Atticus Claw Lends a Paw (4 page)

‘Hurray!’ shouted the audience. This was turning out to be a good evening’s entertainment.

‘You haven’t heard the last of this!’ Lady Toffly
gnashed her horsey teeth at Mrs Tucker.

‘We’ll be back!’ Lord Toffly fumed. His face was scarlet. ‘You can count on it!’

‘Boo!’ hissed the audience. ‘Boo!’

The Tofflys disappeared.

‘Well!’ Mrs Tucker sank back into her chair and fanned herself with one of the kittens. ‘That was unexpected!’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this curse of the cat pharaoh business. I can always sense when there’s going to be trouble.’ She glanced at Atticus. ‘Especially when it’s to do with cats.’

4

In Siberia, the weather had turned warmer. It was only minus thirty degrees centigrade, up from minus thirty-one the day before.

Gulag Cottage was covered in snow. Icicles dangled from the roof. A vicious wind howled. So did the hungry wolves in the forest that surrounded it.

Inside the cottage Ginger Biscuit lay on a bearskin rug in front of a roaring log fire, picking bits of bear meat out of his teeth with his claws. Zenia Klob was out pike fishing. The six magpies huddled together under a pile of blankets, moaning.

‘I c-c-can’t t-t-take th-th-this any m-m-more!’ Thug shivered. He used to be fat with missing tail feathers.
Now he was thin with missing tail feathers. ‘M-m-my f-f-feathers are f-f-freezing.’

‘Your f-f-feathers are f-f-freezing?!’ Jimmy Magpie repeated. His eyes had lost their glitter and his glossy wings and tail didn’t shine blue and green like they used to. ‘Wh-wh-what about m-m-my f-f-feet?’

‘M-m-my eyeballs are i-i-icy!’ Slasher spluttered. He was scrawnier than ever and his hooked foot ached with the cold.

‘I’ve g-g-got f-f-frostbeak!’ Gizzard choked.

‘I p-p-pong like a p-p-penguin!’ Wally wailed, sniffing his wingpits.

As you can see it took the magpies a very long time to have a conversation in Siberia.

‘Y-y-you always p-p-pong, Wal!’ Pig’s teeth
chattered
.

‘Chaka-chaka-chaka-chaka-chaka!’ The
magpies
fell to squabbling. It was the only thing that kept them warm.

‘Shut up!’ Ginger Biscuit roared. ‘I’m trying to digest bear meat here.’

‘What are we gonna do, Jimmy?’ Slasher whispered. ‘This place is like a prison camp. Zenia
treats us like slaves.’

‘There’s nothing we
can
do,’ Jimmy snapped.

‘There’s not much “we” about it,’ Pig grumbled. ‘You don’t do anything!’

‘That’s because I’m the boss.’ Jimmy gave him a peck.

‘If Zenia makes me clean her poo-bucket one more time, I’ll be sick,’ Thug sobbed.

‘If I have to eat another bowl of her fish-scale gruel, so will I!’ Gizzard wept.

‘CHAKA-CHAKA-CHAKA-CHAKA-CHAKA!’ Jimmy silenced them with an angry burst of chattering. ‘Get used to it. We’re stuck here. Until the next job. When we’ve done that, we’ll go home.’

The mention of ‘home’ was too much for the magpies.

‘I wish I was back in Littleton-on-Sea chasing baby robins,’ Pig sniffed.

‘I want to poo on clean washing!’ Wally snivelled.

‘I miss our old nest under the pier!’ Slasher sobbed.

Suddenly Thug lost it. He jumped
out from under the blanket and ran up and down squawking. Then he threw himself on his stomach and beat his wings on the floor. ‘I hate it here!’ he shrieked. ‘I can’t take it any more! I want to go home! Whaaaaaaahhh! Whaaaaaaaahhh!’

‘Having a tantrum won’t help, you birdbrain!’ Jimmy Magpie gave Thug a vicious kick in the crop. ‘Get a grip.’

‘Yeah, shut up or I’ll eat you.’ Biscuit rolled over and pinned Thug. He sat up on his muscular haunches and started tossing the magpie from one paw to the other.

‘Help!’ Thug screeched, flying through the air. ‘Help!’

