The Prickly Battle

prickles.”
“They’ll be very useful one day, Scaler, I promise,” Prong honked. “I study plant-growing at Mummy College, remember?”
“And what an ace student you are. You even passed an assignment once.”
Prong inspected the pots, poking her beak into each. Some sprouted the dry, stick-like plants that filled the room. Others – the ones containing the magic sand of Mumphis – grew various objects instead.
“Wow-ee,” Prong declared. “I planted a feather in this pot and now it’s growing a peacock’s tail. This one’s growing a mug of hot chocolate! Probably ’cos I planted an old cocoa bean in it. My nursery customers will adore these! Ooh, what about this one? I sneezed in this pot last week and now . . . well, I’m not sure what that is, but it doesn’t look very pleasant.”
Scaler shot her friend a frank look. “I’m sure this slimy, humongous sneeze tree will sell like hot cakes at your nursery,” she said. “Nevertheless, I recommend you rip it out and plant the hairs instead.”
Prong sighed and patted the disgusting tree. It made a moist sound: sssSnerfl.
“I feel sorry for the poor sneeze tree,” she said. “Hey, I know!”
Prong picked up another plant. “This is my beautiful masterpiece, Scaler. The one assignment I didn’t fail – in fact, I got a D!”
Scaler curled her lip. “D for dust? This is a stick with some dust balls on it, Prong.”
“Not dust, Scaler, cotton! It’s lovely, soft, one-hundred per cent Egyptian cotton. This plant is my good luck charm, the only plant I’ve ever properly grown. We can’t risk the hairs not growing, so I’m going to use the same lucky pot.”
She tore the cotton plant from the pot and slid it under some nearby brambles. Scaler shrugged and carefully upended the silver box over the pot. The black hairs settled on top of the magic sand, and Prong poked them in with a talon.
“Now pour yourself a dustshake, Scaler,” she said, sitting back and crossing her legs. “This could take ten or twenty years to grow.”
WAMP!
A wave of solid light exploded from the pot, shattering all the vines in the room to splinters. The force of it rippled Scaler and Prong’s bandages.
“Or not,” Prong corrected herself.
A moment ago, just a few hairs had been sticking out of the sand. Now, a thick tuft of fluff sprouted in the cotton pot.
The hook in Scaler’s lip almost fell out. “That looks familiar. I think?”
“More than familiar,” honked Prong. “We know exactly what that is. It’s the very thing our entire lives have centred around for centuries! It’s everything we’ve been working towards! It’s . . . I give up. What is it?”
Scaler clapped a fin on Prong’s shoulder. “That, my birdy friend, is none other than the Pharaoh’s Beard. Version Two.”
FLOMP.
Prong fainted.
“With one key difference,” Scaler observed, studying the tuft. “It’s white instead of black. Must have been some cottonseed left in that pot. Prong? Prong, are you awake?”
Prong immediately regained consciousness. She whooped with glee and danced around her newly cleared-out living room. “Scaler, it worked! I grew a plant. Not just any plant, either. I grew a lovely, white, cottony Pharaoh’s Beard!”
The cotton Beard came to life. It bent over, then jumped as hard as it could, uprooting itself from the magic sand. It flew upwards and hovered in front of Prong.
The Ibis Mummy gave it a tender pat. “Welcome to the world, little friend,” she honked quietly. “My name is Prong and I’m . . . I’m your Beardmother.”
The tuft gently touched Prong’s cheek. The ibis quivered all over.
“If I’m not wrong, Prong,” said Scaler flatly, “your new Beard baby just gave you a kiss. Excuse me, I’m having some feels.” She dabbed her green eyes with a gazelle hoof.
With great tenderness, Scaler leaned towards the Beard and whispered, “If you like, you can call me Aunty Scales.”
But the newborn Beard didn’t linger with its mummy family. It had Beard business. Driven by the same ancient purpose as the hairs from which it had grown, the white tuft whooshed out the window.
“We’d better get after it,” Scaler said. “It’s searching for a Pharaoh.”

Scaler and Prong had already left Mumphis by the time Cainus the Jackal emerged from beneath the Pyramid.
He blinked as his sharp eyes adjusted to the Egyptian sunlight. He’d struggled back into his elephant disguise, though it was now filthy with the dust of the Unpharaoh’s tomb.
The town square was a flurry of activity. Falcon Mummies and Dog Mummies and Cow Mummies and Ostrich Mummies headed this way and that, each intent on solving some mad problem or another.
“Now, the sand,” Cainus muttered. “My mistress said to use the magic sand near the Pyramid.”
He noticed the many cactus jackals dotted around. They had once been Cainus’s slaves – until Bab and Scaler had tricked them into drinking Prong’s cactus juice. Now they were green and spiky and buried up to their necks.
His own neck stiff with pulled muscles, Cainus inched painfully over to one of the cactus jackals. He peered closely at its spiky head. “Is . . . is it really you?” he said quietly. “Brudd? My loyal henchman, I’ve never forgotten you. Do you remember me? Your beloved boss?”
The cactus stared back, completely still.
FWITT!
It spat a cactus spine into Cainus’s face.
“Yeeowww!” Cainus howled, plucking the spine out of his forehead. “There’s no need for that, you cactusy brat!”
A groovy-looking Baboon Mummy strolled past and casually said, “Your rhyming is lame, sir.”
Enraged, Cainus seized the Baboon Mummy by the throat. “Listen here, you shade-throwing baboon. The day of your doom is coming quite soon!”
“That rhyme is even lamer, sir,” the baboon replied in a choked tone.
“Bah!” Cainus spat. He released his victim, who scampered away. “I mustn’t let these cruel mummies distract me from my mission.”
Kneeling beside the cactus jackal, Cainus dug a hole in the sand. He plucked the black hair from inside his elephant costume, planted it, and covered it over