The Midnight Visitor. The Pharaoh's Curse

1. THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR

“Mrrrowww.” Tasha rolled over and waved her tiny striped paws in the air. The wide stone steps that led up to the museum entrance were warm from the sun and she was so deliciously sleepy. There was a light breeze blowing off the river and she could hear gulls calling over the water.

“You’re getting your fur dirty, Tasha,” said a disapproving voice, and the tabby kitten opened one green eye to see who was talking to her. “Ma says we mustn’t get our fur dirty – we should be clean and neat at all times.”

“Oh hush, Bianca.” Tasha closed her eye again, but it was no good. Her sister was still there – she could feel her. Bianca was blocking out the spring sunshine and now the afternoon felt dull and chilly.

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“Ma says,” Bianca insisted. She sat down next to Tasha and started to wash. She didn’t need to – her white fur was spotless as always. Even her paw pads were perfectly pink and it looked as though she’d combed her beautiful whiskers.

Tasha rolled over and sprang up, peering over her shoulder at her grey and black tabby stripes. Bianca was right. She was covered in dust and her fur was sticking up all over the place. Half her whiskers seemed to be stuck together too– she wasn’t sure how that had happened. She had gone exploring through the museum workshop earlier on. Perhaps she shouldn’t have looked so closely at that pot of varnish. She stuck out her tongue to try and reach her sticky whiskers, but it didn’t work.

“You are a disgrace to the museum,” Bianca said, stopping mid wash with one paw in the air. “Just look at the state of you. Tch.”

“I’m not!” Tasha said crossly. “We’re supposed to be here to keep the mice and rats away. The rats don’t care if my whiskers are tangled. It doesn’t matter if I’m clean or not.”

“Ma won’t agree,” Bianca purred, twitching her whiskers at a pair of visitors walking past them up the steps. “See? They thought I was adorable. They just said so. They didn’t even notice you.”

Tasha considered leaping on her sister’s head and rolling her over in the dust. Then she wouldn’t be so perfect. But Tasha would only get into trouble. Ma might keep her downstairs in the cellars in the museum cats’ den until bedtime, instead of letting her explore the museum and the courtyard and the gardens with the others.

“Come here,” Bianca sighed, leaning over to lick the scruffy fur on Tasha’s back. “I’ll tidy you up.”

Tasha’s whiskers bristled as Bianca licked her fur straight. She sat hunched over with her ears flat back, letting out little outraged hisses.

“Don’t make such a fuss! If you don’t like being washed, you shouldn’t get yourself in such a mess.”

That did it! Tasha was going to have to jump on her now, even if it meant staying in the cellars for weeks.

Just as she was about to pounce, their brother Boris hopped down the steps and bumped noses with Tasha.“Don’t eventhink about doing that to me,” he told Bianca with a yawn. “It’s bad enough when Ma makes me wash my ears.”

Bianca looked his ginger coat up and down and sniffed.“You’re almost clean, I suppose.” Then she sighed again at Tasha. All the bits of fur she’d licked clean and straight were starting to stick out already. “I give up,” she muttered.

“Good! Oh look, more visitors.”

All three kittens tried to look charming– sometimes the visitors had snacks to share. But as usual the visitors only made a fuss of Bianca. Tasha watched, wondering how her sister did it, and Boris settled down for a nap halfway off a step.

“White kittens are very unusual,” Bianca purred as the visitors walked on up to the museum entrance. “You two are … common.”

“Oi!” Boris opened one eye. “Ginger stripes are smart. Ma said so. I wouldn’t want to be a white cat.”

Bianca’s blue eyes glittered. “And why not?” she hissed.

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“Camouflage.” Boris nodded knowingly. “I mean, you haven’t got any. You stick out. Tasha and me can slink into the shadows and hide, because we’ve got stripes.”

“Huh, I don’t want to slink.” Bianca sat up straighter and set her ears at the perkiest angle possible. “I am beautiful and I want everybody to see me.” Then she frowned, her muzzle wrinkling as she looked at the dark dots spattering the terrace. “Ugh! It’sraining! I shall get wet!” A large raindrop splashed down next to Bianca’s delicate paws and her tail fluffed up in horror. The white kitten dashed up the steps and bolted across the terrace to the neat little door hidden behind one of the columns.

The museum building was very grand, with stone columns all along the front, and statues on either side of all the doors. Even the cats’ door had its own little statue – a marble cat perched on the doorframe peering down. Its nose was almost rubbed away by hundreds of silky tails brushing past over the years.

As Bianca disappeared underneath the statue, a fluffy grey cat with a full fan of white whiskers appeared in the doorway and stepped out on to the terrace. Tasha thought about pretending not to have noticed her mother and darting off across the courtyard, but it wouldn’t work. Smoke was a famous hunter and her green eyes were sharp. She’d know straightaway that Tasha had seen her.

“There’s Ma looking for us,” Boris groaned, and he and Tasha hopped up the steps and padded over to the grey cat.

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“Please can we stay out a bit longer?” Tasha pleaded. “It can’t be even close to bedtime.”

Smoke narrowed her eyes, peering up at the sky, and nudged noses with Tasha.“It’s getting late, kitten. And it’s wet. Come on inside, it’s nearly time for supper. The Old Man brought us fish today as a treat.”

The Old Man was one of the museum’s guards and he was in charge of feeding the cats. He was grumpy and sometimes shouted at the kittens when they got in his way, but Ma said that was only because his legs hurt.

Boris’s whiskers fanned out, trembling with excitement. “Fish! Come on, Tasha! We need to get down there first, before everyone nabs it.”

The two kittens barged through the little door– they weren’t quite tall enough for their tails to stroke the stone cat’s nose yet – and pattered down the stairs to their shadowy home.

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The museum’s cellar storerooms went on a very long way underground. Even the kittens’ grandfather, the fearsome white cat Ivan, hadn’t explored them all. They were full of boxes and chests and trunks of ancient museum bits that almost everyone had forgotten about.

The cats lived in the cellars at the very front of the building, with a spiral staircase leading up to the small door on the terrace. There was a sloping tunnel that led up into the Egyptian Gallery too, and opened out behind a very large and musty-smelling mummy case, as well as lots of other passages and chutes and hideaways that the cats used to get around.

Tasha, Bianca and Boris were asleep on an old tapestry full of holes, their tummies full of fish, with Smoke curled lovingly around them.

It was the dark of the night and the shower that had spattered down on the terrace that afternoon had turned into a storm. The wind rattled through the old chimneys and air ducts with shrill little whines and angry growls, and rain was lashing against the walls. Even safe underground, the kittens stirred and shifted uneasily in their sleep.

Tasha woke with a squeal as something banged loudly on the door at the top of the spiral staircase. The noise seemed to echo around the cellar and her fur prickled with fear. What was happening? That door should be shut tight.

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There were cats out on duty in the museum, of course, prowling around the priceless objects in the galleries upstairs. They were on watch for mice and rats, or even burglars. But the cat guards knew to slide silently in and out of their den. This was an intruder!

“Stay here!” Smoke hissed, her green eyes glinting fiercely at her children in the soft light from the doorway. “I’ll be back soon.” Then she shot away, joining the tide of tabby and white and ginger fur surging out of the sleeping quarters towards that strange, suspicious noise.

The kittens stayed huddled together on the tapestry, feeling the warmth of their mother’s body die away.

Tasha’s tail was swishing anxiously from side to side. “I want to see what’s happening…”

“Ma said to stay,” Bianca mewed.

“We could just look round the door,” suggested Boris, standing up. “That wouldn’t do any harm, would it?”

Tasha jumped up with an eager nod.

Bianca shuffled her paws worriedly, and then sprang down from the tapestry after Tasha and Boris. She didn’t want to be left behind. All three kittens peered round the doorframe, trying to see further up the passage. In the dim light of the lamps they could just make out the spiral staircase, with shadowy cats standing sentinel all the way up the steps. They were as still as statues, but Tasha could hear the soft hiss of their breathing.

They couldn’t see the door at the top.

“I want to know what it was!” Tasha’s tail was flicking back and forth now, and her ears were flattened. “It’s important, I know it is.”

“No…” Bianca moaned, but the other two were already creeping along the passage.

Tasha started to weave her way up the staircase, between the cats. There were a few hisses of annoyance as her brother and sister followed, but no one stopped the three kittens as they pattered towards their mother and grandfather, who were standing together a few steps from the top.

“I thought you told them to stay in the den?” Old Ivan murmured to Smoke, his one eye narrowing, and she sighed.

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“I did. I should have known you naughty kittens wouldn’t listen. Now stay by me, you three, anddon’t move!” Then Smoke turned back to watching the heavy wooden door at the top of the stairs. The two cats on guard duty were pulling back the heavy bolts with their teeth.

Tasha shivered and pressed tight against her mother as the door opened a crack and the wind battered and shrieked against the dark timbers. All the cats on the stairs hissed, lowering their heads into the wind, feeling it lick their fur on end and tie their tails in knots.

The door swung fully open and a haze of damp air rushed in. Outside, the cats could see the rain lashing the flagstones on the terrace, each heavy drop striking up a little fountain as it landed. It was midnight-black out there, even the cats’ night eyes were blind. The two cat guards took a cautious step forward and one of them bellowed, “Who goes there?”

“Identify yourself!” the other guard roared, not to be outdone.

There was a faint thickening of the darkness outside the door and then another cat appeared, a skinny old cat who looked even skinnier with the rain flattening his coat over his bones. His mackerel-tabby stripes seemed to melt into the shadows around the doorway. Something about him made the two guards fall back, pressing themselves respectfully against the doorframe to let him pass.

The cats on the stairs peered forward, staring at the skinny old tabby and waiting for him to speak.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t, Tasha and the others realized, because there was something in his mouth. A little saggy something, all black and bedraggled.

The old cat padded carefully down the steps until he reached Smoke and her kittens, and stood in front of her. Then he leaned down and laid the soggy ball of fur at her feet. He nodded slowly then turned round, pacing away up the stairs, and disappeared out into the rain-soaked night, still silent.

On the stairs, the wet ball of dark fur wriggled and sneezed and sat up, staring at Smoke and the kittens with emerald eyes.

“I’m Peter,” squeaked the small black kitten, gazing nervously around at the rows and rows of cats. “Hello.”

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“Who was that?” The whisper ran round the stairs, and the two guard cats hurried out on to the terrace to call the mackerel tabby back. But they returned looking downcast.

“No sign of him.”

The little black kitten laid his ears flat and shuffled his paws.“He – er – he said he was taking me to my new home…”

A disapproving chorus echoed around the stairs at once.

“Here?”

“The little tadpole wants to stay!”

“Well, I’m not sure about that!”

“Quiet!” Old Ivan let out a loud, growly meow. “The museum is a home for all cats in need, you know that quite well. Besides, I’ve seen that mackerel-tabby fellow before. Around and about. He’s a sensible creature. If he brought the kitten here, then here he stays.”

Smoke came up beside Ivan and gently licked the black kitten’s ears. “You must be so tired,” she said to him gently. “Come back down to the cellars with us and sleep. The warmth from the hot-water pipes will dry your fur. You can tell us where you came from in the morning.”

The rows of cats parted like a wave rolling back as she nudged the little black kitten down the stairs towards the cellars. She half lifted him on to the pile of old tapestries where Tasha and Bianca and Boris slept with her every night, and the three kittens followed. They lay down next to him, but it felt so odd curling up with their mother and a stranger.

Tasha lay there, her eyes half open, peering at the newcomer. She felt sorry for him, of course, being so cold and wet and lonely. But he didn’t smell like a museum kitten.

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When they woke up the next morning, the three kittens were snuggled up in Smoke’s long grey fur, just like always. The black kitten was curled in a tiny ball at the very edge of the tapestries, all alone.

After breakfast and washing, Smoke tried to coax him to tell his story. Tasha sat beside her mother, watching eagerly. The most interesting part of living in a museum was all the stories that came with the treasures in the galleries, but a story she hadn’t heard before was the very best kind. She was sure that the black kitten’s adventures would be exciting. After all, he’d come from Out There.

But when the black kitten had licked breakfast off his whiskers at last and settled down to be questioned, he didn’t seem to have a story to tell at all. He didn’t know anything, except that he was called Peter, and that Herring, the old mackerel tabby, hadn’t been his father or his grandfather. Just someone who had looked after him for as long he could remember and had brought him to the museum.

He sat in the middle of a circle of curious cats, his whiskers drooping as he failed to answer question after question.

“What was your mother’s name?”

“Were you born here in the city?”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

In the end, they gave up. There was no question of sending Peter away, of course. He would be a museum cat, like all the others. But he was a strange one. He didn’t seem to fit, and the black kitten knew it.

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“Leave the poor creature alone,” Old Ivan ordered. “If he doesn’t know, then he doesn’t know. Perhaps he’ll remember in time.” He fixed Tasha, Boris and Bianca with a stern glare. “You young ones must show him around.” Tasha was never sure how her grandfather could look so much more fiercely with one eye than everyone else did with two, but he managed it. “Make him feel at home. Show him the ropes!”

“What ropes?” Boris muttered in Tasha’s ear. “Does he mean the sailors’ knot collection in the Maritime Gallery? Why do we have to show this scrawny kit those?”

“Shh!” Tasha hissed back. Even though both of Old Ivan’s ears looked chewed and he was deaf in one ear, she was almost sure he’d heard Boris being rude. His whiskers were bristling.

Maybe Peter would like to see around the museum, she thought hopefully. Perhaps he’d like the same rooms she did. They could show him the fossilized fish, and the lion statues, and the shudderingly scary cat mummies in the Egyptian Gallery.

“Come on then,” Bianca said a little haughtily – but not too haughtily because she was frightened of Grandpa Ivan too. No one knew exactly how he’d lost his eye and all those bits of his ears… “This way, you!”

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Peter obediently followed the three kittens through the galleries. Herring had told him that the museum was a strange place, full of treasures.“Though a lot of it’s just old junk,” the old tabby cat had added, chuckling. “Dusty old bones, not a scrap of meat on them.”

Peter wasn’t sure about the bones either, but the visitors certainly seemed to like them. Boris and Tasha and Bianca led him through the gaps under the floorboards and let him pop his head out of a tiny trapdoor in the middle of the Dinosaur Gallery. There were skeletons all around, but he could hardly seethem for the crowds of people.

“What are they doing?” he whispered.

The three kittens stared at him.“Visiting,” Tasha said at last. “It’s what they do. They look at things.”

“They take a lot of pictures,” Bianca added. “Most of them take pictures of me,” she added smugly.

Tasha rolled her eyes and saw Peter glance at her.“She’s very spoilt,” she whispered to him. “She loves having her picture taken.”

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“Come on!” Boris was already heading back down the tunnel. “I want to show him the swords.”

“No,” Bianca hissed. “The jewellery’s much more interesting. There are six crowns,” she added impressively to Peter, who nodded, wide-eyed.

“Boring sparkly stuff,” Boris grunted, but he followed the others, slipping along the corridors and round the display cases to the Jewel Room.

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“Keep hidden!” Bianca snapped. She batted Peter back into the shadows with one small white paw as he stopped to gaze up at the enormous marble staircase in the Grand Hall.

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“We’re not really supposed to be here,” Tasha explained as Peter blinked in confusion. “We live down in the cellars – upstairs is only for the visitors. The older cats hunt the mice and the rats, but that’s at night when no one is around. The mice and the rats are busier at night too, of course. If we come upstairs during the day, we have to stay out of sight. We’re allowed in the courtyard and the gardens, though.”

“I’m good at hiding,” Peter said eagerly, and Boris snorted.

“Not as if there’s much of you to hide,” he said, looking Peter over, and Peter scrunched himself down even smaller.

Tasha glared at her brother, but he didn’t notice. “Come along,” she told Peter. “We’ll sneak up the back stairs, here. There’s nowhere to hide on the Grand Staircase.”

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They peered down at the Jewel Room from above, squinting through a latticed air vent. The crowns and necklaces and diamond-encrusted eggs were all locked away in thick glass cases, but they still flashed and glittered in the sunlight from the tall windows.

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They left Bianca there in the end, her little pink nose poking through the vent to get as close to the jewels as she could. One of these days she would have a diamond tiara of her own, or a pearl necklace, perhaps.

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“Now let’s see the weapons,” Boris commanded, marching along a draughty passage that led around the courtyard to the next building. “Best room in the whole place.”

“Oh, it isn’t!” Tasha stopped, staring at him.

“What’s your favourite?” Peter asked her, and the tabby kitten’s whiskers shook as she tried to think.

“I’m not sure…” she admitted at last. “I love them all.”

“Typical,” muttered Boris, looking back at them both.

“I mean … the Egyptian Gallery … and the dolls’ houses … and then there’s the mosaics… I just can’t choose.”

