huh.

i was going to make this post about something ... now i can't remember what it was .. LOL. o yeah! im making something called quote of the day at the bottom of each post!
on a side note im going to tell youabout my costume:
the under layer consists of a turquoise short sleeved shirt with an owl on it over a longsleeved brown one and slightly ragged purple pants. over that is a piece of turquoise cloth thats ragged around the edges. the cloth has a huge rip in it, enabling me to bring one piece around like a skirt, and the other up into a toga-like over dress. i also have a white wooden shield cleverly designed to hold a plastic bag for candy in the back. it has a paper cover picturing the head of Medusa and an olive branch. ive also made a paper spear to carry along my side, and have a brown sweatshirt with an owl in the pocket i can wear if it gets cold. so ... do you know who i am?
hint:she's greek. another hint: she was born of a split skull. another hint: she's annabeths mom. another hint: her names athena.
quote of the day:
"Learning your dad is from a foreign pantheon can really screw up your day."

Be Prepared ...

for the rule of Scar!no, just kidding. be prepared for an explosion in posts! why?
You ever heard of NaNoWriMo? well now you have! november is national write a novel in a month! in honor of it also being national book month i'm writing a 7,00 word novel. so ive decided to make blood of queens into it... and ive changed it a bit. ive started the next chapter, so here it is.



