up being false. The murderer turns out to be a relative of Mr. Schmitt that struggles to find work. Readers are told that something is mentally wrong with the man, and that explains why he can not seem to keep a job. Mr. Schmitt feels obligated to help out a relative of his, so Mr. Schmitt always agrees to let him work as a stockboy for a relatively low amount of payment. The man will work for a bit, earn some money, leave the area, and return again.

A relative of Mr. Schmidt is the actual murderer. He worked part time in Mr. Schmidt's store. The town believed that the professor, a curio shop owner, was the murderer. The townspeople were afraid of him , but they had no basis for their fear.

When two girls in one year were killed, fear ran throughout the community. There was no proof that the professor had done the murders, but the speculation was always there. It wasn't until April was attacked, and the professor called for help, that people started to change their minds.

There are actually two murders in this book.  The neighborhood in which April is living is home to many children, some of whom April has bonded with.  It is not any of April's friends, but two other girls in the neighborhood, that have been murdered.  The suspect, until he saves April from the murderer, is the Professor who lives on Orchard Street.

This is an interesting question, as in a sense, there could be said to be many different protagonists. At the end of the novel, however, we discover that the main protagonist who has been responsible for the murders of the children and the failed attack on April is not actually the man that we and the children had expected--the Professor--but it was actually somebody completely different:

He was a relative of Mr. Schmitt and he had always had something wrong with his mind. He couldn't get a good job, and sometimes Mr. Schmitt let him work as a stockboy in his store. He's work for a while and then he'd go away and do something else. But he always came back again, and since he was willing to work for very little money, Mr. Schmitt always hired him again.

So, whilst the ginger-headed man is clearly the principal protagonist, if you want to think a bit more metaphorically, you might want to consider how actually a major protagonist is fear and prejudice of those who are different from us. The children suspect the Professor of committing the crime because he is such a recluse and so strange to them. An important part of the novel is their realisation that being different does not mean that you are responsible for crimes. They grow and develop as they make this realisation.

The most obvious antagonist in Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s novel for young readers titled The Egypt Game is the person who attacks April (nearly strangling her) and who actually succeeds in killing another neighborhood girl. The identity of the killer is not revealed until close to the end of the novel, but surely this person qualifies as the most dangerous antagonist.

Ultimately the killer is revealed to be a cousin of Mr. Schmitt, who owns a local store.  The cousin works in the store, and, when we first meet him, he is described as a “stocky redheaded young man with blotchy freckles” (p. 129). He never assists customers.

After the man’s criminal activities are discovered, the narrator reports that there

wasn’t going to be a real trial because the man was very sick mentally and was to be sent to a hospital for the criminally insane. . . . The police hadn’t found out about him before because Mr. Schmitt had always given him an alibi. (p. 193)

Mr. Schmitt’s attempts to protect his cousin from the law may make Mr. Schmitt himself another antagonist in the novel (certainly he is usually described in unattractive terms).  One might even try to make the case that Mr. Schmitt is the one who is ultimately responsible for his cousin’s crimes, since the cousin himself is insane, whereas Mr. Schmitt is not.  In fact, later in the book one character even says, “I’ll bet he had a notion that his cousin was the murderer but he didn’t want to believe it” (p. 199). There is even speculation that this is why Mr. Schmitt tried to blame the murder on the Professor, another member of the neighborhood.  If this is true (and Snyder leaves the matter ambiguous), then Schmitt is indeed a blameworthy person and may be even more of a real antagonist, ironically, than the actual killer.  Still, it is the cousin who actually commits the crimes.

In some respects, Snyder's novel resembles Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird: a mysterious character (the Professor) observes children play (thus resembling Boo Radley in Lee's novel); another character (the red-headed cousin) is mentally challenged (like Boo Radley); and a mysterious assailant is on the loose and is attacking children (as at the end of Harper's novel). Of course, no child in Harper's novel actually dies, and the mentally challenged character in Harper's novel is much more fully developed. Likewise, the person who proves to be the true criminal in Harper's novel is also much more fully described and characterized.

[2009 Antheneum edition]