Day of the Djinn Warriors by P. B. Kerr

Author:P. B. Kerr [Kerr, P. B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-545-30158-9
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2008-05-24T16:00:00+00:00

“Fascinating,” said Finlay. He wasn’t sure exactly what a prime number was, only that they had studied it at school.

“A prime number is a number that’s only divisible by itself and one,” John told him.

“I know what a prime number is,” insisted Finlay.

“No, you didn’t,” said John. “Not until I told you just now.”

“Listen,” said Finlay, “if you’re going to remain as a guest in my body, I think you ought to stop reading my mind, don’t you?”

“I’d like to,” said John. “Only it’s not so easy, as you know only too well.”

“Yeah, all right,” admitted Finlay. “Sorry.”

Nimrod was still talking about the number 666 and how if you wrote it out as the Roman numeral DCLXVI, it would use all of the Roman numeral symbols under one thousand and in reverse order of their respective values: D = 500, C = 100, L=50, X=10, V=5, and I=1.

“There’s something else I’ve noticed,” said Philippa. “There are exactly eighteen pairs of numbers that add up to the number thirty-seven.”

“So what?” said John.

But Nimrod was nodding with enthusiasm. “Excellent, Philippa,” he said. “And?”

She shrugged. “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“Not to me,” said Finlay.

“Me, neither,” admitted John. “I’m still trying to remember who was alive in 1320.”

“Eighteen times thirty-seven is six hundred and sixty-six,” said Philippa. She grinned, pleased at her discovery. “Hey, no wonder they call this the magic square.” Philippa picked up what looked like a leg bone — the femur — and handed it to Finlay. “There’s a number from one to thirty-six on each one,” she said. “This one is number twenty-seven.”

Finlay laid the bone so that the end rested in the center of the bottom left-hand square.

About halfway through their placing the bones on the magic square, Nimrod said, “I hope this works. Sister Cristina said there are only two hundred and five bones in this box. But a complete human skeleton should have two hundred and six.”

“I guess it all depends on which bone is missing,” said John.

Philippa handed Nimrod the skull, which he placed carefully on box number one, next to a handful of vertebrae.

“This is like some weird kind of game show,” said John. “We have to guess who it is before the skeleton reassembles.”

“Even if it does reassemble,” said Finlay, “I don’t see how it’s going to talk without muscles and a tongue and all the rest of it.”

“Fortunately for us this is a magic square,” said Nimrod, “and not the Times crossword puzzle.”

Philippa emptied a little numbered silk bag of tiny bones, each of them smaller than her fingernail, into the palm of her hand. “Are these chips off one of the bigger ones?” she asked.

“Those will be the bones from the inner ear,” said Nimrod. “There are three in each ear: the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup.” He laid them carefully in box number one, as directed by Philippa, who glanced inside the brass chest and declared that the box was now empty.

“That’s the last of them,” she declared. “Two hundred and five.

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