Brief Summary and Review:
Gabe is staying with his archaeologist Uncle Ben and his cousin Sari in Egypt, and is lucky enough to go inside the pyramids with them! Then they meet this crazy guy who tries to mummify them and lock them in coffins because he believes in mummy curses but luckily for them, some mummies come alive and scare away the crazy guy and everything is good again.
This one bored me. It was just a mummy curse story, the same as every mummy curse story you’ve ever heard, except worse because there was hardly any actual mummy action, there was mostly just a crazy guy trying to kill them. Except for that one cool moment at the end when the mummies came alive and one of them was on fire, the rest of it was mostly uninteresting.
Also, it had a lot of information in it that I think was fake. I mean I don’t know a lot about mummies and pyramids and such, but I definitely don’t trust most of the facts that were referenced. I only took the time to Google one thing that was mentioned because like I said, I didn’t particularly care for this one, and the one fact I Googled did not immediately seem to be true based on just reading like the first six previews listed, so I’m going to have to give this one a 10/10 for unreliable facts.
The Rating:
1. Stay Out of the Basement
2. Say Cheese and Die!
3. Monster Blood
4. Welcome to Dead House
5. The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb
The Journey:
It’s got a mummy on the cover. I am down for a classic mummy caper for sure. I anticipate that it will not be my favorite because it doesn’t leave a lot of room for original content, I imagine some friends will wake a mummy and then also have to stop it which is fun, but it’s no plant dad or horrible death camera for sure. But we’ll see.
Chapter 1: Gabe and his parents are visiting the Great Pyramid and he is thirsty. His dad quizzes him about pyramids. Both sets of his grandparents are from Egypt, his parents were born in Michigan. His Uncle Ben is a famous archeologist who is currently in Egypt and is part of the reason they came to visit and learn about their ancestors.
“Little did I know that in a few days, Mom and Dad would be gone, and I would be deep inside the pyramid… trapped… probably forever.”
A new approach, telling me what will happen on purpose. Fun, tell me more.
Chapter 2: They have a dog at home named Elvis, the 3rd cocker spaniel and at least the second family from Michigan. Mom and Dad have to run off to Alexandria for an important meeting regarding their refrigeration business and Gabe decides to stay with his Uncle Ben and cousin Sari who annoys him instead of going with his parents.
Mom and Dad leave him alone in the hotel to wait for Uncle Ben and they rush off to the airport. Leaving your 12-year-old alone in a country where he doesn’t speak the language? Questionable but I suppose he would be safe in the hotel.
Gabe carries around a small mummy hand that he got at a garage sale which has been referred to as a “summoner” which can’t be good.
Chapter 3: Uncle Ben arrives dressed as a mummy just for fun. Gabe is excited to see his uncle and hopes he’ll take him into the pyramids. He is less excited to see his cousin. They get dinner and Uncle Ben says a lot of stuff about pyramids and how they’re hoping to find the burial chamber of Pharaoh Khufu.
The next morning they go to the pyramid and Gabe’s left shoelace is always coming untied. Feels like one of those details that’ll come up again.
The inside of the pyramid is like a maze and they follow Uncle Ben down a rope ladder.
Chapter 4: “Why didn’t the mummy have any hobbies? …he was too wrapped up in his work!” I hope there are more mummy jokes to come.
A man name Ahmed from the university is there to observe. He likes to talk about curses but otherwise remains quiet. I’m sure his curse knowledge will be key.
And Sari wants to go exploring, because of course she does, and it will obviously be a mistake.
Chapter 5: They go exploring but Gabe can’t find Sari and he is pretty worried about it, and then he comes across a mummy case, and the lid starts to raise up on its own because of curses probably.
Chapter 6: Just kidding, not curses, just Sari, in a classic Goosebumps “it’s just a prank” fake-out. Uncle Ben finds them and he is not happy.
The next morning they find out that two of Uncle Ben’s workers became mysteriously ill the night before. He leaves the kids alone so he can go see his workers in the hospital, and, as per usual, Sari is like “we have to get out of here” and they head off to the museum with no adult supervision in EGYPT.
