YERBA HUFAT.

Put your sunhat on. Apply Factor 50 sun cream and do not paddle in the Nile there are crocodiles. We have arrived in Egypt. Kitty wants to head straight to Bubastis to visit the ruined temple of Tel Basta, home of her spirit guides, but first they need to find Yerba Hufat, the man who sits cross-legged under the yellow stripy umbrella in an oasis.

But which oasis? A camel seller shows them a map and stabs at an isolated patch of green with his finger.

"You are wanting to go to Bahariya."

Sam a.s.sumes he must know his oasis from his elbow, so, having loaded their provisions onto the camels, Sam, Lola and Kitty set off in the direction of the Black Desert with Khensu riding in the saddlebag.

One small problem. When the camel seller said, "You are wanting to go to Bahariya," he wasn't making a suggestion; he was asking a question, only he forgot to add a question mark. He'd never heard of Yerba Hufat (not many people have) and he just thought Sam wanted to do the touristy thing and visit the most popular, easy to get to oasis on the map.

Easy to get to? It would have been if Kitty's camel knew its left from its right. It would have been if Sam's camel hadn't just eaten the map. But what's really going to put the kibosh on this expedition is the approaching sandstorm.

This isn't your average sandstorm; this is a wall of sand travelling at fifty miles an hour, sweeping up half-baked lizards and dumping them on top of cacti taller than trees. Sam, Kitty and Lola are sitting under the camels with their eyes closed and their fingers in their ears to keep the sand out. Khensu curls up, ignores the whole episode and goes to sleep.

They sit huddled like this for hours. When the storm finally pa.s.ses, the shifting sand has altered the landscape beyond recognition. n.o.body wants to admit it, but they are completely disorientated. Darkness falls within seconds, as if a mother somewhere has announced that it's time for lights out.

"Can you navigate by the stars, Kitty?" asks Sam.

Of course she can. Mr Jones taught her about the constellations and how to use them as a heavenly map. Kitty climbs back onto her camel.

"Follow that stare!"

"Which star?"

There are no stars. A few grains of white sand have blasted through the holes in Kitty's mask and settled behind her eyelids, making her see stars that don't exist. Sam, being none the wiser, follows behind, with Lola sharing her camel. There's not much room, the camel is badly upholstered, and by morning, tempers are frayed.

"We've been past this same cactus three times, Kitty."

"Nonsense, I know my stares. Keep following, Sam."

"But it's daylight. How can you see the stars in the morning?"

Kitty instructs her camel to stop. Turning her back on Sam, she inserts two fingers under her mask and rubs her eyes. As soon as the sand grains have gone, so have the constellations. "Oh," she says, dully.

"What do you mean, 'oh'?"

They're completely lost. A vulture wheels above them, wondering how long it will have to wait for breakfast. He knows that people especially young girls can only live for so long without water. He's never seen an orang-utan before, but it looks juicy. And cats make a good snack.

They're out of water too. The vulture's friends and relatives arrive. This could be the end but luckily, Sam has her wits about her. While Kitty and Khensu crawl along in the dust and Lola drags her knuckles, Sam holds the divining rod out in front of her and marches forward purposefully.

She marches, head held high, in the name of Mr Fraye. She marches, believing she can do this, in the name of Athea Furby. She marches, hoping for a miracle, in the name of Hubert Faya, and as she marches, the end of the rod starts to twitch. She breaks into a run; she can't stop running the rod is pulling her along. Now Lola has her arms around Sam's waist, Kitty has her arms around Lola and Khensu and the four of them sweep over the dunes in a desert conga, feet flying across the sand only now it isn't sand. It's gra.s.s!

There is lush green gra.s.s and a pool, bright as a giant mirror. It's not Bahariya; this oasis is not on the map. I've looked it up and there is no reference to this particular paradise, no bigger than the gardens in St Peter's Square.

Kitty is afraid it's a mirage and they'll die of thirst, but the water is real. They get down on their knees with the camels and drink. They have just refilled their water bottles when they hear a voice.

"I wouldn't go so close to the edge if I were you. There are crocodilians."

Observing them from behind a palm tree is a man flanked by two stone crocodiles. He's sitting cross-legged under a red stripy umbrella.

"Mr Hufat?" enquires Sam. "But in my dream, your umbrella was yellow."