“That’s because you spend all your time daydreaming about who those tatty old things belonged to.” Boris gave a big sigh. “Come along, do. There! Look! Isn’t that impressive?”

The three kittens scuttled behind an open door and peered round at the suits of armour standing guard around the room. They were eerie, Peter thought, waiting there with their metal gauntlets on their swords. He wouldn’t like to peer under the visors on those helmets, in case he found something else looking back at him.

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“They’re very grand,” he agreed, hoping to please Boris. But that only meant he got a long tour, sneaking from case to case to inspect all of Boris’s favourite swords. Boris was particularly keen on the Japanese ones and Peter had to stifle several yawns.

“Are you very bored?” Tasha whispered in his ear, in the middle of Boris’s lecture on Samurai armour.

Peter twitched. He was, but he didn’t like to say so. What if Tasha minded him saying her brother was boring?

“Boris, can you smell that?” Tasha sniffed thoughtfully. “What is it, do you think? Egg mayonnaise, maybe? Or tuna?”

“Sandwiches?” Boris abandoned the Samurai and gazed around the gallery, his whiskers stretched out like great white fans. “Just a minute.” He crouched low and padded away, ears turning slowly as he tracked imaginary sandwiches.

“I couldn’t smell anything,” Peter said, frowning. He was rather proud of his sense of smell – he could sniff out a nice bit of bacon several dustbins away.

“Oh, neither could I. But you can always distract Boris with sandwiches. They’re his favourite thing. Especially if he’s sneaked them – he reckons they taste better if they’re stolen. He’s always raiding the bins in the museum caf?.”

Peter wrinkled his muzzle. The tinned food that the Old Man had put down for them at breakfast had been so good, and there had been so much of it, even with all those cats to feed. He’d always had not-quite-enough food, when he and Herring had been wandering about the city. He wondered if Boris had ever been hungry. The ginger kitten certainly made sure he got more than his fair share at meal times – Peter didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone eat faster.

“Look out!” Tasha hissed suddenly, interrupting his thoughts. “Visitors! We’re not supposed to be in here. Run!”

She skittered away into the shadows, behind the massive armoured elephant. Peter looked around wildly. He could hear footsteps and voices getting closer and closer. It sounded like a great stampeding crowd. What if he was seen in the galleries? Would he be thrown out of the museum, after all old Herring had done to get him here?

Peter stood frozen at the feet of the Samurai warrior, his tail fluffing to three times its size. Then, as the voices grew louder, he gave a tiny mew of panic, and shot upwards, inside the plated leather armour. If there was a ghostly warrior inside, it was going to get an awful shock…

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He clung on tight to the ribbed metal, his heart thumping as the visitors talked and talked only a whisker or so away. What if they loved the Samurai soldiers as much as Boris did? He could be here for hours!

The sharp metal plates felt as if they were going to cut his claws in half. Were the visitors still there? The voices seemed to have moved further away– and now he could hardly hear them. Slowly, slowly, Peter crept back down and peeped out beneath the heavy armour-plated skirts.

The visitors had gone, but so had the other kittens.

“Tasha?” he called hopefully, glancing around the gallery. “Are you there? Boris?”

A faint echo whispered through the suits of armour, but that was all. Peter shuddered as the dark emptiness behind the visors seemed to turn towards him and scooted for the door.

He wasn’t going to stay here to be eaten by long-dead warriors, he decided. If Tasha and Boris had abandoned him, he would just have to explore by himself.

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All through that first day, the older cats whispered as they curled up together, or set out on their guard duties. Even though Grandpa Ivan had said Peter must be allowed to stay, there was still a great deal of gossiping to be done. Whenever Peter padded past, exploring his new home, hissy little whispers followed him. The cats put their heads together and muttered.

No one knew how old the strange black kitten was, for a start. He was a great deal smaller than Boris, but then Boris was huge, everyone said so. He was nearly as tall as Bianca and Tasha but he was thinner, as though he’d never been properly fed. He kept appearing here and there, always hunched over or half hidden behind a box or a pile of papers. He was quiet too, now he knew that he had to be. He could slip through the passageways and galleries like a shadow.

“He’s too quiet,” Bianca said later that afternoon as the shadows were gathering along the terrace outside the Egyptian Gallery. “I don’t like it. He’s such a sly little thing. I expect he’s off somewhere sniffing around where he isn’t wanted.”

“Or he’s spying out the museum’s treasures,” Boris suggested. “What do we really know about that skinny old tabby cat who brought him here? He could be a master criminal and Peter’s his cat on the inside.”

Tasha was still feeling guilty about abandoning Peter earlier. She should have gone back to the Weapons Gallery to find him. Should she look for him now and say sorry? Or would that just make it worse? She was only half listening to Bianca and Boris, so she didn’t argue with them for once. Afterwards she wished she had, because as soon as Bianca had wandered off to flutter her whiskers at a visitor and Boris had gone to enquire when supper would be, a small dark shape stole out from behind a statue of a lion goddess and slunk away. Tasha sat watching from the terrace with her mouth open, but all her words were frozen.

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It’s just Bianca and Boris – you don’t need to mind them, I never do, she should have said. Or,I wish I hadn’t left you behind in the Weapons Gallery. I didn’t mean to, I was just scared we’d get into trouble…

She tried to be friendly– that night she left a space on their pile of tapestries for the black kitten to sleep. But instead he huddled himself up inside an old wooden jewellery box, all on his own. Tasha lay there in the dark, watching him and worrying.

The black kitten didn’t notice that Tasha was peering at him over Boris’s fat ginger tail. He was squished into the tiny jewellery box, the worn velvet lining soft under his paws. He was quite comfortable and he wasn’t hungry. He was warm and dry, and Old Ivan had said he could stay.

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But he didn’t belong. Not like the others. Clever funny Tasha, and Bianca who melted all the visitors’ hearts. And Boris, who was obviously going to be the biggest, fiercest, most rat-scaring cat in the whole history of the museum.

Peter sniffed, and sighed, and turned round in the tiny, tiny box– which was quite difficult. Perhaps it would be better tomorrow, he thought hopefully, as his head nodded lower on to the edge of the box. Perhaps tomorrow things would be different…

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“Are you sure you’re even a cat?” Boris peered down, his whiskers brushing the little black kitten’s nose. He was looking sideways at Bianca and Tasha, wanting them to laugh along.

“What?” Peter blinked. “Of course I’m a cat.”

“Are you? Really? I mean you don’t know anything else about yourself. Maybe you’re a skinny little ferret.” Boris sniggered, thinking that he was being very clever and funny. “Or perhaps you’re a rat! I’ve seen rats bigger than you!”

Peter shuddered. He had seen rats too, while he was out on the streets with Herring. Their yellow teeth and glittering eyes would be stuck in his memory forever.

“Leave him alone,” Tasha growled. “You aren’t funny, Boris. Maybe you’re an elephant? Stop being mean.”

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Peter was still thinking about rats and hardly heard her. But he heard Bianca laughing, a high squeaky little laugh that made him feel hot and embarrassed and miserable all over. His ears flattened down and his tail drooped, and he skulked silently away from the three kittens.

“Off you go, rat cat!” Boris called after him, snorting with laughter, and Peter hung his head. He’d really thought that today might be better. Today was supposed to be the day that he fitted in. How could he ever be a real museum cat when he knew nothing about who he was, or where he came from? All the others had been born at the museum – they were never going to let him be one of them. Wherever he went in the galleries, there seemed to be a proper museum cat peering down its nose at him.

He couldn’t stay.

Peter slunk through the Dinosaur Gallery like a tiny patch of shadow and crept into a room full of stuffed animals. None of the museum cats liked this room much– it smelled strange and there were too many large creatures with teeth. The enormous she-wolf just by the door made him feel quite shivery. But in here he had a good chance of being left alone to work out what he was going to do. He settled down behind a glass case with a sabre-toothed tiger in it and began to wash slowly. It helped him think.

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Herring had told Peter that the museum was a safe place, where cats were well cared for, and Peter could see that this was true. He had been very well fed. He closed his eyes for a moment, blissfully remembering the treat of cold chicken that the Old Man had put down as part of their supper the night before. It made his whiskers quivery just thinking about it. And he was warm and dry with a comfortable place to sleep. Even though he had woken up feeling as if the jewellery box had given him corners!

But it wasn’t enough. Smoke licked his ears affectionately whenever she strolled past, but no one talked to him. No one curled up around him to keep him safe in the dark, the way Herring had. And before that, someone had loved him. Peter couldn’t remember his mother or father, or his brothers and sisters,but he knew he must have had a family, once. He almost remembered someone licking him gently as he fell asleep.

The museum was a place to stay, but that didn’t make it a home. Peter stopped licking his paws and breathed out a tiny sigh. He didn’t want to leave the good food and the warm bed and go back to wandering the streets. Especially not on his own.

But wasn’t a home worth hunting for?

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Peter was still sitting behind the sabre-toothed tiger, trying to come up with a plan, when a scuffling noise made him jump. He peered out from behind the glass case, hoping that it wasn’t one of the enormous rats that Boris had so enjoyed telling him about on their tour.

It wasn’t a rat. Staring back at him with wide panicked eyes was Tasha, her fur all on end and her whiskers bristling.

“What’s the matter?” he gasped. “Are you all right?” The tabby kitten looked terrified, as though something was after her. Peter glanced worriedly around the gallery, wondering what it could be.

“Oh… It’s you.” Tasha panted. The fur along her spine flattened down a little and she took a deep breath. “I thought… Oh dear.” She padded her front paws up and down, looking embarrassed.

“Is someone chasing you?” Peter asked, his whiskers flicking anxiously back and forth.

Tasha shook her head slowly.“No…” She looked behind her and then edged a little closer to the tiger case. “Promise you won’t tell the others?”

Peter felt something inside him swell up like a little balloon. A secret! Between him and Tasha!

“I promise,” he said earnestly, hoping and hoping it wasn’t some horrible trick that Boris or Bianca had put her up to.

“I’m-really-scared-of-the-wolf,” Tasha said in a fast, muttery gabble.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_31]

“Oh…” Peter looked over at the entrance to the gallery, where the huge stuffed wolf stood on a high wooden block, baring her teeth. He could almost hear her growling from here, even though he knew she was stuffed. “Me too.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_32]

“Really?” Tasha said, sounding surprised and a little bit relieved. “I didn’t think you would be. I mean, you’ve been a street cat – you’ve seen lots of scary things, I expect.”

Peter nodded.“That’s why I’m scared of the wolf – it looks exactly like the enormous German Shepherd that chased me and Herring for miles and miles one night. We only got away because we scrambled up a fire escape and hid behind some chimneys. The dog couldn’t follow us up on to the roof, but we had to stay there until it got light.”

“Uuuugggghhhh.” Tasha shuddered and closed her eyes. “I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make it worse,” Peter told her apologetically. Then he wrinkled his nose. “But why did you come in here, if you don’t like the wolf?”

“To find you, of course.” Tasha leaned forward and dabbed noses with him. Peter was so surprised he nearly darted back behind the sabre-toothed tiger.

“To find me?” he squeaked.

“Yes. I wanted to say I shouldn’t have run off and left you in the Weapons Gallery yesterday, I’m ever so sorry. And I’m sorry that Boris is so horrible. He’s my brother and I’m absolutely ashamed of him. And Bianca isn’t much better.”

“Oh…” Peter stared at her. He hadn’t expected that at all.

“I think Boris might actually be a bit jealous,” Tasha went on. “He’s never lived outside the museum, or had any grand adventures. All he does is skulk around, trying to steal snacks.”

“Um – I haven’t had any grand adventures either,” Peter pointed out humbly.

“Oh, but you have!” Tasha was practically bouncing up and down on her paws. “You arrived at the museum in the middle of a dark and stormy night! And no one knows where you came from!”

“Even I don’t know,” Peter said, gazing glumly at the floor. “It’s horrible. Like I don’t belong anywhere.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_33]

“Really? Is that how you feel?” Tasha’s green eyes widened. “I thought it was exciting and wonderful and mysterious.”

Peter sat up a little straighter and felt his whiskers curl a bit.“Mysterious?”

“Oh yes. I’m extremely jealous and I think Boris is too.” Then she looked at him anxiously. “I knew Boris and Bianca were being horrible, but I never realized they were making you feel like you didn’t belong here. I know everyone keeps whispering about you, but it’s not only because you’re new – and different! It’s not up to them! Grandpa Ivan said the museum was forevery cat. You… you are going to stay, aren’t you? Do you like it enough to stay?” She ducked her head shyly. “Do you likeus?”

“Iwas thinking about going,” Peter admitted. “I was trying to make a plan. I don’t know the city very well, you see. When we were travelling here, I just followed Herring. So I wasn’t sure how to go about finding my real home.”

“This is your real home,” Tasha said firmly. “Youdo belong.”

Peter shuffled his paws sadly.“But I’m so little and skinny,” he muttered. “And there aren’t any other black cats at the museum. No one’s like me. And –” he looked around secretively and then whispered – “I’ve never caught a rat. Not even a mouse, actually.”

“Oh well, neither have I,” Tasha admitted. “We’re not old enough, Ma says. There are rats in some of the galleries that are bigger than Boris.”

Peter stared at her, not sure whether to be relieved or not.

“So Boris hasn’t caught one either?” he asked.

“Nope. We’ve got a toy one that a little girl gave to Bianca. But it’s got a tail made of feathers.” Tasha rolled her eyes. “The visitors are very strange sometimes. Imagine not knowing the difference between a mouse and a bird!”

“I thought you all must have done lots of guard work at the museum,” Peter murmured, his eyes brightening.

“We’re only just starting to learn,” Tasha told him. “Sometimes Ma gives us lessons, and so does Grandpa Ivan, but he says we’re absolutely useless. Look, if you did catch a rat, would it make you feel better?”

Peter swallowed hard, thinking of glittering eyes, sharp yellow teeth and whip-like tails, but he nodded.“Yes.”

Tasha nodded determinedly.“All right. Then that’s what we’ll do.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_34]

They’d been creeping stealthily in and out of the galleries for hours, searching for even a sniff of a rat, and Peter’s paws were starting to ache. Luckily the Egyptian Gallery seemed to be clear of visitors just now. It was tea and cake time, Tasha had explained, when most of the visitors decided they needed to nip to the caf? for a little something to keep them going.

“Are you sure there are rats in the museum?” Peter asked, sitting down next to a huge pink granite lion for a rest.

“Oh yes.” Tasha nodded firmly – and then she looked round all the statues and sighed. “They’re always causing trouble. We see them in passageways every so often but they always scuttle off. They try and sneak in the kitchens of the museum caf? and eat the cakes, but the worst thing is, they eat the treasures sometimes too.”

She leaned close to Peter and whispered darkly,“There’s a beautiful silk kimono in the Japanese Gallery with cherry blossom and cherries embroidered all over it. Except if you look closely, it’s covered in little holes where the rats nibbled the cherries right off!”

“But silk cherries don’t taste of anything, do they?” Peter frowned.

“Of course not. But rats are too dim to work that out.”

The two kittens didn’t see the flicker of a long pink tail over in the corner behind a stone pharaoh. They didn’t hear a sharp hiss of indrawn breath or the scurrying of paws as a very insulted rat hurried away to tell all his friends what he’d just heard.

Peter shook his head.“I don’t think there are any rats left. Maybe your mother and grandfather and aunties and uncles are just such good rat-catchers, the rats have all gone? We haven’t seen a single one. Not even a mouse either.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_35]

“Maybe.” Tasha sighed. “We have been looking for ages.” She glanced behind her to check no visitors were around, then she hopped up on to the lion’s concrete plinth and settled in between his hind paws, where there was a comfy little nook. She slumped over the stone and looked down at Peter.

Peter watched her anxiously. They’d been chasing round the museum all afternoon and the tabby kitten looked grumpy. Perhaps she was wishing she hadn’t offered to help? Perhaps she’d changed her mind and now she wanted him to go away?

Sadly he started to shuffle backwards away from Tasha and the pink stone lion, but then she leaned over the lion’s paw and asked, “Where are you going? Why don’t you come up here? This lion’s nice to sit on, but he’s chilly.”

“Oh!” Peter’s ears twitched back up, and he jumped on to the statue next to her.

“This is an Egyptian king, you know,” Tasha told him chattily as he snuggled down next to her. “They liked cats. This one pretended he was a lion. Two lions, actually, there’s another one of him over there.”

“That’s … odd.” Peter looked up at the lion’s face. The statue was certainly very grand. But he wasn’t sure how a king could think he was two huge cats at once.

“You’ll get used to it. The museum’s full of odd things. There’s a statue over there with a human body and a cat’s head. No tail though, which is a bit silly. I’d really miss my tail.”

“Me too.” Peter flicked his tail so that it lay next to the lion’s huge stone one. “Thank you for looking for rats with me.”