T
H
E
S
E
U
S
Chapter Two: A Guy With a Ridiculous Name Decides I Get to Fight to the Death
OK, first I am not going to tell you what happened with Ziva in the room. [Come on Ziva its not like you’d let me listen while you had the mic]
Hold on.
[Stomp]
[Muffled curses]
[OUCH! Percy that was my foot!]
OK. She’s-oh gods. [ZIVA I CAN TELL YOU’RE EAVESDROPPING!]
[Ziva if you didn’t let me listen to you do you really think I’m going to let you listen to me? you're way more annoying than I was, and I’m not exactly being modest. FINALLY, after I call annoying you leave?] Weird I got he impression it was her life's mission to be annoying t me. Anyway, I woke up and couldn’t remember a thing. (This is a spot where Ziva would make some sarcastic comment if she was here) I was in a room with a bunch of sleeping bags on the floor. It was bare aside from them and a table with a couple chairs at it. At first I thought it was empty. A guy with curly dark hair looked up from the table. He’d been sitting at an angle that prevented me from seeing him easily.
“Good, you're awake.” he said. “I don't suppose you'd know who your parent is, would you?” now, this would make perfect sense but with the amnesia I said something real smart like, “uhhh .....”
He smiled. “Never mind. Knowing those idiots who brought you in you probably can’t remember a thing. I’m Octavius by the way. Ironically, the eighth person in my family by that name. My dad’s Mercury.”
I stared at him. “Mercury? As in the poison?”
“As in the god.”
“Your dad is ..? Seriously, your dad is actually the god of roads?”
His smile faded. “Yeah. I’ve never actually met him though. The gods don’t tend be real social with their kids. If you’re here then you’re a demigod. The only question is who’s your patron?”
I got up. “What do you mean ‘who’s my patron’?”
Octavius tossed me a purple shirt. “Put that on. By ‘patron’ I mean your Godly Parent. That’s what we call it here in Rome. You don’t look Roman-maybe you’re Greek. For your sake I hope you’re a son Mars-oh, sorry god of war. The Greeks call him Ares.”
As he talked I changed into the clothes he handed me-a purple t-shirt and jeans-and I asked questions, he answered.
“Why do you hope I’m son of Ares?” I asked.
He paused for a second, so fast I wasn’t sure if I imagined it or not. “Because … I guess I should say. I don’t like talking about it but I guess I kinda have to.” He took a deep breath and continued.
“Because if you’re from another Pantheon-especially the Greeks- you’ll be sent to the arena. At least you’ll be trained. Some criminals are sent in there with a dagger against a bunch of tigers. But if you’re a son of Mars, or Ares then you’ll be treated a lot better then the others. Ares and … what’s her name? Aphrodite, that’s it.
“We Romans believe we’re all descendents of Venus and Mars-the goddess of love and god of War. Some how I doubt you’re a son of Venus though. anyway, if you’re a son of mars or Venus then you wont be sent to the arena-even if you’re born of their Greek counterparts. But if not … or if you’re born of another pantheon … there’s no way around it. You’ll be given gladiatorial training and sent to the arena. So, here goes. Do you know who your parents are?”
I cannot tell you how much this question hit me in the face. Up until that point the whole amnesia thing hadn’t really how should I put this? Slowed me down? Maybe. I sat down at the table, my head in my hands. And thought.
I know, I know, you’re thinking what, you have amnesia and all you do is think? But honestly, at the time it was the first time that came to my mind.
