Atticus Claw On the Misty Moor

by Jennifer Gray

‘That makes two of us, then.’ Thug gave him a pat on the back. ‘And there’s no need to call me sir – Thug will do.’

  ‘I’m not calling you sir, you moron,’ yelled the crow. ‘That’s what you’re supposed to call me!’

  ‘Yes, sir, sorry, sir!’ said Thug.

  ‘And I’m not afraid of heights.’

  ‘I am,’ said Thug.

  ‘I know!’ shouted the Sergeant Major. ‘You just told me! And guess what? I don’t give a flying fart if you are or not.’

  ‘Language!’ said Thug mildly.

  The Sergeant Major grabbed him by the throat. ‘Get up that tree, soldier, or I’ll pull the rest of your tail feathers out one by one and make you eat them.’

  ‘Better do what he says, Thug, me old mate,’ said Slasher.

  The two birds flapped unsteadily up to the top of the tree to join the others.

  ‘Spread out in a line!’ the Sergeant Major ordered.

  The birds got into position. Thug and Slasher slipped and slithered on the lichen, banging into everyone else.

  ‘Watch it!’ yelled the Sergeant Major.

  Eventually they found a space.

  ‘Now hook your rope to the branch.’

  The other birds slung their hooks over the branch.

  ‘I don’t have a hook!’ said Slasher in panic. He examined his claws. ‘Except my foot.’

  ‘Use that then,’ barked the Sergeant Major. ‘Stay on the branch and anchor Birdbrain.’

  ‘Who’s Birdbrain?’ asked Thug, looking round.

  ‘You, you idiot! Now tie the other end of the rope to your ankles.’

  The other birds did as they were instructed.

  Thug allowed Slasher to loop the knicker elastic around his legs and tie it in a knot. ‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t worry, mate.’ Slasher took hold of the other end of the knicker elastic in his wings. ‘I’ve got you. And it’s better than eating your own tail feathers.’

  ‘Jump!’ shouted the Sergeant Major.

  ‘Goodbye, cruel world,’ said Thug. He launched himself off the branch and pitched thirty metres head first into the heather.

  ‘I thought you said you’d got me!’

  Half an hour later, Thug was sitting up in the field hospital with a dirty bandage around his head. He’d been carted off the moor in a stretcher by two para-magpies.

  ‘I told you my Arthur-itis was playing up,’ Slasher apologised. ‘I couldn’t take the weight.’

  ‘Are you saying I’m fat?’ asked Thug.

  ‘Not fat, exactly, just heavy,’ Slasher said tactfully. Thug looked as if he was about to cry. ‘Anyway, listen, I got some news to cheer you up, from Jimmy.’

  ‘What news?’

  Slasher leant towards him. ‘It’s a secret.’

  ‘You not gonna tell me, then?’ asked Thug in a peeved voice.

  ‘I am gonna tell you, but you mustn’t tell anyone else.’

  ‘Okay,’ Thug agreed.

  ‘We’re training for something BIG,’ said Slasher.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I dunno. Jimmy heard it from the Wing Commander – the bird what’s in charge of the brigade. He said it involves treasure.’

  ‘Treasure!’ Thug’s eyes lit up. ‘You mean glittery things?’

  ‘Very glittery things, I believe, me old mate. Very glittery indeed. But no one’s supposed to know except the hofficers cos all the birds in the Crow Brigade are ’orrible crooks and thieves.’

  ‘Like us, you mean?’ said Thug.

  ‘Yeah, like us.’ Slasher chuckled. ‘And if they find out about it they might try to steal it for themselves.’

  ‘Isn’t that what we want to do?’ asked Thug.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Slasher. ‘It is. But we don’t want them to know that.’

  ‘Gotcha!’ said Thug, his eyes full of cunning.

  ‘Jimmy’s gonna find out what it’s all about. Then he’s going to work out a plan. Meanwhile we’ve got to stick it out with Sergeant Major Bigmouth and not tell anyone what we know. Think you can manage that?’

  Thug nodded. Where glittery things were involved even he could keep a secret.

  ‘Good.’ Slasher rose painfully to his feet. ‘Now remember, don’t breathe a word to any-birdy or it’ll be Jimmy who pulls out your tail feathers and makes you eat them.’