“I just wish we’d found one.” Tasha shook her whiskers. “Where are they all? That’s what I want to know.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_36]

“You two had better not fall asleep up there!”

Peter and Tasha popped their heads over the lion’s paws and peered down at Ivan. The old white cat was sitting in front of the statue, gazing up at them from under his huge furry eyebrows.

“There’s a big party of visitors just about to walk by and you look as though you’re settling in for a nap. Come on down.”

“Ooops. Sorry, Grandpa.” Tasha hopped off the pink lion to land next to him and Peter leaped after her.

“You can come and sit with me instead,” Ivan suggested. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you yet, youngster.”

Tasha’s eyes widened and Peter glanced at her worriedly. Old Ivan wanted to talk to him? Ivan was the oldest cat in the museum and a fearsome warrior. Boris had already boasted to him about his grandfather’s amazing rat-catching exploits. What would such a famous cat want to talk to a skinny little kitten for?

“Make sure you shout in his left ear,” Tasha hissed at him as they followed Ivan through a neat little doorway in the corner of the Egyptian Gallery behind the mummy case and trotted down the passage to the cellars. “He’s deaf.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_37]

“I heard that, miss!” the old cat snapped back. “Not so deaf that you can get anything past me.”

Tasha looked quite shocked and the two kittens went the rest of the way to the cellar den in silence.

“So you’re befriending our new arrival, hmmm?” Ivan asked, once he’d padded himself a warm little nest in a pile of threadbare velvet curtains. He looked down at the two kittens sitting politely in front of him, his blue-green eye narrowing. “Making sure he knows his way around?”

“Yes, Grandpa.”

“Good, good… And you, whatsyername…”

“Peter,” Tasha put in helpfully and her grandfather glowered at her.

“I knew that! Whatsyername, like I said, how are you finding the museum, hmmm?”

“It’s very beautiful,” Peter said nervously.

“My grandkittens looking after you properly?”

“Er…” Peter gave Tasha an anxious look. What should he say? Grandpa Ivan looked as though he could smell a lie at fifty tail-lengths, but he couldn’t say that Boris was a bully and Bianca was just plain mean, could he?

“Hmmm. That ginger grandson of mine giving you a hard time, is he? Don’t you listen to him, whatsyername. He’ll be a loyal friend once you’ve won him over, I promise you that. And as for Little Miss Bianca, she’s not as feather-witted as she makes out.”

“Grandpa,” Tasha put in. “What’s happened to all the rats?”

“What?” Ivan peered down at her. “What are you talking about, tabby-one-whose-name’ll-come-to-me-in-a-minute?”

“We can’t find any. We’ve looked everywhere. Do you think they’ve left? Maybe there aren’t any rats in the museum any more?”

The two kittens stared at Grandpa Ivan and he stared back, wide-eyed. Then he started to make a strange wheezing coughing noise. Tasha and Peter exchanged worried looks, and then they realized. The old cat was laughing.

“I don’t think it’s funny,” Peter whispered. “If the rats have left, the museum won’t need cats any more. I think it’s quite serious, actually.”

“No more rats, a-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Oh, curl my whiskers. You two’ll be the death of me.” Grandpa Ivan wiped the end of his tail over his one watery eye and sighed shakily. “Dear ones, there are rats all over this museum. Everywhere! You may not have seen them, but that’s only because they’re sneaky – and you aren’t.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_38]

“Yes, we are,” Tasha said crossly. “I’m ever so sneaky. I’ve got stripy camouflage. And Peter’s a black cat – that’s the best kind of coat for hiding. We’re very sneaky indeed, Grandpa, thank you very much!”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_39]

“Not sneaky. Honestly,” Tasha growled as they stomped away. Or rather, she stomped and Peter padded after her, not quite sure why she was so upset.

“Perhaps you’ll be sneakier when you’re bigger,” he said, trying to be comforting as they popped up out of the hole behind the mummy case in the Egyptian Gallery. He snuffled a sneeze at the strange musty smell.

“I’m sneaky now!” Tasha mewed, glaring at him furiously. Then her whiskers drooped as she realized just how much noise she was making. “Maybe I’m not.” She sighed. “Maybe Boris is right. Perhaps I do spend too much time making up stories. Maybe I’m not a proper hunter at all.”

Peter looked at her, a bedraggled little cat with her ears hanging sideways and her tail sadly fluffed and he felt himself stand up straighter.“Yes, you are! We both are! We’re going to find a rat, Tasha. We are both brave and fierce. And who wants to be sneaky like a rat anyway? Come on!”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_40]

“OK.” Tasha nodded excitedly, her ears perking up again. “It’s nearly closing time. The rats come out when the visitors leave.” She gave a little shudder and the hairs lifted up all along her spine. “Ma will notice when we’re not back for supper, but I don’t care. Which way are we going?”

Peter glanced around desperately. He hadn’t actually got as far as working that out. Then he closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. Herring had said that his nose was exceptional. And the other cats were certain that there were rats all over the museum. So surely he should be able to smell them?

Tasha huddled closer to him as he sniffed the air. Somehow the gallery seemed to be getting darker and stranger with every passing moment. She did want to hunt out a rat. She did. It was just… she hoped it was going to be a small one.

Over on the other side of the gallery, a set of trembling whiskers emerged from a crack in the floorboards, followed by beady black eyes and twitching ears. Another rat appeared behind the first, and then another and another.

“Little cats,” the first rat whispered.

“Very little.”

“But tasty…”

“Fur gets in your teeth,” the last rat growled.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_41]

Peter’s eyes opened wide. “I’m sure I can smell a rat!” he whispered to Tasha, taking a few steps out into the gallery. “Or maybe even lots of rats,” he added, sounding a bit worried now.

“Ohhh-ooooh…” Tasha squeaked. “I mean, oh good!”

Just then, the main lights clicked off– it was closing time. The two kittens blinked, but their night vision was good enough to see properly even in the dim emergency lighting. The darkness did make everything feel more serious, though. They were proper hunters now. The greenish lights shone here and there on the gold-painted mummy cases, but most of the gallery was in deep in shadow.

“Come on,” Peter said. He was hoping that Tasha couldn’t see how trembly he was feeling. But she so wanted to catch a rat and he was going to find one for her. He was sure he could smell them – in fact, he thought the scent was getting stronger.

Over on the other side of the gallery, the line of rats crept forward, their tails hissing over the boards.

“What was that?” Tasha asked suddenly.

Four rats froze…

“I didn’t hear. Oh! Maybe I did…” Peter peered around. There was definitely a noise – but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Somewhere outside the gallery? But the rats were closer than that, he thought. They smelled really quite scarily close… Should they follow the smell, orthe noise?

“I’m sure it sounds like little ratty claws,” Tasha said, hurrying towards the door.

Peter stood listening, his whiskers swivelling, ears pricked.“Yes…” he breathed. “You’re right. I can definitely hear something creeping about.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_42]

The kittens hurried out of the gallery, following the rustly noises. Peter nodded respectfully to the bronze cat goddess in the case by the door and tried not to imagine that she was watching him go. Then again, she might be pleased with them. She probably didn’t like rats either.

They pattered away into the Roman Room and four rats peered after them, whiskers bristling with disappointment.

“What happened there?” one of them muttered crossly.

“Our dinner went galumphing off, that’s what happened.”

“Four kittens now, did you see?” sniggered the largest rat. “Ginger, white, tabby, and now a black one as well. Too many little cats…”

All the rats nodded and muttered and hissed as they crept back into their tunnels.

Peter and Tasha were so determined to hunt down whatever it was making those rustly noises that they ran right over the feet of a statue sitting on the steps of the Roman temple– and then the statue woke up and muttered something about, “Dratted kittens everywhere!”

“Was that the Old Man?” Peter whispered as he and Tasha raced past.

“Yes, I told you he was grumpy. Usually he whistles so we know to avoid him. Never mind, he was half asleep. He has to keep walking round all the galleries to check for burglars, but he stops for a rest every now and then. I expect that means supper’s going to be late. Ma might not even notice we’ve gone!” She paused, her ears swivelling. “Listen, can you hear it? That rustling again?”

Peter strained his ears. Yes… There was definitely something making scratchy little noises up ahead. But the strong ratty smell had died away. He was very confused, but Tasha seemed to know where she was going.

“It’s coming from the Dinosaur Gallery, I think.” Tasha nodded. “That makes sense. The Old Man likes to sit in the Dinosaur Gallery to eat his midnight snack – he leaves his sandwiches in a bag under the guard’s chair – Boris is always sniffing around them, but Ma says he has to leavethem alone. The rats are probably after the sandwiches too.”

They crouched low to the ground and crept into the Fossil Room, every whisker shuddering with excited terror. Then Peter stopped, just before the door to the Dinosaur Gallery.

“What do we do if we catch one?” he whispered.

Tasha stared back at him, looking confused.“Um. I don’t know. Maybe – call for Grandpa Ivan? Or Ma?”

“OK. Let’s go then.” Peter said bravely and shoulder to shoulder they tiptoed into the Dinosaur Gallery.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_43]

It was ghostly in the faint lighting, with the huge skeletons looming up out of the darkness. The largest one, the great apatosaurus, seemed to be curling its huge neck down to peer at the tiny kittens.

“I can definitely hear something now,” Tasha breathed, and Peter nearly squeaked with fright. He’d been so busy side-eyeing the skeletons, he’d almost forgotten about her.

He gulped in a deep breath and tried not to show how scared he was. Yes, Tasha was right. There was a soft, quiet scrabbling up ahead.

“Over by the tyrannosaurus,” Tasha said, her tail flicking wildly from side to side. “Can you hear?”

“Yes. Is it a rat?”

“It has to be. I’m sure it’s bigger than a mouse.” Tasha crept along beside the apatosaurus’s plinth and Peter padded after her, ready to spring on the rat. Tasha was definitely better at listening for strange noises than he was, but he was sure he could biff a rat round the whiskers – he was going to give it his best try, anyway.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_44]

“I can hear it now!” he whispered. There was a soft chomping sound and a squeaky rustle. Something was eating the Old Man’s sandwiches!

“Hey!” Tasha mewed. “Leave those sandwiches alone, you nasty thieving rascal! They don’t belong to you!”

Peter closed his eyes, let out a wild yowl and leaped forward, pummelling the rat with his paws. It was surprisingly big. Definitely bigger than he was. Luckily, it seemed to be so surprised by the attack that it wasn’t fighting back. Yet.

Tasha was bounding about, trying to grab the rat’s tail and uttering fierce little growls. “See! We’re sneaky! We are! We got you, you sneaky rat! Don’t you dare eat another mouthful!”

“Oi!” the rat yelled at last. “Get off! Hey, Tasha, get off my tail! What are you doing? I’m not a rat!”

Peter pulled back his paw, and peered at the rat in the dim light. It was furry… and stripy … and ginger…

Their rat was Boris!

[Êàðòèíêà: img_45]

[Êàðòèíêà: img_46]

“What do you two think you’re doing, jumping on me like that?” Boris yelped. His ears were pressed flat against his head and his tail was three times its usual size.

He was just as scared as they were, Peter realized suddenly.

“This is all your fault, isn’t it?” Boris glared at Peter. Now he’d worked out that he wasn’t being set upon by a bunch of starving rats, he was starting to get angry.

“We weren’t the ones stealing!” Tasha snapped back. “How could you eat those sandwiches, Boris? That’s the Old Man’s midnight snack! He’ll be furious!” She peered into the little canvas bag where the guard kept his sandwiches. Boris had pulled it out from under the chair and the silver-foil wrappings were all undone. The sandwiches smelled wonderfully of ham.

Boris did look a little ashamed for a moment, but then he shook his whiskers and shrugged.“He’ll just think it was a rat – like you did.” He smirked at Tasha, showing his pointed teeth, and she hissed crossly.

“You’re so – so – so stupid! The Old Man will see his sandwiches have been nibbled and he’ll think that us museum cats aren’t doing our job properly! That’s Ma and Grandpa and the uncles and aunts … and they work so hard.” Tasha’s fur was standing on end, she was so cross, and Boris looked down at his paws. He obviously hadn’t thought any further than wanting a delicious ham sandwich.

“I was trying to show Peter how to catch a rat and you’ve just spoiled everything!” Tasha went on, and Boris straightened up.

“Him! I might have known. Why are you bothering? He doesn’t belong here. We don’t need him.”

Peter stepped backwards, nearly bumping into the tyrannosaurus’s plinth. He had to put some distance between himself and Boris – the ginger kitten was only saying what Peter had said to himself, but his words felt like sharp scratching claws. They really hurt.

“Don’t you dare run away,” Tasha snapped, whirling round. “Get back here! I’m trying to prove you’re a proper museum cat and you just give up and disappear!”

Peter stared at her helplessly. If one kitten thought he belonged and one was absolutely certain he didn’t, which one should he listen to?

[Êàðòèíêà: img_47]

“Look at him!” Boris jeered. “He’s such a wimp. Can’t he stand up for himself, Tasha? Does the poor little kitten need you to do all his fighting for him?”

“He knocked you over!” Tasha pointed out.

Boris decided to ignore that.“You’re both useless.”

“Hey!” Peter felt his whiskers bristle. He still didn’t feel like a proper museum cat, but he knew Tasha definitely was one. And she’d been kind enough to try and help him. He wasn’t going to let Boris call her names. “You don’t get to say things like that – you’re just a common thief. It’s not enough taking more than your share at meal times, you have to steal food as well?”

“I’m growing!” Boris protested. “I have to eat more than the others.”

Peter could hear Tasha squeaking with laughter and it made him feel taller somehow.“Maybe that’s why you don’t want another kitten around, because you’re worried there won’t be enough food! You’re just greedy!”

“No, I’m not!” Boris yelled. He launched himself at Peter in a wild, flying jump.

And missed.

Peter and Tasha turned slowly to watch as Boris soared through the air. About halfway through the jump, Boris seemed to realize what he’d done and he tried to pull back. For a second he swam in mid-air, all four paws pedalling wildly. But it was no good. A heavy, solid, really quite large ginger kitten crashed right into the tyrannosaurus’s bony tail.

Boris hung there, scrabbling at the smooth bones with his claws, and then he dropped down on to the plinth, shaking his orangey ears and peering dazedly at the other two kittens.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_48]

“Are you all right?” Peter asked, putting his paws on the edge of the plinth and peering up at him.

“I think so,” Boris muttered. And then he added, “Ow!” as a small bone fell on his head. “Ow! Ow! OW!” Another bone fell, and another, and another – until Boris was sitting in a small pile of bones and half the tyrannosaurus’s tail had disappeared.

Boris shook himself and looked at the bones scattered all around him.“Ooops!”

“That’s not good,” Tasha said, putting her paws up next to Peter. “Oh, that’s really not good.”

Boris looked at her hopefully.“We couldn’t just … sort of hide them behind the curtains?” he suggested. “Would anybody actually notice?”

“Yes!” Tasha glared back at him. “Of course they would. This is the most popular gallery in the museum – and this is the most popular dinosaur. I don’t know why. It’s got useless paws.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_49]

“I expect the visitors like the teeth,” Peter suggested. This dinosaur did have absolutely enormous teeth, some of them almost as long as a kitten’s tail. Was it his imagination or was the tyrannosaurus’s head turned a little more towards them than it had been before? The long sharp teeth and the huge empty eye sockets seemed closer than they had been a moment ago. Peter knew the tyrannosaurus was only a skeleton, but he could have sworn that the massive dinosaur was not happy.

“So…” Boris poked the bones with his paw and they rattled together spookily. “You think we ought to put it back together? That might be a bit … tricky.”

“You are such an idiot,” Tasha muttered, jumping up next to him to look at the bones.

“It’s his fault.” Boris nodded at Peter. “I was supposed to land on him. He moved.”

“I didn’t! You just missed by miles,” Peter protested. “Anyway, why should I have to stay still and let you squish me?”

Boris shrugged.“I suppose you’re right.”

Peter jumped on to the plinth to join them. He peered at the pile of tail bits and then up at the big gap in the middle of the tyrannosaurus’s tail. “It’s all supposed to be held together with those wires,” he pointed out. “We just need to thread the bones back on. In the right order.”

“But there are so many,” Tasha wailed. “And the Old Man will be coming round soon.”

“Then we’d better get on with it,” Peter said grimly. It wasn’t his fault that Boris had crashed into a dinosaur, but it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been there. He didn’t want to give the museum cats a reason to throw him out.

He blinked and thought about what that meant. The museum belonged to him too. He wanted to stay.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_50]

Tasha hopped down from Boris’s back, where she’d been balancing, and peered up at the tyrannosaurus’s tail with a frown. She’d been threading tail bones back together for what felt like hours. Pretty soon the Old Man was going to turn up – or Ma was going to come looking to see why they’d missed supper. She wasn’t sure which would be worse.

“Are you absolutely sure there isn’t another bone?” she asked Peter. “There’s a hole in that tail. Just look.”

