The Egypt Game

“The ‘I see’ said nothing at all. It wasn’t friendly, or angry, or curious, or even bored. In fact, there was something about the absolute nothingness behind it that was a little bit frightening, like putting out your hand to touch something that wasn’t really there.”

April has just had a brief conversation with the Professor after meeting him for the first time. Her reaction echoes that of the other children. April has been brave enough to engage the Professor verbally while her peers have not. One might assume that talking to him would elicit some sense of who he is. The Professor’s words are just as vague as his physical demeanor and a further indication of his disengagement. In the above quote, Snyder uses a simile, where something is compared to something else using “like” or “as.” The Professor’s detachment is likened to reaching out and touching absence.

“But Melanie was beginning to understand about April’s frozen spells, and how to thaw her out. You just had to let her know she couldn’t make you stop liking her that easily.”

April has just responded to Melanie with a haughty comment intended to prove her superiority. Melanie is wiser than her years; like Snyder’s other child characters, she possesses insight and intelligence. She is a quiet observer, like her brother Marshall. Melanie recognizes April’s defensiveness for what it is: fear. April feels like a stranger in a strange land, but Melanie is determined to turn her into a friend.

“April was worried because she knew from experience—lots of it—that it isn’t easy to face a new class in a new school. She didn’t admit it, not even to Melanie, but she was having nightmares about the first day of school. There were classroom nightmares, and schoolyard nightmares and principal’s office nightmares.”

April’s vulnerability helps to explain her often outrageous appearance and behavior. She is making a preemptive strike to reject others before they can reject her. The above quote also suggests the many new schools that April has been forced to endure because of her mother’s flighty and irresponsible parenting.

“Actually, that was the way with all of the Egypt Game. Nobody ever planned it ahead, at least, not very far. Ideas began and grew and afterwards it was hard to remember just how. That was one of the mysterious and fascinating things about it.”

Initially, April and Melanie find ways to weave space aliens into the Egypt Game. Their imaginations can run riot because there are no rules in Egypt other than the ones the players make themselves. The game offers spontaneity and freedom unavailable to children forced to live in a world controlled by sensible grownups.

“The sixth grade began to find out that April had a way of making life interesting. For instance, when she raised her hand in class, her answer wasn’t always what the teacher wanted, but it was almost certain to be fascinating.”

It takes a short time before April’s new classmates learn to value her. She continues to mimic her mother’s flamboyance in her attitude in class, wanting to be noticed and receive attention. She doesn’t care whether that attention amounts to praise or disapproval. Her classmates come to admire her rebellious streak and her imaginative view of the world. Through April, Snyder praises originality, creativity, and those who dare to be different.

“She was shy, but not in the stiff embarrassing way that makes other people feel embarrassed, too. It was a gentle friendly shyness that made other people feel important, sort of in charge of things.”

Elizabeth has just been invited to join the Egyptians. Because she is two years younger, April and Melanie aren’t sure what to make of her. While she isn’t exactly ingratiating in her approach, Elizabeth knows how to make the other two feel special. Snyder gives her child characters nuance, distinguishing Elizabeth’s type of shyness as part of her characterization.

“But although fear made a great silence out-of-doors, inside the homes and stores and apartments it had a different sound—it talked and it talked and it talked. For the boys and girls, talking was about all there was left to do.”

The murderer has just claimed a new victim in the neighborhood, and all the parents are afraid. They are suppressing their fear by not talking about it to each other. The children are shut up indoors and remain observers. They are presumably safer inside, but forced inactivity does nothing but magnify their fears. In the above quote, Snyder personifies fear, meaning that she gives it human qualities—fear, like a human being, talks and makes sound.

“No one knew that the Professor was guilty; but at the same time, no one knew anything about him that would make them believe he was innocent. There were other people in the neighborhood who were noted for their bad tempers or downright meanness, but their actions were predictable.”

