As you probably guessed from the picture, Atticus closely resembles me! I mean me, Henry the cat, not me, Jennifer Gray, the author. I’m thrilled to have so many fans and wanted to let you know that my, I mean, Atticus’s new adventure is even funnier and more exciting than the last one. Thanks Jennifer for turning me into an action-cat hero! And thanks, you guys, for reading.
Henry (and Jennifer)
To Henry – the world’s greatest cat
Contents
Title Page
Note by the Author
Dedication
Part One: Littleton-on-Sea
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Part Two: Nicaragua
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
About the Author
By the same Author
Copyright
Part One
Littleton-on-Sea
Atticus Grammaticus Cattypuss Claw, once the world’s best cat burglar and now its greatest cat detective was on police-catting duty with the kittens at the Littleton-on-Sea Home for Abandoned Cats. They were turning out the attic. It wasn’t the most exciting police-catting job Atticus had ever had. In fact, it was probably the most boring one, except for litter picking at the beach. But Atticus had learnt from experience that even the dullest of activities could turn into an adventure, so he went about it with gusto. Besides, he was there to set a good example to the kittens and help them stay out of mischief.
‘Come on, everyone, put your paws into it,’ he meowed. ‘We’ve nearly finished.’
The kittens were covered with dust. Some of them had cobwebs on their whiskers. The Littleton-on-Sea Home for Abandoned Cats was run by a very old lady called Nellie Smellie. It was actually just her home, full of stray cats, and it was a very long time since anyone had tidied the attic. The place was crammed with junk, which was a good thing really as the whole point of tidying it up was to find stuff to sell at the Bigsworth car boot sale later that afternoon, and raise money for the abandoned cats to go on holiday.
Atticus and the kittens had had a successful morning. They had unearthed boxes of books, various lamps, some odd pieces of cutlery, an ancient record player, a plastic loo seat (still in its packaging), several pairs of curtains and a doll’s pram, all of which they could sell. They had also discovered a great quantity of wool, together with an even greater quantity of knitting needles and a large number of pattern books, all of which they couldn’t.
The reason for this was that Nellie Smellie liked knitting almost as much as she liked cats. She could knit anything from egg cosies to trouser suits. She could knit gloves, hats, scarves, shawls, knickers, slippers, onesies and tights. She could knit blankets, burkas, baby clothes, leg warmers, ear warmers, nose warmers, jumpers, false beards, false teeth, bicycle-seat covers and lampshades. She could knit balls, budgies, teddy bears, cuddly rabbits, Christmas tree decorations and rag dolls. You name it, Nellie Smellie could knit it. She had even taught some of her abandoned lady cats to knit.
(Atticus had tried it once as part of his police-catting duties but he couldn’t get the hang of it. He kept dropping stitches, with the result that the patchwork square he was supposed to be making was more hole than knitting. Nellie Smellie tactfully called it crochet, which is basically knitting with holes.)
‘Anything else to come down?’ Callie Cheddar poked her head through the trapdoor to the attic.
Callie was Atticus’s owner, along with her brother, Michael. They lived with their mum and dad at number 2 Blossom Crescent, Littleton-on-Sea, not far from Nellie Smellie’s house. Most of the time Atticus enjoyed living with the Cheddar family. Callie, Michael and Mrs Cheddar gave him lots of attention and treats, and made room for him on the sofa when he wanted to lie down (which was most of the time, when he wasn’t having adventures or police-catting). Inspector Cheddar still had a lot to learn though. He couldn’t seem to grasp the fact that Atticus was the boss and kept trying to tell him what to do.
Atticus took a final tour around the rafters. His eye was drawn to a shaft of light that came through the attic window. It illuminated a small wooden chest double the size of a shoebox, which had previously been concealed under the eaves. Atticus padded over and gave the chest a push. It felt heavy; not as heavy as the boxes of books, but too heavy for even a large tabby cat like Atticus to shift on his own.