There was– a big hole as well – right in the middle, where nobody was going to miss it.

“You stuck it together wrong,” Boris said accusingly. “Ow, Tasha, you’re too heavy. My bones are going to fall apart in a minute.”

“We can always leave you to sort it out by yourself,” Peter suggested. “Go ahead if you don’t want us.”

“I didn’t say that,” Boris muttered sulkily. Then he added, “Thank you for helping me,” in a very fast whisper that anyone who wasn’t listening carefully would have missed.

“What on earth are you three doing?”

All three kittens had been staring up at the gap where the missing bone should be. Now they whirled round in panic and another bone fell out of the tail on Boris’s head. He was used to it by now and hardly even flinched.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_51]

Bianca stood by the side of the plinth, every hair perfectly in place, looking up at them in horror.

“Did Ma send you to find us?” Tasha asked, but Bianca wasn’t listening.

“You broke an exhibit…!” She looked daggers at Peter.

“It wasn’t Peter, it was Boris,” Tasha said swiftly. “He banged into it.”

“Oh… Surprise, surprise.” Bianca glanced behind her. “But you have to fix it. Now! The Old Man’s in the Egyptian Gallery, he’ll be here any minute.”

“We can’t,” Peter explained. “There’s a bone missing. We’ve looked everywhere for it.”

“This is even worse than the Old Man thinking we let rats eat his sandwiches!” Tasha wailed. “This is a disaster. We never damage the exhibits, never, never, never. It’s the most important rule!” She huddled down into a little ball and shuddered.

Boris was still sitting under the tyrannosaurus looking a bit dazed and Bianca was twitching her tail in panic. Peter laid his ears flat, thinking hard. They had only moments before the Old Man came by. Somehow, they had to disguise the big hole in the dinosaur’s tail. “Maybe we can use something else to fill in the gap for now,” he murmured.

“Something else like what?” Bianca demanded, looking around. “There isn’t anything!”

“Something white, and about the size of – the size of—” Peter broke off, staring at Bianca.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” The white kitten stepped back nervously.

Peter prowled towards her, eyeing her white fur. Bianca squeaked, twitching her fluffy tail away from him.“Leave me alone!”

Peter shook himself.“I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just – you’re the same colour as the bones!”

Bianca scowled.“Yes, I’m a white cat. Obviously. I have beautiful fur. Is this really the time?”

But Tasha had looked up and was eyeing Bianca too.“She is! She’s the same colour! Oh, Bianca, you can be the bone!”

“I beg your pardon?” Bianca said.

“She needs to hurry,” Peter said, his ears stiffening up straight. “I can hear the Old Man whistling. Quick, Boris, shove his sandwiches back under the chair. We don’t want him noticing that they’ve been moved. He needs to be in and out of this gallery as quickly as possible.”

Boris made a wobbly jump down to the floor and pushed the sandwiches back. Then he sat by the chair, shaking his head from side to side.

“Is he all right?” Peter whispered to Tasha.

“He looks the same as normal to me,” Tasha said. “Anyway, this is all his fault. He deserves to have a headache. We can sort him out later. Right now we need to get Bianca up there, somehow.”

The Old Man’s whistling was getting closer and closer, and the two kittens looked hopefully at Bianca. The white kitten glared back, her blue eyes haughty.

“I really don’t know what you two are talking about,” she hissed. “But I don’t like it.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_52]

“We need you to be the missing bone,” Peter explained. “You can hold on to the skeleton with your claws. It’ll be easy, honestly.”

“Just for a minute or so while the Old Man shines his torch over the skeletons,” Tasha put in. “Otherwise he’s definitely going to spot the hole.”

“I don’t look anything like a dinosaur bone!” Bianca said, horrified. “It’s all manky and old and – and lizardy!”

“It’s only for a minute,” Peter pleaded.

“No!”

“Of course you don’t look anything like a bone,” Tasha said, gently bumping noses with her sister. “You’re ever so much prettier. And your fur’s all sparkly white, not yellowish like a bone. Oh, Peter, I don’t think it’s going to work! It’s just impossible. The Old Man will never think Bianca’s a bone. Not even Bianca could act that well.” She saw Peter open his mouth to argue and dropped one furry eyelid in a slow wink.

“Oh – er, no. You’re right.” Peter sighed heavily. “We’re sunk. I thought Bianca was going to save us all, but it’s just too hard, even for her.” He glanced sideways at Bianca – were they being too obvious? But the white kitten was preening and fluttering her whiskers.

“I am a very good actress,” she purred. “Perhaps I could try?” She stepped delicately on to the end of the tyrannosaurus’s tail and walked up to the hole, sniffing disgustedly at the bones. “They smell…” she muttered. Then she hopped up on to the skeleton, gripped the wire tightly and twitched her tail to look as bone-shaped as she could. “There. How do I look?”

“Perfect!” Peter breathed. “You look exactly like a bone. Except much, much more beautiful,” he added hurriedly.

“Just hold tight, Bianca,” Tasha whispered. “The Old Man’s coming. Boris, Peter, hide!”

The three kittens slipped away to the corner of the gallery and tucked themselves in the shadows behind a fire extinguisher. Peter and Tasha huddled together, shaking with nerves as the Old Man stomped in, waving his torch.

“I hope Bianca remembers to close her eyes,” Tasha hissed worriedly, as the torchlight swept over the tyrannosaurus.

The torch passed over Bianca, then stopped and came back, and Peter’s whiskers trembled. Had they been found out?

[Êàðòèíêà: img_53]

[Êàðòèíêà: img_54]

But the torchlight passed on by and the Old Man kept on whistling– and then at last he walked away.

“We did it!” Tasha mewed. “Has he really gone?”

“Yes,” Peter reported back from the doorway. “He’s headed through to the volcano exhibit. We’re safe!”

“Until he comes back,” Bianca pointed out. “Owww, my claws ache from holding on. This skeleton is very, very bony.” She dropped down on to the plinth and shook out her paws delicately.

“You did so well,” Tasha told her, purring and sniffing at her sister lovingly.

“But Bianca’s right,” Peter said. “We’ve only got – what, another hour until the Old Man comes round again? We have to find that bone.”

“And we ought to make sure Boris is all right,” Tasha remembered. “Boris! Where are you?”

“Here…” Boris mumbled. “I’m fine. Just a bit dopey. A lot of dinosaur fell on me, you know. Here, hang on, isn’t that someone coming!”

All four kittens froze. Had the Old Man noticed something odd after all? Was he coming back to check?

But instead, an old white cat came pacing through the doorway and eyed them sternly.

“Grandpa Ivan!” Tasha purred, running to brush her whiskers against his.

“Just what have you kittens been up to?” her grandfather demanded. “Your ma’s off on her shift guarding the museum so she sent me to find out where you all were. You should be asleep.” Then his gaze sharpened and he hurried over to the tyrannosaurus skeleton. “There’s a hole in this dinosaur!”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_55]

“There are a lot of holes in it,” Boris pointed out cheekily, but then he ducked his head as everyone turned round to scowl at him.

“What happened?” Grandpa Ivan sighed.

“I might have … bumped it. Just a little bit,” Boris admitted.

“So what happened to the bone?” Grandpa Ivan looked round as if he hoped to find it lying on the floor somewhere.

“We can’t find it.” Peter sighed. “We’ve looked and looked, but the bone just isn’t anywhere.” He glanced at Tasha. “Maybe a rat stole it?”

Grandpa Ivan snorted.

“You did say they were everywhere,” Peter protested.

“They only steal things they can eat – or swap for more food. I don’t think any sensible rat is going to want a bit of tyrannosaurus tail. No, it must be here somewhere.” The old white cat strolled all round the plinth, sniffing thoughtfully. “I can smell ham,” he said at last, stoppingto sit down in front of the kittens with his puffy white tail wrapped around his paws.

“It’s the Old Man’s sandwiches,” Tasha said, glaring at Boris. “That’s what started all of this.”

“They do smell so good.” Boris sighed and Bianca narrowed her eyes.

“You’re dribbling, Boris. Stop it.”

“I can’t! I’m hungry. Couldn’t I just eat the rest of the sandwich that I started?” Boris looked hopefully at the others. “It’s already got one corner nibbled off. So really it would be better if I ate it all up. Don’t you think?”

“No,” chorused Tasha, Peter and Bianca, but Grandpa Ivan pricked up his ears.

“So … you opened up the sandwiches?”

Boris hung his head sadly.“I couldn’t resist it. Sorry, Grandpa.”

“And that was before you launched yourself into this dinosaur?”

Boris’s whiskers were practically trailing on the floor now. “Yes,” he whispered.

“And you’ve looked everywhere for this bone? All of you?”

The four kittens nodded. They really had.

“It isn’t anywhere,” Tasha said, shaking her head crossly.

“It’s in the sandwich bag, you silly kittens!” Grandpa Ivan got up, and used one paw to hook out the canvas bag and flip it open.

There, on top of the sandwiches, was the missing bone, gleaming palely in the moonlight.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_56]

“You found it! You found it!” Tasha squeaked, dancing around the sandwich bag, and Grandpa Ivan yawned widely as if it had all been very easy. But his eyes were sparkling and Peter suspected that he was actually rather proud of himself.

“So, when we told Boris to put the sandwiches away – the bone was there all the time? Boris, didn’t you see it?”

Boris shook his head slowly.“No… But I wasn’t feeling very bright at the time. I suppose I could have missed it. Er – sorry, everyone…” Then he caught Tasha’s eye and sidled up to Peter. He rubbed his face apologetically against the black kitten’s neck. “I shouldn’t have said those things, about you being skinny… And not belonging here… It was mean.”

Bianca nodded.“If you hadn’t thought of me pretending to be a bone, the Old Man would have caught us for sure. Of course, it all depended on my brilliant acting skills, but itwas a good idea.”

Grandpa Ivan stared at her thoughtfully and her whiskers drooped.“And I’m very sorry I was mean,” she added, shuffling her paws.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_57]

Grandpa Ivan glanced into the moonlight shadows and out through the doorway.“There’s a little time before the Old Man comes back. First we’d better mend this dinosaur.” He peered up at the skeleton thoughtfully and then stood creakily on his hind paws to nose the bone back into position. The kittens watched admiringly as he twisted the wires with his teeth, then sprang back down. “There. Poor old thing. No more messing about with bones, you hear me?”

“Yes, Grandpa,” the four kittens chorused.

“Good. Now come, you kittens. Sit up here with me.” He led them across the Dinosaur Gallery to a nest of fossil dinosaur eggs and settled the kittens in between the huge stones. “I want the whole story. Just what exactly have you been getting yourselves into since young whatshisname arrived?”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_58]

Grandpa Ivan shook his whiskers sadly.“You are a bunch of very silly kittens.” He sighed. “Of course whatshisname – Peter – should stay.”

“I told you.” Tasha barged the black kitten with her shoulder.

“I think I’d like to stay!” Peter said shyly. “I like it here, I’ve decided. I’m going to be a museum cat when I’m older.” His ears pricked up eagerly. “I might even ask if I can guard the dinosaurs, now I know how to put one back together.”

“This museum is a haven for all cats,” Grandpa Ivan said, eyeing Boris and Bianca sternly. “Have I never told you how I came to be here?”

All three grandkittens stared at him in surprise.“Weren’t you born here, Grandpa?” Tasha asked. “I thought you’d been here forever. Oh, you know what I mean,” she added, when the other kittens sniggered.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_59]

“It feels like I have been, when the wind’s in the east and there’s a draught blowing through the cellar making my old bones ache. But no. I came here as a kitten too.” He leaned down to brush his whiskers over Peter’s nose and the little black kitten purred with delight.

“I wasn’t much older than you. I came from a village, further up the river, but I was too young to remember much about the place. Only that there was a barn and a tabby cat who was my mother.” He sighed. “White cats are often deaf, you know. Oh, don’t worry, Bianca. I know quite well thatyou can hear chicken hitting a dish at two hundred tail-lengths. But I think that’s why they did it.”

“Did what?” Peter nestled closer to the old cat. His creaky voice sounded so sad, the black kitten wanted to comfort him.

“They wanted rid of me, you see. The people there. They must have thought I would be deaf and no good at earning my keep. So…” He glanced down at the four small kittens and hesitated, as though he wasn’t sure he should go on with his tale.

“Tell us, Grandpa,” Bianca whispered. She sounded quite different – small and scared, not the proud kitten she usually was. She crept closer to her grandfather too, and Ivan lay down, curling himself around the four kittens and licking Bianca’s nose.

“They threw me in the river, tied up in a sack.”

“No!” Peter squeaked, and the other three kittens mewed in distress.

“I was supposed to drown, but for some reason I didn’t. I floated instead and a child playing on the bank of the river fished me out. Since she wasn’t far from the museum, she brought me here. And I became a museum cat. So you see –” he leaned down to touch noses with Peter again – “anyone can belong to the museum, like I said.” He purred a little chortle. “Especially if they’re good with bones. Now, I promised your ma I’d find you and bring you back home, since it’s so far past your bedtime that it’s almost time to get up. The Old Man will be back here on his roundsin a minute or two. Off you go. Promise me you’ll go straight to sleep.”

“What are you going to do, Grandpa?” Tasha asked as the four kittens padded through the dinosaurs to the doorway.

“Ah, just going for a little wander…” her grandfather purred. “My own rounds, you know. Make sure all’s safe. A museum cat never really retires, you’ll see…” He sniffed thoughtfully and his eyes glittered, and a large brown rat darted back behind the stegosaurus skeleton, looking worried.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_20]

“I’m going to be like your grandpa,” Peter said as he followed Tasha down the tunnel to the cellar. His tail was high and proud and he felt like prancing. “A great museum cat, even if no one knows where I came from.”

“Poor Grandpa was shut up in a sack,” Bianca muttered, shaking her ears and shuddering. “A horrible wet sack. I should be braver, instead of fussing so much about my fur.”

“If you didn’t have beautiful white fur, you couldn’t have saved us earlier on,” Peter told her.

“Mmm. Maybe.” But Bianca wrapped her white tail around his thin black one, just for a moment.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_60]

“Do you think we’ll have adventures like Grandpa Ivan, one day?” Tasha sighed. “He’s so brave.”

Peter nudged noses with her gently.“We just did, Tasha. We mended a priceless dinosaur skeleton. And we did it all without anybody noticing.”

“I suppose we did,” Tasha agreed. “And we caught a sandwich thief.” She glanced over at Boris, who looked a little ashamed of himself. Although not nearly ashamed enough, Tasha thought. “Do you think we’ll havemore adventures?” she asked.

“Of course we will!” Boris told her, brightening up a bit.

“But no more pretending to be bones, please,” Bianca said sternly as she sprang up on to their tapestry bed. “It’s undignified, even if I did save the day. Besides, Ma said to me this morning that it’s time we had more rat-hunting lessons. We’ll be far too busy for mending skeletons if we’re learning to hunt.”

“Night then,” Peter yawned, twitching his paws ready to jump into the jewellery box.

“Aren’t you sleeping up here?” Boris asked gruffly, looking down at Peter from the battered old tapestries.

Bianca nodded.“It’s chilly tonight. You’ll be cold in that box.”

“And you’re too big to fit in it,” Boris added. “Not as big as me, of course. But not far off.”

“Oh…” Peter’s eyes brightened. “Well, if there’s room.”

He jumped up after the other three, and burrowed in between Bianca and Tasha. The four kittens wriggled comfortably for a while, padding at each other, so that Bianca’s fluffy white tail covered Peter’s nose, and Tasha’s paws were wrapped round his neck. Boris was on top of him, like a furry ginger quilt, and every time Peter breathed, all four kittens went up and down.

When Grandpa Ivan padded back down the staircase, they were fast asleep, dreaming of dinosaur bones and rats and the adventures yet to come…

2. THE PHARAOH’S CURSE

“What are they all so excited about?” Boris whispered to Peter and his sisters. He was peering round the huge, painted mummy case that hid the tunnel down to the cellars, where the museum cats lived.

The Egyptian Gallery was full of museum staff, talking in whispers as they opened up a large packing case and started to unwrap something that had been inside. The elderly professor who ran the Egyptology department was actually squeaking with delight.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_6]

“Is it jewels?” Bianca asked hopefully, pushing the large ginger kitten out of the way so she could see.

“It could be one of those golden masks that the pharaohs had in their tombs,” the small tabby Tasha suggested, slinking further round the mummy case to look. “It must be something very special.”

“Gold…” Bianca purred. “Diamonds too? Maybe pearls?”

“I don’t think so,” said Tasha. “The masks are mostly gold and lapis lazuli – that lovely blue stone. The ancient Egyptians used it a lot.”

“Hmf! Blue stone.” Bianca looked disappointed and her white tail drooped. “Not as nice as diamonds. But I do like gold.”

