[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.