The Curse of the Egyptian Mummy

By: Pat Hutchins

This mystery story takes place a few miles away from Middle Claydon, where the Hampsted Cub Scouts sometimes camp.Akela, which in Hindi means alone , Skip and all the fifteenth Cub Scouts hear on the radio that a dead man’s body has been found who appeared to be a victim of a deadly snake bite,and now people and police are searching for the snake. The Cubs ,as the boy Scouts are called ,persuade Akela ,the scout leader and Skip,his assistant , to stop at a village on their way to camp to use the public toilets there. When the boys were getting back on the bus, Sam, a Cub, found a black statue of an ibis. Since they had left their owl mascot at home, Akela allowed them to keep the statue as a substitute mascot. At the campsite, they met up with Victoria and her parents, Mr and Mrs Webb, who were to be the helpers at the campsite.

Once at the campsite,Sam put the ibis statue inside a hole in a tree. That night , around the campfire, Akela told everyone a ghost story and coincidently the first two sentences he said actually came alive.First,an owl hooted when Akela said so and secondly,a ghostly white figure flitted through the trees when he said so.Everyone gets scared.When Mrs. Webb went to get some marshmallows to toast,she came shouting ,” the tents have been ransacked!” Everyone in the camp gets very surprised after hearing this news.

The next day,Miss Hylyard,owner of the camp site and of the big house which she had turned into a guest house told them that she had to sell the house and the land as it was getting very expensive to keep them running.Akela promised Miss Hylyard that after supper they would do a sing-song for the guests and her.Then Victoria,Sam,Peter and Nathan ,all asked Miss Hylyard is she or her guests had been looking for the snake the past night near their tents but she denied it.

After Miss Hylyard went back to the house,Akela decided that they do their artist badges.Albert cheered as he already had his red and yellow artist badges and he would get his green one too.Akela found that there was clay in the river so they could make models if any of the Cubs wanted to.Albert made an excellent copy of the ibis which everyone had forgotten about.

Sam , Peter and Nathan did models of owls but they didn’t come out good as they kept on thinking about the intruder who messed up their tents.The twin brothers made egg shapes and said the baby birds were inside.It was very interesting as everyone did something different.

Akela suggested that while the models were drying,they could go for a nature ramble.On their return they found out that Albert’s marvelous statue of the ibis was broken.

The title has little mention in the story.I don’t think its appropriate.it should be something like ‘The Mystery of the Egyptian Ibis’.

Its not a high level mystery story as compared to ‘The Three Investigators’ and Sherlock Holmes but I still enjoyed reading it.