“That doesn’t look like a jewelled goldenanything,” Peter pointed out. The black kitten had given up trying to see round Boris and crawled underneath him instead. “It’s just … a bit of paper.”

“Huh? That’s not a treasure!” Bianca said crossly.

“What are you lot looking at?”

All four kittens skittered sideways in surprise as Grandpa Ivan appeared behind them. He was the oldest of the cats, white and long-haired with a great drooping moustache of whiskers, his ears looked chewed and he only had one eye. But he knew everything that was going on in the museum and he was very good at sneaking up on the kittens.“Ah, it’s arrived then!”

“Do you know what it is?” Boris asked. “It doesn’t look very exciting but the museum people are making a lot of fuss about it. They’re putting it in an enormous glass case, look!”

“It’s a temporary loan from a museum on the other side of the country,” Grandpa Ivan explained. “They’re rebuilding their Egyptian Galleries so they’re lending out their precious exhibits. It’s part of theBook of the Dead.”

“The what?” Tasha squeaked.

“TheBook of the Dead.” Grandpa Ivan chuckled. “It’s a set of ancient magic spells for how to get safely to the afterlife, written out on great long strips of papyrus. That’s paper made of reeds, you know.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_7]

Tasha nodded intelligently and the other kittens tried to look as though they knew what he meant too. All four of them were gazing at the strange piece of paper in fascination. Ancient magic spells!

“The Egyptians used to put copies of it into people’s tombs so the spirits would know what to do. The scrolls were expensive, though, so they were mostly made for royalty and important officials. This one came from the tomb of a pharaoh, Thutmose I, so it’s very grand, with beautiful pictures. This isn’t the whole thing, of course. Only a little bit of the scroll is left. All the tombs were raided by thieves many times – and you can imagine that a long roll of papyrus is quite delicate.”

“Hang on… This is a list of instructions forghosts?” Boris looked shocked.

“Mmmm, not quite. I think they’d only be ghosts if they got it wrong,” Grandpa Ivan said thoughtfully. “Mind you, no one’s quite sure where Thutmose I’s body ended up… He had at least three different coffins. But what’s really special about this bit of papyrus is that no one knows what it means. Most of theBook of the Dead has been translated– it’s all written in hieroglyphics, you know. Picture writing. But this part of the book is tricky to read, apparently, and this is the only copy that’s ever been found! I heard the staff talking about it in the caf?. They’re pretty sure it’s a spell to do with a magical amulet – or it could be a curse on anyone who steals it…”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Peter muttered, his whiskers shivering. “What if it’s bad luck for it to be here in the museum?”

“There’s no such thing as bad luck!” Tasha gave him a grown-up sort of look. No one was exactly sure how old Peter was. He had been left at the museum as an orphan, so the other kittens liked to think he was the littlest. “Spells and curses are all nonsense. And even if they weren’t, thisone is thousands of years old! Its power must have run out by now.”

“Or it’s spent years and years getting worse and worse,” Boris growled, and Peter nodded at him, round-eyed.

Tasha sighed. Really, the other kittens were all so superstitious. She knew there was absolutely nothing to be worried about.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_8]

On the other side of the gallery, someone else was eyeing up the new exhibit too. Four rats were peeking out of a hole in the skirting board. It was a very small hole and they had to keep elbowing each other out of the way.

“What do you think it is?”

“Dunno, but it’s got to be something good. Look at that case! Look how thick the glass is!”

“Definitely special. See all the fuss they’re making. And did you spot those horrible cats over there? Behind the mummy? They’ve got their eyes on it too.”

“Oi, let me have a look! Do you think it’s something speciallydelicious?”

“Got to be. And look, you can see it’s all nibbled around the edges. Someone’s already had a taste.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_9]

The rat leader nodded.“Well, there we are,” he said, looking round at them all. “We can’t let those mangy cats have it then, can we? We’d better start making a plan…”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_8]

News of the special new exhibit in the Egyptian Gallery began to spread around the museum. And so did rumours about the curse.

The lorry that had brought the old artefacts to the museum had got two flat tyres and suffered a mysterious engine failure on the way, the caf? staff muttered.

Then the day after the papyrus arrived, one of the guards slipped over in the gallery and banged his head on the display case. He said he didn’t know how he’d done it – he was fine one minute and on the floor the next. All the water pipes started to make strange whistling noises and there were eerie shrieking sounds whenever anyone flushed the loo in the washrooms by the Egyptian Gallery.

The day after that, a school trip came to visit and one of the children was sick all over the floor. The cleaners said there wasdefinitely a curse.

“I told you,” Peter whispered to Tasha as they sat watching the others practise hunting one evening after the museum had closed. “That papyrus is bad news. The pharaoh doesn’t like it being here! Grandpa Ivan said no one knows where Thutmose I’s mummy ended up and I bet his ghost’s furious! Something really awful’s going to happen to the museum!”

“No, it isn’t,” Tasha said, rolling her eyes. “Is it my turn yet?” she added, twitching her tail. But Boris was already creeping forwards in a hunting crouch.

“Very good,” Grandpa Ivan growled. “And wait … wait and watch… Don’t spring… I saiddon’t spring, you ginger oaf!”

Boris tumbled head over heels and landed with a meaty thump. Then he glared at the others. Bianca was smirking, and he could tell Tasha and Peter were trying not to laugh. Peter’s black muzzle was all wrinkled up with the strain of holding it in.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_10]

“Are you all right, dear?” their mother Smoke murmured, nudging him gently.

“Yes,” Boris muttered as he stood up. Why did being the biggest and strongest of the kittens always mean that he was the clumsiest too? They were all supposed to be practising their ratting skills so they could grow up to be museum guard cats, like their mother and their grandfather and all their aunts and uncles. Boris knew that one of these days he was going to be a mighty hunter. He just needed to grow into his paws first.

“Have a rest, Boris,” Smoke said. “Tasha, you try. Imagine a great grey rat, sneaking along the edge of the wall. You spot him…”

Tasha tensed up, her ears pricking and her tail beginning to swish from side to side. Boris watched her slinking towards the imaginary rat and sighed. She looked so…professional. At the moment, it seemed that the only wayhe’d ever catch a rat would be if he fell on top of it.

Perhaps it was because he’d eaten so much supper, Boris thought sadly to himself. Hewas quite full– maybe that’s why he was so clumsy. He wished they didn’t have to have lessons in the evenings but Smoke and Grandpa Ivan wanted them to practise hunting in the galleries where they would be real guard cats one day. So that meant they had to wait until the visitors had left.

Tasha prowled across the room, trying to imagine a rat, all sharp teeth and beady black eyes. Hunting imaginary rats was one thing but the thought of facing off against a fully grown rat was terrifying. Boris said he’d seen rats that were twice her size.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_11]

“Keep low!” her mother called, and Tasha crouched down even further, paws trembling with the effort.

“Nicely done, nicely done,” Grandpa Ivan purred. “Very good form there, small grey stripey one.”

“She’s Tasha.” Smoke let out a sigh.

“I know perfectly well who she is. Now, back, back, as fast as you can!”

Tasha whirled round and shot across the gallery, claws scritching on the slippery floor. She just managed to skid to a stop before she crashed into the other kittens.

“Hmmm. Yes. Well done.” Grandpa nodded regally and Tasha glowed. She wasn’t used to being told she was good at things – she usually got told off for daydreaming during their hunting lessons. It was hard not to daydream when they were surrounded by so many beautiful things.

Peter prowled across the gallery to take his turn, and Tasha sat down and started to lick her paws and swipe them across her ears. Then she looked sideways at the tall plinth towering over them all.

The bronze statue of Bastet, the cat goddess, was one of her favourite museum treasures. It was more than two and a half thousand years old but the cat goddess looked just like so many cats that Tasha knew. On her best, tidiest days, Tasha hoped that she looked a little like the statue too.

She had read the sign on the plinth and she knew that Bastet was the Egyptian goddess of a great many things– secrets and songs and protection and happiness. But mostly cats.

“Thank you,” Tasha whispered to the statue. “Did you help? I’m not usually very good at lessons.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_12]

The bronze cat stared silently ahead and her gold earrings glittered in the dim light. Tasha wished that she wasn’t in a glass case. The cat was old and precious and delicate, Tasha knew that, but it would be so wonderful to nuzzle up against her, just once. Tasha couldn’t help feeling that Bastet’s hard bronze skin would melt to soft tabby-brown fur and she’d nudge back.

“You see, look at that, Boris,” Tasha heard Grandpa Ivan say sternly. “Perfect hunting from little-black-kitten-I-can-never-remember-the-name-of. Practice! Practice, that’s all it takes! Learn to control your paws!”

“Yes, Grandpa,” Boris muttered, and Tasha gently brushed whiskers with him. She didn’t think Boris had been that bad.

“I’m always falling over my paws,” she whispered to him.

“I’ve never been so hopeless before.” Boris heaved a sigh. “I reckon it’s that horrible bit of paper.” He glared at the papyrus in its glass case. “It’s cursed all right.”

“No, it isn’t!” Tasha hissed, but then her whiskers twitched worriedly.

Something was wrong, she could feel it. Peter was marching proudly towards them across the gallery– but then his ears began to flatten back and the fur stiffened up all along his spine.

There was a strange creaking noise and somehow Peter’s shining black fur seemed to turn grey all at once. Tasha looked up slowly towards the ceiling and saw a great dark crack spread across the white plaster, branching out like the rivers on the maps she’d studied in the Map Room. Dust shimmered down like a waterfall.

“Run!” Boris yowled, and Peter scrambled out of the way just as the middle of the ceiling collapsed. Huge chunks of plaster crashed to the floor, right where he’d been standing.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_13]

“Peter!” Tasha mewed, nuzzling anxiously at him. And then she looked back at the gallery and whispered, “The treasures! Bastet’s statue! The mummy cases! The papyrus!”

“All of you, out of here,” Smoke hissed, herding the kittens to the safety of the doorway. They scurried along in front of her, glancing back at the scene of devastation, but it was hard to see anything through the haze of dust.

“Are you all right?” Boris asked Peter worriedly as Bianca tried to groom the dust out of his black fur. He was a small, skinny grey kitten instead of a small, skinny black kitten now.

“There’s no point licking him,” Grandpa Ivan told her. “What he needs is a bath.”

Peter stared at Grandpa in horror but the old white cat was already thinking about more important things.“Where’s that caretaker when we want him?” he muttered. “Lazy so-and-so. He should have come running… Ah…”

Grandpa Ivan’s whiskers bristled and the kittens looked round to see the Old Man hurrying through the Roman Room. He was carrying a radio, gabbling into it as he ran. He stopped in the doorway, staring at the pile of plaster with eyes as round as marbles.

“About time,” Smoke muttered. “On your way, kittens. We don’t want the Old Man thinking we’ve got anything to do with this.”

“He already does,” Peter whispered back. “Look. He’s glaring at us.”

The three other kittens peered round and saw that Peter was right. The elderly caretaker was eyeing the cats suspiciously.

“How can he think we’ve broken the ceiling?” Boris asked indignantly. Then he scowled at Tasha and the others, who were looking at each other meaningfully. “That’s not fair! I’venever broken a ceiling. It was only a smallish sort of dinosaur. And we put it all back together before anyone noticed!”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_14]

The Old Man seemed to stare suspiciously at the kittens every time he saw them after that. And Boris was absolutely sure they weren’t given as much food as usual either.

“There was hardly any breakfast!” he complained to Peter as they sneaked upstairs the next morning to spy on all the interesting goings-on in the Egyptian Gallery. Tasha and Bianca had already hurried off to see what was happening. “No nice meaty bits. Just that horrible brown biscuit stuff. He’s paying us back because he thinks we did something to the ceiling. I told Tasha that papyrus was cursed! We have to do something now it’s spoiling our breakfast – the most important meal of the day! Things are getting really serious.”

“It tasted all right to me,” Peter said.

Boris shook his head sadly. Peter had arrived at the museum in the middle of a rainstorm a few weeks before. Until then, the black kitten had been living on the streets and he’d always been hungry. Boris couldn’t imagine what that would be like. But really, even a street cat ought to be able to tell the difference between manky cat biscuits and a lovely bit of fish.

Last night, whoever the Old Man had been talking to on his radio had turned up in a hurry and brought a whole lot of fussy people with clipboards. Grandpa Ivan had come back down to the cellars looking worried.

“They’re going to close the Egyptian Gallery and the Roman Room until the ceiling’s been mended,” he’d explained to the other cats. The four kittens had curled up in their nest of old tapestries, pretending to be asleep but listening with all their ears.

There had been an anxious chorus of mews– the Egyptian Gallery was very popular with visitors. Shutting it down was going to make a lot of people really cross.

Now Boris and Peter crept under the portable screens the museum staff had put up at the door between the Roman Room and the rest of the museum. There were all sorts of strange noises coming from the Egyptian Gallery– bangs and screeches and occasional shouting. It didn’t sound like their museum at all. Usually an unruly school party was the noisiest it got.

“Ooooh, out of the way,” Peter squeaked as the screen was pulled back and two burly men staggered by. The two kittens squished themselves against the wall to avoid their stomping boots. The museum staff couldn’t see above the huge box they were carrying.

“Where are they going with that?” Boris wondered.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_15]

“I suppose they want to get the precious things out of the way,” Peter said, peering thoughtfully across the Roman Room. “Do you think they’re moving everything? Some of those mummy cases are huge. And what about that stone sarcophagus? They’d need a crane!”

“A crane…” Boris purred excitedly. “Do you think so? I’ve never seen a crane.” Then he nudged Peter. “If they’ve got builders in to mend the ceiling, there could be all sorts of things! Drills! Cement mixers! Maybe an angle grinder!”

Peter stared at him.“I don’t even know what that is.”

Boris lowered his head.“It’s for cutting things… I like machines,” he admitted.

“Mmmm.” Peter eyed the bustling scene in the Egyptian Gallery. “Well. We’d better be careful. I don’t think they’re going to want us in there. And your mother did tell us to stay out of their way. She said everyone would be busy and we shouldn’t bother them.”

“I don’t see why we can’t be here,” Boris said, but he didn’t meet Peter’s eyes. “We’re only making sure no rats get in, aren’t we? I wouldn’t put anything past those nasty creatures. They’re probably planning an attack on the mummies right this minute!” He marched forwards,tail high, and Peter sighed and scurried after him.

The Egyptian Gallery was full of people. The elderly professor was standing in the middle, directing her staff, who were frantically packing huge crates or putting wooden frames around the exhibits that were too big to move easily. They seemed to be clearing out the middle of the gallery under the fallen bit of ceiling. The kittens had seen most of the people from the museum before, from a distance, but there were strangers here too. A big platform built of metal bars had appeared in the middle of the gallery and there were three builders in hard hats standing on it, staring at the ceiling.

“A scaff tower!” Boris gave a little purr of bliss. “I’ve always wanted to go up a scaff tower.”

“How do youknow all this stuff?” Peter asked.

Boris shrugged.“Well… I like things that move and make noises and go fast… Big things…” He looked longingly at the scaffolding tower again. “Do you think they’d let us go up there?”

“No.” Peter shook his whiskers firmly.

“I suppose you’re right.” Boris sighed. “Oh well.” Then his ears twitched and he started forwards. “Hey, look! It’s Bianca. She’s up there already!”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_16]

Peter’s ears flickered worriedly. The white kitten was up on top of the tower, winding herself round the ankles of a tall man in a suit who was pointing out the big hole in the ceiling to the builders. He seemed to be telling them just how serious the damage was, and they were nodding and frowning. Eventually, the tall man noticed Bianca. He stared down at her in horror, as though he’d never seen such a creature before.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_17]

It was most unusual. Bianca was very good at making people love her. The Old Manalways tickled her under the chin. Even though it was his job to look after the museum cats, he could be quite grumpy and sometimes the cats thought he didn’t like them very much. But Bianca always made him smile when she purred – which he certainly never did for any of the others.

“Who’s that?” Peter whispered to Boris.

“The Museum Director. He’s very serious. And very important.”

The Museum Director glared at Bianca and sniffed. Then he sneezed, loudly. Another cloud of dust shimmered down from the ceiling and the people on top of the tower gave the hole worried looks. The Director muttered something and then picked Bianca up at arms’ length – as though she smelled bad! He marched over to the ladder and handed her down to one of the museum staff.

“They’re throwing her out!” Boris whispered to Peter, laying his ears flat and edging back under a dust sheet.

Peter squished in next to him.“I don’t believe it…”

Bianca didn’t believe it either. The museum worker hurried out with her and dumped her in the middle of the Roman Room. The white kitten stood there for a moment, her tail fluffed up like a brush. No one treated her like that! Not ever!

[Êàðòèíêà: img_18]

“She’s furious,” Peter breathed. He could see Tasha watching from behind a huge granite lion. She looked just as shocked as they were.

