Atticus Claw Lends a Paw (3 page)

3

Atticus squeezed into the ballroom at Toffly Hall with Michael, Callie, Mimi and Inspector and Mrs Cheddar. It was the night of the lecture and the ballroom was packed. Atticus was looking forward to hearing about Howard Toffly. He liked adventure stories (although usually they weren’t as exciting as his own adventures).

They made their way through a forest of people to the front row. The kittens were there, with Nellie Smellie and her abandoned lady cats’ group who were busy knitting scarves. The kittens gave Atticus a wave. Atticus ignored them. He’d decided not to speak to them again until they’d said sorry for getting him told off. He hopped on to a chair next to Mrs Tucker, trying to look Police-Cat-Sergeant-like.

‘Atticus!’ Mrs Tucker cried. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages!’ She tickled him under the chin. ‘Been keeping out of trouble, I hope?’

Inspector Cheddar was just behind them. He glowered at Nellie Smellie and her cats and ground his teeth at Atticus. He still hadn’t got all the soot out of his eyebrows. His police uniform was at the menders.

Atticus’s ears drooped.

‘I thought not!’ Mrs Tucker said cheerfully. ‘Trouble seems to follow you around!’

Atticus noticed Mrs Tucker’s basket under her chair. There was a delicious smell of sardines coming from it. He looked at it meaningfully.

‘Still as greedy as ever, I see!’ Mrs Tucker reached into the basket and got out two fish. She gave Atticus and Mimi one each.

Mimi picked at hers delicately. Atticus gulped his down in one before Inspector Cheddar had a chance to stop him.
Greedy!
He was half starved. He hadn’t had anything decent to eat for days. He licked his lips and meowed for seconds. When Mrs Tucker ignored him, Mimi gave him the rest of hers.

‘Pay attention, Atticus,’ Inspector Cheddar
barked. ‘It’s about to start.’

Atticus settled down for the lecture.

The Professor from the British Museum was
sitting
at the front of the hall on a podium with Mr Tucker. Behind them was a large screen.

‘Huh, hum.’ Mr Tucker got to his foot. (He only had one leg because a giant lobster had clipped off the other one once when he was out fishing. Now he had a wooden leg instead.)

The audience went quiet.

‘Thank youze for comin’ to me house,’ Mr Tucker said. ‘This is Professor Edmund Verry-Clever and he’s here to tell you about shaaarrrks.’

‘No he’s not, Herman.’ Mrs Tucker threw a
sardine
at her husband. ‘He’s here to tell us about Howard Toffly, the Egyptologist. What’s the matter with you? Have you been on the pickled tuna again?’

Mr Tucker looked confused. He sat down and rubbed his chin.

Atticus watched him, concerned. He knew what was wrong. Normally Mr Tucker had a long beard, which was all tangled up with his smelly jumper (or the other way round). He was very proud of
his beard-jumper. He shampooed it regularly with Thumpers’ Traditional White Beard Dye and let Atticus groom it for morsels of fish when no one else was looking. But something awful had happened. Ginger Biscuit and the magpies had got stuck in it when they were trying to escape with the Crown Jewels and Mr Tucker had had to cut it off.
Poor Mr
Tucker
, Atticus thought. He definitely wasn’t
himself
without his beard-jumper.

Professor Edmund Verry-Clever stood up. He had long bony fingers, long skinny arms and legs, a long scrawny neck and a big dome-shaped head. Atticus thought he looked very brainy.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, children and cats,’ the Professor said, ‘I am here to tell you about the life of a very special man.’ He clicked a button on a remote. The screen behind him changed. A black-and-white photo appeared of a handsome man with a big chin riding an elephant. He had a gun slung over one shoulder and a dead zebra over the other.

‘Howard Toffly was an adventurer,’ Edmund
Verry-Clever continued. ‘He was a man who wrestled lions for entertainment. A man who thought nothing of swimming in a lake full of crocodiles. A man who kept tarantulas instead of loose change in his trouser pockets. A man who travelled around the world on horseback while most people went to Bognor by bus.’

The audience listened, entranced.

Atticus held Mimi’s paw.

‘Howard Toffly knew no fear,’ the Professor said. ‘He embraced danger. He laughed in the face of calamity. Until …’ he paused … ‘the fateful day he went to Egypt. It was on that day, although he did not know it then, that Howard Toffly was doomed to die a terrible death. Here, in this very house. Cursed for all eternity.’

‘Oooohhhh!’ said the audience.

‘Gaw-blimey!’ Mrs Tucker gasped. ‘He’d better not have died in my bedroom!’

‘His time in Egypt started well enough.’ Edmund Verry-Clever threw his hands wide. ‘When Howard Toffly took up pyramid raiding, he discovered more tombs and treasure than any Egyptologist before or since. He was the richest, most eligible
bachelor in the country. Until …’ he paused again … ‘he heard about the lost city of Nebu-Mau: the golden city of cats.’

The golden city of cats!
This was the best story Atticus had ever heard! He squeezed Mimi’s paw. Mimi squeezed his back.

Edmund Verry-Clever shook his head
sorrowfully
. ‘Its existence was only a rumour, but Howard Toffly could not rest until he found it. He spent years searching the desert. He mapped every
journey
he took. He researched all the ancient ruins. Many of his papers can still be found here in the library at the Hall. But he found nothing. Nothing! Until …’ his eyebrows shot up … ‘he came across a book.’

