Cat Mummy (5 page)

I got up off the bed and searched through my wardrobe but I couldn’t find it at first. It had slipped off the hanger and fallen onto my shoes. I knelt down and rummaged for it. I felt fur . . . real fur.

I gave a little gasp and pulled it out carefully, holding my breath. Mabel was nestled up inside my dressing gown. But there was something terribly wrong with her. Her eyes were half open and she seemed very very stiff.

‘Mabel,’ I whispered. I shook her gently to try to wake her up. But she couldn’t wake up now. My poor darling Mabel was dead.

‘Oh Mabel,’ I said, and I cradled her in my arms and rocked her to and fro.

I wanted to cry out to Gran but I was so choked up I could barely make a sound. I thought about what would happen next. Mabel would be buried. I couldn’t bear the idea of her being smothered under all
that
dirty earth. Mabel didn’t like it out in the garden any more. She’d be so frightened and lonely. And then the worms would get her . . .

‘No!’ I whispered. ‘I’m not going to let them bury you, Mabel, I promise. I’ll look after you. I’ll keep you safe.’

But I couldn’t just leave her tucked up in my dressing gown. She was already starting to look and feel and smell a little strange. I wasn’t quite sure how things might progress, but I knew it wouldn’t be pleasant. I had to find some way of preserving Mabel.

Then it came to me. It was as if the great cat goddess Bastet had put her holy paw upon me to give the idea. I would make Mabel into a mummy! I wouldn’t tell Gran or Grandad or Dad. I knew they might find it too weird – and Gran would probably fuss about hygiene.

I had to do it. It was the perfect way of preserving Mabel for ever. Then I could still hold her in my arms and tell her I loved her and whisper messages to my mum. Mabel would be just like a cat toy, able to stay with me for ever and ever and ever.

So . . . I had to get cracking and turn her into a mummy while Gran thought I was having a nap. I knew the Ancient Egyptians had taken
seventy
days but I had less than seventy
minutes
.

I carefully opened up my old dressing gown and spread it out on the bedroom floor. Mabel lay rigidly in the middle. She didn’t look well at all. I tried to smooth her fur and mopped her up carefully with a little wad of tissues.

When she was as clean and tidy as I could get her I squatted on my heels, thinking about the next step. I knew what it was. You had to take a piece of wire and stick it in the head and hook out the brain.

Mabel’s half-open eyes looked at me. I knew I couldn’t possibly do any hooking. I decided to wrap her up whole. I was worried that all her insides might go bad. I had to preserve Mabel under her mummy wrappings.

I knew what the Ancient Egyptians used. It was natron, a special kind of salt. I didn’t think you could get natron now. I’d never seen it on the shelves in Sainsbury’s. I didn’t think
ordinary
Saxa salt was the right sort of stuff. Then I remembered the big jar of lavender bath salts on the bathroom shelf.

I thought they would be ideal. I crept to the bathroom to check. I saw on the label that they included preservative. Great! Plus they were so sweet-smelling they’d keep Mabel as fragrant as a flower.

I stole back to my bedroom with the jar and tipped the entire contents over Mabel. It looked as if she’d been caught in a lavender snowstorm.

‘There, darling,’ I whispered, brushing the salts out of her eyes so we could look at each other one last time. ‘Now, we’ll make you into a mummy.’

Gran kept old sheets at the top of her airing cupboard and only ever got them out when she had to make me a costume for a school play, or when Sophie and I wanted to play ghosts. I took a big sheet and then got cracking with my scissors. I couldn’t just wrap the sheet round Mabel like a parcel. I knew you had to make bandages and wrap and wrap and wrap very tightly in a special pattern.

I tried to cut the sheet into neat strips. It was very difficult because I didn’t have any decent scissors, just the old blunt-edged ones I used for my scrapbook. Gran had special sharp scissors in the kitchen but I couldn’t risk creeping downstairs. I struggled on as best I could
with
my own stupid baby scissors until my hands ached, and then I tried ripping bits of sheet.

Time was getting on. I decided I’d better start wrapping with the scraps of sheet I already had. I picked Mabel up tenderly and tried to get her into the right position. I knew I had to straighten her paws and tail so that she would look like a long-necked cat doll when she was finished.

Mabel wouldn’t straighten up. She curled up with her paws out and her tail wrapped round herself in her usual going-to-sleep position. She simply wouldn’t budge from it. I tried tugging hard but I was terrified her poor old legs might actually snap, and I didn’t dare try her tail because it was already so thin and threadbare.

I had no idea how the Ancient Egyptians solved this problem. I decided I simply had to make the best of it and wrapped Mabel up with
her
paws sticking out and her back all bunched. It wasn’t easy. I’ve never been much good at wrapping Christmas presents. You can’t even stick strips of sheet with Sellotape. Every time I got a bit round one part of Mabel another part unravelled. I had to keep tying big knots. Mabel started to look like the most untidy parcel in the world.

I was nearly in tears because I so wanted her to look beautiful and dignified. But as I went on wrapping and wrapping I was able to disguise her shape more – and I was starting to get the hang of doing it neatly. It was like the first time I tried to put my hair into a plait at the back and it was all lop-sided and half the hair hung down, but now I’ve done it so many times my fingers flash in and out and it ends up as neat as ninepence.

Mabel didn’t end up quite as neat as that. As tidy as twopence, more like. But at least she was now officially a mummy.

I got my best set of felt tips and carefully inked green eyes and a pink nose and a red smiley mouth on the sheet over her head. Then I tried to do Egyptian symbols all round her sheeted body. I did that open eye of Horos to protect her and the Ankh sign for good luck. Then I drew lots of things that Mabel liked, a can of catfood and the hearthrug and my bed, with a border of mice and fish and birds to finish it off.

I sat back on my heels when I’d finished and admired Mabel. I needed to keep her in a sarcophagus, the special mummy case. I couldn’t think what to use. I tried a shoe box but it wasn’t big enough,
and
it was the wrong shape. I needed something biggish because Mabel was pretty bulky now.

I decided my old duffle bag that I use for swimming might just do as a temporary measure, so I eased Mabel into it as carefully as I could. I put my head in the top of the bag and kissed her wrappings and told her I loved her for ever and ever and ever. Then I gently and reverently placed her in the back of my wardrobe. It wasn’t pyramid shape but it was dark and private, so it made a reasonable tomb.