The Curse of the Blue Figurine by John Bellairs

consulted the unabridged dictionary. The unabridged was fun to use. It was a very thick and floppy book, and it stood on a swiveling wooden stand in a corner of the reference room. A lot of its definitions were strange and interesting, and the book was full of pictures of weird objects, like arbalests and brassards and undershot waterwheels. Johnny flipped straight to the T's, because he had seen a picture of an Egyptian god there—at least he thought that he had. Ah. He was right. Here it was, a picture of the god Thoth. Thoth was a funny-looking thing. He had the body of a man and the head of an ibis, which is a hook-beaked bird that looks sort of like a heron. Thoth held in his hands a bunch of  Egyptian hieroglyphs. The dictionary said that Thoth was the god of magic and mathematics. He would be a good one to use in the game Johnny was going to play with the blue figurine. Johnny copied the name of Thoth down on a note pad he had brought with him. Then, idly, he flipped a couple of pages and found himself staring at the picture of another Egyptian god. This one was even more weird-looking. Her name was Toueris, and she had the body of a pregnant woman. Her head was the head of a hippopotamus. Toueris—according to the dictionary—was the goddess of childbirth, and of revenge. The revenge part was what interested Johnny. He copied Toueris's name down, closed the book, and went home.
    That evening at dinner Grampa asked Johnny about his ring. He had noticed it the first time Johnny had showed up with it on, but he had not said anything then.
    "That's really some ring, Johnny," said Grampa amiably as he sprinkled salt on his mashed potatoes. "Where'd you get it?"
    Johnny's hand had been resting on the table. Now for some reason he jerked it away and hid it under the tablecloth. He felt shy about the ring. In school kids had noticed it, and at first they had made fun of it, claiming that it looked like a woman's engagement ring. To stop the kidding, Johnny had come up with a pretty snappy explanation. He had claimed that the ring was a Captain Midnight death ray ring. He said he had gotten it by  sending in Ovaltine labels. But he did not think that an explanation like this would work on Grampa.
    "I, uh, the professor... he gave it to me," said Johnny, glancing away evasively.
    Grampa stared wonderingly at Johnny for a minute. He could not understand why Johnny was so nervous about the ring. Could Johnny have stolen it? No, Grampa told himself, that didn't seem very likely. Johnny was not the thieving kind. Grampa was curious, but he was not the sort of person who would give you the third degree. So he just dropped the subject and started talking about baseball.
    That night Johnny dreamed a lot. At first he dreamed that he was a moth, fluttering about on a summer night. He kept hovering outside a lighted window, and through the window he could see Mr. Beard, the little man he had met in the church. The man was sitting at a table, reading. But no matter how much Johnny the moth beat at the window with his wings, the man never looked up. Then the dream shifted, and Johnny was outside R. Baart's antique store again. He went in as before, and there was the horrible old lady in the green eyeshade. But this time, instead of trying to drag him down into the grave behind the counter, she chased him around and around the shop, up steep rickety staircases, down long dark hallways lined with dusty bureaus and bookcases and looming dark bedsteads. Johnny awoke around three in the morning, and he  felt exhausted. Exhausted, and strangely nervous. He got up, put on his slippers and bathrobe, and padded down the stairs. He tried the front door, but it was locked tight, as always. Then Johnny stood in the front hall listening. It was a still night. The apple tree outside the hall window hung perfectly motionless. But for some reason the house was making noise. All old houses make noises at night, creaks and cracks and pops. But this was