‘You’re not, Dad. That’s the whole point!’ Callie exclaimed. ‘Otherwise you might as well just take a photo.’
‘Talking of which,’ Mrs Cheddar said, ‘I’m going to take a picture of these on my phone. Then we’ll leave them to dry and I’ll post them off tomorrow. Don’t forget to write your names on them. I’ll do yours, Atticus.’
Mrs Cheddar took a thick felt-tip pen from a drawer and wrote in one corner of Atticus’s painting:
Pickles by Atticus Grammaticus Cattypuss Claw
She winked at him. ‘It looks very professional,’ she said. ‘You might even win.’
‘I doubt that very much,’ Inspector Cheddar said.
Three weeks later, Atticus was polishing his police-cat badge in the hall, ready to go out on patrol with Inspector Cheddar, when the post came sliding through the front door and dropped onto the mat.
Callie was first there. Ever since Mrs Cheddar had sent in their entries to the pickle-painting competition, she and Michael had been getting up early to see if anything had come for them from Butteredsconi’s pickle factory. And every day, so far, she had been disappointed.
But not today.
‘Mum!’ Callie shouted. ‘There’s a letter for Atticus!’
Everyone crowded into the hall. Michael picked Atticus up so he could see the letter. It was in a red envelope with smart italic writing on the front.
Atticus Grammaticus Cattypuss Claw
2 Blossom Crescent
Littleton-on-Sea
Callie tore it open.
Inside was a thick piece of cream-coloured paper. Callie unfolded it and began to read.
‘Well done, Atticus!’ Michael hugged him.
‘We told you it was brilliant!’ Callie scratched his ears.
‘I knew you would win!’ Mrs Cheddar cried.
‘Hmmph,’ said Inspector Cheddar.
‘Darling!’ Mrs Cheddar frowned. ‘What’s the matter with you? Anyone would think you were jealous of Atticus!’
‘Yeah, Dad, just because you didn’t win!’ Callie said.
Inspector Cheddar went red. ‘It’s not that at all! It’s just that some of us have got detective work to do rather than waste time visiting pickle factories.’
‘I’m sure you can spare a day,’ Mrs Cheddar said soothingly.
Atticus was sure Inspector Cheddar could too. There hadn’t been any crime for ages in Littleton-on-Sea. Privately he also thought Inspector Cheddar probably was jealous because he (Atticus) could paint pickles and he (Inspector Cheddar) couldn’t. Maybe one day Inspector Cheddar would learn what everyone else in the family already seemed to understand – that cats were generally better at everything than humans.
‘Oh, all right then. I suppose it can’t do any harm.’ Inspector Cheddar got out his mobile phone and typed in the word pickle.
Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean …
Inside the megalodon it was dark and smelly. Two black-and-white birds, one thin with a hooked foot and the other fat with a raggedy tail, huddled together on top of an old wicker basket. The basket bobbed about on the contents of the megalodon’s stomach: swashing to and fro gently with the waves.
The megalodon, it turned out, only ate plankton, which was very lucky for the two magpies and the other occupants of the megalodon’s stomach – a third magpie with glittering eyes, a green parrot, a large ginger cat and an ex-KGB Russian criminal mistress of disguise – otherwise they would have been digested by now. As it was, they were floating about in a mini-sea of flotsam and jetsam, which had also been swallowed up by the megalodon as it slowly patrolled the deep waters of the ocean.
‘Plankton, plankton, plankton, plankton!’ the fat magpie moaned. ‘It’s all we ever get to eat.’
‘Not all, Thug,’ the thin one corrected him, ‘there was that herring that washed in two weeks ago.’
‘But Jimmy ate that,’ Thug sobbed. ‘All we got was one eyeball each.’
‘Then there was the seal,’ Slasher pointed out.
‘Don’t remind me!’ Thug shuddered. Ginger Biscuit had claimed the seal. He still had chunks of it hanging from the roof of the megalodon’s stomach, including the flippers. Thug had been having nightmares about it for days.
‘And the bin bag full of putrid vegetables.’
‘Stop it,’ Thug said, turning green.
The putrid vegetables, it was thought, must have come from a passing ship. Pam the parrot had eaten them with gusto. The vegetables made her poo smell even worse than ever, which was bad luck for Thug and Slasher as they had the job of scraping it off the megalodon’s stomach walls with an old nailbrush and a packet of Thumpers’ Scrubbit which Pam kept tucked about her for emergencies.