  Don and Debs’ cottage lay about two miles outside the village of Biggnaherry, on a single-track road that wound its way across the moor.

  It was getting light as the visitors finally arrived at the cottage.

  ‘Wait here with the cats,’ Debs told the kids. ‘We’ll put Great-Uncle Archie into bed and then get breakfast.’

  That sounded like an excellent idea to Atticus. After breakfast he envisaged a nice lie-down until lunchtime and quite possibly another one after that until teatime.

  As soon as the grown-ups had gone indoors Michael let himself out of the car.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Callie.

  ‘I want to look for that animal I saw at the station,’ Michael replied. ‘I found some binoculars in the car. Come on.’

  Callie followed with Mimi, Bones and Atticus.

  Michael swept the moor with the binoculars.

  ‘You’ll never find it out there,’ Callie said, surveying the landscape.

  The cottage was completely isolated; surrounded by the moor as far as the eye could see.

  Atticus looked keenly at his surroundings. The moor was still bleak and desolate but it did look nicer in the day, a lot nicer in fact. He’d never imagined there could be so many different shades of brown and green, or that the combined effect of all of them could be so colourful. The moor had a rugged beauty that surprised him. Atticus felt suddenly alert. He raised his tail and arched his back, allowing the icy blast to ruffle his fur.

  ‘Are you sure you saw something?’ Callie asked her brother.

  ‘Quite sure,’ said Michael. ‘Atticus saw it too. Didn’t you, Atticus?’

  Atticus meowed. He thought he had, but now in the light of day he began to wonder if the darkness had played tricks on him. He sniffed. The Highland air smelled sharp and clean. It made the insides of his nostrils tingle. He lifted his head and took another breath. The wind rippled his ears and whiskers.

  ‘Look at Atticus,’ Callie said in delight. ‘He seems really at home here!’

  ‘It’s the Highland Tiger in him,’ Don’s voice said. ‘I think he must be related to our Scottish wildcats somewhere along the line.’ He crossed the road and stood beside them.

  Atticus couldn’t help feeling a teeny bit flattered. A tiger! Him! He wished someone could draw his family tree so that he could find out if what Don said was true. He took a few steps out on to the moor between some scrubby bushes. The grass felt springy between the pads of his paws.

  ‘Come on,’ he meowed to Bones and Mimi. ‘Let’s go and explore.’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Bones.

  ‘Do you think we should?’ asked Mimi.

  Atticus felt a bit annoyed that they didn’t want to join him. They weren’t being very adventurous! He took a few more steps.

  ‘See how well camouflaged he is?’ Don observed.

  ‘I can hardly see him!’ said Callie.

  ‘Don’t let him go too far,’ Don warned the children. ‘The moor’s a dangerous place, especially in winter. You need to watch out for the birds of prey. And it’s easy to get lost.’

  Atticus hesitated. Of course he didn’t want to get lost; or be attacked by a bird of prey; or the creature they had seen at the station, if it really did exist. But a part of him still wanted to explore the moor. It was so wild and beautiful. He almost wished he was a Highland Tiger.

  ‘What’s that place over there?’ Callie asked. She pointed to a dark building on the horizon.

  ‘That’s Biggnaherry Castle,’ said Don. ‘All this land belongs to it. Debs and I work for the owner.’

  ‘Doing what?’ asked Michael.
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br />   ‘Looking after the place, mostly,’ said Don. ‘I do the cooking. Debs mends the roof. In the summer we teach people how to fish on the loch. In the winter it can be a bit gloomy because it gets dark so early; that’s why the owner always holds a big party at Hogmanay and invites everyone from the village. It’s a Biggnaherry tradition.

  Another one! thought Atticus.

  ‘Is that the party we’re going to?’ asked Michael.

  Don nodded. ‘If you behave yourselves!’

  ‘I’d love to own a castle,’ Callie sighed.

  ‘Who does own it?’ Michael wanted to know.

  ‘Lady Jemima Dumpling,’ said Don.

  ‘No way!’ Michael exclaimed.

  Don looked at him questioningly.

  ‘Dad’s middle name is Dumpling!’ Michael said. ‘And his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother was called Jemima.’ He told Don about the family tree. ‘Do you think Dad and Lady Jemima might be related?’

  ‘I hope for his sake he isn’t,’ said Don.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Callie.

  There was silence for a moment. The children looked at Don expectantly.

