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Informationen zum Autor Jane Louise Curry has written more than thirty books for children, her most recent novel being The Egyptian Box. Ms. Curry lives in Lose Angeles, California, and spends a part of each year in London, England. For more information go to JaneLouiseCurry.com. Klappentext Tee (short for Leticia) Woodie and her family have moved into a big, old house that is a part of her father's inheritance from Great-uncle Sebastian. While exploring the contents of Great-uncle's antiques-and-junk store, they find a parcel marked FOR DEAR LETICIA, MY SHABTI BOX. The decorated Egyptian box inside holds the shabti, a colorful wooden figure of a girl in painted mummy wrappings from the waist down. The writings on those wrappings are ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Charles, Tee's younger -- and very curious -- brother, borrows the figure and uses the Internet to discover what sounds the old hieroglyphics stand for. When he reads the Egyptian words aloud to Tee, strange things begin to happen.That evening, slow in answering her father's call to come and dry the dishes, Tee reaches the kitchen door only to hear the clink and rattle of plates and cutlery being put away. Peering in, she sees a costumed figure busy at work. Egyptian costume? The shabti? Surely not! But it is. Soon Tee is thinking of ways a secret, magical shabti-servant can help her with homework...with school...with...All goes well until the shabti begins to enjoy taking Tee's place. A frightened Tee must get her back into her box, but -- can she?Inspired by the shabti figures in the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum, and London's Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, Jane Curry has written an amusing, then scary story that catches and holds the reader in its magic to the very last word. Chapter One Tee Woodie, sitting in the fifth row of the Oasis Empire theater, watched the screen in a trance. Her fingers felt at the bottom of the jumbo tub for the last handful of popcorn, and fumbled it into her mouth. Like Princess Maryam, up on the screen, she looked in dismay from the princely green-cloaked figure in the middle of the palace courtyard to the short, pudgy young man in purple pantaloons who peered out from behind him. That was the real Prince Farad? If it was, Tee wondered, who was the tall, handsome one Maryam was in love with? On the screen, Princess Maryam was asking the same question. "If that silly puppy is the prince, who are you?" Whoever he was, he was growing taller by the minute. Maryam, the dweeby real Prince Farad, and Tee in the audience all stared as he grew, until he towered as high as the palace gates. "I? I am the unhappy djinn Fasilbar, who was servant to this Farad." A "djinn"?...A genie? But -- but he had been such a wonderful Prince Farad of Allibas! He had rescued Maryam the sweetmeat-seller from her wicked master, and revealed that she was the daughter, stolen as a child, of the Caliph of Khaibar. He was kind, and brave, and funny. He was a genie? And now that he had granted Farad's last wish, he was free, and returning to the Mountains of the Afreet? As the djinn Fasilbar touched the jewel in his turban, bowed, and vanished, Tee clasped her hands over her breastbone and tucked her chin down against them, afraid almost to breathe. Why hadn't Maryam said something? But -- wait. Now she was pushing the doofus Farad away and calling out loudly for her horse. Tee drew in her breath as Maryam sprang onto the saddle. "Why? Why?" the poor, pudgy Farad was asking. "Why? Because you are not the Farad who won me. If Fasilbar the Djinn could be a man once, now he can be one again, and for good!" Then her golden horse sprang through the gates, and she was racing out through the moonlit city and onto the silver road that led to the Terrible Mountains of the Afreet. THE END. At the fad...