‘And that tin of soup. You’ve got to admit, there was nothing wrong with that,’ Slasher remarked.
‘It was tomato,’ Thug grumbled. ‘I don’t like tomato.’
‘And that barracuda Zenia caught,’ Slasher continued.
Zenia Klob had once been the world pike-fishing champion. As there weren’t any pike in the Pacific Ocean, she had taken up barracuda fishing instead. Her technique – hanging a line through one of the megalodon’s gills with a large hook on the end, hauling the barracuda in and twisting its head off with her bare hands – had yielded plenty of meals for her and Ginger Biscuit, but rather fewer for Thug who tended to be a bit squeamish. Anyway, Zenia kept all the best bits for herself and Biscuit got the head, including the eyeballs, which didn’t leave much for anyone else, except the skin.
‘Have you tried barracuda skin?’ Thug demanded of his friend. ‘It’s disgusting: all chewy, like feathers.
‘No,’ Slasher admitted. ‘I prefer plankton, it’s got more protein in it.’
‘I want to go home.’ Thug jumped up and down on the wicker basket, making it rock. ‘I want to go back to our nest under the pier.’
The magpies used to live in a scruffy nest under the pier at Littleton-on-Sea. It was there that they had first encountered Atticus Claw. Jimmy Magpie had hired him to steal some jewellery from the humans in revenge for the deaths of their magpie friends as roadkill. However, from the moment that Atticus had found a home with the Cheddar family and decided he wanted to stop cat burgling for good, things hadn’t gone too well for the magpies.
‘Shut up, Thug.’ A strong wing shot out of the darkness and punched Thug in the crop. The wing belonged to Jimmy Magpie. He was always punching Thug in the crop. Except when he was pecking Slasher on the head. It showed them who was boss. And it made him feel better. ‘Your whining isn’t going to help. Besides,’ he landed on the basket next to the two other members of his gang and lowered his voice, ‘spare a thought for me, cooped up in here with her.’ He nodded towards Pam the parrot. Pam was perched on one of Ginger Biscuit’s chunks of seal meat, picking her beak.
Pam gave him a dirty look, which Jimmy returned.
Jimmy and Pam had recently been married at sea by a pirate captain. Jimmy didn’t want to get married, especially not to Pam the parrot. He’d only done it because he thought Pam could lead him to some treasure and then he could get rid of her. She had led him to some treasure; only something else had got there before them – a large tabby cat with brown-and-black-striped fur, four white socks, a chewed ear and a red handkerchief tied round his neck embroidered with his name: Atticus Grammaticus Cattypuss Claw. And now Jimmy was stuck with Pam, it seemed, for good.
‘Yeah, Boss, I don’t envy you,’ Slasher said as Pam removed a fragment of putrid vegetable from her beak and gobbled it up. She let out a loud burp.
‘I’d rather marry a tin of tomato soup,’ Thug said.
‘So would I,’ Jimmy said. His eyes glittered. ‘It’s all Claw’s fault. This time when we get out of here, I’m going to get even with him once and for all.’ His face assumed a more cheerful expression at the thought. So did Thug’s and Slasher’s. Daydreaming about getting even with Atticus Claw was their favourite pastime.
‘Whatcha gonna do, Boss?’ Thug asked dreamily.
‘I’m going to strangle him with his own tail, then hang him upside down from the pier for the crows to peck.’
‘Chaka-chaka-chaka-chaka-chaka,’ Thug and Slasher chattered their encouragement. ‘That’s good, Boss.’
‘Then I’m gonna pull out his claws and make a comb to clean my feathers,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’ll make slippers out of his ears and use what’s left of him for a nest snuggler.’
Thug let out a deep sigh. ‘I’ve always wanted a furry nest snuggler,’ he whispered.
‘I know, Thug.’ Jimmy nodded. ‘I know.’
The three magpies huddled together, lost in thoughts of their cosy nest under the pier furnished with bits of dead Atticus.
‘Jim!’ A sharp voice echoed around the megalodon’s stomach. It was Pam’s. ‘I thought I told you to fix the crate. It’s leaking again.’