I’m not sure how I did it. I just sat down and racked my memories. Mom? Nothing. Siblings? One … maybe two. I couldn’t remember their names or anything though. home? That was easy. New York. I’m not sure how I knew, I just did. friends? Nothing. Pets? A dog. Definitely a dog. Again, I couldn’t remember its name or what type of dog it was. Some other pet to. A horse maybe. And, finally I came to inevitable. My father? Yes. Here I remembered everything. Every quote, every gift, every time I ever saw him.
I looked up at Octavius. “My father is Medisius.”
His eyes grew wide. “You can’t mean Pegasus’ brother ..?”
I nodded. “I do.”
Ok, in case you’ve never heard of Medisius, he’s a deity from Oquazine, which is a land so far away the only people on Earth who’ve heard of it (aside from people who have connections, like knowing gods there) are the teens and middleschoolers who’ve beaten the video game wizard101. and, of course their version of Oquazine is so twisted its almost nothing like the original-in fact, possibly the only things the two have in common is they’re both underwater, and both their peoples worship the sky.
Medisius is the Oquzinian god of the sea. He’s a very important deity. In fact, the four goddesses of the sky and dance; Layla, goddess of night, Sandra, goddess of earth and stars, Luma, goddess of the moon and Firosa, goddess of fire (all kinds) are said to be his wives. In the Oquazinian mythology, when Medusa’s blood dripped into the ocean it became three beings: the twin winged horses, Pegasus and Pegasa, and Medisius. Medisius was a bit of a born rebel and took Pegasa and flew to Oquazine. He didn’t actually know where he was going till he got there and discovered a flourishing Greek-like world-except for one thing. The world was basically a set of islands and every day the people had to sacrifice huge amounts of their food so the sea didn’t kill them. In the center of the smallest island was a city-well, actually the city took up most of the space on the island. In the center of the city was the Tree of Life. The city gave the world its name-and its gods.
Medisius saw what was going on and it turned out the four goddesses (Firosa, Layla, Luma and Sandra) needed someone to keep the sea at bay-and even offered all of their hands in marriage to whoever could do it.
So far everyone had failed. So Medisius and Pegasa did it and he got his position as god of sea and husband of the four goddesses of the sky.
In the center of Oquazine (both city and world) was the Tree of Life. It bore the fruit of the gods-if anyone else ate it they cascaded into a pile of ashes. What’s more the fruit granted the eater immortality and tasted like their favorite food. It could only be eaten by a mortal if the gods gave them permission. Another fact about the Silver Fruit: it lost its power outside Oquazine, the city of the gods’ walls.
Anyway, so Medisius ate the Silver Fruit, married the Quartet etc, etc … and, apparently fathered me.
Oh … one more fact about the tree of life: Sandra wrote the names of great people, no matter their social or political rank on it. This may seem irrelevant but the idea is that when the apocalypse comes the people who have their names written on the tree will be reborn when the gods remake the world.
So, I told Octavius what I just told you, and by the end he was practically staring at me.
“This … this is bad.” Was all he said.

OKAY!

OK guys, I've redone the first chapter of the story. so, after this I'll be posting second chapter "A guy with a ridiculous name decides I get to fight to the death".