‘I’ll help.’ One of the kittens joined him. It was Thomas. Atticus knew he shouldn’t have favourites, but since he’d started working with the kittens he’d come to like Thomas a lot. Thomas was a tabby, like Atticus, and though he didn’t have four white paws and a red handkerchief with his name embroidered on it tied around his neck, or a chewed ear for that matter, even so Thomas reminded Atticus of himself when he was younger. The two of them were both orphans and they both enjoyed getting into mischief. Luckily for Thomas, he hadn’t been brought up to become a cat burglar like Atticus had.
‘Thanks, Thomas,’ he said. ‘You push, I’ll pull.’ Between them the two cats heaved the chest along the rafters towards the trapdoor.
Callie reached up and took it from them. She handed it down to Michael, who was holding the ladder.
‘This looks interesting,’ he said, wiping away the worst of the dust with his sleeve. ‘I wonder what’s in it.’
Several furry faces peered down from the attic, including one belonging to Atticus. The chest was covered with carvings of animals. Atticus could make out a cat and a bird, a crocodile and some fish. It looked as if it could be even older than Nellie Smellie.
It was while he was peering down at the chest that Atticus started to get a funny tingly feeling in his tail. Gradually it spread all the way through his fur, along his body to the tips of his ears. He’d had that feeling before. His best friend Mimi, the pretty Burmese, called it instinct. It was a sort of sixth sense cats had along with the other five normal ones. It warned him when danger was close.
‘Maybe we could sell it at the car boot sale,’ said Callie.
No! thought Atticus. Put it back!
‘Let’s have a look inside,’ said Michael.
No! thought Atticus. Don’t open it!
Michael lifted the lid.
Atticus started. A horrible skull-like face stared back at him. It seemed neither human nor animal. The face was shaped like a man’s and was fringed all around with feathers. The eye sockets were empty and in place of a nose it had a long, curved beak.
Some of the kittens began to whimper. They all hid behind Atticus, apart from Thomas, who was so engrossed in the grizzly spectacle that he nearly fell out of the attic. Atticus caught him by the tail just in time.
‘It’s a mask,’ Michael said. ‘There’s another one underneath it.’ He picked up the feathered face carefully.
The second mask was even more horrible than the first. It was the distorted face of a great, snarling, black-spotted cat.
‘What is it?’ asked Callie. ‘Or rather, what was it?’
‘A leopard, I think,’ Michael said. ‘Or a jaguar.’
Atticus’s good ear drooped. He’d seen pictures of leopards and jaguars on the TV. They were beautiful animals: like him really, except they were much bigger and had spots instead of stripes. And they lived in the jungle, not in Littleton-on-Sea, and ate other animals, not cat food. He wondered what sort of a
human would want to wear a dead cat on their face.
‘Is there anything else?’ Callie asked her brother.
Michael removed the masks carefully. ‘There’s a journal,’ he said.
Atticus risked another look. At the bottom of the chest was an old exercise book with lots of loose pages stuffed inside. The yellowing contents were bound together with frayed string. Written across the front in bold handwriting were the words:
In Search of the
Lost Treasure of the Jaguar Gods
By Howard Toffly
1897
‘Howard Toffly!’ Callie whispered. She looked up. ‘Oh, Atticus, you are clever!’
Atticus’s earlier sense of foreboding was replaced by a feeling of excitement. Howard Toffly was a famous explorer who had once lived in Littleton-on-Sea. The chest must be important if it had belonged to him, even if its contents were rather mysterious.
Atticus purred loudly. He didn’t mind that.
In fact Atticus loved a good mystery, especially when he was in the middle of it!
Atticus and the children hurried outside with the kittens to show the others. Mrs Cheddar was sorting through the junk in the front garden, while Inspector Cheddar went round with a measuring tape to see if it would fit into the car boot. Inspector Cheddar called it ‘taking charge’, Atticus called it ‘being lazy’ – the Inspector always seemed to find some way of getting out of the hard work.
Just then a motorbike roared up outside the house. It was Atticus’s old friend, Mrs Tucker.
