imagined, a round chamber sunk deep into solid rock, like a giant well. This didn’t make sense, as the mansion was sitting on top of a warehouse, but then again nothing else about the place was exactly normal.

From the platform where we stood, a staircase descended three stories to the bottom floor. The walls, floor, and domed ceiling were all decorated with multicolored pictures of people, gods, and monsters. I’d seen such illustrations in Dad’s books (yes, all right, sometimes when I was in the Piccadilly bookshop I’d wander into the Egypt section and sneak a look at Dad’s books, just to feel some connection to him, not because I wanted to read them) but the pictures in the books had always been faded and smudged. These in the library looked newly painted, making the entire room a work of art.