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"Come back!" Annie called. She leaned out the window to see where the cat was going.

"Meow!"

Jack looked down at the Egypt book. He read the words under the picture:

The black cat was sitting at the base of the tree. His yellow eyes were staring up at Jack and Annie.

A parade was going toward the pyramid. The same parade as in the Egypt book.

"Shhh," said Jack. "Someone might hear you."

"Oh, wow!" she said. "Look, Jack."

Jack leaned forward and looked down.

The black cat stood and began walking around the tree.

Jack and Annie looked out the window.

The tree house was perched on the top of a palm tree. The tree stood with other palm trees. A patch of green surrounded by a sandy desert.

When a royal person died, a grand funeral procession took place. Family, servants, and mourners followed the coffin. The coffin was called a sarcophagus. It was pulled on a sled by four oxen.

"In the middle of the desert?" said Annie.

The cat was running away from the palm trees. Toward a giant pyramid in the desert.

"It's the picture from the book!" said Jack.

"Hi!" Annie shouted.

"What are those people doing?" asked Annie.

Jack and Annie looked down.

He looked out the window again.

"We'd better hurry," said Annie, "if we want to see the mummy."

"There's probably a mummy in that gold box," Annie called up. "We're in ancient Egypt. Remember?"

"Wait," said Jack. And he wrote:

Jack shoved his notebook and the Egypt book into his pack. Then he started down the ladder.

"Good-bye, Jack!" called Annie.

Jack loved mummies. He put down his pencil.

"Wait!" Jack called.

Oxen, sled, Egyptians, black cat. All were moving in a slow, dreamy way.

"I'd better make some notes about this," said Jack.

Jack looked up from his notebook.

When he got to the ground, he and Annie took off across the sand.

She started down the rope ladder.

"Mummy?" he said.

He reached into his backpack and pulled out his notebook. Jack always kept notes.

"Mummies!" Annie shouted.

"Oh, man," said Jack weakly. "Mummies!" She sure knew how to get to him.

"It's an Egyptian funeral," said Jack. "The box is called a sar… sar… sar… oh, forget it."

"Don't be silly. There's no such thing as ghosts," said Jack. "It must have been a mirage."

"Look!" Annie pointed at the pyramid. Near the base was the sleek black cat.

"No way," said Jack.

"Ghosts," she said.

What had happened? Where were the people? The oxen? The gold box? The cat?

Jack frowned.

The closer they got to the parade, the harder it was to see it.

But as they ran a strange thing happened.

"He's no mirage," said Annie.

He was standing alone. He was staring at Jack and Annie.

"A what?"

"How could sunlight look like people, a mummy box, and a bunch of cows?" said Annie.

But the great stone pyramid was still there. Towering above them.

Then suddenly it was gone. The strange parade had disappeared. Vanished.

"They're gone," said Annie.

"Where did they go?" said Jack.

"Maybe they were ghosts," said Annie.

Panting, Jack looked around.

"Mirage. It happens in the desert all the time," said Jack. "It looks like something's there. But it just turns out to be the sunlight reflecting through heat."

"Let's find out," said Annie.

The cat started to slink away. He walked along the base of the pyramid and slid around a corner.

"Where's he going?" said Jack.

They dashed around the corner -- just in time to see the cat disappear through a hole in the pyramid.