Atticus Claw Learns to Draw

by Jennifer Gray

  The cart jolted to a halt.

  Atticus was about to hop out when he heard Mrs Tucker hiss, ‘Keep down, everyone!’

  He lowered his head smartly.

  ‘My guess is we’re on CCTV,’ Mrs Tucker whispered. ‘We’ll lie low for a few minutes and let them think we’ve been pickled. Then we’ll go and find your dad.’

  Atticus hunkered down with Callie and Michael and waited.

  ‘Where’d they go?’ Thug said.

  In the mortuary the three magpies were watching the TV monitor. They couldn’t see everything that happened on the ride, only the bit where the intruders stepped on and off the gherkin cart. They had seen the humans and the cats step on. But they didn’t step off.

  ‘They’re dead.’ Ginger Biscuit switched off the monitor. ‘Vroom, squish-squash, chomp! Just like we planned, only a bit ahead of schedule and with a giant set of teeth instead of a car.’

  ‘But I never got to make a nest-snuggler,’ Thug protested.

  ‘Cheer up, Thug,’ Slasher said. ‘Just think: you can buy a nest snuggler with all the shiny things we’ll nick when we get back to Littleton-on-Sea now that Claw’s not around to stop us; or Inspector Cheese, for that matter. Now let’s get this over with so we can get out of here.’

  Squeak … squeak … squeak … squeak!

  Just then the door to the mortuary opened. Zenia Klob appeared, pushing a hospital wheelie trolley covered in a white sheet. She was wearing her surgeon’s disguise – a green scrub suit, a surgical mask and a pair of rubber boots. Ricardo Butteredsconi followed her in with Pork. Butteredsconi was dressed in the same fashion as Zenia, except that his scrub suit was made of the finest Italian silk.

  Pork took a seat beside the drainage bucket, where he could get a good view. Pam fluttered down on to his ear and nibbled it affectionately. ‘I love a good pickling!’ she said. ‘Don’t you?’

  Pork grunted.

  The magpies fluttered on to a shelf and turned away.

  ‘I can’t watch,’ Thug said.

  ‘Me neither,’ Slasher echoed.

  ‘For once I actually agree with you,’ Jimmy said.

  ‘I can,’ Ginger Biscuit sat beneath them on a bench. ‘I just don’t think I will, that’s all.’ He lay down and closed his eyes.

  ‘CHICKENS!’ Pam squawked in disgust. ‘PUCK-PUCK-PUCK-PUCK-PUCK!’

  Ginger Biscuit growled. ‘I’ll get her later,’ he muttered.

  Zenia pulled back the sheet.

  Inspector Cheddar lay upon the trolley, snoring peacefully.

  ‘Finally my dream has come true, Pork,’ Ricardo Butteredsconi whispered. ‘It is time to for us to create the greatest work of art the world has ever seen: a pickled human.’ He pulled on a pair of white surgical gloves. ‘Shall we?’ he said to Zenia.

  ‘Yes, let’s!’’ she giggled.

  The two of them picked up the Inspector and transferred him to the shining mortuary table.

  ‘All right, let’s go,’ Mrs Tucker said.

  The rescuers let themselves out of their hiding place in the gherkin cart. They tiptoed across the arrival platform, keeping low in case a surveillance camera picked them up.

  ‘This way!’ Mrs Tucker hopped on to the travelator. The others followed.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Atticus asked Mimi.

  She managed a weak purr. ‘I’m fine. I just hope we don’t have to do that on the way back!’

  ‘Don’t worry, the ride’s only one way,’ Atticus reassured her.

  The travelator arrived into a great hall. Atticus looked about. There were no windows and the air was cold. They must be beneath the sea.

  The hall was stuffed with priceless stolen works of art. Paintings covered every inch of the walls. The floor was scattered with sculpture, including The Camp Bed. The bed was just as Atticus remembered it before Inspector Cheddar got into it – with the carelessly folded pyjamas and the half-drunk cup of tea. But there was no sign of the Inspector; the villains had taken him somewhere else.

  ‘That’s the missing Pollock,’ Mrs Cheddar said, pointing to a huge painting. Atticus glanced at it – the canvas was a magical splurge of colour splashed with thick splots and drizzles of paint. ‘And that’s the Mona Lisa. And there’s Atticus’s painting of Littleton-on-Sea.’

  The beach scene was sandwiched between the others. It was okay, Atticus thought, pausing to take a quick look, but he still had a lot to learn, especially from Pollock.