This opinion of the Professor is held by the community at large. Here, Snyder shows how people can be afraid by what they don’t understand, especially if that something—or someone—is unpredictable. Though the community is racially and ethnically diverse, they also fear the Other, or someone different from themselves.

“A trip to Egypt might be a lot worse than downright disobedient. It might be deadly dangerous. Downright disobedient and deadly dangerous. The two phrases seemed to get stuck in Melanie’s head.”

April has just proposed that the gamers slip away from their Halloween escorts and pay a visit to Egypt at night. With a murderer roaming the neighborhood, this might be a hazardous move. Melanie is more responsible than April. She considers the consequences of her actions in a way that her reckless friend does not. At a later point, April will learn this lesson the hard way. In the above lines, Snyder uses alliteration, where consonant sounds are repeated, in this case the sound of “d”— “Downright disobedient and deadly dangerous.” By repeating both phrases in the third sentence, Snyder creates emphasis and highlights Melanie’s fear.

“Hot tears had drowned April’s eyes and painful gulps climbed up her throat. She had hated the hand on her shoulder and she had hated Caroline because it was all her fault. She’d been all right until Caroline came in—just angry. Mad—mad—mad, but all right. And then Caroline had to come in and make her cry.”

April has just received another letter from Dorothea announcing her wedding and the impossibility of fitting April into her new lifestyle. April has been able to mask her heartbreak at her mother’s rejection by getting angry, and Caroline’s sympathy is all it takes to trigger April’s tears. She is even angrier at having her vulnerability exposed than she is at her uncaring mother. Snyder’s use of repetition— “Mad—mad—mad—” underscore April’s anger.

“It was the way he threw himself into the part that came as a shock to the girls. He was so different from what he was at school. At school he was Toby the cool-cat sophisticate; and now, suddenly, he was Toby, the grief-stricken ancient Egyptian. And, somehow, he gave the feeling there were a lot of other roles he could play just as well.”

Toby is playing the role of high priest during the parakeet’s burial ceremony. His performance exposes a side of him that his classmates have never seen. The Egypt Game has the power to evoke unexpected emotions from its participants. It will have the same effect on the Professor, who is merely an observer. Snyder shows the power of imagination to connect people and unlock them.

“Ceremonies, discussions and arguments began to be carried on in normal or even louder than normal tones and no one stopped to worry about being overheard. Only one very small Egyptian had an idea that the land of Egypt was being watched, and for some reason, which was his own and private, he didn’t choose to tell.”

As the game intensifies and more rituals are added, the players forget that they are playing on someone else’s property and that the owner is observing them. Marshall witnesses both his friends and their observer; he has become the watcher’s watcher. Here, Snyder plants the seeds for the Professor saving April. Since we know that the group is being watched, it’s not implausible when the Professor rescues her by crying out for help.

“Toby let his mind go back to his plans for the afternoon with a feeling of satisfaction. They would have forgotten about being mad by the time school was out—and besides, they’d really asked for it. He’d told those girls before, Egypt was Egypt, but at school you had to play it cool.”

April and Melanie have started a conversation about the game while at school. Toby reacts negatively. In his mind, he keeps the two worlds completely separate, much like adults compartmentalize their work and family lives. Egypt exists outside of the mundane classroom experience. To introduce it there diminishes the mystery and uniqueness of the game.

“He lowered his voice mysteriously. ‘After all, it used to work, didn’t it? I mean all those other oracles weren’t just kid stuff. Even kings and generals and all sorts of other adults used to go for this oracle stuff, didn’t they?’”

Toby has elevated the game to a new level through his discussion of oracles, who once counseled monarchs in the real world. He is suggesting that prophecies were once taken seriously and is sowing the seeds of credulity among his fellow Egyptians. He will need them to believe that his fake oracle replies are real.

“Man is his own star, and that soul who can be honest, is the only perfect man.”

