CHAPTER ONE

Pick one:

1. A short time ago, in a land uncomfortably close by…

2. He was a dark and stormy knight.

3. He was the best of mimes. He was the worst of mimes.

4. This book looks lame. I’m watching TV.

5. Run!

CHAPTER TWO

THE FURE SALE

OK, you’ve waited long enough. Let me put you out of your misery right now.

I will reveal the Secret—a secret that people have sought for centuries, for millennia even—on the very next page….

Well, maybe the next page…

The next…?

No, no, I can’t. It’s much too soon.

If I tell you the Secret now, you won’t want to read any further, will you?

I’ll do it before the end of this book.

I promise.

Maybe.

It depends on a few things.

For instance—how you look at it.

Are you really sure you want to know the Secret, anyway?

Revealing a secret is a bit like releasing air from a balloon: the secret spirals around and makes a fun noise—and if you aim right, it might even hit somebody in the nose—but afterward it always falls to the ground, and everyone is left with that sad, after-the-balloon feeling of loss and abandonment.

That doesn’t sound very satisfying, does it?

Then again, when have you known me to satisfy anything but my own cravings for chocolate?

Honestly, I don’t know why you bother to read a word I write. If you want to give up on me now, I understand completely. Never mind all the time you’ve already put in; sometimes it’s better to cut and run (see Chapter One).

Now’s your chance to escape. Don’t worry—I won’t look. I’ll just close my eyes and have a nibble of this delicious bar of dark, dark—

Hmmgh… well, maybe just one more… hmmgh…

—No? You’re staying put? Stubborn, aren’t you? Or just morbidly curious?

I know, this book is like a car accident. You don’t want to stare—you just can’t help it.

If it’s any comfort, your old friend Cass is anything but satisfied at the time this story begins. She, too, is desperate to learn the Secret.

Recently, remember, she came torturously close to learning the Secret. Among the things she inherited from her ancestor, the Jester, was a fragment of papyrus with the Secret written on it in hieroglyphs. Alas, the papyrus disintegrated in front of her eyes.

Now Cass is headed for her grandfathers’ place. She has just heard that her grandfathers are selling their old firehouse, and she wants to make sure the Jester’s trunk doesn’t get lost in the move. She hopes that another clue about the Secret may lie inside the—

Oh! There she is, walking down the road to the firehouse with Max-Ernest. I didn’t realize I’d been going on for so long.

If I’m not mistaken, they are discussing the assignment they just turned in for their class’s Egypt unit: make a list of the ten things you would take with you into the afterlife. As I’m sure you know, the ancient Egyptians were very keen on keeping as many of their possessions as possible—for as long as possible.

Here, let’s listen:

“… and a giant bar of chocolate, of course, in case I get hungry in the afterlife, and a pair of underwear, because, you know,” Max-Ernest was saying. “Oh, and a deck of cards. Or do you think that’s cheating? Since there are fifty-two cards in a deck, and we’re only supposed to take ten things?”

“No, I think you can count a deck as one thing,” said Cass, walking a few feet ahead. Max-Ernest struggled to keep up.

The view couldn’t have been more familiar. The backpack. The braids. The big pointy ears. Always, always from behind. Which was very unfair, when you thought about it. He, Max-Ernest, was shorter than Cass. Rightfully, he should go first; he wouldn’t block her line of vision.

“Did the Egyptians have cards?” Cass asked casually. “It seems like hieroglyphs would make a cool deck of cards.”

Max-Ernest lit up. “That’s a great idea! I don’t think the Egyptians had them, but we could make our own cards and—”

“There are just twenty-four hieroglyphs in the Egyptian alphabet, right?” asked Cass, cutting him off. “Or are there more? I feel like I heard both things.”

Cass stopped at an intersection. Cars passed at a snail’s pace, honking their horns impatiently. It was unexpectedly busy for their quiet neighborhood.

“Well, there are twenty-four main ones. They stand in for sounds, like our letters do,” Max-Ernest explained, happy to discuss a topic that was of such passionate interest to him. “But there are thousands and thousands of others that are more like picture-words. I don’t think anybody knows how many—”

Cass’s face fell. “They don’t—?”

“Yeah, think about it—your card deck could be as big as you want,” said Max-Ernest enthusiastically.

“Oh no. That’s just what I was afraid of….”

Max-Ernest looked at Cass, confused by her sudden change of mood. “What do you mean? Why is that a bad thing?”

Cass bit her lip. She was the Secret Keeper; the Secret was supposed to be hers alone. Not to mention, it was common knowledge that Max-Ernest couldn’t keep a secret. And yet, despite his faults, he was her best friend and unflagging investigative companion. She’d been resisting for weeks, but she couldn’t help wanting to confide in him.

She looked at her friend and took the plunge. “What if I told you I got the Jester’s trunk open?”

Max-Ernest’s eyes widened. “You figured out the combination?”

Cass nodded. “And what if I told you there was a piece of papyrus inside, with writing on it?”

“With hieroglyphs, you mean? That’s why you’re asking about them?”

Cass didn’t say anything.

Max-Ernest stared at her. “Wait—this doesn’t have anything to do with the Secret, does it?”

“Shh!! What are you thinking—?!”

They both looked around. Nobody was within earshot. (You and me they couldn’t see, of course.)

“Sorry,” said Max-Ernest, red-faced.

Not mentioning the Secret aloud was one of the most important rules—almost the only rule—for members of their secret organization, the Terces Society. Normally, even the compulsively talkative Max-Ernest abided by it.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter what it was. It was so...