  ‘Atticus!’ Mrs Tucker hissed. ‘Stop gawping at the paintings and hurry up!’

  They dashed through into the next room. It was even bigger than the last.

  ‘That’s gross,’ Callie said.

  Table upon table was crowded with jars, pots, bottles, and clear plastic tubs. Around the room, shelves were piled high with vases and beakers and jugs. Strewn across the floor, assorted glass tanks of all different shapes and sizes jostled for space.

  All of them contained animals.

  ‘Butteredsconi’s pickled art collection,’ Michael whispered.

  Atticus regarded it with horror. There were (as you have probably already guessed) bats, rats, gnats, lizards, monkeys, mice, lice, spiders, snakes, drakes, goats, stoats, moles, voles, scorpions, millipedes, zillipedes, trillipedes, hogs, frogs, loads of toads, quails, snails, baby whales, sows, cows, bugs, pugs, slugs, weevils, beavers, chicks, ticks, foxes, oxes, germs, worms, bees, fleas and manatees … and, of course, sharks, including the megalodon, which stretched from one end of the room to the other in an enormous glass tank. The animals stared blindly back at Atticus like the faces from his dream.

  ‘Come on,’ Mrs Tucker said urgently.

  They picked their way across the crowded floor.

  The next room was different. You couldn’t really call it a room, Atticus decided. It was a viewing gallery. A steel platform ran around the edge of a glass tank. He scampered on to the platform and peered through the glass. The tank was full of a clear liquid with a bluish tinge. It stank of chemicals. Apart from that it was empty.

  ‘What’s that for?’ Michael asked.

  Atticus glanced at Mrs Cheddar. Her face was white. She knew.

  ‘It’s for Dad,’ said a small voice. It was Callie’s. ‘Isn’t it, Mum? That’s why they’ve kept him prisoner. They’re going to pickle him and put him in Mr Butteredsconi’s art collection.’

  Mrs Cheddar nodded dumbly.

  ‘I’d like to see them try!’ Mrs Tucker fumed. ‘We’ll stop them, won’t we, Atticus?’

  Atticus meowed his agreement. He would do anything – ANYTHING – to save Inspector Cheddar and help his family.

  ‘We need to find out where Butteredsconi’s pickling laboratory is,’ Mrs Tucker said.

  Atticus looked carefully round the room. If you wanted to catch a villain you had to think like one. Butteredsconi and the gang planned to put Inspector Cheddar in the tank once they’d pickled him, which meant there had to be a way to get to the tank from the pickling laboratory. Atticus soon saw what he was looking for. Opposite them, on the other side of the steel platform, was a lift. He scampered across it, meowing, his claws clattering on the metal.

  ‘Good work, Atticus,’ Mrs Tucker and the others hurried over.

  ‘The pickling laboratory’s in the basement!’ Mrs Cheddar cried. She pressed the button.

  The lift descended. The doors opened. The rescuers peeped out cautiously. They must be well below sea level now, Atticus thought, in a part of the fort that Butteredsconi hadn’t renovated since the mad doctor lived there. The walls were lined with chipped green tiles. Single light bulbs dangled at intervals from the ceiling. The floor was damp and uneven.

  Atticus sniffed. He could smell magpie. He flattened his ears and hissed.

  ‘Follow Atticus,’ Mrs Tucker ordered. ‘He’s on to something.’

  Atticus padded cautiously along the musty corridor. They passed a door marked ELECTRICITY: KEEP OUT and another with a sign over it which said DISPENSARY.

  ‘Wha
t’s a dis-pen-sar-y?’ Callie whispered, sounding the word out carefully.

  ‘It’s where you make medicines,’ Mrs Tucker told her.

  ‘We’d better go and have a look,’ Mrs Cheddar said. ‘There might be something in there that can help us.’

  ‘Okay.’ Callie and Michael squeezed their way into the little room with their mum. Atticus heard the ting of bottles.

  He padded on along the corridor with Mimi; Mrs Tucker removed her boots and tiptoed behind them.

  Atticus pricked up his ears. He could hear voices coming from a room to his right. Bright light shone from it into the corridor. The door was wedged open by a rubber doorstop. Above the doorframe the word MORTUARY had been crossed out and replaced by the words PICKLING LABORATORY.

  Mrs Tucker knelt down. She took out a periscope from her basket and poked it round the door. ‘Oh my giddy aunt,’ she said.

  The two cats took turns to look through it.