"It is yellow!" he insists, shutting himself inside it. When he opens it again, sure enough, the umbrella is yellow.

"Magic!" he says.

Sam smiles. "Not magic an illusion."

She reaches behind his ear, retrieves the pencil she placed there a second ago and makes it change colour.

"Look, Mr Hufat. Now it's red ... now it's yellow."

Offended that no one is impressed with his umbrella trick, Yerba Hufat takes a ball from his mouth and places it under one of three cups lined up in front of him. He switches the cups round and asks Sam to guess where the ball is.

"Under the green one."

She's right. Declaring that it's beginner's luck, Hufat switches the cups round angrily and asks her to guess again.

"Where is the ball?"

"Under the black cup."

Right again. Exasperated, Mr Hufat tries to outwit Sam six more times but fails miserably.

"I am a fellow magician," she admits. "I know how it's done." Cups and b.a.l.l.s is the oldest trick in the book; it's inscribed on papyrus along with tales of wizards turning wax crocodiles into live ones and bringing beheaded geese back to life.

"There's no need to rub it in," snaps Hufat, picking the fluff from his navel.

Sam stacks the cups neatly and, sucking on a blade of gra.s.s, considers the geese.

"Mr Hufat, do you think it's possible for a goose to be brought back to life after its head has been chopped off?"

Flattered that his opinion is finally being sought, he cheers up a little.

"That would be a good trick. But that is all it would be a trick. If a goose lost its head, it would be dead in this world but it would have an afterlife in the next."

"Which next world?" asks Sam. "Is there a poultry heaven where beheaded geese and Christmas turkeys go?"

"The Ancient Egyptians call it the Field of Reeds," explains Kitty. "It's like heaven..."

"Only damper," adds Hufat, determined to have the last say. "The geese prefer it damp. Everybody does around these parts. This hot weather gets on one's wick after a while. I'm sick of getting my fingers pinched trying to erect this sun umbrella. I shall be eternally grateful to spend my afterlife in the shade ... a.s.suming they let me in, of course."

In a voice that sounds like Fey Ra's, Kitty adds (and I translate) that first, Ma'at, the G.o.ddess of truth will have to weigh Hufat's heart against an ostrich feather. The G.o.d Anubis will check the scales and the ibis-headed Thoth will write down the results in front of twelve great G.o.ds who sit in judgment.

"If my heart is light, I will be reborn. Then I will be a spirit member of the starry sky," says Hufat. "Won't that be fun."

"But if your hat is heavy with sin, you'll be gobbled up by Ammit, who is part panther, part hippoo, part crocodoll," Kitty retorts.

Hufat folds his arms defiantly. "That's not going to happen. I'm a good person. I wouldn't hurt a fly."

Not true. Sam has witnessed him swatting six daddy-long-legs which he smooshed into a paste with the red ball, and she's beginning to wonder if Mr Hufat is as harmless as he makes out. There's something about him she doesn't trust. Even so, she'd like to hear his views on what is real, what is illusion and what is magic.

"Mr Hufat, do you think it's possible to bring a dead person back to life with magic?"

He picks the sand from between his toes and sniffs his fingers. "Most ignorant of little girls, a dead person is as dead as a dead goose! Egyptian magic has a practical purpose the thousands of healing prayers and chants are used to extend and ease life, not bring it back that would be sinful!"

Sam hasn't finished with him yet. "But Mr Hufat, is there such a thing as real magic or is it all just a neat trick?"

He slaps his forehead she is trying his patience. "Thank Ra I was never blessed with a daughter. You are doing my head in. But in answer to your impertinent question, I will say this: magic is the creative force which binds spirit and matter together. Everything has a thread of spirit that connects it to the rest of the world."

He stuffs the red ball into his mouth and says, "Ebil igagibut ogjegs agsorg ebotioms."

Even inanimate objects absorb emotions; something Mrs Reafy also believes. And Ruth Abafey. It strikes Sam that human minds ancient and modern all draw similar conclusions about things they can't explain. They all hope for an afterlife; they all want to feel the invisible strings that connect them to their world.

"Indeed," nods Hufat. "Only the symbols change, and the rituals and names of the G.o.ds. This limited thinking is hardly surprising given that we are all made of the same ingredients." He draws a circle in the sand. "Each of us is a miniature universe. All that is within us is also without; we are electric and magnetic, just like pebbles and planets. We contain a zoo of bacteria and parasites even more so in the case of your orang-utan. I do wish it would stop scratching."