“We’d better not let her know we saw,” Boris muttered. “She’d never forgive us.”

They squished right back against the wall and watched as Bianca stalked proudly out of the room, the fury crackling off her fur.

“Now that really is bad luck!” Boris said, shuddering. “We’d better find someone to tell her how beautiful she is. And fast.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_8]

“That’s interesting,” hissed a watching rat, his whiskers peeking round the side of a display case. “Very interesting indeed. That tall one’s important. And he doesn’t like those little cats, no, he doesn’t. And if there’s no cats in the gallery…”

“Out we come!” squeaked the smaller rat from the other side of the case.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_19]

Even after the builders had got rid of Bianca, the other kittens kept sneaking back to check up on the work in the Egyptian Gallery that day. It was fascinating– even more fascinating because they weren’t really supposed to be there.

They had to stay out of the way of all the staff and especially the Museum Director, who was marching about shouting at people. They kept on having to dodge Smoke and Grandpa Ivan and the other cats too– no one seemed to want a bunch of kittens getting in the way. But Boris kept finding new power tools to drool over, and Tasha and Peter wanted to keep an eye on all the treasures up there with the dust and dirt and piles of plaster.

And to keep an eye on the rats.

Boris had been telling the others for ages about the huge rats he’d seen in the tunnels and behind statues, and how he’d nearly almost caught them. But now that the ceiling was down and the walls were full of cracks, there seemed to be scuttling noises and ratty whisperseverywhere. The kittens were on edge all day. Peter felt as if he had to keep looking over his shoulder– and he was never quite sure if he was expecting a huge rat or an angry ancient Egyptian…

“You know, I don’t think the builders actually like working in the museum,” Tasha told the others at breakfast the next morning. Once again they had only been given cat biscuits and Boris was eating them with a pained look.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_20]

“What do you mean?” Peter asked indignantly. Even though he was still quite new to being a museum cat, he felt very protective of his home.

“I heard one of them say that the Egyptian Gallery was spooky!” Tasha shook her head sadly.

The other three kittens stared at her.

“There’s a haunted papyrus in there, Tasha!” Boris pointed out, licking crumbs off his whiskers. “Of course it’s spooky! Look at everything that’s gone wrong since it turned up. Plus the gallery’s full of enormous stone coffins!”

“That papyrus is not haunted!” Tasha adored living in the museum and finding out about all the exhibits – but even she was starting to feel doubtful about theBook of the Dead. She shuffled her paws.“And the coffins and mummies are so beautiful…” she added, looking round at them all. “You really think they’re spooky? I mean, I suppose the cat mummies are…”

“Uuuughhhh…” Bianca shuddered. “Don’t talk about them. They make my whiskers twitch.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_21]

“And those jars!” Boris looked gloomily around the cellar. The museum’s collection of ancient canopic jars was lined up along one wall now. “It’s putting me off my breakfast, knowing that all those brains are over there.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_22]

“Not brains, Boris!” Tasha said, sounding shocked. “Only the stomachs, livers, lungs and intestines went in the jars. The ancient Egyptians drained the brains out of people’s noses and threw them away.”

“You’re not helping!” Boris stopped eating and sat back, gazing at his bowl sadly.

Tasha licked her nose, then stepped away from her bowl too.“Yes. I’m not very hungry now either. But we shouldn’t be scared of them, you know. The bodies and – er – bits – they’re all thousands of years old.”

“Really old, powerful spooks then!” Bianca shivered. “I’m not surprised the builders don’t like being here. What if it’s not just the curse on that papyrus? I expect the mummies are really fed up with being disturbed too. I bet they’re furious!”

All four kittens looked sideways at the canopic jars and the painted mummy case that was now standing in the corner of the cellar. Without realizing what they were doing, they edged a little closer so they could feel the warmth of each other’s fur.

“The ancient Egyptians really liked cats!” Tasha said firmly, but she was still pressed close against Peter. “They worshipped them! We’re being silly.”

Peter nodded.“Even if ghosts did start popping out of all those mummy cases, they’dlove us.”

“I think it’s our duty to go and keep an eye on the builders,” Boris said firmly. He glanced quickly at the jars again. “And I’d rather be up there than down here…”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_8]

The builders were hot and grumpy and fed up. The hole in the ceiling was something to do with leaking water pipes making the plaster go all soggy. Every single one of the pipes had to be carefully checked to make sure they weren’t rusting and it looked like a long, fiddly job. Plus, every time the builders turned round, there was someone from the museum panicking about them damaging the priceless treasures.

“This job’s getting on my nerves,” one of them muttered as they perched on the edge of a packing case to drink a cup of tea.

“Mr High and Mighty the Museum Director made very sure to tell us that there absolutely definitely wasn’t anything weird going on, didn’t he?” his mate replied, glancing over his shoulder at the heavy glass case with the papyrus inside. It was just too solid to move out of the gallery. “The sooner we get out of here the better.”

“Let’s keep out of their way,” Tasha said, as the four kittens peered out from under one of the dust sheets.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_23]

“Hmf.” Bianca stuck her nose out and glared. “Horrible people!” She was still upset about being thrown out of the gallery the day before but she’d finally come upstairs with the others because she hadn’t wanted to be left alone in the cellars. The carved faces on top of the canopic jarsseemed to keep looking at her. All the cats down there were asleep after their night shift guarding against the rats, and their cellar home felt strangely quiet and empty.

One of the builders shuddered and nudged the other.“You see that? Those dust sheets are moving. I don’t like this place. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

“You’re not the only one,” his mate agreed. “Let’s get on with those pipes.”

“Gosh…” Boris edged out past Bianca. “Look at that, he’s got a blowtorch!”

“Boris, come back!” the others whispered.

But the ginger kitten was entranced. The builders had gone back to cutting out the broken pieces of pipe now, and the blue flame of the blowtorch hissed and roared in the most exciting way. He padded over to look, darting from one shrouded plinth to another. But as he got closer to the builders and their tools, he was too interested to be careful.

“Boris! We’re supposed to keep out of their way!” Tasha mewed worriedly.

“Look at him, he’s right in the middle of the gallery,” Peter squeaked. “They’ll see him any minute!”

It would have been better if the builder with the blowtorchhad seen Boris. As it was, when he switched off the blowtorch and stepped back to check how the pipe was looking he fell straight over the kitten instead.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_24]

Boris shot out of the gallery with a squeal and the builder landed flat on his back in the middle of the floor.“What was that?” he yelled.

The other men were laughing too hard to answer him properly but eventually one of them managed to explain that it was a cat.

The builder went on shouting about it for quite a while.

“I told you they were horrible,” Bianca said smugly as the four kittens lurked in the Roman Room, listening to the stomping and yelling from inside the Egyptian Gallery.

“He sat on me! I was nearly squashed flat!” Boris held up one shaking paw and then the other, gazing at them as if he thought they might fall off. “I mean, I know I’m accident-prone but that man had a blowtorch! He could’ve set the whole museum on fire.”

“He’d turned it off before he fell over you.” Bianca rolled her eyes. “And actually, it was your fault.”

“Was not!”

The white kitten shrugged and Boris glanced round at the others.

“It wasn’t!” Boris insisted.

Tasha wrinkled her nose.“You did creep up behind him,” she told her brother gently. “I don’t see how he was supposed to know that you were there.”

“What is going on here?” Grandpa Ivan stalked into the Roman Room with his fur all on end. It looked as though he’d been woken up from a nap. “I could hear the shouting three rooms away. Oh, it’syou again…” he said, glaring at Boris. “What did you do this time?”

“I was only looking at the blowtorch,” Boris said in a small voice.

“Thewhat?” The fur lifted along Grandpa Ivan’s spine and he whisked round to stare at the Egyptian Gallery in horror, obviously expecting flames to billow out any moment.

“It’s all right, it was off when that man fell over Boris,” Tasha explained helpfully.

“Oh, good gracious,” Old Ivan growled. “Enough. I don’t want to hear any more! You’re confined to the cellars, the lot of you! Downstairs, now, at the double!”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_25]

The kittens spent the rest of the day holed up in the cellars, trying not to imagine that the canopic jars were watching them. Boris sat curled in a ball with his tail over his ears, while Tasha and Peter were trying their best to make him feel better. Even Bianca was nicer to him than she usually was. He looked so miserable.

Boris hardly even touched his supper. Afterwards Grandpa Ivan and Smoke sat the kittens down in one of the few clear spaces left in the cellar. The museum cats who weren’t on watch were gathered round them in a circle.

“Are we being banished from the museum?” Peter squeaked to Tasha.

“No! At least … I don’t think so,” she whispered back, but her ears were flattened down. How much trouble were they really in?

“You four…” Grandpa Ivan began, glaring at them.

Boris jumped up.“I’m sorry! It was all my fault!” he gabbled. “Please don’t be angry with Tasha and Bianca and Peter. I only wanted to see how a blowtorch worked.”

Smoke sighed, and Grandpa Ivan said,“Hmf!” and all the cats sitting around them seemed to shift and stretch. Suddenly the underground room felt warmer.

“You are an absolute nuisance,” Smoke told her biggest kitten, but then she licked his ears so it didn’t feel as though she was really that cross.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_26]

“Those kittens need something to do,” one of the other cats suggested. He was a long-legged tabby with thickly marked dark stripes over a brownish coat and bright yellow eyes. “They’re getting older. They should be too busy to fool about tripping up builders.”

“We don’t fool,” Tasha said to Peter under her breath.

“Can we guard the Egyptian Gallery? Please?” Boris begged. “The rats have it staked out. We keep on hearing them! I’m sure they’re after that papyrus, or maybe the builders’ packed lunches…”

The other three kittens nodded eagerly.

The dark-striped tabby cat looked thoughtful.“I have noticed quite a few rats close to the Egyptian Gallery when I’ve been on my shift.”

The other museum cats began to murmur.

“Mm-hm.”

“We could do with some extra lookouts…”

“Those rats are getting cheeky.”

“And the kittenshave been improving their hunting skills,” Smoke put in.

Grandpa Ivan looked grim.“Very well then. Tonight, you can have your first shift as museum cats.” He eyed the four of them fiercely. “You’d better not let me down!”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_8]

Tasha was keeping watch from a packing case next to the statue of Bastet. She was sitting tall, her head held high like the cat goddess. She knew she was only a scruffy tabby kitten, and not an Egyptian goddess– but tonight she was guarding the gallery!

The kittens were under strict orders to watch for rats creeping in through any of the huge holes that the builders had made in the walls, the floor, the ceiling… But so far, no one had seen anything.

The goddess statue seemed to be staring at the glass case with the papyrus and Tasha stared at it too. The dust sheet covering the case had slipped a bit and she could see the picture writing– strange little squiggles and figures. Except … she could make out some of the pictures. If she squinted sideways, wasn’t that faded scribble there a cat? There was definitely a cat in the little painting in the corner too. She needed to have a proper look later on. Perhaps if there was a curse, they could find out how to get rid of it?

[Êàðòèíêà: img_27]

Tasha leaned out round the plinth to catch Boris’s eye. “Anything?” she mouthed.

Boris shook his head. He was just as proud of their new job as Tasha was, but he’d been hoping for a bit more excitement. He huffed out a sigh and fixed his eyes back on the hole in the wall he was supposed to be guarding.

It was a very boring hole.

So boring that he kept imagining little ratty whiskers poking through it. There they were again. Every time he looked closer they turned out to be dust, or a trick of the light. Boris narrowed his eyes and glared at the whiskers.

This time, they didn’t disappear. In fact, they came a little closer and behind them was a pinkish ratty nose.

“There’s a … there’s a—” Boris let out a stifled mew. Now that the big moment had finally arrived, he was just too shocked to say anything. “Rat … rat!” Boris whispered. “There’s a rat! Oh my!”

The rat smirked at him. No, it full-ongrinned. Obviously it could see that Boris didn’t know what to do.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_28]

“Hello, small cat…” it hissed.

“I amnot small!” Boris hissed back. He was quite a lot bigger than the rat, for a start. Furious, he charged head-on at the hole and the surprised rat shot back inside the wall again as Boris thumped into him.

“Boris! Boris!” The other kittens hurried over.

“Are you all right?” Peter asked worriedly. “You hit the wall!”

“There … was … a … rat!” Boris mumbled. His head was spinning a bit but he blinked hard and peered back at the others. “I chased away a rat. I really did. It had whiskers…”

“A real one?” Tasha gasped. They had been told about rats so often but this was the first time any of them had actually chased one.

“We should tell Ma!” Bianca cried. “I’ll go!” She darted away, a little white shape shooting through the dust sheets.

Boris attempted to focus– there seemed to be far too many kittens in front of him. Tasha and Peter leaned against him, lovingly propping him up. “A real rat…” he muttered.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_8]

Inside a battered old bit of guttering on the outside wall of the museum, the rat that Boris had biffed sat nursing his whiskers.“They’re everywhere,” he hissed to the rest of his gang. “Little furry stripey cats. Little nuisances. I thought that tall chap had got rid of them at last, but they’re still all over the place and growing bigger every day!” He twitched his whiskers and groaned. “My nose will never bethe same again. It could be broken!”

“Stop whining, Luther,” another rat muttered. “So we can’t get back in through that hole now. Drat it. We should have made an all-out assault last night, like I told you! But you insisted on having a celebration cheese sandwich party behind the caf? bins instead. What about going through the wall on the other side?”

“They’ve got those small cats watching everywhere now, Morris, I tell you! Ow, my nose!”

“They really don’t want us getting at that delicious bit of paper,” Morris said resentfully.

“What about the pipes?” suggested a small brown rat, and the others turned to stare at her.

“Whatabout the pipes, Dusty?”

“Well, that’s why there are holes in the walls. Those builders have found cracks in the pipes and that’s what made the ceiling fall down. They’ve turned off all the water now, haven’t they?”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_29]

“What’s that got to with anything?” Luther growled. His sore nose was making him very bad-tempered. Plus he was still embarrassed about being chased off by a kitten.

“If the pipes are so old and rusty and thin that they need builders to mend them, why shouldn’twe scramble along inside the pipe and nibble through?” the little brown rat suggested, her eyes bright with excitement. “It wouldn’t be hard. Not if we all took turns. And if we nibbled a hole in exactly the right place we could come out of the pipe next to the glass case with that special delicious paper.”

“Hmmm.” The other rats looked thoughtful.

“We’d have to make sure we were in the right pipe,” Dusty added. “We mustn’t get ourselves turned round and end up in the wrong one, or we’ll get soaked.”

“Pffft. Yes, of course.” Luther sat up and sniffed, and then clapped a paw to his nose. “Easy. Oh, it’s almost in our claws, my dears. The dinner to end all dinners!”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_30]

“Those little cats are still there!” Luther muttered as the gang of rats peered through their nibbled hole later that night. They had managed to chew through the pipe and then the plasterboard in just the right place and Dusty was looking very pleased with herself. “All over the gallery. Look, there’s the white one, curled up in the dust sheets on top of that packing case. The little cats are usually tucked up downstairs in the cellars by this time.”

“That paper must be really special if they’re leaving cats here to guard it overnight,” Dusty said, leaning out of the rusty pipe.

“How are we going to get at it?” Morris asked, eyeing the chunky glass case below.

Dusty turned back, looking worried.“Hmm… You’re right. It is a bit – um – solid, isn’t it?”

“Exactly,” said Morris, looking smug. He didn’t like it when Dusty was cleverer than he was.

“What’s actually so special about that bit of paper?” asked Pip, the youngest rat, who wasn’t usually brave enough to say anything.

The other rats looked at him witheringly.

“It’s very old,” said Morris.

“And – er – special…” said Dusty.

Luther heaved a massive sigh.“Are you lot telling me that we can’t get in that case, and even if we could, it’s just a bit of old paper?”

“Um. Maybe?” Morris shifted his paws nervously, hoping Luther wasn’t going to have one of his shouty moments. “I don’t know why the cats are making such a fuss about it, to be honest.”

“They do like old things…” Dusty sighed. “The whole building’s full of old stuff. I don’t understand cats, I really don’t.”

“Or people.” All the rats shook their heads sadly. Then Dusty twitched her whiskers.

“There’s a noise…”

“Little cats snoring?” Luther smirked. “Some guards they are. That white one’s definitely asleep.”

“No… A sort of …wet noise.”

“Wet? Like … watery?” The rats looked round worriedly. They had been very careful. They had come out in just the right spot. The water had definitely been turned off.

Hadn’t it?

“Yes!” squealed Dusty, as the watery slurpy noises grew louder. “Run!”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_31]

[Êàðòèíêà: img_8]

As the night wore on, the kittens were taking it in turns to keep watch so that the others could have a catnap. Tasha stretched out her paws, snuggled deeper into her nest of dust sheets and dreamed…

She was walking down a dry and dusty beaten earth path. It was so hot! The sun blazed down on her tabby fur and the grasses by the side of the path buzzed with sleepy insects.

