WHERE MY CAT CONSPIRES AGAINST ME

I could outrun anything. Messenger bikes. Angry hippopotamuses. Cheetahs. Okay, I'd never actually outrun a cheetah, but I was sure, given the chance, I could. I was the Great Pharaoh Tutankhamun, after all. King Tut. Plus I was immortal. Except in this weird nightmare I was having, whatever was chasing me was gaining on me, and I couldn't seem to pull on any of my immortal powers no matter how hard I tried. It wasn't going to end well.

Just before my imminent doom, I woke up covered in sweat to the sound of someone pounding on the door of my townhouse, and a renewed sense of dread filled me. Something besides the nightmare was right at the edge of my mind. I knew when I remembered it, I wasn't going to be happy.

I stumbled downstairs, right as the shabtis were letting in my best friend, Henry. His messy blond hair looked like he'd passed through a hurricane on the way here, and his mouth was filled with a huge bite of bagel and cream cheese. He finished chewing and then uttered the four dreaded words that restored my memory.

"Time for science camp."

Things that an immortal fourteen-year-old pharaoh living in Washington, D.C., might do over summer break? Stay out late. Try out every food truck on Pennsylvania Avenue. Swim in the Reflecting Pool. Science camp was not on the list.

"I'm not going to camp," I said, rubbing my eyes to clear my head from the nightmare. It had felt so real.

"But you promised." Henry took another bite of the bagel. Pure disbelief covered his face as he chewed. Not that I had any clue how he could be surprised. The last thing I intended to do over summer break was go learn about a bunch of science stuff I already knew. Why anyone would willingly spend two weeks of summer vacation in camp was beyond me.

"I never promised," I said, trying to remember my exact words.

"You did, back in January," Henry said. "You said that it was the least you could do after your crazy uncle tried to kill me."

Ugh. He was right. My uncle had tried and nearly succeeded. If the god Osiris hadn't intervened and transferred all the energy from my scarab heart into Henry to heal him, Henry would have died. But afterward, I'd been caught in a moment of weakness. I'd been feeling sentimental. After all, I'd been willing to give up my immortality to save Henry. It was without a doubt the most unselfish thing I'd ever done.

But now science camp wasn't sounding like such a fun bonding experience. Images of boring classrooms and songs about the periodic table filled my mind.

"Hmmm ..." I said.

"You were sitting on the futon when you said it," Henry said, like that would help refresh my memory.

"I always sit on the futon." I plopped down on it for effect. It was the only real seat in my family room besides Gil's chair, which was faded and covered in patches and was so old it had probably been made during the time of the dinosaurs. Gil was my older brother — or at least he pretended to be. His chair had been empty for the last six months, ever since he went away. The leader of my shabtis, Colonel Cody, asked if we could rid the apartment of it on a daily basis.

"That's beside the point," Henry said, eyeing Gil's chair and then opting to sit on the faded green camel seat instead. I hadn't sat in Gil's chair either. I kept waiting for him to come back. And if Gil sauntered in the door and someone had their butt in his chair — or worse, if his chair wasn't here — he'd be out for revenge. I wanted Gil back, but I didn't want him to put shaving cream in my pillowcase once he got here.

Two of my shabtis, Lieutenants Virgil and Leon, ran over with a huge glass of orange juice and a plate of scones. Now this, to me, was the perfect way to start the morning. Science camp was not.

I should explain about the shabtis. They were these six-inch-tall hand-painted clay figures that had been placed in my tomb to wait on me in the afterlife — 365 of them, to be exact. But unlike me, who'd never actually been placed in the tomb, they'd been stuck in there until 1922. Then when my tomb had been opened, they'd found me here in D.C. Ever since, they've been my eternal servants. I know it sounds kind of weird, like I have pint-size clay butlers waiting on me hand and foot, but they'd been bound to me from the moment they were created. The spells written on them made it that way. Also, it made them really happy.

Horus sat silently on the top of his cat scratching post, swatting his tail back and forth, watching scarab beetles scurry across the room. He'd softened a bit toward Henry in the last six months, but he still kept his distance. I think he never got over the fact that Henry had almost chopped his tail off with a sword.

"Then what is the point?" I said. I grabbed my spiral notebook from the coffee table in front of me and flipped through it. In the last six months, I'd listed out every place in D.C. that I'd searched for Gil and also all the places I still planned to go. I was getting way closer to the end of the list than I wanted to be.

Henry grabbed a scone from the plate and started picking little pieces off it. It looked like blueberry today. That or maybe rhubarb. Lieutenant Virgil made a different flavor every day. It was a new thing he'd been trying, part of his effort to serve food befitting a pharaoh while still staying up with the times. Scones were great and all, but I was hoping he'd go through a doughnut stage soon.

"The point is that you promised you'd go. I asked, and you said, 'Yes,' and if that's not a promise, then I'm not sure what is."

It wasn't exactly how I remembered the...