  ‘It’s all to do with the Cat Sith,’ Don said finally.

  The Cat Sith! Atticus glanced at Mimi and Bones.

  ‘Come on,’ said Don. He strode back to the cottage. ‘I’ll tell you over breakfast.’

  Everyone sat round the big oak table in the kitchen at the cottage, except Atticus, Bones and Mimi, who sat round the fire. Great-Uncle Archie had been put safely to bed with his hot-water bottle.

  A mouth-watering smell came from the table. Debs and Mr Tucker had prepared smokies for breakfast. ‘They’re a bit like kippers,’ Debs said, ‘only more fishy. Don catches them in the loch and smokes them himself.’

  ‘I’s might try one in me pipe,’ said Mr Tucker. He got his pipe out of his trousers and started stuffing fish into it.

  ‘Not that kind of smokes, Herman,’ said Mrs Tucker impatiently. ‘Don means smoking them to eat.’

  Mr Tucker paid no attention. Debs put down three plates of food for the cats. Atticus tucked in greedily, licking the salty butter off his nose. Smokies were delicious. They were almost as yummy as sardines.

  ‘You’ll never guess what, Dad,’ Callie said. ‘Biggnaherry Castle is owned by someone called Lady Jemima Dumpling.’

  ‘Lady Jemima DUMPLING!’ Inspector Cheddar nearly swooned. ‘We must be related! Lord Ian Larry Barry Dumpling Cheddar.’ He rolled the name around his tongue. ‘That’s well posh.’

  ‘Don’t get too excited, Dad,’ Michael said. ‘Just because your middle name’s Dumpling it doesn’t make you a lord. And Don says it’s not a good thing to be a Dumpling, anyway.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ asked Mrs Cheddar.

  ‘Because of the Dumpling family curse,’ said Don.

  The Dumpling family curse! Atticus stopped slurping butter and drew closer to the table.

  ‘It’s to do with the Cat Sith,’ said Michael.

  ‘The Cat Sith? You mean that thing Great-Uncle Archie was going on about at the station?’ asked Inspector Cheddar, astonished.

  Don nodded.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Cheddar in a worried voice. ‘Maybe we should go home before anything goes wrong.’

  Atticus knew what she meant. Inspector Cheddar did have a bad habit of getting cursed every now and then. It was usually Atticus who had to save him.

  ‘No way,’ said Inspector Cheddar stubbornly. ‘Us Dumplings stick together. And there’s no such thing as the Cat Sith. Debs said so.’

  Everyone looked at Debs.

  ‘Well,’ said Debs, ‘I’ve never seen it personally, but plenty of people at Biggnaherry say they have, especially since the winter began. No one wants to go anywhere near the castle at the moment unless they have to.’ She sighed. ‘There’s even talk in the village of cancelling the Hogmanay party, I’m afraid. Most of the volunteers have dropped out.’

  ‘We can’t let that happen!’ said Mrs Tucker, seeing the kids’ disappointed faces. ‘Maybe I can help instead?’ Mrs Cheddar was very good at organising things – it was part of her job.

  ‘We’ll ask her ladyship this afternoon,’ agreed Debs. ‘But I know she’s very worried. It was she who suggested we cancel the party – just to be on the safe side.’

  Inspector Cheddar puffed out his chest importantly. ‘I don’t mind offering Lady Jemima round-the-clock police protection just in case. Luckily for her I packed my police uniform.’ He practised a few karate chops. ‘Tell her not to worry. Nothing will get past me!’

  Atticus rolled his eyes at Mimi. He’d heard that before!

  ‘You’d better tell us about this curse, Don,’ Mrs Tucker said, casting a sideways look at Inspector Cheddar.

  Atticus glanced at her. Mrs Tucker’s face wore her secret-agent expression. It was the kind of determined look that told you something important might happen and if it did you had to be ready for it. All three cats recognised it at once. They pricked up their ears.

  ‘It all began,’ said Don, ‘in Roman times.’

  Roman times? Atticus was surprised. Surely even Great-Uncle Archie wasn’t that old.

  ‘At that time the country of Scotland was called Caledonia,’ Don said. ‘It was a wild place, inhabited by fierce warriors called the Picts. They lived in clans deep on the moors and in the forests.’ He paused. ‘Their symbol was the Highland Tiger.’

