Excerpt

"Gabe, we will be landing soon," the stewardess told me, leaning over the seat. "Will someone be meeting you at the airport?"

"Yes. Probably an ancient Egyptian pharaoh," I told her. "Or maybe a disgusting, decaying mummy."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "No. Really," she insisted. "Who will be meeting you in Cairo?"

"My Uncle Ben," I replied. "But he likes to play practical jokes. Sometimes he dresses in weird costumes and tries to scare me."

"You told me that your uncle was a famous scientist," the stewardess said.

"He is," I replied. "But he's also weird."

She laughed. I liked her a lot. She had pretty blond hair. And I liked the way she always tilted her head to one side when she talked.

Her name was Nancy, and she had been very nice to me during the long flight to Egypt. She knew it was my first time flying all by myself.

She kept checking on me and asking me how I was doing. But she treated me like a grown-up. She didn't bring me one of those dumb connect-the-dots books or a plastic wings pin that they always give to kids on planes. And she kept slipping me extra bags of peanuts, even though she wasn't supposed to.

"Why are you visiting your uncle?" Nancy asked. "Just for fun?"

I nodded. "I did it last winter, too," I told her. "It was really awesome! But this year, Uncle Ben has been digging in an unexplored pyramid. He's discovered an ancient, sacred tomb. And he invited me to be with him when he opens it up."

She laughed and tilted her head a little more. "You have a good imagination, Gabe," she said. Then she turned away to answer a man's question.

I do have a good imagination. But I wasn't making that up.

My Uncle Ben Hassad is a famous archaeologist. He has been digging around in pyramids for lots of years. I've seen newspaper articles about him. And once he was in National Geographic.

Last Christmas, my entire family visited Cairo. My cousin Sari and I — she's Uncle Ben's daughter — had some amazing adventures down in the chambers of the Great Pyramid.

Sari will be there this summer, too, I remembered, staring out the plane window at the solid blue sky. I wondered if maybe she would give me a break this time.

I like Sari, but she's so competitive! She always has to be the first, the strongest, the smartest, the best. She's the only thirteen-year-old girl I know who can turn eating breakfast into a contest!

"Flight attendants, prepare for landing," the pilot announced over the loudspeaker.

I sat up to get a better view out the window. As the plane lowered, I could see the city of Cairo beneath us. A slender blue ribbon curled through the city. That, I knew, was the Nile River.

The city stretched out from the river. Peering straight down, I could see tall glass skyscrapers and low domed temples. Where the city ended, the desert began. Yellow sand stretched to the horizon.

My stomach began to feel a little fluttery. The pyramids were somewhere out in that desert. And in a day or two, I would be climbing down into one of them, following my uncle into a tomb that hadn't been opened for thousands of years.

What would we find?