Chapter 7: So they go to the museum to see some mummies and Gabe is in the middle of saying all the gross things they did to bodies to mummify them and then they run into Ahmed, the guy from the pyramid, and he looks sort of mad so they try to run away.
Chapter 8: Ahmed catches up to them and is like “I came with a message from your father… I will take you back to the hotel.” Then they get in a car with the guy and he does not take them back to the hotel as promised.
See kids, this is why you don’t sneak out of the hotel in unfamiliar places and then get into cars with people you’ve just met.
Chapter 9: So they jump out of the car the next time he stops and take off running through the streets and they lose track of Ahmed but also get lost.
Chapter 10: They then find their way back to the hotel immediately somehow and Uncle Ben shows up incredibly worried about his sick workers who can’t talk because they’re so shocked and scared and then they tell him about how they almost got kidnapped and he is not pleased about that either, so it’s back to the pyramid for all of them.
In the pyramid, Gabe stops to tie his shoe and then immediately is left behind by Sari and Uncle Ben and now he’s alone.
Chapter 11: He’s running through the tunnels trying not to panic but he can’t find them and he’s almost certainly lost and then the floor opens up and he falls through.
Chapter 12: Now he’s in a room with a mummy because of course he is.
Chapter 13: Actually, he’s in a room with a bunch of mummies and a bunch of tools for mummifying people. Is it ancient stuff or is that guy Ahmed trying to mummify people?
Chapter 14: Now he’s scared and he drops his flashlight and there are scorpions.
Chapter 15: Sari shows up to save him, but she’s lost too. Good thing she has a beeper with her which she can use to summon her dad! Except Uncle Ben doesn’t show up, it’s Ahmed. Of course it’s Ahmed. Is he a good guy or a bad guy? It’s hard to say, maybe he was trying to keep them safe when he kidnapped them.
Chapter 16: Ahmed is going on about a curse that he’s helping fulfill or some nonsense like that and Sari and Gabe are trying to keep him talking while they wait for Uncle Ben to show up.
But yeah he’s definitely making new mummies for Priestess Khala and wants to make mummies of them too.
Bad guy. Definitely bad guy.
Chapter 17: So wait. There is no curse, there is just Ahmed? Not a spooky story just a story about an evil man.
Ahmed just hit Uncle Ben in the face with a lit torch! That is for sure the craziest thing that has happened in this book so far.
Chapter 18: Ahmed has now set a tarpit on fire and then shoves Uncle Ben’s unconscious body into a mummy case and commands Gabe and Sari to get inside another one. Gabe and Sari are obviously not about to do that, also the case is infected with insects.
Chapter 19: Sari gives in and climbs into the mummy case and Gabe follows her in shortly after and Ahmed closes them in.
Chapter 20: So they’re both inside this coffin that is big enough for them both to sit inside of it side by side and then all of a sudden Uncle Ben is also inside the coffin with him because he climbed through an escape hatch, which is apparently something Egyptians did for the corpse’s souls to use.
…Is that real? (A brief Google search seems to point to no, but if anyone knows, let me know.)
Uncle Ben helps them escape the coffin and they are all on their way out of the pyramid but Ahmed catches them and is like, “You have made Khala mad… the three of you will die in the tar pit.”
Now everyone is panicking and Gabe decides that maybe that random mummy hand “Summoner” thing that he carries around in his pocket might be useful so he holds it up in the air dramatically.
Chapter 21: Apparently it’s Priestess Khala’s hand and then all the mummies in that chamber finally wake up and do something spooky.
Ahmed throws his torch at one of them and then this crazy thing happens: “Flames burst from the mummy’s chest, immediately spreading over the arms and down the legs. But the mummy kept advancing… didn’t react at all to the fire that was quickly consuming it.” I take back what I said before, that’s the scariest thing that has happened.
Then Ahmed runs away and Gabe lowers the mummy hand and all of sudden all the mummies are back how they had been before.
They eat dinner and then Gabe’s parents come back. The End.
… I hope Let’s Get Invisible! is more exciting. It should be, it has an exclamation point in the title.
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