Prolog
A girl raised her pale hand. “Twenty thousand denari, for the black haired gladiator.” She said.
At this the auctioneer said, “going once, going twice-“
“Thirty thousand denari!” cried a man from the back. At once the girl made another bid, this one rather outrageous.
“Fifty thousand!”
“Going once…” said the auctioneer. For once, nobody answered. “Going twice…” still, no bids. “Sold!”-The man shot the girl a dirty look-“To the lady in the orange.”
The slave approached with great caution. He did not want another cruel master like the last one that had owned him. But the young woman merely tucked her hair from her face and said to him: “your name, young gladiator?” the man-boy really-flinched. He did not need another reminder of this new life he had.
“a-at the camp…you know where they trained us… they called me Theseus.” He answered nervously, looking down.
She cupped her hand and placed it under his chin, gently urging him to look up at her.
For a brief moment their eyes met, grey, mysterious ones to green frightened ones. For a moment they were neither mistress nor slave, nor friends nor enemies. In that brief moment they were equals. Peers. They both were frightened yet brave. They were both relaxed as if no harm could come to them there. For a minute they were gifted by the gods. In that single moment they knew all of each others secrets.
“I will call you Perseaus.”


Z
I
V
A
Chapter One: I Find a Very Strange Note


It all started when we moved. My father had recently died so my mother had to get a job which meant she couldn’t homeschool me, despite the fact that the schools in New York are terrible [Yes, I know you’ve been expelled from almost every school you’ve gone to Percy. Now shut up]. So there I was walking into school on my first day, wearing clothes that fitted me exactly, a black rock t-shirt and a pair of ratty jeans. I was comfortable in these clothes partly because they were physically comfortable-no itching lace or sequins- and partly because they reflected my personality: different. Tomboy. Intelligent. Troublemaker. The kind of person who didn’t care what others thought.
“Hey Tommy!”
Ugh. I so hoped there wouldn’t be teasers here. But who was I kidding? Of course there’d be teasers. Every school has teasers. And how had my old nickname followed me here? I turned around and nearly fainted.
A boy with black hair and coffee skin stood there. My archenemy. Angus. Chicken breath. No, seriously once, we both called each other that at the same time. Then we said “Jinx” at the same time.
“Hey Dora! I bet ya fifty cents I’ll remember my locker combination better!”
“Yeah right! I heard our math teacher’s gonna give us a surprise pop quiz! I’ll kick your butt in fourth period!”
Rubbish, I thought. Everyone knows I’m top in my math class. Or I was anyway before we moved. What did he have to gain by telling me this? It wouldn’t be a surprise then would it? Puzzling over this I went down to my locker and opened my zip-up notebook (yet another sign of my weirdness) and looked at the note with my locker combination on it. 13-32-33. easy enough, lots of threes. [Of course I remember that stupid tattoo. Now go away]
I reached into a pocket in my notebook and unfolded a drawing. It showed a blond teenage girl with a bloody stake (you know like you kill a vampire with) in one hand and her other hand was on her hip. She wore this look on her face like hey man, why don’t you go fly a kite or something? And in front of her was a teenage guy lying on the ground. He had messed up bronze hair and amber eyes. But the weirdest thing about him was that he sparkled. His pale skin looked almost tan compared to the points of light like a hundred diamonds were imbedded in his skin, and right where his heart should be was a gaping hole.
I’m not sure how I made the drawing glitter and I wished I knew how I did that so I could do it again. I’d drawn them in a clearing, she standing above him looking down with legs wide spread, he lying as if dead in front of her, sunlight streaming down to fall on his handsome face. In the background dark trees rose up imposingly with spider webs stretching across branches.
“Nice drawing.” said a voice.
I looked up to see a black girl with braces grinning at me.
“Thanks,” I said, a little weakly. “Do you understand it?”
The girl nodded. “That’s a sociopath that drinks blood,” she said pointing to the boy on the ground. “That’s a vampire slayer... And that’s ...” she squinted at the background. “It’s hard to tell but it looks like it says ‘and then Buffy staked Edward. The end.’”
I nodded. “I wrote that in the cobwebs to see if people would find it. What do you think?”
“I like it.”
“Cool.”
The girl opened her locker and began storing things inside it. I followed suit and taped up the drawing to the door. As I turned to put up another drawing- a portrait of a girl in a black-and-white plaid dress-to the back of my locker I saw it.
It lay on a piece of rumpled white cloth, as if it had just been unwrapped. I can’t describe it but if you know what a Greek column looks like then combine that with a spine.
I stared at it. I knew immediately what it was. It was a djed an Egyptian amulet used for stability, strength, renewed life-literally the backbone. But what was it doing here of all places? A random locker in a school in Brooklyn?
“Hey look at-“ I broke off, as I turned to where the girl was.
Or rather where she had been.
Right where she’d stood a moment ago the spot was empty, the locker closed and locked.
Or was it? I tugged at the handle on the locker and it swung open.
Inside it was empty. Or, almost anyway. Inside was a piece of paper that I picked up. It was written in hieroglyphics. Lovely I thought. I’m horrid at hieroglyphics. Once, at a camp we were translating them and I got mine done last. Oddly I could read these perfectly, as if I was reading English (and believe me I’m good at that).
Dear Ziva, it read.
How do they know my name? I wondered vaguely but I kept reading.
If you can read this you are already in danger. The Eclipse Society and the Serpents of Chaos may be trying to recruit you. DO NOT JOIN THEM UNDER ANY CICUMSTANCES. You will end up dead, without a coin for the ferryman and with a heavy heart. Do not keep the djed for longer than a few weeks at most. It holds the power of Osiris and should not be used by a novice unless in an emergency. Your name is not Ziva but Pearl, and you are not like other 12 year olds. I regret to say that I cannot explain fully in this letter, for fear it will be intercepted but I will do so as soon as we meet. Go to your apartment building after school and turn to Rah. Continue and you will find me within a few miles.
Goodbye and good luck,