‘I’ve been learning to juggle.’ Biscuit grinned, grabbing Wally and Pig. ‘It gives me something to do when I’m not killing bears. See?’ Soon he had the three magpies flipping round in a circle.

‘This is all Atticus Claw’s fault,’ Slasher
complained
bitterly. ‘If it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be in this mess.’

‘I told you not to say that name in front of me!’
Biscuit stopped juggling. The three magpies fell on the rug in a heap. ‘Next time I see that cat,’ Biscuit snarled, ‘I’m going to rip his whiskers out and use them to floss my teeth.’

‘Let’s make his tail into a toilet brush for Zenia to use,’ Jimmy cawed.

Thug crawled back under the blanket. ‘C-c-can I make a nest snuggler out of the rest of him?’ he stammered. ‘I n-n-need a f-f-furry one.’

Just then the door flew open.

Squeak
…
squeak
…
squeak.

Zenia Klob blew in, covered in snow. She was wearing her Siberian hunting outfit: fur boots, fur coat, fur gloves and fur knickers (although luckily you couldn’t actually see those). She even had a fur squeaky wheelie trolley rather than the usual plastic one. It was full of pike from her fishing trip. Their bloodstained heads poked out from the top.

‘I wish she’d get that thing oiled!’ Gizzard
complained
. ‘I can’t stand the noise it makes.’

‘I can’t stand the noise you make,’ Wally retorted.

‘Chaka-chaka-chaka-chaka-chaka!’

Zenia lashed at the magpies with her fishing rod.
‘No squawking unless I say so!’ she yelled. She turned to Biscuit and gave him a sickly smile. ‘Here ve are, my bear-killing beauty!’ She twisted the head off one of the pike and tossed it to him. Biscuit chomped it. MUNCH! BUURRRP! A horrible fishy smell wafted round the room.

‘Good boy!’ Zenia crooned. ‘I’ll let you have the tail later. The rest of you beastly birds can have some of my delicious fish-scale gruel.’ She strode into the kitchen dragging the trolley.

Gizzard started to cry.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

‘What was that?’ Biscuit started.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Someone or something was banging on the front door of Gulag Cottage.

‘We never get visitors here!’ Thug whimpered. ‘What if it’s a yeti?’

‘Don’t say that!’ Ginger Biscuit said.

‘Oh yeah,’ Wal jeered. ‘We forgot you were afraid of monsters.’

‘And ghosts!’ Pig chuckled. ‘Whoooooooo! Whoooooooo!’

‘Shut up!’ Ginger Biscuit yelled.

‘PIPE DOWN, BIRDIES!’ Zenia Klob was back. ‘I’ll deal with it.’ She had taken off her hat. Her hair was full of sharp pins, which she dipped in sleeping potion every morning and night. Hairpins were one of her favourite weapons from the days when she was a Russian KGB spy. ‘Come in!’ she called.

The door swung open. Two human-shaped blocks of ice slid into the room and smacked on to the floor.

‘Biscuit, fetch the blowtorch!’

Ginger Biscuit reached into a drawer for the blowtorch and sparked it up from the fire.

Klob got to work defrosting the visitors. After a little while, a fat man wearing a tweed suit slithered from the first block of ice while a tall woman with horsey teeth and knobbly knees spilled out of the second.

‘I know them!’ Thug whispered. ‘They’re the Tofflys!’

‘They killed Beaky!’ Slasher squawked.

It was true. Some time ago, Lord and Lady Toffly had run over the magpies’ friend Beaky
in their Rolls-Royce. Beaky’s death was what tipped the magpies from being just plain nasty to a life of crime: Jimmy had decided it was time to get even with human magpie-mashers. That’s when he’d enlisted the help of Atticus – then the world’s greatest cat burglar. But Atticus had changed his mind and decided to go straight.

‘Should we poo on them, Boss?’ Wally asked. He waggled his backside and let out a rude noise.

‘Wait!’ Jimmy hissed. ‘Let’s see what they want. They might be able to help us get out of this joint.
Then
we’ll poo on them.’

The visitors struggled to their feet.

‘We’re Lord and Lady Toffly,’ the woman introduced herself to Zenia Klob. ‘Are you Miss Klob?’

‘It’s Ms, not Miss!’ Zenia Klob spat.

‘All right! Keep your knickers on!’ Lady Toffly said snootily. ‘We want you to help us recover a priceless Egyptian book from Toffly Hall. It’s worth zillions.’