  Inspector Cheddar lay on a gleaming metal slab. To one side of him was a large basin. To the other was a copper cylinder labelled FORMALDEHYDE. Behind the mortuary slab Zenia Klob was in the process of selecting a hypodermic needle from a tray placed upon the bench. Ricardo Butteredsconi was fiddling with the tubes from the cylinder.

  Pam and Pork had ringside seats close by. Pam was on Pork’s head. The two of them were watching Zenia closely.

  Atticus held his breath: they were only a few metres away from Pork, but Pork was so engrossed in the gruesome spectacle before him that he hadn’t noticed the new smell of cat. Or perhaps it was because everything in the mortuary stank of chemicals.

  Zenia held up a needle to the light. ‘Vot about this vun?’

  Butteredsconi looked up. ‘Too small!’ he said.

  Zenia turned back the instrument tray.

  ‘This one?’

  ‘Too big.’ He gestured at the tank. ‘It needs to be just right so that we can pump it into his bloodstream nice and slowly.’

  Atticus felt his hackles rise.

  ‘They’re going to replace Inspector Cheddar’s blood with formaldehyde!’ Mrs Tucker whispered. ‘We need to think of something. Fast!’

  Atticus felt a hand on his head. He jumped.

  ‘It’s all right, Atticus, it’s just us,’ Callie said soothingly.

  Callie, Michael and Mrs Cheddar squatted down beside Mrs Tucker.

  ‘We found these,’ Michael said. He placed a dusty glass bottle of Vita-Vit liquid vitamins and a faded cardboard carton of Sleepy-Snooze smelling salts on the floor.

  ‘I’m not sure they’re much help,’ Mrs Cheddar said anxiously, ‘although some vitamins might do him good.’

  Atticus wasn’t sure either. Inspector Cheddar certainly didn’t need anything else to make him sleep. And a squirt of Vita-Vit probably wouldn’t be enough to bring him round, even if they could think of a way of getting it into him!

  Think! he told himself. Think!

  Just then the electric lights flickered. BOOM! The sound of thunder rumbled in the distance. The storm had struck.

  Inspector Cheddar stirred slightly in his sleep. He gave a little moan. ‘Ooaaaa … Ooooaaaaaaa …’

  The sound of chattering erupted from somewhere at the back of the mortuary. ‘Chaka-chaka-chaka-chaka-chaka …’

  The magpies! Atticus peeped through the periscope. His eyes swept the room. There! He pinpointed the three birds, huddled together on a shelf. Ginger Biscuit sat beneath them on the bench. He made an angry swipe at the magpies. They were teasing him about something. Atticus strained his ears to listen.

  ‘It’s like one of them horror films,’ Thug chattered.

  ‘Yeah,’ Slasher agreed. ‘It’s the same as what happened to that Dr Frankenstein bloke. I’ll bet when Butteredsconi pumps him full of pickle juice he turns nasty and starts mangling us.’

  ‘Shut up.’ Ginger Biscuit took another swipe.

  ‘He’ll pull all your whiskers out in a minute,’ Thug predicted. ‘Just you wait.’

  ‘Grrrrrrr …’

  Atticus felt a shiver of excitement. He’d had the beginnings of an idea. If Ginger Biscuit was afraid of Inspector Cheddar, then the other villains might be too.

  From outside there was another clap of thunder. The electric lights flickered again.

  Inspector Cheddar gave a snort. ‘Mwhhhhhhooo,’ he groaned.

  Zenia paused in her needle selection. She looked round, frowning.

  Atticus’s eyes gleamed. Zenia didn’t like it either. The idea was taking shape in his mind.

  ‘Should I give him another shot of sleeping potion?’ she said to Butteredsconi.

  Ricardo Butteredsconi nodded.

  Zenia reached under her surgical hat for a hairpin. ‘Curses,’ she swore, ‘I left them upstairs. I’ll go and get them.’

  ‘No!’ Ricardo Butteredsconi’s voice rang round the mortuary. ‘We do not have time for that. We will complete the pickling now.’

  Zenia gave him a sharp look. ‘Very vell, Ricardo,’ she said. ‘If you insist.’ She turned back to the instruments.

  ‘That’s it then,’ Thug remarked dolefully. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if Inspector Cheese rips our heads off with his bare hands.’

  ‘Not our heads, Thug,’ Slasher objected. ‘I mean, it wasn’t our idea to pickle him. Zenia’s head, more like. And Butteredsconi’s, obviously …’

  ‘And Pork’s,’ Thug said.

  ‘And Pam’s,’ Jimmy put in.

