19-THE SHADOW

THE SHADOW The Shadow is Sally Ratmousen's mysterious cousin. (Sally is the owner of The Daily Rat and is Geronimo's number-one rival.) The Shadow is a fascinating rodent who is willing to do anything to get rich. A master of disguises, she knows all the tricks so she can go about without being recognized. "So you were the cleaning lady and the MUMMY!" I exclaimed. "You wanted to scare everyone away from the museum so you could find the MUMMY's treasure.

The SHADOW smiled. She really was a gorgeous mouse. Too bad she was into stealing. But before I could say anything else, the SHADOW began spraying something into the air. Putrid cheese puffs! She was spraying us with a CLOUD OF DUST so thick that even my supersonic cheese slicer wouldn't be able to cut through it! We all began sneezing uncontrollably. “Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, Achoo!"

As soon as the DUST settled, I looked around. The SHADOW had disappeared. "She got away again," I said, sighing, feeling down in the dumps. we had been searching so hard for the MUMMY's treasure. But we still came up empty pawed. Just then, Benjamin began tugging on my sleeve. I looked down and saw that he was holding a yellow sheet of paper. "What's this, Uncle Geronimo? Bugsy and I found it under a BIG WOODEN CHEST when we were trapped underground," he squeaked. I looked at the paper. I cleaned my glasses. I looked at the paper again. It couldn't be! But it was! Benjamin and Bugsy had found the missing piece of the papyrus!