‘Go on.’ Zenia Klob’s ears waggled with excitement. She stroked Biscuit.

‘GGGGRRRRRR!’ Biscuit liked the sound of it too. Toffly Hall was where those horrible friends of Claw lived: Mr and Mrs Tucker. He still had nightmares about being tangled up in Mr Tucker’s beard-jumper. This could be his chance to get back at the Tuckers and finish Atticus off once and for all.

The magpies listened carefully, their heads on one side.

‘I wish I had my shotgun!’ Lord Toffly said, eyeing them.

‘Not now, Roderick!’ Lady Toffly snapped. ‘This is business, not pleasure. The book
belonged
to our ancestor, Howard Toffly, the famous Egyptologist,’ she explained. ‘It will lead us to the lost city of Nebu-Mau: the golden city of cats, and to the treasure of the cat pharaoh himself.’

‘Vow!’ Zenia breathed. ‘The lost city of Nebu-Mau! That sounds tempting, doesn’t it, Biscuit? I’ve alvays vanted to try out my mummy disguise.’

‘The book is in a secret hiding place in a secret chamber in Howard Toffly’s crypt,’ Lady Toffly said.

‘The crypt is on an island in the lake,’ Lord Toffly added. ‘In the grounds of Toffly Hall.’

‘Ginger von’t have any problem vith that.’ Zenia Klob smiled. ‘Vill you, my little crypt cracker? I’ll drop him off in the boat. He’ll be in and out in a visker.’

POP. POP. POP. POP. Biscuit popped out his claws one by one.

Lady Toffly shook her head. ‘Breaking into the crypt is a job for those mangy magpies.’ She
lowered
her voice. ‘There’s a curse, you see. Anyone who disturbs the cat pharaoh is doomed, like Howard Toffly. He was horribly murdered in his bed.’

Ginger Biscuit withdrew his claws.

Thug fainted.

Wally pooed himself.

‘We reckon magpies being what they are …’ Lady Toffly continued –

‘Revolting,’ Lord Toffly sneered –

‘… they’re the best ones to steal the book.’

‘Vy?’ asked Zenia.

‘They’re a bad omen,’ Lady Toffly told her. ‘People are superstitious
about them. They’ve got the whiff of evil. So they’re less likely to offend Anubis, the Egyptian God of the Underworld.’ Lady Toffly snickered. ‘Hopefully Anubis won’t even bother to wake up his cat pharaoh pal to tell him the book’s gone missing again if the magpies take it. And
if
the magpies are still alive by the time we get to Egypt, they can lead the way into the cat pharaoh’s tomb as well. Anubis won’t suspect a thing.’ She flashed her horsey teeth in a yellow grin.

‘And even if old Nuby
does
tell on them to the pussycat king,’ Lord Toffly sniggered, ‘what Antonia and I say is, let’s get the curse out of the way by bringing it down on the magpies first! Then the rest of us can schmooze in and steal all the treasure while the cat pharaoh’s busy ripping the magpies’ throats out. Then
we
can turf out the Tuckers and return to Toffly Hall and
you
can put some central heating in this dump. What d’you reckon,
Ms
Klob?’

‘Great idea!’ Zenia shouted. ‘Brilliant, in fact. Let’s get the burnt beetroot out and celebrate! Vait a minute!’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Never mind the curse! Ve’ll have to vatch out for Inspector Cheddar
and his cheesy family. And those vorms, the Tuckers. And that traitorous veasel, Atticus Claw. Ve don’t vant them spoiling the plan like they did last time!’

‘GGGGGRRRRR!’ Biscuit started wrestling with the bearskin, pretending it was Atticus.

‘We’ve already thought of that,’ Lady Toffly said smoothly. ‘We’re going to create a diversion to put Cheddar off the scent. Show them, Roderick.’

Lord Toffly reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a fist full of knitting needles, some balls of wool and a screwed-up magazine
cutting
.

Klob, Biscuit and the magpies looked at the Tofflys, bewildered.

‘Vot’s that for?’ Klob demanded.

‘Are we going to knit nest snugglers?’ Thug woke up.

Lord Toffly winked. ‘Let’s just say we’ve got it covered!’ He uncurled the magazine cutting and spread it on the table.