Sophomore Year
Beatriz started her sophomore year a little later than the rest of us. I suppose evilness is contagious, because before I met her I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but now I’m secretly pleased. Especially since she made a point of informing me that she made more from an afternoon of playing her piano for tips than I made from my whole first novel.
And then the other morning when I was trying to make waffles, of course Beatriz was the one to walk in just as I was taking them out of the oven. She sniffed and said, “Cooking again?” even though it was my first time. 
But that’s all small stuff. We had some excitement the other night. The burglar alarm that Darrin and Shellie rigged up actually caught a burglar! Or rather, the police did, but the alarm succeeded in alerting them.
Our other excitement came secondhand, from Dean’s trip to Egypt. He went to work on photography, and he made quite a bit of money from some of his pictures.
He called and told us about going to see the Sphinx.
He had dinner in a little café.
And he visited the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut.
But Dean waited until he came home to tell us about the most exciting part of his trip. “Some woman wanted a picture of a mummy,” he said, “and she was willing to pay big bucks, too, because she was too scared to get it herself. So I entered a tomb.
“Once inside, I had to clear a few rubble piles and push a few statues around. But finally I located a wall that looked suspicious. I poked around, and the wall shivered a bit. I pushed and pushed, and finally it opened.
“I went down a long hall lined with treasure chests. There was a sarcophagus at the end, and when I opened one chest, the sarcophagus opened very slowly. Even though I was expecting to see a mummy, I almost fainted when he appeared. I think the most intrepid thing I’ve ever done was to hold up my camera and take his picture.”
Beatriz interrupted at this point. “But unfortunately, you sold the picture to the woman, so you don’t have any evidence.”
Dean smirked at her. “I thought about that. She probably would have paid me enough so I could get the laptop I wanted. But then I figured you guys wouldn’t believe me, so I brought it home and hung it on the wall.” He directed our attention to the wall where his digital frame hung. There was the mummy!
