Lily McGriffin and the Pyramids of Egypt
Copyright ©2012 by Nonno Vecchio
All Rights Reserved
Once upon a time, there was a young explorer named Lily McGriffin. She, like her brother Harvey Rumplemeyer, liked to travel through space and time and have fantastical adventures!
One day, as she was sitting around the space port looking for something to do, she spotted the Louvre museum sitting way over there in Paris, France. Ever curious, Lily began researching the museum and discovered that it is housed within the Palais du 
Louvre, or Louvre Palace, and is home to more than 30,000 historical objects!
"Wow!" She thought. "That's a lot of dusting!" Ever the practical one, Lily realized the museum must spend a small fortune on feather dusters....
Anyway, while she was staring through the space port's electronical explore-a-rometer device, using its telescopic magnification functionalizer, something caught her eye. Sitting out there in the middle of the main courtyard was a huge glass structure. Made up of a series of rhombus and triangle shaped segments, the structure looked like a giant pyramid. And that's when Lily knew what she wanted to do!
Without another moment's thought, Lily dashed through the space port to her Space-Time Machine and readied the ship for a trip through space and time!
After kissing her mom and dad goodbye, she locked herself in and set course for Egypt!
"Now, you be home in time for dinner," her mother called after her - which, when you think about it, was unnecessary - "we're having your favorite!" But by the time her mother had gotten the word 'favorite' out, Lily was half-way to Egypt.
As she approached Earth in her pink, VW Bug shaped Space-Time Machine, Lily spun the time dials to 2700 BCE and pressed the Time Dilation button and *POOF!* just like that Lily disappeared from her time and reappeared in 2700 BCE!
Trouble On Board
"Computer!" Lily called out to the air.
"Yes, Lily?" The computer asked, responding to Lily's voice. "How may I assist you?"
"Where's the best place to explore pyramids?" Lily asked then waited for an answer.
The computer whirred and hummed and flashed its lights and took forever to give Lily the answer - even in 2333 Windows computers are still the slowest around - so she pulled out her Apple iHolopad, connected to the space-time everywherenet and determined she should head on over to the Giza Necropolis near Cairo.
"Computer!" Lily called out again ready to plot her new course.
"Do-do-dit!" She heard over the loud speaker. "We're sorry but the computer you have called is not available at this time. Please check your command and try again."
"Huh?" Lily asked no one in particular since she was alone. "What's going on now?" She asked herself while checking the computer display. Sure enough, all she saw was a blue screen with a bunch of gobbledy-gook in white lettering. "Figures!" she mumbled, "Crashed again! Note to self, switch the ship's operating system over to PenguinTux when I get home!" And then she proceeded to plug her iHolopad into the auxillary port for the ship's navigation system.
Well, that old Windows operating system just didn't want to let go so as the iHolopad kicked in and set the coordinates for Giza, the Windows OS began fighting it for control of the ship! The poor Space-Time Machine rolled and rolled and flipped end-over-end, like a horse trying to throw its rider! Lily tugged and pulled and pulled and tugged but still the Windows system wouldn't give up control. Finally, in desperation, Lily kicked the Windows console!
"Yelp!" yelped the computer, as it gave up control of the ship. Lily pulled with all her might on the ship's control yoke. She managed to get the ship to respond not a moment too soon too, for there before her loomed the Great Sphinx! She stomped the rudder pedal, hit the brakes and the gas, and turned the steering wheel all at the same time while her Space-Time Machine groaned under the stress. The ship climbed up and up and up as the Sphinx's face flew by the window. Lily had saved the ship! But not before taking a slice out that ol' Sphinx's nose!
"Sorry!" Lily called over her shoulder as the limestone rock fell to the ground carrying two scarabs that had been calling the nose home with it.
"Oh, I say dear! There's an awfully brisk breeze. Did you leave the windows open?" The husband scarab asked his wife as they hurtled toward Earth.
"There you go again!" Yelled the wife scarab in that shrill voice that only wives can do. "You're always blaming m-" *SQUISH!!*
"Whew!" Lily thought to herself as she wiped her forehead. "That was a close one! It's a good thing I got everything working or I would've been late to dinner! I guess I should set the force field just in case...." And she did something she should have done when she left the space port. She turned on the ship's force field protect-a-lizer circuit.
