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?”