The Prickly Battle

pulled a funny-looking telescope out of his pants pocket. He’d built it himself using curved pieces of bronze and glass he’d found at the dig site. He peered through it and ground his teeth.
“That’s Cainus at the front of the crowd,” he told his friends. “He’s the one leading the mummies away! Hold on, what’s that thing attached to his face?”
Bab adjusted the focus of his telescope.
“Oh, man. I don’t know how to say this but . . . we’ve gone from no beards to two beards. Cainus has found his own beard!”
“Cainus has a beard baby too?” Prong honked. “How special for him! He’s become a Beardfather!”
“His beard baby looks rough,” Bab replied. “It’s turned into a big, gross, floating ball thing. Wait, it’s turning around. Whoa!”
“You okay, Pharaoh?” said Scaler. “Your face has gone white.”
Bab lowered his telescope. “His beard looks like the Unpharaoh’s head.”
Prong beamed. “Aww, Cainus and the Unpharaoh must have had a beard baby together. How adorable!”
Bab shook his head. “I don’t think so, Prong. I think the Unpharaoh is somehow inside Cainus’s beard. Actually, I think she is his beard! And from the look of that crowd, she’s commanded the Animal Mummies to follow her out of Mumphis. Hmm, some of them are carrying big stone planks.”
He squashed his fists into the sides of his head, desperately thinking. “Stop!” he bellowed helplessly at the departing army. “Hey! It’s me, Bab! Come back!”
“They can’t hear you from here, dude,” Scaler said.
“You’re right,” sighed Bab. “And even if they could, they won’t follow my commands because of this stupid Cotton Beard.”
Prong gasped. “Stupid?! I’ll have you know my baby is very advanced, Mr Pharaoh.”
“Sorry, Prong.”
Scaler scratched her fantail with an ostrich talon. “So Cainus has a tough beard with an Unpharaoh in it that can command all the Animal Mummies. You have a soft beard that no one listens to, which can turn into a dustburger. Sound like a fair fight to you?”
The colour flooded back into Bab’s face. He grabbed Scaler in a hug. “That’s it, my fishy friend. Dustburgers!”
Without waiting to explain, Bab bolted down the side of the Pyramid. Scaler and Prong followed, shrugging at one another. Bab led them through the twisting Mumphis streets, pausing every so often to avoid a rampaging cactus jackal, until he reached the Dustburgers restaurant.
There were decorative palm trees growing at the entrance. Bab tore a frond from one, then kicked open the door.
The restaurant was a mess of overturned chairs and busted tables. From the telltale cactus spikes all over the floor, Bab guessed the cactus jackals had already ransacked the place.
But the jackals had been typically careless. Rummaging in the back of the kitchen, Bab found a stash of burgers inside a fridge-ophagus. He ripped a long, thin leaf from the palm frond and began tying a dustburger to each end.
“Have you gone mad with grief from missing us?” Scaler asked him.
Bab showed her his handiwork. “Earmuffs!” he said. “Or burgermuffs, I guess.”
He placed the burgermuffs over Scaler’s head so that her tiny fish ears were blocked by two dustburgers. The thin palm leaf formed a neat band over her head.
“Scaler,” cooed Prong, “you look so warm and cosy with those burgers on your ears.”
“Pardon?” replied Scaler. “Sorry, I can’t hear you, my ears have burgers on them.”
Bab lifted one of Scaler’s burgermuffs so she could hear. “We’re going to chase after that Unpharaoh Beard,” he explained. “Problem is, when we get close, she’ll be able to command you and Prong to do anything she wants. So listen to me carefully.”
“I’ll listen if I’m not wearing burgermuffs,” said Scaler flatly.
“That’s why you’ll just carry them instead of wearing them,” said Bab. “But the second you hear the Unpharaoh say anything that sounds like a command, what should you do?”
“Obey her without question!” honked Prong.
“No, Prong. You place the burgermuffs over your ears till the Unpharaoh shuts up again. Here, Prong, I’ve made a pair for you too.”
Prong beamed with delight and tucked her new accessory under one wing. Scaler folded hers up in her fantail.
“Now,” said Bab, hurrying out to the street, “the Animal Mummies are heading east. And I can take a good guess at why.”
The air outside was brutal, even hotter than before.
“The Unpharaoh means to invade Cairo,” Bab continued. “Which is exactly where Mum has gone shopping.”

“Can’t I wear my burgermuffs the whole time?” honked Prong.
“No, Prong,” Bab replied. “Only when the Unpharaoh is about to command the Animal Mummies. Otherwise you won’t hear anything.”
“Aww, but I love the feeling of dust mites crawling into my ears. They’re so tickly!”
Prong was flying Bab and Scaler towards Cairo. As they drew nearer, Bab could hear terrible noises coming from the city.
WUMP! WOMP!
“I know those sounds,” he said, his throat dry with fear. “The Unpharaoh’s fireballs.”
Beneath them, the dunes ended and the outskirts of Cairo began. They flew over the pyramids of Giza, and Bab was again awestruck at their size. He also felt a little embarrassed to see the Great Pyramid looking so floppy, a side-effect of his last adventure.
Beyond the pyramids, a staggering number of sandy-coloured shops and houses stretched out before them. Shrieks and screams erupted from below as several buildings went up in flames.
“There she is,” Bab said, pointing. “And she’s sprouted arms!”
The Unpharaoh Beard had indeed grown two revolting, hairy arms. Still attached to Cainus’s chin by a hairy sort of rope, the Unpharaoh led her chief jackal and the Animal Mummies through Cairo’s back streets. Every so often, she would place a finger against a hairy nostril and . . .
WUMP!
. . . blast someone’s house with a fireball. Everyone scrambled for safety.
The Unpharaoh opened a terrible, furry mouth and bellowed, “You are my people now!”
“Fly closer, Prong,” said Bab. “This looks bad.”
In their hundreds, the people of Cairo scurried about. They ducked and weaved and screamed in confusion. Drivers, spotting the rising smoke, avoided the area.
“Of