The Mummy Hand

By Steven Clark Waiters

While Amber and her younger brother Stevie are playing in their grandparents’ basement, they find an ancient mummified hand hidden behind a false wall. They learn quite by accident that this hand can make items like Grandpa’s championship basketball and pinball machine disappear. While trying to make them reappear before Grandma discovers what they have done, Amber and Stevie realize the hand can make them disappear as well and reappear in a strange Egyptian world where statues come to life and where a handful of ruthless pirates have been stranded for hundreds of years. When a snooping neighbor boy gets hold of the gruesome hand, he panics and accidentally sends Amber and Stevie to this strange world with no possible way of getting back home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532046094

Steven Clark Waiters

Steven Clark Waiters, a sixth-grade teacher for the past twenty-seven years, holds both a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He previously published The Lost Treasure of Grandpa Jingle-Wingle in 2004. He lives in rural California with his wife and two children. Steven and his family enjoy exploring local areas…and beyond, always searching for adventure. When he began writing The Mummy Hand, Steven approached it like the beginning of a new family adventure. He explored ideas, from the ordinary to the extraordinary, then let his imagination twist and turn them into an out-of-this-world story.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

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AMBER

HEY, THERE YOU ARE, Amber said, stepping down onto the basement floor.

Shhh! Stevie hissed. I’ve almost got it!

Got what? she asked.

The championship ring! Stevie continued pushing buttons on the side of the machine as he talked. All I need … He jabbed at the buttons, making a flipper whack the steel ball back up into the playing field. The ball ricocheted off a bumper, causing the lights on the pinball machine to flash as it pinged, ponged, buzzed, and rang.

I just gotta get the slam dunk, and I’ll be the new … There was more flashing and pinging. The new NBA Fastbreak pinball champ!

Oh, that’s cool, Amber muttered. I guess.

She sighed and looked around the basement for something else to do. It had been almost a year since Grandpa passed away, but Grandma hadn’t changed a thing. Next to the pinball machine was Grandpa’s large wooden desk pushed up against a block wall. The matching chair was sticking out a bit but probably had not been sat in since Grandpa was alive. Mounted on the block wall above the desk was a large flat-screen television.

A DVD on top of the desk caught Amber’s attention. She read the handwritten title, Varsity Seeson, and chuckled a little at Grandpa’s spelling mistake. She looked down at the floor, and her smile broadened. Grandpa had loved being the assistant basketball coach at the nearby university so much that he made it look like a real basketball court. It was a shiny hardwood floor with a large orange basketball painted in the center.

Her eyes flicked over to the dark space below the wooden steps, and her smile faded. Ever since she was little, that area of the basement made her skin crawl. She could just imagine what creepy things hid there.

Along another wall sat a large metal shelving unit. It had five shelves, and each shelf was overstocked with a lifetime of collectibles. There was a basketball covered in unreadable scribbles, autographs of Grandpa’s teammates the year they had won the college championship. There were several bobble heads of different basketball players, but Amber didn’t recognize any of their names. There was an American flag in a triangular-shaped box and some interesting fossils, including the skull of a saber-toothed cat, a giant shark tooth, and a chunk of petrified wood with a knot perfectly preserved in the fossilized bark. There was also a scattering of arrowheads and basketball trophies.

Amber reached out toward the championship basketball but quickly pulled her hand back. She was acutely aware of how things often seemed to slip out of her grasp or go flying across the room from an accidental elbow swing. And because of that, she decided everything on these shelves was off-limits.

She turned and looked at the back wall. In contrast to the exposed concrete blocks that made up the other three, it was made of wood panels. Each panel was square, stained dark, and framed with a thick matching trim.

She counted four rows of panels with six panels in each row. That’s … twenty-four, she said.

Quiet, Amber! Stevie snarled. You’re gonna mess me up.

Amber glared at her irritating little brother. She was about to say something loud and obnoxious when she spotted his basketball sitting on the floor. There were few things in Amber’s life more annoying than how protective he was with that ball. He took it everywhere, spinning it on his finger, passing it around his waist, and dribbling it between his legs, but he never let her touch it. Wondering what the big deal was, she picked it up and scoffed. After all, it was just a basketball.

She tried doing one of Stevie’s tricks, but it proved to be much harder than it looked. No matter how many times she was able to catch the spinning ball on the tip of her finger, it never stayed put. It was like trying to balance a wet, angry cat on the tip of a sharpened pencil.

She didn’t give up easily though and kept trying over and over again until Stevie shouted, I got it! I got the slam dunk!

In that moment, Amber’s heart nearly skipped a beat, and she lost control of the spinning basketball. It ricocheted off the shelving unit, causing one of the taller trophies to topple over.

From the corner of her eye, Amber spotted Stevie hurling himself toward the falling trophy. She turned and watched him catch it in an outstretched hand just inches above the hardwood floor.

Then her eyes widened because she realized he was moving too fast to stop himself from slamming into her. The force of his impact was strong, causing her to tumble head over heels backward until she smashed hard into the back wall.

Amber! Stevie shouted. Are you okay?

Amber cringed at the pain she felt in her shoulder as she watched Stevie get to his feet. Why did you do that? she sneered.

Do what? Stevie snapped. Save Grandpa’s trophy from smashing onto the floor? You should be thanking me instead of being mean.

Amber sighed and picked herself up off the floor. She stretched a kink out of her back and then looked at the trophy in Stevie’s hands, giving special consideration to the golden man shooting a basketball at the top.

Is it okay? she asked, stepping closer to him.

He looked it over and nodded. Yeah, it’s fine.

Amber smiled sheepishly. Thanks for that. Really.

Stevie started to nod but then stopped abruptly and pushed her aside. Oh, that’s not good, he muttered.

Amber’s eyes widened when she turned and saw that the lower right-hand panel on the back wall was now hanging cockeyed and exposing a dark space behind it.

No, she agreed. That’s not good.

Stevie nodded. Yeah, Grandma’s gonna kill you.

Me? Amber stressed. You’re the one who pushed me into it!

Because I was trying to save Grandpa’s trophy that you knocked off the shelf!

Amber looked at the crooked panel, and her shoulders slumped. Well. She sighed. Do you think we can fix it before Grandma finds out?

Stevie set the trophy on the shelf and then walked over to the back wall. I don’t know, he said, kneeling down in front of it. Maybe.

Amber watched him grab hold of the panel and give it a quick twist. There was a click as it popped back in place.

Hey! Stevie exclaimed. Check this out. It slides back and forth on a metal track. It’s like a … a secret door!

Look! Amber pointed. There’s a box back there with a jewel of some kind on the lid!

Stevie reached through the opening and picked it up. He pulled it out into the light and said, It’s red … blood-red … and in the shape of a teardrop.

It’s so pretty, Amber whispered. She loved how it sparkled with so many different points of light.

Do you think Grandpa hid it there behind the wall? Stevie asked.

Amber shrugged. Then her eyes widened with excitement. Hey, maybe there are more inside the box! But after lifting the lid and seeing what was really inside, her face went slack as she stared in disbelief.

CHAPTER 2

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