Chapter Thirty-One: The Bowing Gods

"Before anything else, preparation is the key to success." –Alexander Graham Bell

Eventually, Nina woke the other girls up. At first, Patricia was mad about Nina getting her up at 8:45 on a Saturday, but then she remembered what the day was and shut up. They got ready and went downstairs for breakfast. A surprise to them all was that Alfie, Fabian, and even Eddie were up too. Fabian had a smug smile on his face and the others stared sleepily at their breakfast.

"Remind me again why you got us up so early, Fabian?" Alfie asked in his whinny voice. Nina smiled at Fabian.

"You know what today is, Alfie," Fabian responded. Alfie sighed and started to play with his porridge. He hated the lumpy goop, but Trudy hadn't expected anyone up so early and hadn't made breakfast yet. Alfie pushed the glop away and said, "Thanks Truds. But I'm just not that hungry." Trudy looked back in shock. Alfie, not hungry? The kids up before eleven on Saturday? Was the world ending?

The others ate hurriedly and they slipped out of the dining room and started gathering their objects. Alfie ran to his room and grabbed his magic kit. He brought it back up to the girls' room. Nina stared at it and asked, "Are you guys sure that this is the best idea we can come up with?"

The others sighed. It wasn't a good idea. Were they really going to give a god a magic kit for young kids? Fabian said, "Well, we could put all of Victor's failed attempts at the Elixir in there. That's an example of Isis's magic."

"That's actually a good idea, Fabian," Nina said. She had gotten use to all of his quick and smart ideas a long time ago. She turned to Aflie and said, "Sorry." He shrugged it off.

"What's next?" Nina asked while looking at their notes. "Do we have scales?" Nina asked. Fabian ran and grabbed the scale out of the girls' bathroom. "If that's what we've got, then it'll have to do… Candles and flashlight. By the way we need extra candles around the table." Patricia walked over and pulled a huge bucket of candles and a couple of flashlights out from under her bed. "Cool… we have the sand," she said checking it off of her list. "Do you have that pocket knife Eddie?" she asked. Eddie nodded and pulled it out of his back pocket. "That just us needing Victor's bird and that's already in the cellar." She was quiet for a second as she checked the last few things off of her list.

"We will meet and five forty-five. Then we will go down to the cellar through the kitchen at six and set up. They should be here at the chosen hour," Nina said.

"And that is?" KT asked. The others laughed because they forgot that she didn't know about the Egyptian idea of seven.

"Seven," Nina responded with a smile.

"What about Victor?" Fabian asked.

"Yeah, what if he comes down?" Patricia inquired.

"We'll barricade the door from the other side. He shouldn't come down though. He has stuff to do with my dad tonight," Eddie said. "I made sure of that part." He had a proud look on his face because he did the job that no one thought of doing.

They all went off and did their own thing for the rest of the day.

It was 5:45: meeting time. Sibuna was gathered in the kitchen and had all of their items for the ceremony. Victor was already out and Trudy was off too. The only other people in the house were Joy and Jerome and they were upstairs studying. Even Willow had gone into town with the excuse to do some window shopping since Alfie couldn't go out with her like most Saturday nights.

Nina ran through the list one last time to make sure that they had everything. After the tally was complete she pressed her locket into the lock and the small passageway opened. They went through and began to prepare for the ceremony in the cellar.

It was 6:55 and they had just lit all of the candles. They only had five more minutes until they found out who it was. The clock ticked slower and slower each time until every second was twenty years. Finally, it was almost seven. Nina looked at all of her friends. One of them was the Adagnitio, and they were about to figure out who it was.

The clock struck seven and a strange mist appeared at one end of the cellar. Soon the six gods appeared through the fog: the jackal Anubis, the sparrow Horus, the woman Isis, the dead man Osiris, the sun hawk Ra, and the unidentifiable animal Seth.

The gods stared as Fabian, KT, Aflie, and Patricia bowed. No one said anything. The gods looked at each of them. They were searching for the Knowledgeable One. One of them caught the gods' eyes. The gods bowed at the new Knowledgeable One. The others stared at the Adagnitio and bowed to their new Knowledgeable One.

*Sorry… you will know tomorrow. I promise. Anymore last minute guesses?*