‘I thought I’d come and give you a hand,’ Mrs Tucker said, stepping off the bike and removing her helmet. Mrs Tucker was the children’s childminder. She had once been a secret agent, code named Whelk.
‘Where’s Mr Tucker?’ asked Callie.
‘He’s out fishing with Bones.’
Mr Tucker was a fisherman. He had a wooden leg and was the proud owner of the world’s bushiest beard-jumper, which was a sort of beard and jumper mixed up in one big hairy tangle. Bones was his ship’s cat.
Atticus purred a greeting. He was very fond of the Tuckers, and they were very fond of him. Before his arrival in Littleton-on-Sea they had lived in a tiny cottage by the sea. Thanks to Atticus they had discovered they were rich and now they lived in the same stately home Howard Toffly had once lived in – Toffly Hall. Being rich hadn’t changed them though. Mrs Tucker still helped out with the children and gave Atticus sardines from her basket. And Mr Tucker still allowed Atticus to pick bits of food out of his beard-jumper when Mrs Tucker wasn’t looking. Unlike Inspector Cheddar, they both understood cats.
‘What have you got there?’ Mrs Tucker took the chest from Michael. Atticus was interested to see that she was wearing a new tank top with the words ‘Never Fear, Edna’s Here’ emblazoned across the front. Nellie Smellie must have knitted it for her, he supposed.
‘We’re not sure.’ Callie opened the lid to let her see. ‘Atticus found it in the attic.’
Mrs Tucker took out the masks one at a time, then the journal. ‘In Search of the Lost Treasure of the Jaguar Gods.’ She read the title out loud and whistled. ‘I wonder how this lot got into Nellie’s attic?’ she said, puzzled.
‘There’s Nellie,’ Michael said. ‘Let’s ask her.’
Nellie Smellie hobbled towards them carrying a tea tray laden with cups, saucers, a teapot and an old biscuit tin.
Atticus regarded her curiously with his big green eyes. She was dressed in a long black skirt, mildewed white blouse and green cardigan with holes in the elbows. A knitted purple shawl hung around her scrawny shoulders, and her long white hair was pinned up in a scraggy bun. Atticus wondered how old she actually was. Probably about five hundred in cat years, he decided. It struck him for the first time that if she wasn’t just a batty old cat lady who liked knitting, anyone might have thought she was a witch!
‘Atticus found these in the attic.’ Michael held up the masks to show Nellie. ‘They belonged to Howard Toffly.’
‘They were with this.’ Callie offered her the journal. ‘Do you know how they got there?’
Nellie’s wizened hands started to shake. The teacups rattled dangerously.
Atticus wondered what was wrong. Nellie wasn’t normally shaky, or she’d never be able to do any knitting. He watched anxiously as she set the tea things down on a picnic table, sank into a deckchair and fanned herself with the tray.
‘Howard Toffly gave me the chest to look after when I was working as a chambermaid at Toffly Hall,’ Nellie said by way of explanation. ‘He brought it back from one of his early expeditions to the jungle.’ She eyed the masks with distaste and frowned. ‘He never said what was in it, mind, or I wouldn’t have agreed to take it.’
‘Why did he give it to you, though?’ Callie insisted. ‘Why didn’t he keep it in his own attic?’
Nellie shrugged. ‘It was after he got cursed by that Egyptian cat pharaoh and took against cats,’ she said. ‘I suppose he didn’t want to have a dead one in the attic.’ She let out a cackle. ‘Howard Toffly wouldn’t have liked you much, would he, Atticus?’
Atticus purred modestly. It had turned out that he was distantly related to the Egyptian cat pharaoh in question, but that was another story!
‘It’s just as well Howard Toffly did give it to you,’ Mrs Tucker commented, ‘or his beastly relatives would have found it. They’d have been after the lost treasure of the jaguar gods before you could say “beard-jumper”.’
