[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]