How does April behave when she first meets Melanie in The Egypt Game?

When Melanie goes to meet April for the first time, she has heard about April’s abnormal childhood but does not really know what to expect from her. When April opens the door, her appearance—with Dorothea’s old fur around her shoulders, her plastic purse, and her up-do—immediately surprises Melanie. The reader learns that April intends “to make a very definite impression.” Melanie asks if she is April Hall.

“April Dawn,” April corrected with an offhand sort of smile.

Here, April glamorizes her identity to Melanie, which is something she does to cope with her mother’s absence. We can tell she is having a bit of fun creating her identity, but we also know that this is not the real April. She goes on to tell Melanie about her mother, and when Melanie does not recognize her mother’s name, she explains all the things her mother does. It is sort of bragging, but it is more a way for April to construct an identity to herself and come off as memorable and interesting to other kids. Her mother’s frequent absence makes her feel angry and abandoned. Glamorizing herself the way she does when she meets Melanie allows her to feel less like an abandoned kid and more like a mature adult. It also is a strategy to make people intrigued by her, which she feels her mom is not, because she is always gone.

Can you describe April's character in the beginning of "The Egypt Game"?Why does she try to show off toward Melanie in the beginning?

April is a very unhappy, angry little girl at the beginning of the story.  She has been sent by "her beautiful and glamorous mother, to live with a grandmother she hardly knew".  April's mother is a vocalist in a band, and she has promised that April can come home when she has finished touring.  Even though she "is used to taking care of herself", April is righteously indignant and bitter that her mother has sent her away (Chapter 2). 

As Melanie so perceptively realizes, April shows off and puts on airs to hide her homesickness and hurt.  Also, as her grandmother observes, April has "been brought up all over everywhere and never had much of a chance to associate with other children".  From experience, April has learned that kids "hardly ever...like her", so she doesn't expect them to, and she just tries to shock them instead.  April is dressed outlandishly, with her hair upswept, a "big, yellowish-white fur thing around her shoulders", and ridiculously huge false eyelashes on her face when she first meets Melanie.  She talks about her mother as if she is a big Hollywood star, and emphasizes that she will only be at Casa Rosada for a short time, until her mother sends for her.  In reality, from years of being shuttled around, April has a sense that she is not very important in her mother's life, and she acts the way she does to hide the pain of her rejection (Chapter 3).

What action of Elizabeth in The Egypt Game impressed Melanie and April?

Although Melanie, and especially April, are a little resentful at first at having to share the secret of the Egypt Game with Elizabeth, who has just moved into the neighborhood, they quickly discover that the little fourth-grader is a delightful child and a welcome addition to the group.  For one thing, Elizabeth is quiet and unassuming, and completely appreciative of everything the older girls do.  Her "pretty tilted eyes (become) wide with wonder at almost anything (they tell) her", which is a great boost to their egos (Chapter 7), and she does "everything April and Melanie (do), only softer" (Chapter 15).  Not only that, but April and Melanie notice immediately that, in profile, Elizabeth looks exactly like the ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti - "Elizabeth's ponytial pull(s) her hair back away from her face and neck, and there (is) certainly something about her delicate, slender-necked profile that (is) very like the statue of Nefertiti" (Chapter 7).

In addition to looking the part and being a completely amiable playmate, Elizabeth is creative, and very "artistic with her hands".  It is she who delights everyone with the idea of costumes for the Egypt Game.  Elizabeth makes herself "a Nefertiti headdress out of a plastic bleach bottle with the top cut off", inspiring Melanie to get some old curtains from her mother to make "sheer flowing robes for everyone", and April to go around to all the ladies in the apartment asking for old junk jewelry which they can use to decorate their robes, or use "just as they (are)" (Chapter 8).

How do Melanie and April react to meeting Elizabeth in The Egypt Game?

In Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Egypt Game, April is anything but thrilled when her grandmother wants her to make friends with the new girl who has moved in on their street. Elizabeth is only nine (compared to April's eleven), and April does not want her butting into the Egypt Game that she and her friend Melanie (and Melanie's brother Marshall) are playing.

To please their families, April and Melanie agree to walk Elizabeth to school and at least be friendly toward her. Both girls are surprised when Elizabeth answers the door on the first morning. Elizabeth is a tiny girl with black hair. Her face has a "carved perfection" to it that makes "her smile seem like magic." She is just like "an enchanted ivory princess warming suddenly to life." Elizabeth is a little shy, but it is a "gentle friendly shyness" that makes April and Melanie feel important.

In Elizabeth's company, April wonders why she has been so afraid of including this new girl in her group of friends. By the time the girls get to school, April and Melanie are already feeling protective toward Elizabeth, and by the end of the afternoon, both girls are thinking that it would be a good thing to include Elizabeth in the Egypt Game. When they notice the next morning that Elizabeth resembles Nefertiti, they decide that she is fully in, and on the way to school, they begin telling her all about their secret.

What game name do Melanie and April give to Elizabeth in "The Egypt Game"?

Elizabeth Chung is the new girl in town. Though incredibly shy and somewhat lacking in self-confidence, it isn't very long before she's hanging out with April, Melanie and the other kids playing the Egypt Game.

One morning, Elizabeth arranges to meet with April and Melanie on the front steps of the Casa Rosada. When April and Melanie are crossing the lobby, they see Elizabeth through the glass of the front door. She's sitting on a railing looking off up Orchard Avenue so her profile is towards April and Melanie.

The girls agree that Elizabeth looks for all the world like Nefertiti, a famous queen in ancient Egypt. With her hair pulled back from her face and neck in a neat ponytail, and with her delicate, slender-necked profile, Elizabeth looks just like a statue of Nefertiti. Of course, there are a couple of noticeable differences. Elizabeth's nose is just a little bit shorter and her chin a little rounder. But there's enough of a resemblance there all the same. So April and Melanie decide that, from now on, Elizabeth's name in the Egypt Game will be Neferbeth, a name that they've come up with themselves, and which is an amalgam of Elizabeth and Nefertiti.

Why does April try to impress Melanie in The Egypt Game?

As the new kid in school, April is understandably worried about fitting in. Truth be told, she's positively terrified. But she doesn't want anyone else to know this, and so she tries her very best to exude a powerful sense of confidence and self-assurance.

One of the ways she does this is by wearing unusual items of clothing. We see this when April meets Melanie for the first time. She's wearing her mother's old fur stole, a large, yellowish-white thing round her neck. For good measure, she's carrying an outsized plastic purse that's almost as big as a suitcase.

To top off the ensemble, she's sporting a pair of bushy black eyelashes; the ones on the left are higher up than the ones on the right and slope in a different direction.

April clearly intends to make an impression on Melanie, and she certainly succeeds. Melanie's mouth opens and closes a few times before she's able to say anything. To be sure, she doesn't expect Melanie to like her; past experience tells her that kids hardly ever do. But at the very least, she wants to convey the impression to Melanie, and to everyone else, that she's a good deal more confident, self-assured, and comfortable in her own skin than she really is.