I look down at David’s face, which is supposed to be peaceful and remote. His entire body is bound in ace bandages, mummified. He has on a rust colored turtleneck underneath his checkered shirt. He is shivering and his nose is running, circles of shinny snot gathering in the red corners of his nostrils. David is a soft sort of boy, the kind who might help if something mean is being said. I go last, as I always do, the biggest, strangest one of all.ĭavid Shablansky is lying in the coffin, his feet towards me. The rest of us assemble ourselves into a line, from shortest to tallest. It is time to say our final goodbyes, before the boys carry Khufu in his coffin out to the playground and lay him on the basketball court for future generations to find. He smokes cigarettes after school but he also soaks his fingertips in lemon juice and when he hands you your homework back, the papers smell of both. Draknid tells us that grown-ups have it wrong, that he’s here to learn from us, not the other way around. Every few minutes he writes something down in his notebook, which he balances on his knee. Draknid sits in the middle seat in the front row of the auditorium. It should have a tighter fit, but we didn’t have time to rebuild it since the last ceremony, when a larger Khufu received his rites and we had to let the coffin out.ĭuring the funeral, Mr. He shivers in the coffin, which is made out of cardboard. He also had a cold yesterday and the day before that. “Oh, Great Khufu! What will we do without you?”ĭavid Shablansky doesn’t want to be Khufu. While Khufu lays in his coffin on the auditorium stage, the rest of us wail our mourning song and beat our breasts. Soon we will be in junior high school and death will be everywhere, surrounding us always, until we are old enough to actually die ourselves. Draknid believes that death is an important part of our education and so we need to practice. We are all going to get a turn to be Khufu, whether we want to or not. But we never rub our Khufu with anything because that would be against the rules. Sometimes they rub him with baking soda to get him nice and extra dry. The trick is to get his skin to live forever. When a Pharaoh dies they rub salt all over his body to get the water to come out and then they wrap him in special cloth. Draknid is the one who teaches us about Pharaohs and pyramids and also about death rites and mummies. Judy drew a dick onto one of the pictures of a man worshipping a jiggly cow, but it was so small and lumpy that she didn’t get caught. Earlier that morning we had to decorate the container with special hieroglyphics, pictures of women weeping, large eyeballs that are open day and night to ward off dangers. The organs are really just oranges and apples and grapes, fruits that get slimy the longer they are left out. Maryanne and Louisa carry Khufu’s organs into the middle of the auditorium in a big plastic container. This is the ninth time since Christmas vacation.
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