On the other side of the path the river ran, greeny-brown and sleepy too– it was hardly moving. Out in the middle of the water there was a boat with a square yellowish sail and men heaving at the oars.

In that strange way of dreams, Tasha knew that she was far from home but it seemed that she was in the right place. Somehow, it was important that she was here…

A small girl in a long white dress came walking along the path in the other direction and stopped to stroke her. She crouched down and made a fuss of Tasha, rubbing her ears and tickling her under the chin. It was just the sort of treatment that Bianca usually got and when the little girl went on her way at last, Tasha purred softly to herself. This was a good place.

As Tasha walked on she realized that the river was now higher up the bank than it had been before the little girl stopped. It wasn’t far from her paws. She looked back and saw that the child was running now, chasing after her mother who was calling out to her anxiously.

Tasha eyed the water uncertainly. Was it supposed to do that? It seemed to be rising very fast. Perhaps she should get off the path? But the land all around seemed to be so flat. If the river was flooding, it would spread all across those fields of wheat. Tasha felt her tail fluff out. She scurried along the path, faster and faster, but it only seemed to be stretching out in front of her.

There was another cat with her now, running too. At first Tasha thought that it was Ma, as the cat was bigger than she was and dark-furred. But then she saw that the stranger’s fur was a true midnight-black, darker even than Peter’s black coat. Her eyes were a clear bright gold and she wore a golden collar.

A strangely familiar collar.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_32]

“Wake up, little one,” someone whispered on a purr, and Tasha blinked.

It had been a dream! Only a dream! Her heart was thudding so hard it almost hurt. She felt as though she really had been running along that dusty path. Tasha gasped in a deep breath and tried to shake the threads of sleep away. It was dark in the gallery now and she couldn’t see any of the others. They must be hidden away among the dust sheets somewhere. Bianca was supposed to be awake, since she was on first watch. After an hour she was to wake Boris.

Tasha nodded to herself. She would go and talk to Bianca about her odd dream. Probably Bianca would tell her how silly she was being and, for once, Tasha wouldn’t mind her sister being rude.

She stretched, ready to get up, and realized that her tail was damp.The river, she thought sleepily.I must have trailed it in the river. She shivered, still half caught in her dream.

There was no river. She was in the gallery.

But her tail was definitely wet.

Tasha sat up slowly and peered around, trying to focus in the green emergency lighting. The floor of the gallery was moving. Rippling, almost. And it seemed to be a lot closer to her than it had been when she went to sleep.

Tasha felt the fur stand up all along her spine. The floor of the gallery was covered in deep, dark water!

[Êàðòèíêà: img_33]

[Êàðòèíêà: img_34]

“Wake up, all of you!” Tasha mewed. “Wake up, the gallery’s flooded! There’s water everywhere!” Now that she was fully awake, she could hear the water gushing from a broken pipe. It sounded as though it was flowing very fast.

“What?” A dark head popped up in the shadows and Tasha saw the light flash in Peter’s green eyes. He was curled up on top of one of the display cabinets, and Tasha watched him lean over and stare down at the water slopping around the floor.

“It’s still pouring in,” Tasha called. “I can see it now. It’s coming out of that pipe just behind the papyrus case. It’s getting higher!”

“It can’t be.” Bianca stood up, yawning and shaking her head. “That’s ridiculous. The water was turned off because of the building works. It’s absolutely impossible for the gallery to be flooded.”

“You jump in it then!” Tasha hissed furiously. “Go on. If there’s no water there, why don’t you just jump down?” She glared at her sister.

Bianca eyed the water and took a step back.“Well. Maybe there issome water down there,” she admitted. “I suppose the builders must’ve finished working on the pipes and turned it back on.”

“The floodwater’s halfway up the cabinets,” Tasha growled. “It will be over our heads soon!” Then she let out a little mew of horror. “The treasures! The ancient Egyptian treasures – they mustn’t get wet. The papyrus! It’s priceless – it’s the only copy!” She shuddered, looking around at the dark water. “The pharaohmust have put a curse on it, I believe it now…”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_35]

“Typical,” Bianca muttered. “Just like you to be more worried about the museum stuff than you are about us!”

“We’re museum cats, Bianca!” Tasha gave her a shocked look. “We’re supposed to be guarding the gallery. And now it’s flooded,on our watch.” She didn’t add,And you were meant to have stayed awake. It would be mean.

“Where’s Boris?” Bianca said quickly. Clearly she was trying to change the subject but she was right to be worried.

“Boris! Where are you?” Tasha said.

No answer.

“Boris? Are you all right?” Peter called anxiously.

“He’s probably still asleep.” Bianca sniffed. “BORIS!”

The three kittens heard a muffled groan and then a faint rustling, as if Boris was waking up and having a stretch.“Shh, Bianca, I’m sleeping. It’s the middle of the night! What are you waking me up for?”

“Because there’s a flood!” Bianca yowled.

“Where is he? Can’t he see all the water?” Peter gazed around the gallery, trying to pinpoint Boris from his voice. “Oh, there he is! He’s on the end of the same cabinet as me… Boris, no!”

“Keep still!” Tasha yelped. “Don’t do that!”

But it was too late. Boris was stretching and yawning and rolling right off the side of the display case.

“Help!” he yowled frantically, flailing his paws and twisting himself away from the water.

Peter dashed across the display case to grab at him. He caught Boris by the scruff of his neck but the ginger kitten was so much bigger than Peter and the glass display case was so slippery…

“I’m falling!” Peter hissed desperately.

Luckily, Tasha and Bianca had already leaped across from the wooden packing case to help. Together, the three of them dragged Boris back on to the top of the display cabinet.

All four kittens sat there shivering and panting and staring at the water.

“Thanks…” Boris coughed. “Thanks, you lot. Why is it always me?”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_36]

No one said anything. It always was…

“Let’s get out of here,” Bianca said, her tail swishing to and fro. “I can feel my fur frizzing in the damp.”

“I don’t know how we can get out,” Peter said. “The builders shut the doors to the Roman Gallery when they left and the tunnel down to the cellars must be underwater by now.”

“Do you think the cellars are flooding too?” Tasha asked, her ears flattening. All those cats, fast asleep… Ma was down there and Grandpa Ivan! “We need to raise the alarm,” she mewed.

“But how? Who’s going to hear us from up here?” Bianca huddled closer. She looked terrified, as though she was beginning to realize how much danger they were in.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_37]

“We could put a message in a bottle and float it on the water,” Tasha said, peering down at the water sloshing against the display case. It was still rising – just like in her dream.

“Except we don’t have a bottle. Or any paper. Or anything to write with!” Bianca snapped.

“Sorry… It’s what they do in adventure stories.” Tasha swallowed hard. She’d always rather wanted to be in an adventure but she’d thought it would be more fun. And not as wet.

“The guard cats on their rounds might hear us if we meow very loudly,” Peter suggested. “Or maybe the Old Man. Except … I wish those doors weren’t closed. They’re very solid.”

Boris looked around.“Thereis a window up there. Not a proper one– just the long gap that lets in the light from the Dinosaur Gallery. Someone might hear us through that.” He nuzzled Tasha’s ears and whispered, “I thought the bottle was a good idea.” Then he sat up straighter, turning to the others. “So let’s try. Ready?”

All four kittens raised their heads and meowed, wailing an alarm call across the dark water and hoping that there was someone out there to hear.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_38]

Boris waited for the echoes of their frightened mewing to die away.“Can you hear anything?”

The kittens sat, their ears pricked. But apart from the steady sound of pouring water, the museum was silent all around them.

“We’ll call again…” said Boris. He was trying to sound calm and confident but they could all see that the water was gradually rising up the side of the cabinet. What would they do when it reached the top? “Ready?”

They yowled as loudly as they could but there was still no answer.

“This is no good!” Bianca said, stomping up and down the glass-topped case. “No one’s coming and the water’s getting higher and higher! We’ll have to swim for it and I don’t think I can swim!”

“Me neither,” Tasha said in a tiny mew.

“Don’t panic,” Boris said. But he couldn’t think of a good reason why they shouldn’t. “We have to keep on calling. We can’t just … stop.”

“What are you small ones doing down there?” came a disapproving voice, and the kittens whirled round.

Behind them, high up in the wall, was a small metal grille, the cover to a ventilation shaft. The museum was full of odd tunnels and tubes, which the cats– and the rats – used as pathways. A white paw unhooked the grille and Grandpa Ivan peered down at the kittens. “What exactly is going on?”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_39]

“There’s a flood, Grandpa!” Tasha called. “I was dreaming about the River Nile. And then I woke up and my tail was soaked!”

“The pipes are leaking again,” Boris put in. “It wasn’t us, though! At least, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t,” he added. “I think I’d know if I’d flooded the whole gallery…”

“Probably that set of damp and panicked-looking rats that shot past me a couple of hours ago.” Grandpa Ivan sighed. “I knew I should have chased after them and found out what they’d been up to. But the old legs weren’t quite up to it.”

“Rats! Of course!” Tasha cried and glanced at the others. “I told you there wasn’t a curse!”

“It doesn’t matter about the rats, Grandpa. You have to come and rescue us!” wailed Bianca. “There’s so much water! I don’t l-l-like it!”

“Yes, yes, very well,” Grandpa Ivan muttered. “Don’t get your whiskers in a knot. I’m coming. Just a moment. Now…” He edged a little further out of the ventilation shaft, pressing his front paws against the wall. “Hmmm. If I’m careful, I can…” He leaped down on to the nearest wooden packing case. “Oooof. Old paws…”

“Grandpa!” the kittens squeaked and mewed, padding their paws lovingly up and down on the glass case. “You did it!”

“Mmmm…” Grandpa Ivan sighed as he eyed the dark water uncomfortably. “I did, didn’t I… But should I have done? There’s the question.”

“What do you mean?” Tasha asked.

“You’re still overthere and I’m still overhere, small tabby one.” Grandpa Ivan came slowly to the edge of the packing case. “I’m not sure I can get to you. And you certainly can’t jump far enough to get to me.”

His voice sounded rather faint and shaky, and Tasha suddenly remembered that Grandpa Ivan had come to the museum as a kitten after he’d been rescued from the river. A little girl had found the half-drowned white kitten tied up in a sack. His owners hadn’t wanted him and they’d thrown him in the water. It was only luck that had let him wash up on the riverbank.

“Grandpa, don’t lean out so far!” she called across the gallery. “Don’t look at the water like that. Please don’t!”

“What is it?” Boris muttered. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Remember the story he told us?” Tasha whispered. “About the farm and the people thinking he was no use because lots of white cats are deaf? They threw him in the river! I don’t think he likes water – look at him. It’s making him all … strange… Grandpa Ivan, step back!” she mewed.

But the old white cat seemed to be mesmerized by the slowly shifting water. He was leaning out further and further.

“He’s going to fall in!” Peter gasped in horror.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_40]

“We can’t let him.” Boris marched to the other side of the glass case and padded his paws against the smooth surface. There wasn’t much grip but he’d have to do the best he could.

“What are you doing?” Bianca shrieked. “You can’t jump that far!”

“Someone has to,” Boris said grimly. “And my legs are longest. We can’t leave him there – he’s going to topple in at any moment! Get back. Stay out of my way, I need a run-up.”

The other three kittens watched wide-eyed as Boris raced across the cabinet and launched himself out across the water.

“Please make it, please make it, please make it,” Tasha murmured.

With a scrabble and a thump, Boris landed solidly next to Grandpa Ivan, who stepped back on top of the case, shaking his white head.

“What was I doing?” he muttered. “Very odd…”

“It was the water, Grandpa,” Boris explained. “I think you were remembering…” He trailed off, not knowing quite what to say.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_41]

“Yes. Yes, I think you’re right.” The old white cat shivered and then straightened himself, glaring across the water at Peter, Tasha and Bianca. “Right. We’d better get back over there then.”

“Do you think you can?” Tasha called anxiously. “It’s a long way.”

“Nonsense!” Grandpa Ivan’s whiskers bristled. “Perfectly capable. Life in the old cat yet. Leave us room to land, you lot. Come along, young one. Together. On three?”

Boris nodded, and the white cat and the ginger kitten lined up next to each other.“One, two, three…”

They ran and leaped, paws outstretched, sailing over the gap.

“There!” Grandpa Ivan gasped. “There, you see? Good work, young one. Very good work.” He licked the top of Boris’s head and Boris sat down beside him, proudly tall.

“Now what are we going to do?” Bianca demanded, looking up at Grandpa Ivan. “We’re still here and so’s all that water.”

“Yes, yes, indeed it is,” Grandpa Ivan said thoughtfully. “So. No obvious way out. The doors through to the Roman Room are shut, which is a good thing I suppose, since they’re nice and solid. They’re probably keeping most of the water trapped in here.”

“But what if it’s pouring down into the cellars?” Tasha said worriedly. “The tunnel behind the mummy case will be completely underwater.”

“Mmm. Maybe some water will have got through,” Grandpa Ivan agreed. “But that tunnel doesn’t go straight down, does it? It dips in the middle and goes back up round another set of pipes. Whole place is riddled with old pipes, that’s what caused the problem in the first place. Most likely a lot of the water is caught in that dip and hasn’t reached the cellars yet.” He sighed. “And that’s a pity, in a way. If the other cats knew there was a flood, they’d be straight up here to see what was going on.”

“So no one’s coming to rescue us?” Bianca asked shakily.

Grandpa Ivan sniffed.“Museum cats are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves!”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_42]

“There is that funny long window.” Boris walked to the edge of the display cabinet and nodded at the gap that opened into the Dinosaur Gallery. “If only we could get to it…”

“Could we jump across?” Tasha suggested, eyeing the various cabinets and boxes scattered around the edges of the gallery. “Like stepping stones.”

Boris peered thoughtfully at the water.“I don’t think so. There’s a big space in the middle where they cleared everything out because of the collapsed ceiling. I wish they hadn’t taken the scaff tower away.”

“I’m not swimming,” Bianca said. “I can’t jump into that water. I’ll sink!” Then she looked ashamed of herself and added, “Sorry, Grandpa. I shouldn’t have said that. It’ll be all right…” But she didn’t sound very sure.

Grandpa Ivan nudged her gently.“I’m not keen on jumping in either. There must be some other way.”

Tasha frowned, looking around at the flooded gallery. The water sloshing against the side of their cabinet made her think of her dream, the river suddenly rising and washing away the path. The dream had started so nicely with the boat sailing by and the little girl making such a fuss of her.

“A boat!” she squeaked. “We need a boat!”

Boris looked at her helplessly.“There’s a clay one in the cabinet underneath us,” he admitted. “But I don’t see how we can get it out. And it’s not big enough for all of us.”

“I’m not convinced it’s going to float either,” Peter said, peering down between his paws. “I don’t think it’s meant for actual boating.”

“I didn’t mean that one!” Tasha sighed. “Isn’t there anything we can make a boat out of? Or a raft? What about the bits of wood from all these packing cases?”

The cats gazed at the sturdy, solid boxes and wrinkled their noses doubtfully. It didn’t look as though it was going to be easy to pull off any pieces.

“This is where it would be really useful for me to know more about power tools,” Boris said to Grandpa Ivan.

The old white cat turned round and glared at him with his one eye.

“Well, maybe not,” Boris said hastily. “So, any other ideas?”

Tasha stiffened and her ears pricked forwards with excitement.“Yes,” she breathed. “Look! That!”

Grandpa Ivan and the three other kittens gazed out across the water in the direction she was looking.

“What is it?” Boris asked, puzzled. “I can’t see anything.”

“That’s because you can’t see it against the dark water,” Tasha said excitedly. “Look, there! And it’s floating towards us! That sign, can’t you see?”

She was right. A flat black board was floating lazily across the gallery, sloshing and slipping in the water.

“No food or drink in the gallery,” Boris spelled out slowly, and then he gave a little snort of laughter. “Bit late now.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_43]

“You want us to get onthat?” Bianca asked, horrified.

“There isn’t anything else,” Tasha told her gently. “The water’s rising, you can see it is. If we all get on, we can paddle it across to the gap in the wall and jump through.”

“Paddle,” Bianca said faintly. “Oh my whiskers!”

“We have to!” Tasha said. “If the water rises much further, the treasures in the cases are going to be damaged. We have to protect them – it’s what wedo.”

“Small tabby one’s quite right,” Grandpa Ivan muttered. “Think of those painted wooden mummy cases. The pharaoh’s papyrus! And the sarcophagi! And the mummies themselves! Thousands of years old! They’re not going to be waterlogged on my watch.”

He crouched down, ready to reach out and snag the sign with one long paw.“Don’t look at me like that,” he muttered to the kittens. “I can feel you staring. Perfectly all right. Lot of nonsense, being scared of water. There you are, you see?” he said triumphantly, hauling the board in against their glass case. “Got it!”