Despite Jimmy’s protests that he’d rather stay with his gang in the wicker basket, Pam had forced him to share with her an old wooden crate that she had found floating.
‘Nag, nag, nag, nag, nag!’ Jimmy muttered. ‘That bird’s driving me mental.’
‘Jim?!’ Pam squawked. ‘Stop lazing about and do some work for a change!’
‘Coming, darling.’ Jimmy Magpie made a horrible face at Pam, which luckily she couldn’t see because she was too busy preening her bottom. He flew off.
Ginger Biscuit paddled alongside the wicker basket in a bucket. ‘Anyone want a game of murder in the dark?’ he asked. He popped out his claws one by one. POP. POP. POP. POP. ‘I’ll be the murderer if you like.’ He looked hungrily at the magpies.
‘Back off, Biscuit,’ Slasher said nervously.
‘Yeah, you can’t eat us,’ Thug chattered.
‘Why not?’ Ginger Biscuit asked.
‘Because you won’t have anyone to clean Pam’s droppings off the walls,’ Slasher reasoned. ‘Unless you want to do it yourself.’
‘No thanks,’ Ginger Biscuit said. He grinned. ‘I’ll wait until we get out of here. Then I’ll eat you.’
‘We’ll never get out of here,’ Thug sobbed. ‘Never. Never. Never. Never. Ever.’ Great gloopy tears ran down his cheeks. ‘We’re doomed. Doomed!’
Just then the contents of the megalodon’s stomach began to tip. The bucket and the wicker basket shot backward towards the megalodon’s tail end.
‘WHOOOAAAAHHHH!’ Ginger Biscuit tried to cling on to a piece of seal flipper, but it broke away from its mooring and landed on Thug’s head.
‘Get it off me!’ Thug screamed.
‘Vot’s going on?’ Zenia Klob whizzed by on a canoe – another thing the megalodon had managed to swallow in its travels. ‘Come here, my orange angel of darkness,’ she crooned. She cast her fishing line at the bucket and hauled Ginger Biscuit on board. ‘And you two birdbrains.’ She did the same with the magpies, reeling them in expertly. Her gnarly hand reached out and threw them into the basket and shut the door with a click.
‘HELP! HELP! HELP! HELP! HELP!’ Pam floated by on the crate. She knew a few words of Human from when she’d worked for the pirate captain. She had Jimmy firmly by the wing in one claw, in case he tried to escape before he’d finished his fixing job.
‘Shhhhhh!’ Zenia whisked them in as well. ‘Something strange is happening. So pipe down, birdies, or I’ll hairpin you.’
Pam shut up. Hairpins covered in sleeping potion were Zenia Klob’s favourite weapon. Even Pam didn’t dare risk being on the wrong end of one of them. All the villains huddled in the canoe, waiting to see what would happen next.
The contents of the megalodon’s stomach levelled out. An eerie silence settled over everything. But not for long. GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUG! The mini-sea began to tilt for a second time. They were off again.
‘Hold on!’ Zenia shouted as the canoe set off towards the megalodon’s rear.
Great waves of mucky seawater broke over them. Bits of barracuda and seal rained down. Pam’s poo became unstuck from the walls of the megalodon’s stomach and covered the canoe in a blanket of sludge. The door to the wicker basket flew open.
‘I can’t breathe!’ Thug gasped. ‘I’m drowning!’ He stuck his head out and got hit by a can of tomato soup.
Eventually the water was still. The villains wiped the sludge out of their eyes and looked around. Where before the megalodon’s stomach had been horizontal, now it was vertical. It towered above them as a great narrow cavern.
Zenia’s face twisted into an unusual expression: unusual for her, anyway.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Slasher asked Ginger Biscuit.
‘She’s smiling,’ Ginger Biscuit was watching his mistress closely. Even he had only seen that expression a pawful of times since she’d adopted him as a kitten. Normally Zenia was hatchet faced with a mouth turned down at the edges in a permanent grimace.
‘Ha ha!’ Zenia cried. ‘It’s time to break open the burnt beetroot juice, boys and girls!’ (Burnt beetroot juice was Zenia’s favourite drink.) ‘A celebration is called for. I think ve’re home and dry.’
‘Myaw?’ Ginger Biscuit looked at her enquiringly.
She reached down a hand and scratched him between the ears.
