Snyder, Zilpha Keatley by The Egypt Game [txt]

bow and drop a scrap of humanity on the flames; a hair or two or a shred of fingernail.
    It was just about the best ceremony they’d ever had, and it was a shame to end it; but Melanie was just thinking that perhaps it was time to leave when suddenly she heard Elizabeth give a gasp of pure terror. Following Elizabeth’s gaze, Melanie was horrified to see a huge misshapen figure teetering on the top of the high board fence. The figure teetered wildly in the dim light, and then sprang forward to land in a horrible threatening crouch, right in the middle of Egypt.

Elizabethan Diplomacy
    WHEN THE SHAPELESS INHUMAN FIGURE SPRANG INTO the middle of the storage yard, the four Egyptians could only clutch each other in panic, too shocked for the moment to even scream. April had just managed to get her mouth open to yell for help, when suddenly Marshall pointed and said, “Look.” A second figure was appearing over the top of the fence.
    This second invader, who was having some difficulty climbing over the wire at the top of the fence, had a strangely angular look about him. Strangely angular-and strangely familiar. In all four Egyptians frozen fear boiled at once into a choking mixture of anger and relief. In April it overflowed in stuttering sputter. “You-you d-d-dirty f-f-finks!” she yelled.
    On top of the fence Toby finally managed to get his boxy legs free of the barbed wire. He jumped

Elizabethan Diplomacy
    down, losing his T.V. head in the process. Then, as the four badly shaken Egyptians turned loose of each other and tried to regain their dignity, the monster and the box-man leaned on each other and choked with fiendish laughter.
    They laughed leaning on each other and standing up-bending over as if they were in pain-and finally collapsed, sitting flat on the ground. Then, while the four members of the Egypt gang stared at them in helpless fuming anger, they just sat there, leaning against each other’s backs, still shaking with gradually weakening seizures.
    “Man-oh-man!” Toby gasped finally. “I’ve got to quit laughing. My stomach’s killing me.”
    “Sheesh! Me too,” Ken said. “I’m dying.” Ken fell over backward and just lay there, holding his stomach and saying “Sheesh” weakly from time to time. But Toby crossed his legs and leaned forward with his chin on one hand and stared at the angry Egyptians.
    “Hey, February,” he said finally. “How do you say panic button in Egyptian?”
    April clenched her fists and took a step forward. Toby started to scramble to his feet-he’d seen April in action before. But Melanie and Elizabeth grabbed her and held her back.
    “Turn loose,” April said. “I’m going to punch him in the nose.”
    “There’s no use doing that,” Melanie whispered. “That won’t do any good. We can’t keep them from telling on us by punching them in the nose.”
    After a moment’s consideration April nodded. “Okay. Turn loose. I won’t punch them. At least not till we find out what they’re going to do.” She unclenched her fists and all three girls approached the enemy. Left behind, Marshall sat down on the edge of the temple floor in a good position to watch everything that might happen. Both the boys were standing now, watching the girls warily.
    “Well,” Melanie began. “Are you going to tell on us, or not?”
    “Tell on you?” Ken said. “What makes you think we’d do a thing like that?”
    “Of course not,” Toby said. “We don’t go around finking on people.” The girls glanced at each other in surprised relief. “However,” Toby continued, “this is not a matter of plain and simple finking. Letting you Egyptians get away with all this secret stuff just might be considered-like, unpatriotic, or something.”
    “Hey, you’re right,” Ken said. “Maybe we ought to tell the F.B.I.”
    “Maybe we should. Or maybe we could just make an official report on the whole scene-like, for current events tomorrow morning.” Toby stalked to the