  Atticus felt a jolt of excitement. Mimi’s paw crept into his. She liked stories too.

  ‘Highland Tigers are ferocious creatures,’ said Don. ‘No one has ever tamed one. That’s why the Picts adopted them as their mascot, to them the Highland Tiger represented freedom.’

  Atticus felt a grudging respect for his ancestors. Being tame and belonging to someone else was all very well but it was true that the price of it was the freedom to do what you wanted.

  ‘The rest of Britain was quickly conquered by the Romans,’ continued Don, ‘but not Caledonia. The Picts caused them such problems that the Romans built a wall to keep them at bay.’

  ‘Hadrian’s Wall!’ Michael exclaimed. ‘We’ve learned about that at school.’

  Don nodded. ‘But the Romans didn’t give up on conquering Caledonia. They sent a legion of soldiers into the Highlands to defeat the Picts once and for all.’ He paused. ‘None of them ever returned.’

  ‘What happened to them?’ asked Mrs Cheddar.

  ‘No one knows for sure,’ said Don. ‘Some say they perished in the cold winter, others that they were killed by the Picts.’ He paused. ‘But here at Biggnaherry, the local people believe it was the work of the Cat Sith.’

  Inspector Cheddar snorted.

  ‘Shhhh,’ Mrs Tucker scolded him. ‘Listen.’

  Don resumed his story. ‘The leader of the Picts at that time was a man called Domplagan – that’s the Gaelic origin of the name Dumpling. Domplagan was the founder of the Dumpling clan.’

  ‘Wait! I need to make a note of this!’ Inspector Cheddar got out his notebook and started scribbling. Don waited patiently until he caught up.

  ‘When he heard of the Roman invasion, Domplagan summoned the wildcats for a council of war.’

  ‘Cats can’t talk to humans!’ Inspector Cheddar scoffed.

  ‘Yes, they can, Dad,’ said Callie. ‘We just don’t understand them, that’s all.’

  Atticus purred. Children were clever, like cats.

  Don smiled. ‘Callie’s right. We humans have lost the gift of listening to other creatures, but in those days the Picts and the animals did understand one another.

  ‘Domplagan asked for help from the wildcats. He explained that if the Romans were successful, it wasn’t just the humans who would suffer. The Romans would build roads and settlements; they would destroy the wildcats’ habitat on the moor and hunt them down for their skins.’

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sp; Atticus’s ears drooped. Why couldn’t humans just leave animals alone?

  ‘The wildcats distrusted the Picts, but eventually they agreed to help. They said they knew of one creature that could defeat the Roman soldiers …’

  ‘The Cat Sith,’ Michael guessed.

  ‘Yes, the Cat Sith.’

  ‘But what is it?’ asked Mrs Cheddar.

  ‘It’s a cat of such stealth that you don’t see it until it’s too late,’ said Don. ‘Of such strength that it can pull off your head with one twist of its jaws, and of such hunger that it can devour an entire Roman legion in one night.’

  That was a hungry cat, thought Atticus. He could only manage the contents of two foil sachets of cat food at one sitting and that was one more than Bones and Mimi.

  ‘Domplagan withdrew his men to their fortress on the moor at Biggnaherry – where the castle now stands,’ continued Don. ‘They heard the tramping of the Roman soldiers as they set up camp on the moor and the clash of steel as they sharpened their swords in readiness for an attack on the fortress at first light.’

  Atticus’s fur was standing on end. Don’s story was electrifying! He gripped Mimi’s paw.

  ‘When darkness fell the wildcats summoned the Cat Sith. It stole through the camp in the dead of night and devoured the Roman soldiers as they slept. The ones who tried to swim to safety across the loch were drowned by the weight of their armour; the ones who sought refuge on the moor had their bones picked clean by eagles and wolves.’

  Atticus was beginning to change his mind about being a wildcat. It sounded pretty rough out there on the moor. He wasn’t sure he’d take to it.

  ‘The next morning the Picts let themselves out of the fortress and made their way to what remained of the Roman camp. They found all the Roman soldiers dead. Apart from that there was no trace of the Cat Sith.’ Don paused. ‘They also found a trove of gold and a standard in the shape of a great golden eagle.’ He took a gulp of tea. ‘And that’s when the trouble started.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Michael. ‘What happened?’