The Red Pyramid Chapter 2 Summary

How It All Goes Down

An Explosion for Christmas

  • Carter, still narrating for us, says that while the museum's closed when they roll up, the curator's there.
  • The curator greets Julius like he's a rock star, complimenting him on translating spells in his paper on Imhotep.
  • Carter gives Sadie a brief lesson in Egyptology: Imhotep was a high priest and architect, he designed the first pyramid, and he was possibly a magician. Sadie doesn't care.
  • Julius introduces Carter and Sadie to the curator, who recognizes as Carter as Julius's son, but doesn't recognize Sadie as Julius's daughter.
  • When Julius says that Sadie is also his child, the curator's stare goes blank. This happens all the time: people think they're open-minded about this kind of thing, but when confronted with a mixed ethnicity family, they go all: "What?"
  • As they all discuss the Rosetta Stone, it comes out that Sadie thinks that Rosetta Stone refers to a computer program, so she gets a brief education from her dad: until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, no one could read the ancient Egyptian written language. With its lines of text in Egyptian, Demotic, and Greek, it allowed scholars to crack the code.
  • Julius goes on to say that it is possibly the most important connection between the modern world and ancient Egypt—and he was a fool not to realize its potential sooner.
  • Julius asks the curator for some papers from the archives, and then tells Carter and Sadie to lock the curator in his office. Yes, that's right: lock the curator in his office.
  • Sadie gleefully agrees. Julius tells them that he loves them, and that he's sorry about a lot of things... and that it's important to stay out of the room.
  • Guess what Carter and Sadie do? As soon as they lock up the curator, they hide near the room.
  • Carter and Sadie see Julius standing in a circle of blue light, facing the Rosetta Stone, drawing hieroglyphs on it with what looks like a white boomerang.
  • Strangely, Sadie is able to translate one of the hieroglyphs: open. Carter is impressed because as long as he's hung around his dad, he's only picked up a few hieroglyphs (they're tough).
  • Carter recognizes the next hieroglyph: Wo-seer, which means Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead. Sadie translates what Julius is saying: Osiris, come. Then she shouts "No!" at Julius.
  • He turns to see the hieroglyphs… and then the Rosetta Stone explodes.
  • When Carter regains consciousness, he hears a horrible laugh. The gallery is a mess, Sadie is passed out next to him, and Julius is facing down the fiery outline of a man.
  • Julius tries to give the kids a chance to escape by distracting the fiery dude. He transforms his staff into a serpent, but the man grabs it, and it turns to ash.
  • Julius, still trying to distract the fiery dude, asks how many he has released. The fiery dude answers: five. He says that he'll soon release more, and that he'll be named king again. Julius responds that they'll stop him before the Demon Days.
  • Fiery dude then conjures a coffin around Julius, and it sinks into the ground.
  • What does fiery dude say? "Good-bye, Osiris." Cryptic much?
  • Sadie throws a rock at fiery dude, and Carter screams "Dad!"—but it's too late. Fiery dude looks at Carter, and he has freaky superimposed features, as though part of him is human and part is beast.
  • Fiery dude lunges at Carter but is stopped by some force a few inches away from Carter's face. Fiery dude says to Carter: "So… it's you." There's an explosion, and fiery dude vanishes.
  • Carter sees the two people from Cleopatra's Needle standing over him. The girl has a knife out, but the man says that they must be certain before they destroy them. Carter loses consciousness.