Anubis Death Caller
Diamond
* * *
After school I headed back to our apartment. Before going into the building though, I hesitated. “Turn to Rah and you will find me.” Anubis’ words rang through my head. Rah was one of about five Egyptian gods of sun. He rode a chariot across the sky, then at night descended into the underworld to give hope to the lost souls who couldn’t find their way to the Hall of Judgment, which was like the Egyptian version of a court room after death. I was a little confused though, because legend had it that Isis, goddess of leadership and wife of Osiris wanted her husband on the throne so she poisoned Rah, telling him that she could heal him if he told her his True Name. he did, and she healed him but True Name have so much power it was like Rah was Isis’ slave-[Oops. Sorry Percy.] After that and so she forced him to retreat to the heavens.
So how could I turn toward Rah if he had retreated to the sky? It was very confusing. Then I realized; the sunset. If the legends said that Rah had “retreated to the heavens” then wouldn’t it make sense for the sunset to be what Anubis meant? So instead of going inside I walked toward the sunset.
At this point in my life I did not have a lot of stamina. By the time I had went farther then a mile, I was every thirsty and needed a break. I put my backpack down and pulled out my water bottle, taking a long drink leaning against a building. As I drank I thought. Angus had said. “I heard our teachers gonna give us a math quiz.” True enough, our teacher (we were in the same class, unfortunately) Mr. Gardner had given us a math quiz to see how much we already knew. But why would Angus want to tell me this? I put to the back of my mind and continued on, singing to pass the time.
I sang “Holding Out For a Hero” [Ooh-I have a terrific idea. How about you go away and practice your defense while I finish this chapter, yes? Thank you, you are my best friend Percy.], “A Year Without Rain”, “Round and Round”, “Bohemian Rhapsody” and pretty much all the other ones I knew (save the Hebrew ones). I was in the middle of one of my favorites, “Viva La Vida” when the street ended. My voice faltered. In front of me was what might have once been a magnificent mansion. It was now wrecking ball worthy. I blinked. This was where the god of the newly dead lived? In Egyptian society a huge amount of time in this life was spent preparing for the next life. They would never have let the god of mummification live here. Come to think of it they wouldn’t have let ANY god live here.
Wait a minute. I blinked again. Was it..? Yes, it was. The wrecking-ball-worthy-once-beautiful mansion had been restored to its former glory. I was now looking at a house with Greek architecture, except that the pillars seemed to be covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs and bas reliefs, and the whole thing looked like it was made out of sandstone rather than marble. Slowly, I walked up to the door and knocked.
No answer.
I knocked again. Still, no answer. I reached out to open the door. It wasn’t locked. I went inside, and stared.
Inside, it was my dreams come true. I’m not kidding. Ever since I was little and first read about Egypt, it’s been my dream to have an Egyptian, ancient kind of house. I even drew blue prints for a pyramid shaped house complete with a two story library, with a platform and spiral staircase. This was even better. The room- ok, I probably shouldn’t call it a room. The, um, roofed courtyard was grand, with doors leading off of it in every direction. In the center of the room- err, courtyard, was a desk that was big enough for two. Behind the desk were two statues, one of a man with a tabulas and stilus (the roman/ Egyptian version of pen and paper) and a long necked bird head, with a yellow disk on top of a crescent moon on his headdress. Next to him was a statue of a woman wearing a sleeveless black fur dress, holding a palm branch and a stilus. I noticed something: on the palm were words. Not regular words, in English but in hieroglyphs, with ovals around them. The woman’s headdress was like a star with a bow around it.
Ringed around the room by the doors, were desks with computers on them. At the desks sat birds and baboons, typing essays while a few people played games, or researched Egyptian looking stuff on the computers animals weren’t using.
“Djahuti and Sasha.” I said immediately when I saw the statues.
The man at the desk looked up. Really, I hadn’t realized he was sitting there I was to busy staring at the statues. He had blond mussed hair, like Dr. Horrible, this guy from a movie my sister and I loved. He was wearing a white lab coat like Dr. Horrible too, but he was missing the goggles, and the coat was covered with stains that moved and wriggled.
“Oh hello. Anubis was wondering when you’d come. I told him you wouldn’t, but it turns out he was right.” The man sighed. “Now I owe him ten pieces of papyrus. You will have gathered, I presume, that you know who I am?”
“Well, since you’re sitting right in front of that great big statue of Thoth, that you are either Thoth, or his son or something.” I said sarcastically.
He gave me a look. “You are right-or you would be if you didn’t act so sarcastic. Now here is a better question: who are you?”
“I am Ziva.” I said. “Ziva Baht Yonaton.”
Thoth looked at me thoughtfully. “Maybe.” He said slowly. “More likely you are something else entirely.”

