Study Guide. By Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Previous Next. Chapter 2 Enter April The blonde girl who was seen in the yard is named April Hall, and she's just moved to the neighborhood a month earlier in order to live with her grandmother, Caroline. She used to live in Hollywood with her very glamorous mother, Dorothea.
But being a very glamorous mother in Hollywood has a cost: fame. So Dorothea is on tour and won't be around for a while. Because of this whole situation, April is rather miffed and acts coldly towards her grandmother. She also keeps trying to dress up and wear fake eyelashes like Dorothea.
As you might guess, it's not the best look for a little girl. Next day they learn that a little girl has been killed, and that a boy had been killed a year before. For days after everyone is somber. Children don't play outside - they just talk and talk about the killings. And so do the adults. One rumor that spreads is that the Professor might be the killer, and someone throws a brick through his window.
The Egypt gang does not believe it but they cannot play in the Professor's yard anymore. Instead, they make things that they will use once they can start playing the game again. They use one of Marshall's bowling pins to make a crown. Slowly, people in the town stop thinking about the killing but most children, including the Egypt gang, are not allowed to play outside yet. April learns that her mother is home again, but she still doesn't know when she herself will be going home.
The children long for the time they can go to the yard again. Meanwhile, they continue to make clothes and other things for their game. The talk is about Halloween. Children will be allowed to trick-or-treat if they go around together in a group with an adult. April makes plans for the Egypt gang to sneak away from the large group and visit the Professor's yard for a short time. Melanie is not sure whether she agrees. She thinks it would be very dangerous if the Professor was really the killer.
She plans to tell April that she won't sneak away but does not have the chance until the evening of Halloween in April's room. By then it is too late; April has dressed up as an Egyptian high priestess , and tells the others that they have been called to Set and Isis.
Melanie immediately pretends to be a high priestess herself. Elizabeth and Marshall are told to recite the summons , and then the children put on their Egyptian make-up.
They all go out after Marshall has been given his security octopus. The Egypt gang join the other children in the trick-or-treat group. They hang around at the back so they can get away without anyone seeing them. Two sixth-grade boys, Ken and Toby, are also at the back.
We learn a lot of information about them and their Halloween costumes. The Egypt gang are popular at the houses they visit, and eventually the rest of the trick-or-treaters disappear around a corner.
Suddenly they see a shooting star - which is a special sign to them. They quickly go back to the Professor's yard. They start a ceremony to the gods. The children perform their ceremony to the god Set. They think of things they can sacrifice to him so that he is not angry with them. Each child has a different idea, but in the end they decide to cut up and burn small pieces of paper.
Just then Elizabeth sees a terrifying figure on the fence. The figure jumps down into the yard. Suddenly a second figure struggles over the fence. The children then realize who the figures are: Ken and Toby. The girls are very angry. The boys find it funny, and try to decide whether they should tell anyone about 'Egypt'. Elizabeth has an idea, which she suggests to the boys a little later: They can play the game too, if they promise to keep it secret.
They boys agree and everyone goes back out into the street to join the rest of the trick-or-treaters. At home April and Melanie are not happy about the boys joining the game, but at least they can continue to play for a while - thanks to Elizabeth's idea. Melanie, April and the boys talk at school about the Halloween night and Toby's costume, which got damaged when he tried to get over the fence in the yard. They all need to get their parents permission to play outside again.
April is pessimistic about the boys playing the game. She is in a bad mood because of a letter from her mother. April cannot go home yet. Her grandmother, Caroline, tries to comfort her, and succeeds a little. On Friday they all meet in the yard.
The girls are unsure if the boys will want to play the game, but Toby seems to be really interested in all the things the girls tell and show him. The girls perform the ceremonies and the boys watch respectfully. After Toby and Ken have gone, the girls discuss how long the boys will continue to be interested and come to Egypt.
The boys come the next day with lots of ideas and things for the game. One idea is to make a secret language from the hieroglyphics and that everyone should choose an Egyptian name and symbol.
The next few meetings in the yard are used to finish the hieroglyphic alphabet for their secret code. They do jobs to earn money in order to buy some special color pens to finish their alphabet.
The children then learn the alphabet and practice it by writing letters to each other. Other boys at the school are getting suspicious about why Ken and Toby are not playing basketball as usual.
So they pretend to have after-school jobs. The children become a little bored with the hieroglyphics - especially Marshall. One day a cat kills Elizabeth's parrot , and the children decide to hold a ceremony for the dead. The children plan the ceremony of the dead. They will pretend that the dead parrot is the Egyptian prince Pete-ho-hep, who has died in battle.
They argue a bit about who will do what. They then discuss what things they will need for the ceremony and where to get them. The ceremony stops and starts as they decide on what to do next. Toby plays enthusiastically , but Ken feels a bit embarrassed about pretending to be someone else. They then discuss what they need in order to make a mummy. They decide they need to read more information about it. Next day they continue with the ceremony - deciding that they will put the parrot into salt water brine instead of cutting out its guts.
