The boys looked for a way to get to the Pharaoh’s pyramid.
“There!” Akhom pointed.
“We can sail to the Pharaoh’s pyramid in that boat!”
“It looks like half a banana,”
laughed Vinnie, describing the large sailing ship.
“No. That small one,” corrected Akhom.
The big boat was pulling a smaller one.
Men were loading baskets onto the smaller boat.
“Someone special must be going to visit the site,” said Akhom.
“How do you know?” asked Vinnie.
“All those baskets are food,” explained Akhom.
“They only prepare that much food for the royal family.
They must be going for a visit to the pyramid.”
“Let’s jump on!” said Vinnie.
The boys snuck into the small boat and hid among the food baskets.
In the larger boat, twenty men picked up their long oars.
They pushed and pulled the oars.
The wind filled the gigantic sail and the small boat followed.
The boys sailed down the Nile.
From the boat, Vinnie could see all kinds of interesting things off shore.
A farmer pushed a wooden plough through a field of wheat.
Another large ship sailed beside them.
It carried a huge white block of stone.
“What’s that?” he whispered to Akhom.
“That’s one of the blocks used for building a pyramid,” Akhom answered.
“Pyramids are made of hundreds of heavy blocks of stone.”
“That must take a lot of time and work,” said Vinnie.
“Some say we make more stones than there are stars,” explained Akhom.
“Thousands of people work on the Pharaoh’s pyramid.
They started to build it before I was born.”
“When will it be finished?”
Vinnie asked in a surprised voice.
Akhom shrugged. “Perhaps in a couple of years.
Maybe by the time I marry.”
Suddenly Vinnie saw a pair of blinking eyes staring from the water.
“Akhom! Is that a crocodile?” Vinnie pointed.
Akhom shook his head.
“No, that’s a hippo.
Look! There’s a crocodile!”
Akhom pointed to a reptile lying in the sand.
Further on the shore, they could see the Pharaoh’s pyramid.
The boats slowed down.
Men shouted orders at each other.
“When we reach the shore, run for the pyramid,” Akhom instructed.
When the boys jumped off the boat, Vinnie was surprised by the sight of the pyramid in real life.
“Whoa!” he said, as he stopped to look up at the huge structure.
Facing the sunset, the pyramid looked very majestic.
Each side of its base was the length of two soccer fields.
Though it seemed already quite tall, the workers were adding more blocks.
Vinnie saw thousands of men pulling the heavy white blocks of stone.
The boys climbed a ramp that led into the pyramid.
Behind them, a voice shouted,
“You, boys, stop! What are you doing here?”
"The guards!” yelled Akhom. “Run, Vinnie! Run!”
The boys ran up a ramp toward the pyramid.
The guards followed closely behind.