*Nina's P.O.V.*

There was this really loud scream but nobody else heard it.

"Nina, did you hear that?"

Fabian nudged me.

"Yeah, you heard it too?"

Amber said "Who screamed?"

Alfie said "Yeah, someone definitely screamed."

Patricia came in.

"Who's hurt?"

I didn't understand. How did we hear that scream when nobody else did?

"Find it. Get it. And you will have immortality."

"Find what, exactly?"

"The Star of Apophis, children. Or you pay your lives."

"Who are you?"

"There will be a time when the world knows me."

"When did you get back, Senkhara?"

"Not Senkhara, you weak child. Or lose your friends, one by one."

"LEAVE THEM ALL ALONE!"

"Nina? Sweetie, do you feel OK?"

I realised I'd spoken aloud. Everyone except Sibuna were looking at me oddly.

"Um, yeah, Trudy. I'm great. And, uh, how are you?"

That got Sibuna to look at me weirdly too.

"I'm fine, sweetie."

She came and checked my temperature.

"What you doing?"

"It's OK, you don't feel too hot."

(Time lapse. Midnight.)

I opened the bread oven.

"Right, in we go."

We went in the tunnels.

As we got to the Senet board, we noticed the statues were back.

"What? I thought you'd got rid of them?"

"We did!"

"Now what do we do?"

"I dunno."

Patricia had stayed upstairs with Eddie.

Amber said "Maybe we have to play them again."

Alfie made gestures to say he agreed.

Fabian said "That seems logical... Was that another of your brain surges, Amber?"

"Well, no. I was just taking a wild guess."

I said "Right, we'll come back in tomorrow. Let's go get some sleep."

"Nice."

"Under the floor is the entrance door. The Apophis Star is not so very far, find it you must do still or all of your friends become ill."

I scribbled it on my hand in the pink gel pen Amber gave me last week.

(Next day. Breakfast.)

"OK, sweeties. We have two new students coming."

My jaw fell.

"Uh, what?!"

Then Trudy spotted the pink gel.

"Nina, what is that?!"

I looked at my hand.

"Um, nothing. It's nothing, Trudy."

"Show me your hand, Nina."

"Uh, that's really not a good idea..."

"Nina, show me."

She took hold of my hand.

She saw the gel and mouthed the riddle.

"Nina, what is this nonsense? You know that writing on your hand can be dangerous."

"Trudy, I told you. It's nothing."

"Go and wash it off, please. And, for your sake, please don't do it again."

I ran to my room and put it on some paper, then washed it off.

I went back down and started to leave.

"Nina! Don't think you're getting away that quickly. Have you washed it off?"

"Yeah, Trudy."

She checked my hands, arms and ankles.

"I'm just being sure. Is there anything you need to tell me?"

"No."

I sounded really unconvincing.

"Tell me what it is."

Grr, who taught her how to see through my lies? That's all I need, a heart to heart over a serious life-and-death matter with my housemother.

"Um, just that I have a major girl's issue. You know the kind."

She went bright pink.

"Oh, yes, sorry. I'll pick up some...for...yes, OK."

Trudy went back to her room, where the twins were crying.

I got out and to the school.

(After school.)

"Hey, Nina. I asked Jasper what he knows about the Star of Apophis."

"And?"

"Look at this book he gave me."

"Apophis is the god of chaos and war. He dwells in the Duat. Also known as Apep. He gave the Star to Khufu (See more page 22) to win the Battle. The Duat is

In Egyptian Mythology, Duat (also Tuat and Tuaut or Akert, Amenthes, Amenti, or Neter-khertet) is the Underworld. The Duat is a vast area under the Earth, connected with Nun, the waters of the primordial abyss. The Duat is the realm of the god Osiris and the residence of other gods and supernatural beings. It is the region through which the sun god Ra travels from west to east during the night, and where he battled Apep. It also was the place where people's souls went after death for judgement, though it was not the full extent of the afterlife. Burial chambers formed touching-points between the mundane world and the Duat, and spirits could use tombs to travel back and forth from the Duat.

What we know of the Duat principally derives from funerary texts such as Book of Gates, Books of Caverns,Coffin Texts, Amduat and the Book of the Dead. Each of these documents fulfills a different purpose and gives a different perspective on the Duat, and different texts can be inconsistent with one another. The texts which survive differ in age and origin, and it is likely that there was never a single uniform interpretation of the Duat.

The geography of Duat is similar in outline to the world the Egyptians knew. There are realistic features like rivers, islands, fields, lakes, mounds and caverns, along with fantastic lakes of fire, walls of iron and trees of turquoise. In the Book of Two Ways, one of the Coffin Texts, there is even a map-like image of the Duat.

The Book of the Dead and Coffin Spirits were intended to guide people who had recently died through the Duat's dangerous landscape and to a life as an akh or blessed spirit amongst the gods. The dead person must pass a series of gates guarded by dangerous spirits, depicted as human bodies with grotesque heads of animals, insects, torches or knives. These beings have equally grotesque names, for instance "Blood-drinker who comes from the Slaughterhouse" or "One who eats the excrement of his hindquarters".Other features emphasised in these texts are mounds and caverns, inhabited by gods or supernatural animals, which threatened the spirits of the dead. The purpose of the books is not to lay out a geography, but to describe a succession of rites of passage which the dead would have to pass to reach the afterlife.