This is the oracle’s—aka Toby’s—answer to Ken’s question. Even though Toby scribbled down this answer from a book of quotations, the advice is sound. Ken is looking to distinguish himself in sports so that others will consider him a star. The quote reminds him that he must value himself first.

“The best thing we can do is to make wherever we’re lost in look as much like home as we can.”

This is the oracle’s—also Toby’s—reply to April’s question. She wants to know when she can go home. She is still defining “home” as the place where Dorothea is. Again, the fake oracle offers a real answer. By the end of the novel, April will create a new home from the surroundings where she initially felt lost.

“Besides, I should think you’d be grateful to me for going to all that trouble just to keep things livened up. My dad says that livening things up is my most outstanding talent. But what I think is, somebody has to do it. Or else everything would just lie there and turn to dust.”

Toby admits his fakery to April and Melanie. While they are justifiably indignant, Toby defends his behavior as good showmanship. He recognizes that the Egypt Game will only remain interesting as long as it contains drama, and he sees himself as the person most qualified to provide it. Snyder differentiates her child characters, even while giving them all intelligence: April is rebellious, Melanie thoughtful and wise, Elizabeth shy and diplomatic, Ken practical, and Toby goofy and charismatic.

“They all stood and looked at the temple that they had made themselves, out of ordinary stuff and their own imaginations, and felt—well, maybe a little like Dr. Frankenstein had when he created the monster.”

The children are flummoxed by the third oracle reply about the missing Security. They know that none of them wrote it. Because their game is rooted in imagination, where anything is possible, real prophecies might be possible too. While the thought is intriguing, it’s also frightening. They have created a world that seems to have lost its tether to the real one. Here, Snyder uses a simile, comparing the children’s temple to that of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. Like the monster, the children feel that they may have lost control of their creation.

“Being scared and chickening out were two different things. Being scared to do something had always made April more determined to do it than ever. Besides, if Toby could go down there all alone at night, so could she.”

Marshall has just asked April if she isn’t afraid to go back to Egypt at night to retrieve her math book. She admits to herself that she is frightened. However, April has already demonstrated on multiple occasions just how daring she is. The prospect of backing down would run contrary to her nature. This quote suggests that fear is not the equivalent of cowardice—rather, hiding because of fear is.

“April always hated to be fussed over, but it was sort of nice to open her eyes now and then and see Caroline just sitting there, quietly reading a book.”

April has just survived her ordeal with the murderer and is now resting at home. By gradual degrees, she has begun to appreciate Caroline’s stabilizing presence. While Dorothea represents excitement, Caroline symbolizes comfort and security.

“It had been a place to get away to—a private lair—a secret seclusion meant to be shared with best friends only—a life unknown to grown-ups and lived by kids alone. And now, all of a sudden, it was gone.”

When a padlock is placed on the storage lot, the children assume that they’ve lost access to Egypt permanently. In keeping with the old adage that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, the gamers now realize the profound value of their creation. Snyder uses a long sentence split up by em dashes, which escalates tension and momentum. The second sentence is declarative and short, emphasizing the children’s loss.

“She sat down by the window and reread it three times and felt around inside herself for reactions. She found some, all right, both good and bad; but not nearly as much either way as she would have expected. Not as much happiness to be asked, and not nearly as much anger to be asked so late and for so little.”

April has just received an offhanded invitation to join her mother and Nick for Christmas. Her lack of a strong emotional reaction indicates just how much April has changed since she came to live with Caroline. Dorothea no longer represents home. That dream has faded and been replaced by real friends and family.

“She enrolled in a class I was teaching on primitive and ancient peoples because of her interest in primitive art. Anne used to tease me about anthropology—she said anthropologists were only interested in people in general and she liked people in particular—and she did, too. All kinds of people.”

The Professor is explaining how he met his wife. After Anne’s death, the professor proves just how little he likes people in particular. He does a very good job of shutting them out for many years. It takes the Egypt Game and its lively players to persuade him that some people are worth liking both individually and as a collective.