100 pages • 3 hours read
Rick RiordanThe Red Pyramid
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 3-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “Imprisoned with My Cat”
Chapter 3 switches to Sadie’s perspective. Following the explosion at the museum, Carter and Sadie are picked up by the police and brought to Sadie’s apartment. While Carter talks to the cops, Sadie paces her room, annoyed and afraid at the situation. With only her irritated cat, Muffin, for company, she thinks back on what happened at the museum. She wants to believe it was a dream, but the entire thing was too real. The visit to Cleopatra’s Needle makes Sadie think this has something to do with her mom, and she pulls out the only picture she has of her mother. The picture was taken shortly after Sadie was born, and her mom wears a shirt with the Ankh—the symbol for life. Sadie remembers Amos talking about the Per Ankh. After she could mysteriously read the hieroglyphs in the museum, Sadie feels that if she saw Per Ankh written in hieroglyphics, “I would know what they meant” (33).
A cop comes to Sadie’s room to ask questions about the incident at the museum. He doesn’t believe anything she says, which annoys Sadie even more. She storms to the window and sees Amos outside. Not knowing what to say, she gives Amos’s name, but the officer says Amos couldn’t be involved because he’s in New York. Sadie looks outside again, and Amos is gone. She refuses to say anything more, and the officer brings her downstairs to “discuss consequences with your grandparents” (38).
Chapter 4 Summary: “Kidnapped by a Not-So-Stranger”
Downstairs, the argument continues. Sadie and Carter maintain they told the truth, and the police refuse to believe them. One of the cops starts to tell the kids they will be charged for the crimes committed at the museum, but partway through the sentence, he freezes and then looks confused. Rather than arrest Carter and Sadie, he deports them back to America, still looking confused all the while. He leaves, and Amos arrives, announcing that their father broke an old agreement, saying that Carter and Sadie’s only chance now is “to come with me” (45).
After an argument, Sadie’s grandparents agree she needs to go with Amos. Amos draws a boat hieroglyph on the window, and an Egyptian reed boat suddenly appears in the river beyond. Muffin jets down the stairs and jumps into Sadie’s arms, which makes her finally accept something strange is going on. She is still worried about going off with a stranger, but Amos reassures her: “I’m not a stranger [...]. I’m family (48). Sadie suddenly remembers Amos is her uncle.
Chapter 5 Summary: “We Meet the Monkey”
Aboard the boat, Carter describes how they travel faster than should have been possible through darkness, their trip accompanied by strange noises. Just as he’s getting nauseous, they stop, and the kids are amazed to find themselves in New York. They disembark the boat and climb a set of steps alongside a boarded-up warehouse to the mansion perched atop the building “like another layer of a cake” (51).
Inside, the kids find themselves in a four-story room with balconies and windows that look out on terraces with a swimming pool and fire pit. At the center of the room is a statue of Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom, and Sadie recognizes one of the hieroglyphs he wears as Per Ankh, which she translates to the House of Life. Amos is the only remaining member of the House of Life in New York. He insists Carter and Sadie get some sleep before he tells them anything else. Khufu, a monkey wearing a basketball jersey, shows the kids to their rooms, and Amos takes Julius’s work bag from Carter for safekeeping.
Carter’s room is one of the nicest places he’s ever stayed, complete with a computer, television, and huge bed with a headrest pillow. He tries to go out onto the balcony but finds the door locked. Likewise, the doors to the hallway and Sadie’s adjoining room are locked, which makes him feel uneasy. Sadie calls through the wall, sounding scared. Carter is just as scared but knows she needs him to be her big brother. He tells her everything will be all right and to go to sleep. He does the same but can’t sleep on the headrest pillow. He tosses it on the floor and ends the chapter with the ominous message that this was “my first big mistake” (61).
Chapter 6 Summary: “Breakfast with a Crocodile”
After he falls asleep, Carter’s ba (spirit) rises out of his body, taking the shape of a falcon with Carter’s head. A force pulls him through the darkness to Phoenix, Arizona, where Set converses with two animal-like creatures. Set says Phoenix is a perfect place to build his temple; once it’s done, he will summon a storm to cleanse the world. He gives one of his henchmen orders to find Carter and Sadie and then turns to gaze at Phoenix “as if he were imagining the city in flames” (65).
Carter wakes and goes downstairs. He joins Sadie and Amos on the terrace and notices an albino crocodile, which Sadie informs him is named Philip of Macedonia, swimming in the pool. Rather than dwell on this, Carter asks for information about his dad, which Amos provides. Eight years ago, their parents broke the House of Life’s law not to summon gods, which cost their mother her life, and Julius continued their work, including his recent attempt to raise Osiris. The ancient Egyptian gods and civilization are still very strong in the world. Sadie and Carter’s parents are descended from two of the most powerful Egyptian House of Life magician lines, which makes the kids “the most powerful Kane children to be born in many centuries” (73). Due to their bloodlines, Sadie and Carter’s magic gets stronger when they’re together, and though the House of Life will object, Amos will train them in their powers.
Carter tells Amos and Sadie about his strange dream and Phoenix, which unsettles Amos. Amos asks why Carter didn’t sleep with the headrest and explains that sleep is a doorway to the Duat—the world of magic and spirits. The headrest is enchanted to keep magicians from traveling into the Duat when they sleep, and Carter is lucky he survived his journey. Amos leaves for Phoenix, giving Carter and Sadie explicit instructions to stay in the mansion and not explore the library. As soon as he’s gone, Carter asks Sadie what they should do, to which Sadie says, “We explore the library” (83).
Chapters 3-6 Analysis
These chapters build on the backstory and main conflicts of The Red Pyramid. Amos provides extra context about Carter and Sadie’s parents—mainly that they have made enemies of the other Egyptian magicians. He also clarifies that Carter and Sadie are descendants of powerful magician lines, which sets the kids up as heroes. They are more powerful than other magicians, marking them as the ones who must take the heroes’ journey and save the world. Amos’s decision to leave for Phoenix here is a necessary part of the story and foreshadowing. It is necessary because the young heroes may only act once their adult role models are out of the picture, and Amos’s capture in the following chapters allows Carter and Sadie to begin their journey. Amos’s disappearance foreshadows how Set uses him in the book’s climactic sequence.
Carter takes his first trip to the Duat in Chapter 5. In Egyptian myth, the Duat is the world of spirits and magic, also known as the realm of the dead. The Duat has many layers inhabited by various spirits and gods, including Osiris (god of death and rebirth) and Anubis (overseer of embalming and judgment of souls). The Duat is described with many of the same geographic features as Egypt, such as a long river (similar to the Nile), caverns, and fields of sand. The Duat also contains fantastical elements, such as lakes of fire and great iron walls. Carter and Sadie tap into the Duat’s various powers throughout the book.
In Chapter 6, Carter leaves his body as his ba while he sleeps. Various interpretations of Egyptian myth define the soul differently, but overall, the culture believed that the soul had several components and the ba was the personality. Riordan simplifies this concept, giving only one spirit form to magicians. He may have chosen the Ba as a nod to how Sadie and Carter remain themselves when they travel through the Duat. Riordan also kept the image of a ba as a bird with a person’s head.
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