‘Don’t you see, my magpie-mangling moggy?’ she said. ‘Ve’re free. The megalodon’s been caught. That’s vy ve’re this way up – it’s on the end of a giant fishhook. Any minute now and the fishermen will gut it. VATCH OUT!’
Just then there was a nasty ripping sound. Light exploded into the cavern along with a lot of other unmentionable things, most of which landed on Thug.
‘HERE VE GO!’ Zenia shouted. ‘HOLD ON TO YOUR HAIRPINS.’
‘WHHOOOOAAAHHHHH!’
The canoe shot out of the megalodon’s stomach in a tidal wave of gunk and landed on the hard surface.
‘Blimey!’ said a voice. ‘Look at all this lot! You’d better go and radio the boss and ask him what he wants us to do with them.’
Butteredsconi’s pickle factory was about an hour’s car journey along the coast from Littleton-on-Sea. A large limo picked up the Cheddars and Atticus at half-past nine in the morning. Inspector Cheddar had booked the visit for the weekend so that he wouldn’t have to miss work. He still insisted on wearing his police uniform, though, just in case Littleton-on-Sea did suddenly suffer a major crime wave and he was called back to investigate.
Atticus sat on a velvet cushion in the back of the limo feeling very important. It was like being the Prime Minister, he reflected, being driven in your own limo. He wondered whether a cat could become Prime Minister. It might be another thing he’d be good at.
‘There it is!’ Callie pointed out of the window.
Atticus raised his head. An ugly green building with a big chimney squatted on a promontory beside the sea. The words Butteredsconi’s Italian Pickle Products were emblazoned across one wall. Atticus sniffed. Even inside the limo he could smell the sharp pong of vinegar. He didn’t really want to visit the factory at all. Maybe he could just stay in the car and have a snooze while everyone else went inside.
‘What’s that place over there?’ Mrs Cheddar asked the driver.
Atticus followed her gaze. Mrs Cheddar was pointing out to sea, to a great grey circular tower perched on a rock about half a kilometre beyond the factory. A few seagulls wheeled above it.
‘That’s where Mr Butteredsconi lives,’ the driver replied. ‘It’s an old sea fort. It tells you all about it in here.’ He reached under the dashboard and handed Michael a leaflet through the partition.
Atticus glanced at it. The leaflet, which was published by the Bigsworth Tourist Board, was entitled:
The Gruesome History of Sconi Point
‘What’s so gruesome about it?’ asked Callie.
‘The fort was built two hundred years ago to stop the French invading,’ the driver told her. ‘The factory used to be a hospital in the olden days.’
‘That’s not gruesome,’ Callie said.
‘This is, though,’ Michael read aloud from the leaflet.
Sconi Point conceals a terrible secret: the hospital – once a place of rest for exhausted soldiers – became a front for something much more sinister when the wars with the French were over. A new doctor – known only as X – reopened the hospital, pretending that he wanted to help the poor. But without telling his patients, the doctor bought the disused fort, converted it into a laboratory and linked it to the hospital by a secret tunnel under the sea. When one of his patients died he would whisk their corpse away in the dead of night to the fort and conduct hideous experiments on it …
‘What sort of hideous experiments?’ Mrs Cheddar asked.
Michael scanned the page. ‘It says here he tried to bring them back to life: you know, Mum – like in Frankenstein.’
Atticus’s fur prickled. He had heard of Frankenstein: it was a horror story about a man who had made a monster out of corpses and brought it to life with electricity. Atticus didn’t like horror stories – they were too scary. If Michael tried to read him one at bedtime he usually hid under the cupboard with his paws over his ears until it was finished.
‘That’s revolting,’ Callie exclaimed.
Inspector Cheddar snatched the leaflet out of Michael’s hand and put it in his pocket. ‘It’s a load of old rubbish,’ he snorted. ‘I expect the Bigsworth Tourist Board just made it up to get people to visit the area.’
Atticus hoped he was right.
‘What a horrible place to live, though.’ Mrs Cheddar shivered.
Atticus agreed. There was something menacing about the fort.
‘Have you ever been there?’ Michael asked the driver.
The driver shook his head. ‘No one’s allowed inside,’ he said. ‘Mr Butteredsconi is a recluse. He lives there alone with his pet pig and his art collection.’
Atticus Claw Learns to Draw Page 2