Sam leaps to Lola's defence. "She has sand in her fur."

"I don't care! She is making me itchy. Any more silly questions? Only it's my bath time. It's hot and I'm starting to stick to my mat."

"Just one more," says Sam. "Has a man called John Tabuh ever been to visit you?"

At the mention of the Dark Prince, Yerba Hufat screws up his face and snarls. "Who is he to you?"

"My father."

"Gah!" Hufat spits into the air, lowers his umbrella and makes a great play of b.u.t.toning up the little strap that keeps it closed. He lays it next to him and hunches like a crow. "Yes, I met John Tabuh. He pooh-poohed my umbrella trick. He said it was just an illusion. That I could live with, but then he did something far worse."

Sam can't imagine what that could be.

"Don't say he pooh-poohed your ball and cups? If he did, I'm sure he didn't mean to. It's just that he's a magician, and the ball and cups are ... well, they are rather basic. Lola taught me how to find the ball when I was three."

By now, Mr Hufat's face has twisted into a very peculiar shape, as if he's chewing a hedgehog.

"It's nothing to do with cups and b.a.l.l.s!" he shrieks. "John Tabuh had the audacity, the gall, the temerity, to doubt the word of Yerba Hufat, despite the rea.s.surance of my very good friend, his father!"

Choking on his own spit, he explains that John Tabuh had asked him if it was possible to bring someone back to life and Yerba Hufat had replied that he could do even better than that; he could bring something to life that had never lived.

"Impossible!" laughs Sam.

This makes Hufat even angrier. He turns and he shouts, "You are just like your father! Are you calling me a liar?"

"No, I'd never say such a thing. It's just that it goes against all the laws of nature."

"Oh!" says Yerba. "You know all the laws of nature, do you? You know them better than Yerba Hufat, who is your elder?"

"But you can't even master the cup and ball," says Sam, under her breath.

"I," says Yerba, thumping his chest so hard that he coughs, "I am the greatest magician on Earth! If you refuse to believe I can bring something to life that has never lived, I'll just have to prove it to you, won't I? Just as I proved it to that incorrigible sceptic, your father."

"How exactly did you do that?" asks Sam.

"How exactly did you do that?" mimics Yerba with revolting sarcasm. "I'll tell you how I did that! You see these two stone crocodiles? I snapped my fingers and worked Big Magic. At my command, they sprang into life and grabbed hold of your father's leg with their very sharp teeth. They gave him the most appalling injuries from which he no doubt died. He limped off into the desert with his magic box, and somewhere out there his handsome (pff!) but sceptical bones lie, picked clean by the vultures ha! Good riddance to him!"

Halfway through this vicious rant, Khensu begins to growl at one of his crocodiles it is not as it first appeared. Now that the umbrella had been removed, it's no longer in the shade, and the heat of the midday sun is having the strangest effect on it. It's starting to drip. As the sun continues to beat down, Sam notices a strong smell like burning candles.

This is no stone statue; it's a real crocodile. It's been coated in a thick layer of wax to immobilize it. As the wax melts from its scaly eyelids, the creature blinks. Khensu leaps in the air; Kitty runs off screaming; Lola swings into the palm tree, and as Sam leaps to her feet, the sinful Mr Hufat commands the crocodile to attack.

"Fetch, Ammit! Eat the sceptical child!"

HOW TO LEVITATE.

The masked magician stands at an angle facing away from the audience. Suddenly the magician levitates a few inches above the ground. How?

THE SECRET.

1. Stand on the tips of the toes of your foot farthest from the spectator. The angle at which you stand, acting and misdirection all contribute to the illusion.

2. Inform your audience ahead of time that you intend to levitate.

3. Pretend to put lots of care into where you're going to perform.

4. Stress that there are no wires or gimmicks and allow yourself to be examined.

5. Act as if the levitation is physically straining.

6. The audience is misdirected from your actual method because they're busy concentrating on the movement of your feet and the s.p.a.ce between the feet and the ground.

7. When "landing" make a point of hitting the ground hard and bend your knees to fool them into thinking you've "levitated" higher than you have. Practise in front of a mirror.