In the following days they finish the mummification of the parrot. Everyone is happy about the game, but they are no longer being quiet and careful. They don't know that someone has been watching them.
Toby asks a question about oracles in English class. The teacher then decides all the class should learn more about them. Toby looks at Ross Melanie and February April and makes a stupid face at them.
After school the children have a discussion about oracles in the yard Egypt. They decide to use the god Thoth actually an old owl in the ceremony. Ken is the one who can ask the first question to the oracle, and he writes it on a piece of paper. Toby takes the paper, and asks the god Thoth to answer Ken's question. He then argues that they should wait and give the god a chance to answer the question.
The others agree after some discussion. Ken thinks everyone is crazy. They leave the yard, looking back nervously at Thoth, the owl god. Next day it is April's turn to be a priestess. She makes everyone dress up and stand in line ready to enter Throth's temple.
April performs a ceremony and takes Ken's question paper from Throth's the owl's beak. She gets angry when reading it. It has an answer on it and April wants to know who wrote it. Everyone says they did not write the answer. They decide to write another question and see if this one gets an answer. April does this and Toby performs the ceremony, but everything seems to be getting a little spooky in Troth's dark temple. Suddenly there is a loud bang.
It is thunder. They leave the yard in a hurry. After going out for a family meal, Marshall realizes that he had left his octopus, Security , in the yard when they left in a hurry the day before. He tells Melanie he wants to go to the yard to get it. Melanie replies that he probably left it at school.
They both know this is not correct. In the afternoon they all return to Egypt but the octopus is not there. Everything is wet and Marshall is sad. Finally, Melanie starts the oracle ceremony as high priestess.
She takes April's question from Throth's beak , turns the paper over and sees an answer! Now it doesn't seem like a game anymore, and they talk about quitting.
But Marshall wants to ask the oracle where his octopus is. They try to talk him out of the idea, but in the end Melanie writes his question. They all go home feeling worried. In school next day Toby talks with April and Melanie. He confesses that he wrote the answers going back to the yard at night.
He says that he saw someone in the alley behind the yard, but had run away from him. Of course, Toby doesn't know where the octopus is and they discuss what answer he should give. April will say that Security has gone on a trip and will be back soon. When April starts the ceremony, she sees that there is an answer written on the question paper - she doesn't need to say the answer about the trip.
The answer says that the octopus is under the throne. The others believe that Toby had written the answer, but he denies this hotly. Marshall says that the god Set had put the octopus under the altar. Ken again thinks that everyone is going crazy. They then all go home. Back in the yard they can't agree if they should ask another question. They ask themselves again and again how the octopus got below the altar.
They worry that their game may have actually brought the power of the gods back to life. One evening April babysits Marshall while Melanie and her parents are out. After playing with Marshall, April wants to do her homework. But she can't find her math book. She realizes that she probably left it at the yard. She wants to go there alone, but Marshall insists on going with her. The alley is dark and is full of frightening shapes.
April pushes the board to open a hole in the yard fence, but in a different way that makes a loud noise. April finds her math book and goes out through the hole in the fence. Suddenly someone in the alley grabs her and presses his hand over her mouth. April holds on to the board in the fence to stop being pulled away. At that moment someone shouts for help from inside the yard.
People hear the shout and run into the alley. April's attacker lets her go and disappears. April goes to the police station and tells what happened. Marshall is there too and April asks him questions about her attacker. In another room is the Professor. Marshall says that the Professor is not the attacker, but also says that the Professor has always watched their games from his window.
He was the one who cried for help. Marshall identifies the attacker as a man who works at a toy store. April's grandmother, Caroline, comes to take them home.
Next day they go to the police station to identify the red-haired attacker. He is mentally sick and is the killer of the dead children. Marshall becomes well-known as a hero in his neighborhood , and finally does not need to have his security octopus with him all the time.
Toby sees that someone has fixed the fence to the yard. The game is over, and the children are sad. April goes to talk to the Professor. The shop is cleaner, has many customers, and Elizabeth's mother now works there. April thanks the Professor for saving her life and he gives her a piece of stone with some hieroglyphics on it. She is too nervous to ask to for all the things they had brought to his yard. When she returns home there is a letter from her mother inviting her to a Christmas trip.
Melanie writes a reply that she is going to stay with her grandmother and Melanie. Carline gets a call from the Professor inviting the Egypt gang to go and see her. They all arrive at Caroline's house. The Professor starts to tell a story about how he met his wife, Anne, when he was teaching anthropology at university. He talks about their travels together and setting up a store to sell the things they found in different places. He tells the sad news that Anne was killed in one of the dangerous places they visited.
After her death he neglected the store and himself. The Professor then says how he always watched as the children played in the yard. He moved Marshall's octopus and wrote the oracle's answer. He tells about the night of the attack on April; how broke the window to cry for help. The Professor then gives them each a key that will let them into Egypt the yard. The children plan their next visit.
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