A book?
Atticus glanced at Mimi. That didn’t sound very exciting.

‘This wasn’t just any book.’ Edmund Verry-Clever cracked his knuckles. ‘This was a book full of the mysteries of the ancient world. A book which, for those who could decipher it, told the way to Nebu-Mau and to the treasures it held.’

‘Ooooohhhhh!’ sighed the audience.

‘Oh my giddy aunt!’ Mrs Tucker breathed.

Even the kittens were on the edge of their seats.

‘But the book carried with it a terrible
prophecy
,’ Edmund Verry-Clever said solemnly. ‘He who disturbed the tomb of the cat pharaoh of the golden city would be cursed by the pharaoh
himself
.’ The Professor took a deep breath. ‘One can only assume that Howard Toffly
did
stumble upon the tomb of the cat pharaoh. For
this
is what became of him.’

A new picture flashed up on the screen of an old man in a dressing gown and a pair of fluffy slippers sitting in a wheelchair. He had a paper bag over his head.

‘Aaaaahhhh!’ the audience gasped.

‘You may well say “Aaaaahhhh!”,’ Edmund Verry-Clever agreed. ‘Howard Toffly returned to Toffly Hall a broken man. A fearful man. A man who hated being alone. A man who was terrified of one thing in particular.’ Edmund Verry-Clever pointed a long bony finger at the front row. ‘
CATS!
’ he hissed. ‘If Howard Toffly knew we were here today raising money for the Littleton-on-Sea Home for Abandoned Cats, he’d have kittens! But that’s not the end of the story.’

Atticus’s spine was tingling. He was dying to find out what was.

The audience was spellbound.

‘One day, ladies and gentlemen,’ Edmund Verry-Clever continued sombrely, ‘Howard Toffly was alone in his bedroom. The chambermaid had gone to fetch him some camomile tea to help him sleep. Suddenly she heard screams!’

Atticus’s fur stood on end. Mimi clutched his paw.

Michael and Callie were white.

Mrs Cheddar looked terrified.

Mrs Tucker was hiding behind a sardine.

Even Inspector Cheddar was hooked.

‘She ran back to the bedroom as fast as she could. But it was too late. Howard Toffly was dead. The paper bag had been ripped from his head and there were claw marks around his neck.’ Edmund Verry-Clever’s voice dropped to a tiny whisper. ‘The curse had come to claim him.’

‘Hhhhuuuuuhhh!’ The audience gasped.

‘The book was never found.’ The Professor put his hands together and bowed his head. ‘Some say
it was destroyed; others that it remains hidden here, at Toffly Hall. But woe betide he or she who finds it. For they too will be cursed if they use it to find the lost city of Nebu-Mau and disturb the tomb of the cat pharaoh.’

He sat down.

There was complete silence for a few seconds then a burst of applause and cheering.

‘Jolly good,’ Inspector Cheddar shouted. ‘Even though it is complete rubbish,’ he added under his breath.

‘Don’t say that!’ Mrs Tucker reached behind and prodded him hard in the ribs with a sardine. She was very superstitious. ‘What if the cat pharaoh’s listening?! You might be cursed like Howard Toffly.’

‘There’s no such thing as the curse of the cat pharaoh!’ Inspector Cheddar chuckled. ‘Honestly, some people are so gullible!’

Professor Verry-Clever waited for the applause to die down. ‘Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We still have a bit of time left. Does anyone have any questions?’

To Atticus’s surprise, Nellie Smellie had stopped knitting. Her hand shot up.

‘Yes, you there: the old lady in the front who looks like a tortoise,’ the Professor said pleasantly.

‘Howard Toffly wasn’t dead when the
chambermaid
found him,’ Nellie Smellie said. ‘He was still alive … just.’

‘How do
you
know?’ Edmund Verry-Clever frowned.

‘Because I was there!’ Nellie Smellie grinned toothlessly. ‘I was the chambermaid who found him.’

The Professor’s jaw dropped.

So did the rest of the audience’s, including Atticus’s. A bit of sardine fell off his whisker on to the floor.

‘
And
I know where the book is.’ Nellie Smellie’s tortoise head nodded up and down.

Edmund Verry-Clever practically swooned. ‘Where?’ he cried. ‘Where?’

‘Before he died, the master told me he’d hidden the book in the crypt he’d built for himself on the island in the lake. Right here in the grounds of the Hall. The book is in a secret place in a secret chamber where no one can find it.’

Suddenly there was a commotion at the back of the room.

Atticus looked round.

It was Lord and Lady Toffly! They had sneaked into the ballroom late to listen to the lecture.

‘That book belongs to us!’ Lady Toffly shrieked, waving a spoon in the air.

‘Quite right, Antonia.’ Lord Toffly’s eyes bulged. ‘It’s mine! I mean ours! And I’m going to get it. Right now. Someone lend me a torch.’

‘Oh no you’re not!’ Mrs Tucker was on her feet. ‘If that book belongs to anyone, it belongs to the Egyptian government. You two aren’t getting your greedy hands on it. Anyway, I say leave well alone. What’s buried is buried.’

‘Hear, hear!’ the audience cried.

‘Meow!’ Atticus thought so too. The idea of creeping about in a crypt looking for a book full of Ancient Egyptian mysteries made his fur crawl.

‘So push off back to the caravan park, you two!’ Mrs Tucker bellowed at the Tofflys. ‘Before Mr Tucker throws his wooden leg at you. And take your spoons with you.’