*drumroll*

Blood Of Queens Part 2

Here is the second part of novel Blood of Queens. The next time I post about this it'll be a new chapter. (Note:I'm putting the whole thing up here so you can read down rather than up)
Chapter One: Thirteen,Thirty-Two, Thirty-Three

It all started when we moved. My father had recently died so my mother had to get a job which meant she couldn’t homeschool me, despite the fact that the schools in New York are terrible. So there I was walking into school on my first day, wearing clothes that fitted me exactly, a black rock t-shirt and a pair of ratty jeans. I was comfortable in these clothes partly because they were physically comfortable-no itching lace or sequins- and partly because they reflected my personality: different. Tomboy. Intelligent. Troublemaker. The kind of person who didn’t care what others thought.
“Hey Tommy!”
Ugh. I so hoped there wouldn’t be teasers here. But who was I kidding? Of course there’d be teasers. Every school has teasers. And how had my old nickname followed me here? I turned around and nearly fainted.
A boy with black hair and coffee skin stood there. My archenemy. Angus. Chicken breath. No, seriously once, we both called each other that at the same time. Then we said “Jinx” at the same time.
“Hey Dora! I bet ya fifty cents I’ll remember my locker combination better!”
“Yeah right! I heard our math teacher’s gonna give us a surprise pop quiz! I’ll kick your butt in fourth period!”
Rubbish, I thought. Everyone knows I’m top in my math class. Or I was anyway before we moved. What did he have to gain by telling me this? It wouldn’t be a surprise then would it? Puzzling over this I went down to my locker and opened my zip-up notebook (yet another sign of my weirdness) and looked at the note with my locker combination on it. 13-32-33. easy enough, lots of threes.
I reached into a pocket in my notebook and unfolded a drawing. It showed a blond teenage girl with a bloody stake (you know like you kill a vampire with) in one hand and her other hand was on her hip. She wore this look on her face like hey man, why don’t you go fly a kite or something? And in front of her was a teenage guy lying on the ground. He had messed up bronze hair and amber eyes. But the weirdest thing about him was that he sparkled. His pale skin looked almost tan compared to the points of light like a hundred diamonds were imbedded in his skin, and right where his heart should be was a gaping hole.
I’m not sure how I made the drawing glitter and I wished I knew how I did that so I could do it again. I’d drawn them in a clearing, she standing above him looking down with legs wide spread, he lying as if dead in front of her, sunlight streaming down to fall on his handsome face. In the background dark trees rose up imposingly with spider webs stretching across branches.
“Nice drawing.” said a voice.
I looked up to see a black girl with braces grinning at me.
“Thanks,” I said, a little weakly. “Do you understand it?”
The girl nodded. “That’s a sociopath that drinks blood,” she said pointing to the boy on the ground. “That’s a vampire slayer... And that’s ...” she squinted at the background. “It’s hard to tell but it looks like it says ‘and then Buffy staked Edward. The end.’”
I nodded. “I wrote that in the cobwebs to see if people would find it. What do you think?”
“I like it.”
“Cool.”
The girl opened her locker and began storing things inside it. I followed suit and taped up the drawing to the door. As I turned to put up another drawing- a portrait of a girl in a black-and-white plaid dress-to the back of my locker I saw it.
It lay on a piece of rumpled white cloth, as if it had just been unwrapped. I can’t describe it but if you know what a Greek column looks like then combine that with a spine.
I stared at it. I knew immediately what it was. It was a djed an Egyptian amulet used for stability, strength, renewed life-literally the backbone. But what was it doing here of all places? A random locker in a school in Brooklyn?
“Hey look at-“ I broke off, as I turned to where the girl was.
Or rather where she had been.
Right where she’d stood a moment ago the spot was empty, the locker closed and locked.
Or was it? I tugged at the handle on the locker and it swung open.
Inside it was empty. Or, almost anyway. Inside was a piece of paper that I picked up. It was written in hieroglyphics. Lovely I thought. I’m horrid at hieroglyphics. Once, at a camp we were translating them and I got mine done last. Oddly I could read these perfectly, as if I was reading English (and believe me I’m good at that).
Dear Ziva, it read.
How do they know my name? I wondered vaguely but I kept reading.
If you can read this you are already in danger. The Eclipse Society and the Serpents of Chaos may be trying to recruit you. DO NOT JOIN THEM UNDER ANY CICUMSTANCES. You will end up dead, without a coin for the ferryman and with a heavy heart. Do not keep the djed for longer than a few weeks at most. It holds the power of Osiris and should not be used by a novice unless in an emergency. Your name is not Ziva but Pearl, and you are not like other 12 year olds. I regret to say that I cannot explain fully in this letter, for fear it will be intercepted but I will do so as soon as we meet. Go to your apartment building after school and turn to Rah. Continue and you will find me within a few miles.
Goodbye and good luck,

