Sunday, December 5, 2010

What happens in Chapter 5 of The Egypt Game?

In Chapter 5, April, Marshall, and Melanie return to "Egypt" for a second time.  They clean up the yard, then begin work on the lean-to which they will use as a Temple.  When the yard looks "clean and bare and ready", and they have completed some work on the Temple, April and Melanie stop and rest for awhile, and notice "the only real door" to the storage yard which is Egypt.  The door is padlocked from the outside, and the girls conclude that it leads to the rest of the notorious Professor's backyard.  Melanie wonders what the Professor would do if he were to see them playing there, but April feels that he wouldn't care.  There is a window in the building by the padlocked door, and the girls check it out, but it appears to be covered by something that looks like a heavy curtain.  The window is very dirty, and the girls are relieved because they believe that the Professor would not be able to see out of it.


April and Melanie make plans about what they will do in Egypt.  They suggest making Marshall a pharaoh, and themselves high priestesses, and they discuss for a minute the possibility of offering the pharoah up as a human sacrifice.  Marshall is having none of that, however, and the girls assure him that it is just a game, and tell him he will just be a very important king instead.  This is the way all of the Egypt Game evolves; "nobody ever plan(s) it ahead, at least, not very far...ideas (begin) and (grow) and afterwards it (is) hard to remember just how".


After they have played for a little while, Melanie and April stop the game, having decided that they need more equipment.  They go into the alley to find what they want, and make quite a racket bringing it all back into the yard through the broken board which is their entryway.  They are so busy that they do not notice when the curtain on the Professor's window is moved aside, but "someone with very sharp eyes", presumably Marshall, does (Chapter 5).

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