Typical Tuesday
by Sharan McQuack, Launchpad's wife.
based on: "The pyramid of Prac-Ti-Kal", Uncle Scrooge # 393.
Attention: Ducktales continues in Uncle Scrooge # 396! Thanks, Disney/Marvel, even if I KNOW without bothering to look that you've made Launchpad look like a idiot studying to be a moron and flunking the course. I'm sharping my rewriting pencil already. Wish you'd write 'em right. I'll settle for your putting out Ducktales 4 on DVD already.
"A pyramid? You've found a pyramid buried at the construction site?" Mr. McDuck demanded.
"Not ANOTHER lost pyramid!' Launchpad asked.
"What are YOU doing here?" Mr. McDuck screamed.
"Launchpad was just dropping us off after coaching one of our Jr. Woodchuck
games." Huey replied.(1)
"Well, maybe it's good you're here. Saves me from calling you. That was the boss of a construction crew working for me in Egypt. They found a smallish pyramid, buried on the site of a building I'm constructing in Egypt. It was built by some rich man who could afford to be buried in the style of the pharaohs, albeit in a smaller scale." Mr. McDuck.
"I want you to fly me there so I can check it out. There is some sort of curse written on the pyramid, so everybody is too superstitous to look in to it!" said.
"OK, I'm there for you. As always." Launchpad replied.
"Just fly me there without crashing.' Mr. McDuck said.
"People usually get killed in crashes." Launchpad replied.
Anyway, Launchpad flew us there without incidence, as per usual. We landed near the construction site and were soon at the pyramid, which had been roped off. Nobody else wanted to go anyplace near it.
"Launchpad! You go in first and act as guide." Mr. McDuck ordered.
"If I WANT to go first, then I'm reckless. If I don't, I'm a coward. I'd rather be reckless. I'll go." Launchpad replied.
He turned on his flashlight and went into the passageway. But from one of the sides of the passageway came:
"A mummy!" screamed Mr. McDuck and the boys.
"Robot!" shouted Launchpad.
It was a mechanical mummy. Stuffed with sand, with a tin (2) "skeleton", working on clockwork and powered by lord knows what.
Mr. McDuck clobbered the thing with his cane, and decapitated the thing. Launchpad wrestled it. It almost pushed him down, but the boys tangled it up in it's own wrapping and it tripped. Launchpad finally managed to rip the sacking holding the sand stuffing and the sand clogged up the machinery and it stopped.
"I HATE narrow passageways!" Launchpad muttered.
But Launchpad picked up the flashlight and went further down the passageway, anyway.
Launchpad looked to the left and the right before going further. He shined the flashlight on the floor ahead of him, looking for traps. Seeing a low ceiling doorway ahead, he ducked...and ended up with a bucket of water falling on his head.
Launchpad got mad and tossed the bucket down the hallway, setting off various booby traps.
"Good work, Launchpad! You got rid of the traps ahead of us!" Mr. McDuck said.
And Mr. McDuck walked thur the doorway. Once on the other side, another bucket of water fell on Mr. McDee's head.
"Guess I didn't do such a good job after all, huh?" Launchpad joked.
Mr. McDuck did a slow burn. Luckily, the kids giggled. And the humor of the situation actually dawned on Mr. McDuck.
Our heroes continued down the narrow passageway, still looking for treasure. The passageway soon forked into seven passageways.
"Which way should we go?" asked Launchpad.
The boys took marbles out of their pockets and shot them down three of the passageways. Nothing happened, no traps were triggered. Launchpad tossed the second bucket down a fourth passageway. Nothing happened, no traps were triggered.
Mr. McDuck borrowed some marbles from the boys. He turned his cane upside down and used it like a golf club. He lobbed marbles down the remaining passageway. Only the in the seventh and last passageway did booby traps go off.
"Aha! Whoever rigged these traps didn't bother to rig them down false trails, down dead ends! Only the trail that leads to the Treasure has booby traps set along it!" Mr. McDuck deduced.
So they went down the seventh and last trail.
"Be alert for more booby traps. The marbles couldn't have triggered traps hidden in the walls or ceiling, just the floor. And not even all of the floor, just the part the marble rolled over." Mr. McDuck warned.
So they carefully walked down the corridor, trying to walk only where the marble had touched...until Mr. McDuck absent-mindedly rested his cane on a part of the ground the marble HADN'T touched...and triggered off a booby trap. The floor opened up and DOWN a narrow shaft they fell!
"At least YOU did it!" screamed Launchpad as they fell.
And he flapped his arms, trying to fly. You can't blame the guy for TRYING, especially when he's a DUCK for crying out loud. It proved to be a wise move. The shaft was narrow and Launchpad is big. Turned out by stretching out his arms and legs he could grab the sides of the shaft and stop his fall. He ALMOST fell again when the others crashed into him. The others climbed down the rest of the shaft first, then Launchpad followed. Soon, they were on the bottom of the shaft, safe.
"What was the point of doing that?" Mr. McDuck demanded of Launchpad.
"Launchpad's softer than the floor is?" Huey ventured.
"And we still had quite a long way to fall?" added Dewey.
