“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!”
[Êàðòèíêà: img_16]
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.”
[Êàðòèíêà: img_17]
“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.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_18]
“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.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_19]
“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.”
[Êàðòèíêà: img_20]
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.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_21]
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.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_22]
“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.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_23]
“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…
[Êàðòèíêà: img_24]
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.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_25]
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.