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.