If the deceased successfully passed these unpleasant demons, he or she would reach the Weighing of the Hearts. In this ritual, the heart of the deceased was weighed by Anubis, using a feather, representing Ma'at, the goddess of truth and justice. The heart would become out of balance because of failure to follow Ma'at and any hearts heavier or lighter than her feather were rejected and eaten by the Ammit, the Devourer of Souls. Those souls that passed the test would be allowed to travel toward the paradise of Aaru.

In spite of the unpleasant inhabitants of the Duat, this was no Hell to which souls were condemned; the nature of Duat is more complex than that. The grotesque spirits of the underworld were not evil, but under the control of the Gods. The Duat was also a residence of gods themselves; as well as Osiris, Anubis, Thoth, Hathor, Horus, and Ma'at all appear as a dead soul makes its way toward judgement. It was also in the underworld that the sun,Ra, travelled under the Earth from west to east and was transformed from its aged Atum form into Khepri the new dawning Sun. Just as a dead person faced many challenges in the Duat, Ra faced attack in the underworld from the evil serpent Apep."

I said "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"That's not all. Read up about Khufu."

"The royal family of Khufu was quite large. It is uncertain if Khufu was actually the biological son of Sneferu. Mainstream Egyptologists believe Sneferu was Khufu's father, but only because it was the common tradition that the eldest son or a selected descendant inherit the throne. In 1925 the tomb of queen Hetepheres I's tomb, G 7000x, was found east of Khufu's pyramid. It contained many precious grave goods, and several inscriptions giving her the title of "Mother of a king" (Mut-nesut), together with the name of king Sneferu. Therefore it seemed clear at first that Hetepheres was the wife of Sneferu, and that they were Khufu's parents. More recently, however, some have doubted this theory, because Hetepheres is not known to have bore the title of "king's wife" (Hemet-nesut), a title indispensable to confirming a queen's royal status. Instead of the man's title, Hetepheres bore only that of a "biological daughter of a god" (Sat-netjer-khetef, litt. daughter of his divine body), a title mentioned for the first time. As a result, researchers now think Khufu may not have been Sneferu's biological son, but that Sneferu legitimised Khufu's rank and familial position by marriage, and by apotheosizing his mother as the daughter of a living god. Another clue that could support this theory lies in that Khufu's mother was buried close to her son, i.e., not in the necropolis of her husband as was usual."

I looked up at Fabian.

"Oh, boy."

"There's more."

"After the Battle, Khufu unleashed the Apophis Star on the neighbouring country of Sudan, to overpower it and take it for himself. The Star turned against him and in turn, took his life. It is thought the body was burnt."

I got really worried.

"So this ghost could be the ghost of..."

"Khufu, yeah."

"Didn't Jasper ask why you wanted to know?"

"Yeah. I told him it was just for an extra credit assignment. I think Trudy got a bit suspicious, you know what she's like. She gave me this look that said she knew we were up to something."

"Oh, no. If she suspects us, then she's gonna have Victor on us."

"Come on, this is Trudy. She's too nice to have Victor on us."

"You never know."

But when we got back in, Vera was here and cooking, her face pale and her eyes red.

"Vera? What's wrong? Where's Trudy? Have you been crying?"

"Yes. Trudy's had to go to hospital. She started hallucinating and had some sort of fit. Jasper panicked and now they're all at the hospital."

"And you started crying?"

"Yes. Poor Trudy, I hope she gets better."

I thought that was odd. Vera actually cared about Trudy?

The phone rang.

"I got it!"

I answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Nina? I need to talk to Vera."

"OK. Vera, it's for you."

*Vera's P.O.V.*

"Hello?"

"Vera, it's Trudy. She's gone into some kind of coma. They don't think she's going to make it. She's on life support."

I felt so awful. She was probably going to die. The twins would lose their mum, Jasper would lose his wife and the other kids would lose a housemother and I'd lose a friend. OK, we aren't technically friends, but we're on pleasantly speaking terms.

"That's terrible... How are the twins?"

"Hungry. They need to have formula milk. I keep hearing Trudy saying she'd never give her babies formula milk."

I started crying down the phone.

"Maybe the babies could try to snap Trudy out of it?"

"No, they're not allowed anywhere near her. The doctors won't let me hold her hand or anything."

"Oh, that's bad. How does she look?"

"Like she's asleep, but she has about a million thousand wires around her."

I nearly screamed.

"The kids are allowed to visit her later, but I don't think it's a good idea."

"So she's pretty much looking normal?"

"And kinda dead. I know she's alive, because of the heart machine and life support. But she looks like she's dead."

I felt so sad and scared. What would this place be without Trudy? Well, boring and messy. And the twins...

(At the hospital.)

We met up with Jasper in the room. He wasn't wrong about Trudy, looking dead, with all those wires. The babies were asleep in their dad's arms.

Nina whispered frantically "This is all my fault. Trudy's dying and it's all my fault. Poor Trudy."

Trudy herself made an odd noise in her sleep, sounding like "Help me..."

"Trudy?"

A doctor came in.

"Ah, is this the group of people that are so fond of Mrs Choudhary?"

"Yes, they are."

The monitor started beeping rapidly.

"Her pulse is dropping."

Everyone gasped in shock.

Well, what do you think? Please R&R. These are the links to some of the info.

wiki/Khufu

wiki/List_of_Egyptian_gods_and_goddesses

wiki/Duat

Until next update, Random Dizzy. :D