Anubis Death Caller
Diamond
* * *
After school I headed back to our apartment. Before going into the building though, I hesitated. “Turn to Rah and you will find me.” Anubis’ words rang through my head. Rah was one of about five Egyptian gods of sun. He rode a chariot across the sky, then at night descended into the underworld to give hope to the lost souls who couldn’t find their way to the Hall of Judgment, which was like the Egyptian version of a court room after death. I was a little confused though, because legend had it that Isis, goddess of leadership and wife of Osiris wanted her husband on the throne so she poisoned Rah, telling him that she could heal him if he told her his True Name. he did, and she healed him but True Name have so much power it was like Rah was Isis’ slave after that and so she forced him to retreat to the heavens.
So how could I turn toward Rah if he had retreated to the sky? It was very confusing. Then I realized; the sunset. If the legends said that Rah had “retreated to the heavens” then wouldn’t it make sense for the sunset to be what Anubis meant? So instead of going inside I walked toward the sunset.
At this point in my life I did not have a lot of stamina. By the time I had went farther then a mile, I was every thirsty and needed a break. I put my backpack down and pulled out my water bottle, taking a long drink leaning against a building. As I drank I thought. Angus had said. “I heard our teachers gonna give us a math quiz.” True enough, our teacher (we were in the same class, unfortunately) Mr. Gardner had given us a math quiz to see how much we already knew. But why would Angus want to tell me this? I put to the back of my mind and continued on, singing to pass the time.
I sang “Holding Out For a Hero”, “A Year Without Rain”, “Round and Round”, “Bohemian Rhapsody” and pretty much all the other ones I knew (save the Hebrew ones). I was in the middle of one of my favorites, “Viva La Vida” when the street ended. My voice faltered. In front of me was what might have once been a magnificent mansion. It was now wrecking ball worthy. I blinked. This was where the god of the newly dead lived? In Egyptian society a huge amount of time in this life was spent preparing for the next life. They would never have let the god of mummification live here. Come to think of it they wouldn’t have let ANY god live here.
Wait a minute. I blinked again. Was it..? Yes, it was. The wrecking-ball-worthy-once-beautiful mansion had been restored to its former glory. I was now looking at a house with Greek architecture, except that the pillars seemed to be covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs and bas reliefs, and the whole thing looked like it was made out of sandstone rather than marble. Slowly, I walked up to the door and knocked.
No answer.
I knocked again. Still, no answer. I reached out to open the door. It wasn’t locked. I went inside, and stared.
Inside, it was my dreams come true. I’m not kidding. Ever since I was little and first read about Egypt, it’s been my dream to have an Egyptian, ancient kind of house. I even drew blue prints for a pyramid shaped house complete with a two story library, with a platform and spiral staircase. This was even better. The room- ok, I probably shouldn’t call it a room. The, um, roofed courtyard was grand, with doors leading off of it in every direction. In the center of the room- err, courtyard, was a desk that was big enough for two. Behind the desk were two statues, one of a man with a tabulas and stilus (the roman/ Egyptian version of pen and paper) and a long necked bird head, with a yellow disk on top of a crescent moon on his headdress. Next to him was a statue of a woman wearing a sleeveless black fur dress, holding a palm branch and a stilus. I noticed something: on the palm were words. Not regular words, in English but in hieroglyphs, with ovals around them. The woman’s headdress was like a star with a bow around it.
Ringed around the room by the doors, were desks with computers on them. At the desks sat birds and baboons, typing essays while a few people played games, or researched Egyptian looking stuff on the computers animals weren’t using.
“Djahuti and Sasha.” I said immediately when I saw the statues.
The man at the desk looked up. Really, I hadn’t realized he was sitting there I was to busy staring at the statues. He had blond mussed hair, like Dr. Horrible, this guy from a movie my sister and I loved. He was wearing a white lab coat like Dr. Horrible too, but he was missing the goggles, and the coat was covered with stains that moved and wriggled.
“Oh hello. Anubis was wondering when you’d come. I told him you wouldn’t, but it turns out he was right.” The man sighed. “Now I owe him ten pieces of papyrus. You will have gathered, I presume, that you know who I am?”
“Well, since you’re sitting right in front of that great big statue of Thoth, that you are either Thoth, or his son or something.” I said sarcastically.
He gave me a look. “You are right-or you would be if you didn’t act so sarcastic. Now here is a better question: who are you?”
“I am Ziva.” I said. “Ziva Baht Yonaton.”
Thoth looked at me thoughtfully. “Maybe.” He said slowly. “More likely you are something else entirely.”


~Happy Reading! Diana/Ziva