  ‘And Biscuit’s,’ Slasher suggested.

  ‘Why mine?’ Ginger Biscuit snarled. ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Yeah you did!’ Thug said. ‘You helped steal him from the art gallery.’

  ‘So did you!’

  ‘He didn’t see us, though,’ Thug retorted. ‘Just you and Zenia.’

  Ginger Biscuit growled.

  Atticus knew now what they had to do. The Vita-Vit might just work, especially if they gave Inspector Cheddar a huge squirt. For once he felt grateful to the magpies. It was they who had planted the idea in his mind. If only he could explain it to the humans! For the second time that week Atticus wished that humans were as good at understanding Cat as cats were at understanding Human. Oh well, he thought, I’ll just have to try.

  Zenia made her final selection. ‘This vun looks good.’ She inserted the needle into a syringe and approached the slab. Her gnarly fingers reached for Inspector Cheddar’s neck.

  BOOM! The thunder struck again, closer this time. The lights flickered for a few seconds.

  Inspector Cheddar started to gurgle in between snores. It was a horrible noise, somewhere between a slurp and a slobber. ‘Get off me!’ he said, twisting his neck so that his chin got in the way of Zenia’s probing fingers. He batted at the syringe with a floppy arm. It clattered to the floor and rolled under the mortuary table.

  ‘Curses.’ Zenia bent down to look for it. ‘He’s vaking up!’

  Atticus saw his chance. He nudged the bottle of Thumpers’ Vita-Vit towards the children with his paw.

  ‘You want to give some to Dad?’ Callie guessed.

  ‘But what good will it do?’ asked Mrs Cheddar.

  Atticus staggered about stiffly, pulling a horrible face. Then he put his tail between his legs and ran off down the corridor, pretending to be Ginger Biscuit.

  ‘I get it now. It’s to scare the villains off, isn’t it?!’ Michael’s face glowed with excitement. ‘Like Frankenstein! If Dad wakes up a bit they’ll think he’s turning into a monster and run away?’

  Atticus brushed his tail against the children and purred throatily to show them they were right.

  ‘That’s brilliant!’ Mrs Tucker said, giving him a cat treat from her pocket.

  ‘Here, you’ll need one of these.’ She reached into her basket. ‘Mind you don’t prick yourself.’ She handed a syringe to Michael. It had a sharp needle on the end.

  ‘Let me guess.’ He grinned, pulling open the cellophane wrapping carefully. ‘Standard MI6 kit?’

  �
�Of course,’ Mrs Tucker said. ‘All Atticus needs to do is switch the syringes.’ She got up. ‘I’ll go and turn off the electricity; that will really freak the freaks out. And it will give Atticus some cover.’ She tiptoed back towards the cupboard.

  Callie took the glass stopper from the bottle of Vita-Vit. Michael held the bottle while Mrs Cheddar drew a large measure of the vitamin liquid into the syringe.

  Atticus looked on. ‘Will you help me?’ he asked Mimi.

  ‘Yes.’ Mimi nodded.

  The lights went out.

  ‘Vot’s going on?’ Zenia’s voice cried from the mortuary.

  ‘Whooaaaaaa!’ Inspector Cheddar was moaning again.

  ‘Get on with it!’ Butteredsconi shouted.

  ‘Chaka-chaka-chaka-chaka-chaka!’ the magpies chattered in alarm.

  ‘Here it is!’ Mrs Cheddar held out the syringe to Atticus.

  Atticus took it carefully in his mouth.

  ‘Follow me,’ he said to Mimi, only it came out more as, ‘Foom’, because he had a syringe full of Thumpers’ Vita-Vit between his teeth.

  The two cats crept round the door into the mortuary.

  Zenia Klob was groping about on the floor, feeling for the dropped syringe. ‘It’s here somevere!’ Zenia shrieked. ‘Ah, here ve are!’

  ‘Oh no ve’re not!’ Mimi dashed over and swept the syringe out of the way with her paw.

  Atticus bounded after Mimi. He placed the syringe with Vita-Vit as close as he dared to Zenia’s grasping hand.

  The two cats retreated to the door.

  ‘Found it!’ Zenia gripped it triumphantly. She got to her feet.

  ‘You get the tube, Ricardo,’ she said, ‘vile I stick this in his neck. Then ve can start the pump.’

  Ricardo Butteredsconi grasped the tube.

  CTSSSHHHHH …

  Zenia raised the syringe full of Vita-Vit and plunged it into Inspector Cheddar’s jugular.