“You should get on first, Grandpa,” Boris said. “You’re the heaviest. You sit in the middle and we’ll spread out around the edges to balance it out.”

The old white cat wriggled forwards and put his other front paw down on to the sign. It rocked wildly and water sloshed over the top. Bianca gave a little mew of fright.

“You’re going to have to get wet, Bianca,” Tasha said, losing her patience. “You either climb on the raft and get a bit wet, or you stay here and getvery wet.”

Bianca stared at her sister, her mouth open. Tasha didn’t often argue but now her green eyes were emerald-glittery and her whiskers were bristling. The white kitten nodded meekly and stepped to the edge of the cabinet, leaning down to look at the makeshift raft. She flinched a little as Grandpa Ivan settled in the middle of the board and more water came over the edge, but she didn’t say anything.

“One at a time,” Grandpa Ivan said. “Slowly, slowly. Peter, come on.”

The black kitten closed his eyes for a second and then hopped on to the board, pressing up against the old white cat.“It’s all right,” he told the others breathlessly. “Just a bit wobbly.”

“Now you, Bianca.” Boris and Tasha nodded to each other. They wanted her on the raft before she came over all panicky again.

But Bianca had clearly decided to be proud. She jumped down before she had to be pushed and stalked around to the other side of the board to balance Peter out. There she sat, looking queenly.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_44]

Tasha shivered. Since Bianca hadn’t made a fuss, she couldn’t either. She did so hate the way the board kept shifting and the water rippled across it. But this had all been her idea. Quickly, before she could think about it too much, she hopped down on to the raft. It shook underneath her and she spread out her paws, thinking sticky thoughts.

“Boris!” Grandpa Ivan commanded. “Jump on. Let’s get out of here.”

Boris sprang on to the board and it dipped down for a moment before righting itself again.“Oooops, sorry,” Boris muttered. “Er. Yes. So here we all are then.”

Grandpa Ivan leaned forwards, his ears flattened and purposeful.“Paddle!” he roared.

It was harder than it sounded.

“You’re going in circles!” Bianca complained. “Ooooh, don’tsplash me!”

“We’re not doing it on purpose,” Tasha growled back. “It’s difficult! You paddle too, don’t just sit there. And we’re not going in circles. I’m sure we’re closer to that window than we were before.”

“A bit,” Boris agreed. “Hang on. I’ve got an idea.” He crept to the back of the raft and wriggled down flat, letting his tail trail into the water. “Ugghhh, it’s cold,” he muttered. “All right. Let’s see if this works.” And he began to swish his tail to and fro like a long ginger paddle.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_45]

“We’re moving, we’re moving!” Tasha squeaked. “Keep going, Boris!”

“A little cat engine,” Grandpa Ivan chuckled to himself. “Good work, ginger one. We’re getting there.”

With the other three kittens paddling at the sides, and Grandpa Ivan paddling with both front paws over the front, soon the sign was bumping up against the gap in the wall.

“One at a time, one at a time!” the old white cat called. “Careful there, don’t let it wobble. Oooof, I’m stiff. Pull me up, kittens!”

And then there they all were, sitting in a line on the edge of the gap and looking down at the delightfully dry Dinosaur Gallery.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_46]

[Êàðòèíêà: img_47]

Luckily, there was a solid fibreglass model of a stegosaurus quite close to the opening that the cats could clamber down. Boris wasn’t sure he could face another encounter with a dinosaur skeleton. There were just too many little bits to put back afterwards.

“Now what do we do?” Tasha said, after they’d finished nudging and nuzzling at each other. Bianca was sitting underneath the stegosaurus, trying to lick her fur back into shape and Peter was shaking his ears, which still felt full of water.

“We must rouse the cat guard!” Grandpa Ivan said, stamping one paw.

“Well, yes. But shouldn’t we try to fetch the Old Man too?” Tasha pointed out. “We need him to turn off the water.”

“Good gracious, yes,” muttered Grandpa Ivan. “The damp is getting to me. Yes, at once!”

“Where is he usually about now?” Boris wondered.

Grandpa Ivan’s muzzle wrinkled as he thought. “He does his rounds, then he has a sleep on the seat of one of the carriages in the Transport Galleries. Then he comes here, to the dinosaurs, to eat his sandwiches. Then another sleep on the sofa in the Regency Room.”

“He’ll be there then, won’t he?” Peter said. “It feels late enough. Up to the first floor, everyone!”

The four kittens darted through the Dinosaur Gallery and out past the volcano exhibit to the Grand Hall and the staircase. Grandpa Ivan lumbered after them at the pace of an elderly cat who had already been considerably more adventurous in one night than he had been in years.

“There he is!” Tasha hissed as they skidded to a halt on the finely woven carpet of the Regency Room. It was set up to look as though a group of early nineteenth century ladies were having a tea party, although the tea was disappointingly fake – Boris had checked a long while ago. Three mannequins in long embroidered dresses were posed as if they were chatting over the plaster cakes but there was one elegant velvet sofa that was usually empty.

Now, the Old Man was stretched out on it, snoring gently.

“How do we wake him?” Peter asked, looking up at the large man in dismay. “It was hard enough to wake Boris.”

“Oi!”

“And even then he nearly fell in the water.”

“Don’t remind me,” Boris muttered.

“I think Bianca had better do it,” Tasha said. “The Old Man likes her. If one of us wakes him up, he’ll be grumpy.”

The others murmured in agreement and stood back as Bianca stalked across the carpet towards the beautiful sofa. She hesitated for a moment, then jumped up on to the edge of the seat. She stretched out one delicate white paw and patted the Old Man’s face, just above his moustache.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_48]

Nothing happened so Bianca tried again, patting a little harder.

This time the Old Man grunted and shifted on the sofa, nearly knocking Bianca off. She scrabbled her way back up, squeaking crossly, and smacked his face hard with the flat of her paw.

“Watch it!” Boris muttered. “We want him in a good mood.”

The Old Man surged up from the sofa like an angry walrus, making snuffly roaring sounds. He peered down at Grandpa Ivan and the kittens.

“Cats! Again! I might have known. Shoo! Off with you, you horrible lot!”

“I don’t know why the museum gets him to look after us, when he doesn’t even like cats,” Tasha said crossly. “Bianca! Be nice – do your thing!”

“I’m trying,” Bianca hissed. She padded along the sofa and jumped up on to its arm, ducking her head and purring and making little mewing noises.

“Yes, yes,” the Old Man muttered, giving her a stroke. “Yes, you’re very pretty. Good kitten. Off you go now. I need my sleep.”

“Oh, honestly,” Bianca said irritably. “Can’t he see that it’s important? Come on.” She reached out, took the sleeve of the Old Man’s shirt in her teeth and pulled.

He gave a start of surprise.“Gently now! What is it? Hungry, are you? It’s a few hours till breakfast time, little one.”

Bianca pulled at his shirt again and then mewed frantically, running back and forth along the arm of the sofa.

“That’s it, he’s listening,” Grandpa Ivan called. “Keep going, Bianca! Jump down and see if you can get him to follow you.”

Bianca sprang down on to the carpet and pulled at the Old Man’s trouser hem. Then she darted away a few steps, gazing at him beseechingly.

“Whatever is the matter with you?” he murmured, looking down at her in confusion. “Usually you just want petting…”

Bianca dashed back and pulled at him again, and then she mewed at the others.“You do it too! Pull him!”

Grandpa Ivan looked doubtful for a moment, as if it was beneath his dignity to go pulling at museum guards’ trousers. But then he sighed and came to join in.

The Old Man looked down in amazement as four kittens and one elderly white cat took hold of his trouser legs and tried to drag him towards the door.“All right, all right. I don’t know what’s going on here… All right! I’m coming…”

Grandpa Ivan and the kittens got into position around him. Boris and Tasha dashed ahead, and Peter and Bianca walked beside each leg, ready to pull at his trousers if he slowed down. Grandpa Ivan trotted behind, nudging the Old Man in the back of the legs every so often to hurry him up.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_49]

The Old Man seemed bewildered by the whole thing. Every time they passed a door that led to another gallery, he seemed to be considering making a run for it.

When they got to the top of the stairs, he froze, grabbing the banister and shaking his head.“No, no, no, no, no. NO! You’ll trip me up! I don’t know what’s going on here. I really don’t!”

The cats looked at each other helplessly.

“Could we push him down the stairs?” Boris suggested.

“Don’t even think about it,” snapped Grandpa Ivan. “Humans aren’t like cats. They don’t bounce and they only have one life.”

Bianca hissed with frustration.“I got wet! My fur is ruined! Ruined! I’m not doing all that for nothing.” She sprang forwards, catching her claws in the Old Man’s trouser legs and mountaineering up to stand on his shoulder. There she nuzzled his cheek, purring and mewing until the Old Man reached up to stroke her. He looked as if he didn’t really want to but he couldn’t help himself.

“Walk down the stairs,” Bianca mewed. “All of you! Walk down and keep looking back at him. Flutter your whiskers.Try to look sweet. Do the best you can, anyway.”

“Sweet, is it?” Grandpa Ivan growled. “That young lady is much too full of herself, if you ask me. Come on, kittens.” He began to stalk down the stairs, turning back every few steps to give the Old Man a fearsome, full-teeth grin.

“Not like that…” Bianca heaved a sigh. But the Old Man seemed to be so taken aback by Grandpa Ivan’s one-eyed stare that he hurried down the stairs after him.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_50]

“Yes! Come on!” Peter, Boris and Tasha surged down the marble staircase, leading the Old Man past the volcano exhibit to the Dinosaur Gallery. There they leaped on the stegosaurus model again – ignoring the Old Man’s cry of horror – and clambered up to the gap in the wall.

“Oh! The water’s risen so much,” Tasha gasped. “It’ll be pouring through the doors into the Roman Room any minute.”

“Can he see?” Boris looked back at the Old Man. “Come here, come and look!”

Grandpa Ivan headbutted the Old Man in the back of the legs again and the guard stumbled up on to the stegosaurus’s plinth. The cats made a space for him to look through and the Old Man leaned forwards to peer over the edge of the gap.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_51]

What he said next made Grandpa Ivan curl his whiskers and glare at the kittens.“It’s lucky you haven’t been around people long enough to understand that.” He bounded up to the ledge beside them and sighed. “But I think he’s probably right.”

The cats watched as the Old Man stumbled away to turn off the water, muttering into his radio.

“Calling for back-up. Good, good,” Grandpa Ivan said approvingly. “We’d better do the same. Emergency call to all the guard cats – we need to check the status of the cellars. We might be flooded out any minute if the water’s got through the tunnel. And who knows what the rats are doing.Fleeing a sinking ship, hopefully, but you never know.”

“Sinking?” Tasha whispered, and the kittens stared at Grandpa Ivan in horror. Did he think that the museum was doomed?

“No, no, I don’t mean it like that. It’s what rats do – they run. Whereas cats like us stay and help.” The old white cat sighed. “Right. Peter and Tasha – you run through the rest of the galleries. Tell the cats on watch what’s happened. Tell them to keep an eye out for any drips orsplashes or strange noises in the walls. We don’t know exactly what those rats did to the pipes. Boris and Bianca – come with me. We need to wake everyone down in the cellars and warn them about the water. We may have to block up the tunnel until the gallery has been pumped out.”

“Pumped out?” Boris asked hopefully. “With a pump? A really big one? Maybe even attached to a lorry?”

“Just get down to the cellars,” Grandpa Ivan growled. “Raise the alarm!”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_52]

Grandpa Ivan was right about the sloping bit of the passage down to the cellars– it had caught a lot of the water. In fact, the dip in the passage had turned into a kitten-sized swimming pool but none of the kittens felt very much like trying it out.

When Boris and Bianca had raced into the cellars and woken the other cats, they’d found that only a little water had overflowed and seeped down the rest of the passage. Smoke had already organized the other cats into sopping it up with some rather ugly old curtains that had been mouldering away in a box.

The precious Egyptian treasures in the cellar had escaped any damage, but the gallery was a ruin. Several of the Egyptology department were in tears as they peered through at the wreckage early the next morning. The elderly professor had to have a sit down on the stegosaurus’s plinth with Grandpa Ivan in her lap. She had been at the museum for almost as long as he had and she was very fond of him. Grandpa Ivan didn’t usually do laps but, as he told the kittens afterwards, sometimes it was necessary.

No one was going to be able to see quite how bad the damage was until all the water had been pumped out and they could actually get inside. The kittens sat on a wall in the grounds and watched as an enormous machine arrived. It was pulled by a tractor, which Boris thought was even better than a lorry.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_53]

“Look at the size of those wheels,” he murmured blissfully as it rolled around the side of the building in the dawn light. “They’ve got to be nearly as tall as the driver.”

“Please don’t go anywhere near it, Boris,” Tasha pleaded. “Just remember that man with the blowtorch.”

Boris’s lip curled for a moment but then he sat down and wrapped his tail tightly around his paws, as if to stop himself trotting over to the pump. He wasn’t really sure what he could do to break an enormous tractor but Tasha was right. He did seem to be a bit unlucky around these things. It was very sad.

Still, right now it was more important to make sure that the Egyptian treasures were rescued from the floodwater. He could investigate pumps later.

“Oh, it’s working!” Tasha nudged him. “Look at the pipe!”

The water was pulsing along the rubber pipe that snaked out of the window and through the museum grounds all the way to the river. The four kittens watched it hopefully. The water seemed to be fairly galloping along. Perhaps the flood wasn’t such a disaster after all.

The Old Man was standing watching the pipe too and for once he didn’t glare at the kittens when he spotted them. He looked thoughtfully at them instead and clumsily patted Tasha on the head. “Good little cat,” he muttered. “Saved the day, you lot did. Fish for breakfast, then?”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_54]

[Êàðòèíêà: img_8]

But when they sneaked in around the elderly professor’s ankles later that day, even the kittens could tell that the gallery was in an awful state. There were brownish-yellow water stains around all the white plinths and the smell was dreadful.

“What about the treasures?” Tasha asked worriedly, peering at the sodden dust sheet around the display case that held the pharaoh’s papyrus. It was just underneath the broken pipe. The professor was pulling the sheet away, her face pale with worry.

“Did the water get in?” Peter demanded, stretching up to see. “Oh, it can’t have done. She’s smiling!”

“Such good luck!” Tasha breathed. “I mean, obviously it would be better if there hadn’t been a flood at all. But I suppose at least this way they’ll check all the pipes. None of the other galleries will ever be damaged like this.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_55]

“Grandpa thinks it was the rats who broke the pipe, remember. He said he saw them running away looking guilty,” Peter said. “It’s a good thing that we’re proper museum guard cats now.”

Tasha padded over to the tall plinth with the statue of Bastet and looked up at the bronze cat goddess with her golden collar.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_56]

“Were you watching over the gallery?” she whispered, trying to peer into the goddess’s golden eyes. “Did you save all the treasures? You wouldn’t want all your things to be spoilt, would you?” She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “I’m sure I saw a painting of a cat on that papyrus. It’s true, isn’t it? There is no curse after all…”

Tasha was almost sure that she heard the very faintest purr, just for a moment. She wondered if it was Bianca but the white kitten was over by the door having her ears tickled by the professor. None of the other cats were anywhere near.

“Was that … you?” Tasha whispered hopefully to the statue. “You know, I don’t think your paws were like that before,” she added, swallowing hard. “They were further apart, I’m sure they were. And your tail wasn’t so tightly curled. I’ve looked at you a lot…”

The statue stayed quite still, gazing silently out across the damp gallery. But Tasha was sure her golden eyes glinted– and there was that faint breath of a purr again.

Sheremembered that purr.

Her dream! The black cat with the golden eyes had purred just like that, when she told Tasha to wake up.

“And I woke up and woke the others, and we fetched the Old Man,” Tasha said slowly, working it all out in her head. “It wasn’t just my wet tail that woke me – it was you! The black cat in my dream had a golden collar on, just like yours, and the most beautiful golden eyes. Youwere watching over the gallery. You sent us to help… Us kittens.” She turned round, ready to race and tell the others.

But then she stopped and looked back. The statue was so still and so grand. Would they believe her? Perhaps they’d say it was just a strange dream. She couldn’t bear it if they laughed…

“What are you thinking about?” Boris asked, casually licking Tasha’s ear, when the others came to find her a few minutes later.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_57]

“Oh … just Egypt…” Tasha told him, with a secret little purr.

Boris nodded.“You know, it’s very lucky you woke up in time,” he said.

Peter looked around at the water stains and the muddy, silted floor.“Yes, the gallery could have been ruined.”

“We might not have got out,” Bianca added with a shudder.

“But we did. Someone made sure of that!” Tasha rubbed her chin lovingly against her sister’s. And high above the four kittens, the cat goddess looked out over her gallery, her golden eyes shining.