Night at the Museum: The Story of the Pharaoh

Night had fallen upon the city, as it always had, and the lights of every building began to flicker off. All buildings except for one, that is. The American Museum of Natural History in New York, though smaller than most, was one of the busiest museums in the entire country both day and night. During the day, excited children, reminiscing veterans, history buffs; anyone and everyone who knew about the museum came to visit eventually, and those who already had never stayed away for long. At night, however, it was a totally different story.

At night, the exhibits came to life.

Every wax figure, every taxidermized animal, paintings, gold and bronze and stone busts, everything. If it was an exhibit, labelled with the typical wooden plaque you find at any museum, it would move. First, it would blink, take in a deep gasping breath, then it would stretch, wiggle its limbs and shuffle about, like it almost couldn't believe what was happening. Then the memories would come rushing back. They'd smile. And then their miraculous night alive—straight through from the last flickers of the sunset to the first inkling of sunrise—would begin.

Some of them liked to wander, to talk to the others and explore parts of the museum they'd never seen before. Some liked to observe the history around them, learning about the things their living counterpart never got to see before they passed; Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was one such wax man who spent every waking moment learning. Sometimes they'd long for more, long to step outside and really see the world, but they didn't dare leave. Not since 1958 when an ancient knight left and never came back. All that was left was a pile of ash on the front steps, was what the night guards gleefully told them.

Those were horrible men—no, not even men. They were thieves.

That was four years ago now, and they'd long since been replaced by the wonderful yet hard-to-love Larry Daley (and sometimes his enthusiastic son Nick). Larry ruled with an iron fist, but he wasn't like those other four men who locked them in their display cases and jeered at them until sunrise. Larry let them roam free. He played soccer with the Neanderthals and fetch with the tyrannosaurus rex, but best of all, he treated them all as though they were real people, and he treated them with respect, none more so than the beloved Ahkmenrah.

It was the ancient pharaoh's golden tablet that brought the museum to life every night, as it had done at every other museum, university, and storage warehouse it travelled to alongside the boy king. In the thousands of years since his death, the young Ahkmenrah had awoken every night suffocating in his own wrappings, stuffed inside an ornate sarcophagus encased in glass and stone, and all he could do was scream. Until Larry Daley came to set him free.

Teddy Roosevelt—well, the wax replacement—often thought about the boy king. Ahkmenrah was very much a polite and sophisticated boy, never one to tread on Larry's authority, but Teddy knew that the Pharaoh missed his own time, more than anyone in the museum could ever know. They were all wax, whereas Ahkmenrah... wasn't.

Sometimes he'd see the lad shuffling about aimlessly when he thought no one was looking, hunched over and looking like he held the weight of the world upon his shoulders. It was happening more and more, and the other exhibits were beginning to notice.

"Larry, I wonder, have you noticed that Ahkmenrah seems a little..."

"Sad? Yeah, I have, Octavius." They watched Ahkmenrah, usually one of the brightest and cheerful of them, curl in on himself in a darkened corner of his tomb. "I think he feels a little left out."

"How?"

Larry sighed. "Think about it, guys. Ahkmenrah is the only one here from Egypt. The rest of you, you've all got friends here with you. Teddy, you've always had Texas and now you've got Sacagawea too. Ahkmenrah's all alone."