“I am a very good actress,” she purred. “Perhaps I could try?” She stepped delicately on to the end of the tyrannosaurus’s tail and walked up to the hole, sniffing disgustedly at the bones. “They smell…” she muttered. Then she hopped up on to the skeleton, gripped the wire tightly and twitched her tail to look as bone-shaped as she could. “There. How do I look?”
“Perfect!” Peter breathed. “You look exactly like a bone. Except much, much more beautiful,” he added hurriedly.
“Just hold tight, Bianca,” Tasha whispered. “The Old Man’s coming. Boris, Peter, hide!”
The three kittens slipped away to the corner of the gallery and tucked themselves in the shadows behind a fire extinguisher. Peter and Tasha huddled together, shaking with nerves as the Old Man stomped in, waving his torch.
“I hope Bianca remembers to close her eyes,” Tasha hissed worriedly, as the torchlight swept over the tyrannosaurus.
The torch passed over Bianca, then stopped and came back, and Peter’s whiskers trembled. Had they been found out?
[Êàðòèíêà: img_53]
[Êàðòèíêà: img_54]
But the torchlight passed on by and the Old Man kept on whistling– and then at last he walked away.
“We did it!” Tasha mewed. “Has he really gone?”
“Yes,” Peter reported back from the doorway. “He’s headed through to the volcano exhibit. We’re safe!”
“Until he comes back,” Bianca pointed out. “Owww, my claws ache from holding on. This skeleton is very, very bony.” She dropped down on to the plinth and shook out her paws delicately.
“You did so well,” Tasha told her, purring and sniffing at her sister lovingly.
“But Bianca’s right,” Peter said. “We’ve only got – what, another hour until the Old Man comes round again? We have to find that bone.”
“And we ought to make sure Boris is all right,” Tasha remembered. “Boris! Where are you?”
“Here…” Boris mumbled. “I’m fine. Just a bit dopey. A lot of dinosaur fell on me, you know. Here, hang on, isn’t that someone coming!”
All four kittens froze. Had the Old Man noticed something odd after all? Was he coming back to check?
But instead, an old white cat came pacing through the doorway and eyed them sternly.
“Grandpa Ivan!” Tasha purred, running to brush her whiskers against his.
“Just what have you kittens been up to?” her grandfather demanded. “Your ma’s off on her shift guarding the museum so she sent me to find out where you all were. You should be asleep.” Then his gaze sharpened and he hurried over to the tyrannosaurus skeleton. “There’s a hole in this dinosaur!”
[Êàðòèíêà: img_55]
“There are a lot of holes in it,” Boris pointed out cheekily, but then he ducked his head as everyone turned round to scowl at him.
“What happened?” Grandpa Ivan sighed.
“I might have … bumped it. Just a little bit,” Boris admitted.
“So what happened to the bone?” Grandpa Ivan looked round as if he hoped to find it lying on the floor somewhere.
“We can’t find it.” Peter sighed. “We’ve looked and looked, but the bone just isn’t anywhere.” He glanced at Tasha. “Maybe a rat stole it?”
Grandpa Ivan snorted.
“You did say they were everywhere,” Peter protested.
“They only steal things they can eat – or swap for more food. I don’t think any sensible rat is going to want a bit of tyrannosaurus tail. No, it must be here somewhere.” The old white cat strolled all round the plinth, sniffing thoughtfully. “I can smell ham,” he said at last, stoppingto sit down in front of the kittens with his puffy white tail wrapped around his paws.
“It’s the Old Man’s sandwiches,” Tasha said, glaring at Boris. “That’s what started all of this.”
“They do smell so good.” Boris sighed and Bianca narrowed her eyes.
“You’re dribbling, Boris. Stop it.”
“I can’t! I’m hungry. Couldn’t I just eat the rest of the sandwich that I started?” Boris looked hopefully at the others. “It’s already got one corner nibbled off. So really it would be better if I ate it all up. Don’t you think?”
“No,” chorused Tasha, Peter and Bianca, but Grandpa Ivan pricked up his ears.
“So … you opened up the sandwiches?”
Boris hung his head sadly.“I couldn’t resist it. Sorry, Grandpa.”
“And that was before you launched yourself into this dinosaur?”
Boris’s whiskers were practically trailing on the floor now. “Yes,” he whispered.
“And you’ve looked everywhere for this bone? All of you?”
The four kittens nodded. They really had.
“It isn’t anywhere,” Tasha said, shaking her head crossly.
“It’s in the sandwich bag, you silly kittens!” Grandpa Ivan got up, and used one paw to hook out the canvas bag and flip it open.
There, on top of the sandwiches, was the missing bone, gleaming palely in the moonlight.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_56]
“You found it! You found it!” Tasha squeaked, dancing around the sandwich bag, and Grandpa Ivan yawned widely as if it had all been very easy. But his eyes were sparkling and Peter suspected that he was actually rather proud of himself.
“So, when we told Boris to put the sandwiches away – the bone was there all the time? Boris, didn’t you see it?”
Boris shook his head slowly.“No… But I wasn’t feeling very bright at the time. I suppose I could have missed it. Er – sorry, everyone…” Then he caught Tasha’s eye and sidled up to Peter. He rubbed his face apologetically against the black kitten’s neck. “I shouldn’t have said those things, about you being skinny… And not belonging here… It was mean.”
Bianca nodded.“If you hadn’t thought of me pretending to be a bone, the Old Man would have caught us for sure. Of course, it all depended on my brilliant acting skills, but itwas a good idea.”
Grandpa Ivan stared at her thoughtfully and her whiskers drooped.“And I’m very sorry I was mean,” she added, shuffling her paws.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_57]
Grandpa Ivan glanced into the moonlight shadows and out through the doorway.“There’s a little time before the Old Man comes back. First we’d better mend this dinosaur.” He peered up at the skeleton thoughtfully and then stood creakily on his hind paws to nose the bone back into position. The kittens watched admiringly as he twisted the wires with his teeth, then sprang back down. “There. Poor old thing. No more messing about with bones, you hear me?”
“Yes, Grandpa,” the four kittens chorused.
“Good. Now come, you kittens. Sit up here with me.” He led them across the Dinosaur Gallery to a nest of fossil dinosaur eggs and settled the kittens in between the huge stones. “I want the whole story. Just what exactly have you been getting yourselves into since young whatshisname arrived?”
[Êàðòèíêà: img_58]
Grandpa Ivan shook his whiskers sadly.“You are a bunch of very silly kittens.” He sighed. “Of course whatshisname – Peter – should stay.”
“I told you.” Tasha barged the black kitten with her shoulder.
“I think I’d like to stay!” Peter said shyly. “I like it here, I’ve decided. I’m going to be a museum cat when I’m older.” His ears pricked up eagerly. “I might even ask if I can guard the dinosaurs, now I know how to put one back together.”
“This museum is a haven for all cats,” Grandpa Ivan said, eyeing Boris and Bianca sternly. “Have I never told you how I came to be here?”
All three grandkittens stared at him in surprise.“Weren’t you born here, Grandpa?” Tasha asked. “I thought you’d been here forever. Oh, you know what I mean,” she added, when the other kittens sniggered.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_59]
“It feels like I have been, when the wind’s in the east and there’s a draught blowing through the cellar making my old bones ache. But no. I came here as a kitten too.” He leaned down to brush his whiskers over Peter’s nose and the little black kitten purred with delight.