"Mum! Dad! Can I come down now?" Alex called down the dark stairwell to his parents Evelyn (Evie) and Rick O'Connell.
"No."
It was the same response he'd received every time he'd asked. He didn't know why they wouldn't let him go down into tombs with them. He didn't think it had anything to do with him knocking over the pillars at the last dig. That was when his parents - well, his mum - had found the bracelet of Anubis.
Alex shivered at the thought of the bracelet that had nearly killed him.
"That's in the past," he said to himself out loud. And it was the truth - kind of. It was 6 months after that little incident involving Imhotep, Anuk-Sunamun, the Scorpion King and the bracelet of Anubis.
For the umpteenth time, Alex looked around his surroundings. They were in a temple somewhere past Thebes. When he'd been told where they were, he hadn't listened. He was too busy reading a book on ancient mythology of Egypt. The temple, like everything else in Egypt, was made of sandstone and had only one room/level above ground. That was where he was.
Evie and Rick were below ground in the chamber where the High Priests and whoever else helped them would perform sacrifices and what-not to the gods in Ancient times. Alex thought that he would have fun telling Uncle Jonathan - Evie's brother - about what kind of sacrifices they offered. But he'd better not do it in front of his mother. She'd heard him once and got real mad at him. Later Jonathan had told him that it was because she had nearly been a sacrifice herself.
But still, the thought of grossing Jonathan out was a welcome, even funny, thought. He wondered what Jonathan was doing while they were away. Probably throwing 'wild parties' as his dad had said more than once, before yelling at Jonathan.
Alex turned back towards the stairwell when he heard his parents start coming up. "How was it?" he asked them as he peered at what they carried.
"Cobwebs, spiders, scorpions, cobwebs, lots of sand....did I mention cobwebs?" Rick said jokingly to his son.
"Nothing much down there I'm afraid. Did you have fun up here, Alex?" Evie asked her son, absently forgetting that there was nothing to do in the entry to the temple.
"As much fun as I can in an empty room," Alex replied. "Next time, can we bring Uncle Jonathan...at least he manages to make a fool of himself anywhere."
"Maybe next time," Evie said.
"Hey, how about we get back to Cairo, and we can see about a real bed," Rick said stretching his back.
"Yeah."
The O'Connell family headed out into the early mid-day heat, and loaded up their horses and started on their way back to Cairo.
TO BE CONTINUED.