"Thanks, Launchpad." said Louie.
"I have a rope. We CAN climb back up. But how's about we keep going? There's a passageway here at the bottom, going in the same direction...and it might not have any booby traps. We can always double back and then climb back up if it turns out to be a dead end." Launchpad suggested.
That made sense, so they tried it. They went on for quite some way until they finally came to a second shaft. Except for UP, it was a dead end.
"How can you throw a rope to the top from HERE?" Mr. McDuck demanded.
"I can't. Can I borrow your cane? Thanks." Launchpad replied.
And he took out a bit of wire-like string and strung Mr. McDuck's cane, turning it into a make-shift bow. A pencil with the rope tied around it was the arrow.
"Huey! You won a Jr. Woodchuck medal in archery! How's about you do the honors. See if you can't get this arrow to the top." Launchpad asked.
""Sure thing, Launchpad. I'll do it just the way you taught us." Huey replied.
And he aimed and purposely overshot...gravity caused the arrow to fall onto the hallway above. The makeshift arrow quickly snagged on something.
Launchpad took his end of the rope and pulled as hard as he could, to make sure it wouldn't come loose half-way up.
"I better climb up first. I'm heavier than any of you, so if it'll hold my weight, it'll hold yours." Launchpad said.
"You're heavier than all of us put together!" Mr. McDuck said.
That was probably true, so Launchpad just shrugged and climbed.
Launchpad went up the rope. Naturally, whatever it was snagged on almost came loose about half-way up ANYWAY. Launchpad scrabbled up before he could fall. Once up, he sat and rested a few minutes. Then he tied the rope good and tight around a fat pillar.
"OK, you can come up now! One at a time!" Launchpad yelled down.
"I'll go up first, boys. Just in case Launchpad goofed again." Mr. McDuck said.
"I heard that! And I'm holding the rope, just in case! I'll pull you up if anything goes wrong again!" Launchpad yelled back down.
They climbed up the rope. Nothing went wrong THIS time.
"Hmpf. I suppose we MAY have avoided a few booby traps by doing that. Since the treasure wasn't down there, there weren't any booby traps down there." Mr. McDuck said.
"The floor opening up wasn't enough of a booby trap?" asked Huey.
"Not to mention the trouble climbing back UP?" asked Dewey.
They went on for quite some time without encountering any more booby traps. they finally came to a dead end. No treasure, no mummies, no nothing. They searched for secret panels or trap doors or hidden rooms. Nothing. Finally, they gave up and turned back until they came to where they had climbed up the second shaft.
"I suppose we'd better climb back down and then back up to avoid booby traps, huh?" asked Launchpad.
"That's it! The booby traps stopped right after we fell down the first shaft! And only the trails that lead to the treasure are booby trapped, NOT the dead ends!" Mr. McDuck screamed.
And he walked down the passageway they had avoided by falling down one shaft then up another.
"Mr. McDee...the booby traps..." Launchpad warned.
'Mean that I'm on the right trail again, Launchpad." Mr. McDuck replied.
And he tapped his cane in front of him, springing off traps harmlessly. Until he ran out of traps. Once he reached the first shaft, the one they fell down, he knew he had gone too far and walked back. Starting from where the last booby trap had been, he searched carefully. The others joined him and did likewise. Until they finally found a hidden door, leading to the burial chamber.
But any treasure it might have held was gone. A hole in back wall showed how tomb robbers had once, long ago, broke in and robbed the place of any gold, gems, or other treasure it once held.
"You couldn't keep or sell the treasure, Unca Scrooge. It would belong to the Egyptian gov't." Huey said, trying to make his great-uncle feel better.
"True. But I was hoping to find some interesting artifacts to show at museums." Mr. McDuck said.
"Hey, Unca Scrooge, come here! You got your wish!" Dewey said.
Mr. McDuck came to see.
"Boys...perhaps you should not see this." He said.
"It's OK, Unca Scrooge. We've seen skeletons before." Louie said.
"It's just a kid! Younger than you three, I think!" Launchpad said.
And it was a skeleton of a child, laying near two adults skeletons, presumably his parents. Their sarcophaguses had been stolen,(3) their bodies and mummy wrappings long since rotted away with Time. But near the child's skeleton, the "treasure" he had been buried with remained. His toys.
The robbers had not taken them because they were not made of gold or silver, nor gems. They were made of ordinary metal, ordinary stone. There were game boards with game pieces, akin to chess or parcheesi. There were tops and other playthings.
"Well, this will make an unusual display in a museum. Something different and interesting. And I own the land this pyramid is on, and I'm a foreign investor, here. I can sell the land back to the Egyptian gov't at a nice profit, or swap it for a better piece of land." Mr. McDuck said.
Naturally, he did a little of both. Since the Egyptian government wanted the pyramid, they not only swapped a better piece of land for it, they threw in some "take it and go away" money.
The End.
(1) Five bucks says that if LAUNCHPAD had suggested that Dufus pretend the baseball was a cupcake in "Take me out of the ballgame", Dufus would of eaten it.
(2) Did the ancient Egyptians have steel or iron?
(3) Probably stolen when the Egyptians didn't crack down on such crooks too well.