That was true, Atticus thought. The beastly relatives Mrs Tucker was referring to were Lord and Lady Toffly. At precisely the same time the Tuckers had discovered they were rich and moved into Toffly Hall (also thanks to Atticus), the Tofflys had discovered they were poor and had moved to the caravan park where they eked out a living polishing spoons. And in the same way that Mr and Mrs Tucker hadn’t changed since they had become rich, the Tofflys hadn’t changed since they had become poor, but in the Tuckers’ case they were still nice and in the Tofflys’ case they were still beastly.
‘Hmmmm.’ All of a sudden Nellie hopped out of the deckchair, plucked the masks and the journal from the children’s grasp, put them back in the chest and banged the lid shut. ‘That’s better,’ she said, wiping her hands on her skirt.
Atticus meowed his agreement. The masks gave him the creeps. He was glad he didn’t have to look at them any more. In fact he’d be happy if he never had to see them again. He arched his back and rubbed his whiskers against Nellie’s deckchair to show he approved of her actions. Then he let out a deep throaty purr and jumped on to her lap.
‘Did Howard Toffly ever say anything to you about the lost treasure, Nellie?’ Callie asked.
Nellie shook her head slowly from side to side like a tortoise. ‘No. Not a dicky bird. I don’t know any more about it than you do.’
‘Let’s look in the journal,’ Michael suggested. ‘There’s bound to be something about it in there.’
‘I wouldn’t if I were you!’ Nellie Smellie said sharply. Her normally placid face assumed a resolute expression. ‘There’s a bad vibe coming from that chest. I think it’s the masks.’ She gave Atticus a meaningful look.
A bad vibe? Atticus blinked back at her. That’s what he’d thought before he got carried away by the excitement of his discovery. Nellie Smellie felt it too? He’d never come across a human with instinct before. He must remember to tell Mimi.
‘What rot!’ Inspector Cheddar bustled over.
‘It’s not rot,’ Nellie Smellie said solemnly. ‘It’s true. Those masks are very powerful. You shouldn’t mess with them.’ She stroked Atticus’s neck and said in an undertone, ‘And I’m not the only one who thinks so, am I?’
At least that’s what Atticus thought she said. Nellie spoke so quietly that no one else apart from him seemed to have heard her. He brushed his ears with a paw to make sure they were clean.
‘Powerful in what way?’ Mrs Cheddar had joined them. She began to pour the tea.
‘Wait a minute and I’ll tell
you.’ Nellie Smellie tipped Atticus off her lap and knelt on the grass beside the chest. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she reached forwards and ran her fingertips over the carvings.
Atticus watched in astonishment. So did everyone else. What on earth was she doing?
‘They belonged to an ancient civilisation,’ Nellie said.
Atticus felt quite alarmed. Nellie’s voice had gone all spooky. She sounded as if she were in a trance!
‘The priests wore them when they made human sacrifices to the gods.’ Suddenly Nellie’s eyes pinged open. She withdrew her hands quickly as if the chest had burnt her. Her voice returned to normal. ‘I wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole if I were you: they’ll bring bad luck.’
‘But how do you know?’ asked Callie.
‘Never you mind,’ snapped Nellie. ‘I just do.’
Atticus was wondering precisely the same thing.
How could Nellie Smellie possibly know all that from running her hands over the carvings on a wooden chest? Unless … A most peculiar suspicion was mounting in his mind. It was almost as if someone had popped the idea in there without him noticing, but now he couldn’t get rid of it. He stared hard at Nellie. That black skirt and mildewed blouse really were very … well … witchy, not to mention her wrinkled face and crone-like hands. But there was no such thing as witches, was there? He really needed to talk to Mimi.
‘Human sacrifices!’ Inspector Cheddar sniggered. ‘Good one, Nellie!’
Nellie gave him a dirty look.
The Inspector didn’t notice. He offered the biscuit tin round. ‘Anyone for a rock cake?’ he asked.
Atticus shook his head. He’d seen tastier-looking rocks.
Inspector Cheddar helped himself to one and took a bite. His face crumpled in agony.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Mrs Cheddar anxiously.
Atticus Claw Hears a Roar Page 1