Lily landed as close to the Great Pyramid as she could and made sure the Space-Time Machine's invisible-izer was in "Can't see me" mode before putting on her space-time suit and leaving the ship. One of the nice things about being a traveler from the future, which Lily was, of course, is that space-time suits have a built in invisible-izer circuit too. That little feature, when on, meant that anyone wearing the space-time suit could go anywhere completely undetected. The circuit not only made the wearer invisible to sight but to sound and smell too - a handy feature if ever there was one!
Now, Lily has traveled all over the universe and through out space and time but according to her, she has never seen a site so beautiful as the one that stood before her when she left her Space-Time Machine. She was in awe of the splendor! See, Lily had arrived at the very beginning of the Great Pyramid when it was still pristine and shiny white. In fact, she had arrived on the very day of the grand-opening! Standing before her were the town mayor, the police chief, and the pharaoh himself! And in the pharaoh's hands were a giant pair of scissors. Lily looked around at the crowd that had gathered on this momentous event before turing her attention once again to the mayor and the Great Pyramid behind her.
"A-hem, hem!" The mayor cleared his throat and held up his hands for quiet. "People of Cairo and Giza, it gives me great pleasure to welcome his royal highness Khufu, ruler of all the earth to this, our first ribbon cutting of our first and greatest pyramid!"
And with that the mayor turned and grasped the scissors with the pharaoh. Together, they turned toward the reporter from the Daily Hieroglyph and smiled for camera. At least, that's what they would have done if cameras had been invented back then. Instead, they remained perfectly still as a stone mason chiseled the scene into a stone tablet provided for the occassion, thus recording the even for all time.
Once the stone mason had completed his work, the mayor and the pharaoh turned to the giant ribbon that had been wrapped around the pyramid and cut through it with the giant scissors.
"Hurray!" The crowd roared!
"Rawrrrr!" The mummy yelled as he left the pyramid! "Who disturbs my sleep!?"
You see, Lily knew that it's widely believed that the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids as a tomb for their dead kings. In this case, it was apparently true for there before her very eyes stood a mummy! A real, live- er, dead - mummy! Complete with linen wrappings and crown upon his head!
Well, the people scattered like flies in the wind, yelling and screaming, and running for the hills! The mayor fainted dead away and the pharaoh broke out in a sweat as he backed away.
"Now, dad..." the pharaoh began.
"Rawrrrr!" his father replied.
"Pee-ow!" was the sound the pharaoh made as he took off running as fast as he could!
"Gee!", thought Lily to herself, "I wonder what bug crawled up his craw?"
In the meantime, the mummy began chasing the temple priests and kicking them off the pyramid - his pyramid! Then he sat down and began to cry.
"Oh, boo hoo hoo!", he cried to no one in particular. "It took me twenty years to get a good sleep going and these dunderheads had to go an wake me up! Now what am I going to do?" And he blubbered like a big baby!
Lily's heart went out to him so she walked up to him and turned off her invisible-izer.
"Gasp!", he gasped as she suddenly appeared right before his very eyes.
"Hello!", said Lily, holding out her hand. "I'm Lily McGriffin and I can help you get back to sleep, Mr. Mummy, sir."
"You can?", asked the mummy, wiping his nose on his linen wrappings. "How?"
"Well," said Lily. "I'll just do for you what my mother does for me when I can't sleep. You just wait right there!" And she ran back to her Space-Time Machine and disappeared from site.
In a few moments Lily reappeared, took the mummy by the hand and walked with him to his burial chamber.
"Here, drink this," she said while handing him a glass of warm milk. "It'll make you sleepy!"
The mummy reached out for the glass and drank the milk down. "Mmm! That's good!", he exclaimed and then let out a burp that shook the ceiling.
"Now you just lie down right there," Lily said, pointing to his sarcophogus, "and I'll tell you a bed time story." And she proceeded to tell him all sorts of fun things about space and time travel. In no time at all, the mummy was snoring the sleep of the dead. As quietly as she could, Lily tiptoed back out of the pyramid to the cheers of the crowd who had hidden away but remained in the area to see what would happen.
"Sh-h-h-h!", Lily scolded, "You'll wake him!"
"Yay!", the crowd whispered.
"That's better!", said Lily and then she went home for dinner.
THE END