Viking Raiders by Chris Blake Page A

his half-eaten cereal bowl in the sink with a clatter. Returning to the table, he took Isis by her crumbly arm and pulled her into the hall.
    â€œHey! I’ve not finished breakfast yet!” Isis grumbled.
    â€œYou don’t need to eat breakfast – you’re dead!” Tom said, letting go of Isis’s bandaged arm. “And you can’t come to the cinema with me because I know what you’re like – you’ll mess about and distract me.”
    Ever since he’d accidentally smashed a statue in his dad’s museum, setting the Ancient Egyptian princess free, Tom had been stuck with Isis and her pet cat. And he’d continue being stuck with her until they found the six amulets that Anubus, the god of the Underworld, had scattered throughout the most dangerous times in history. So far they’d found two, but there were four more to collect.
    â€œIf you weren’t such a troublemaker, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Tom added, reminding Isis that their task was her punishment for cheekily trying to steal one of the amulets from Anubis.
    â€œYou’ve never had so much fun in your life!” Isis scoffed. “All these adventures! Since you met me, you’ve trained as a gladiator in Ancient Rome
and
met King Arthur! What do you offer me in return? Chess? History books? A GAME OF FOOTBALL?!” She started to make snoring noises.
    â€œYou’re only saying that because you’re rubbish at football,” Tom said. He glanced into the kitchen and saw that Mum was busy wiping the worktops and Dad had his nose in his magazine.
    Isis waggled her foot at him. “It’s not easy kicking a ball when you’re wrapped in bandages.”
    Tom breathed out heavily in frustration. “Do you even know what a cinema is?”
    he asked.
    Isis shook her head sheepishly.
    Tom explained that it was a place where stories were told along with moving pictures. “Everything on the screen is about ten times its normal size and the best bit is that it’s really,
really
loud,” he finished.
    â€œOh, I love stories,” Isis said, clapping her hands in glee. “The priests in Egypt wrote the most amazing ones, with beautiful pictures on papyrus scrolls. They used to read them to me when I was little. Sometimes, because I was so beautiful…”
    Tom spluttered, but Isis ignored him.
    â€œâ€¦ they wrote me into the stories too!”
    Tom hesitated. If he took Isis to the cinema, at least she wouldn’t be able to cause mischief at home. He sighed. “All right, then. You can come with me.”
    Isis shuffled stiffly over to the front door and called out to Cleo. “Come on, Fluffpot! We’re going to the cinema!”
    Inside the cinema, the screen flickered brightly as the characters in the film blew up an old building containing fireworks.
Kaboom!
Rockets fizzed up into the nightsky before exploding in a shower of colourful sparks.

    As Isis cowered behind a row of seats Cleo yowled and clambered on to Tom’s lap.
    â€œTake cover, Fluffpot!” Isis cried to her cat. “The world is ending!”
    Tom chuckled. “It’s OK, you know,” he said, reaching into a giant tub of popcorn. He put a fistful of the sticky kernels intohis mouth. “It’s not real. The pictures can’t hurt you.”
    Isis held her hands over where her ears would be. “What about the noise?” The explosions
were
quite loud.
    â€œYou’ll get used to it,” Tom told her.
    â€œAre they gods?” Isis asked, pointing to the characters on the screen.
    â€œThey’re just actors,” Tom explained. He thrust his tub of popcorn towards Isis. “Here, try some of this. And be quiet because you’re ruining the film for me.”
    Isis sat back on her seat nervously. She plunged a hand into the tub and stuffed some popcorn through a hole in the bandages that covered her face. “Mmm, this tastes