Atticus Claw Learns to Draw Read online

  By the Same Author

  To Richard

  with special thanks to Alice and Henry

  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 adventures are 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)

  Praise for Atticus

  ‘Atticus is the coolest cat in the world. This is the coolest book in the world.’

  Lexi, age 7

  ‘Atticus Claw is fantastic because it has interesting creatures and characters. I especially like Atticus.’

  Charlotte, aged 8

  ‘I think that this book is the best book I’ve ever read because it’s so funny!’

  Yasmin, age 10

  ‘Fun and exciting, Atticus Grammiticus Cattypuss Claw is the most cutest. Once i opened it i just couldn’t put it down.’

  Saamia, age 9

  ‘It’s mysterious – it makes you want to read on.’

  Evie, aged 7

  ‘I would recommend it to a friend.’

  Mollie, aged 10

  ‘Once you start to read it you can’t stop!’

  Molly, age 8

  Contents

  By the Same Author

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Intro from Atticus

  Praise for Atticus

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Author’s Note

  Author biography

  Copyright

  Atticus Grammaticus Cattypuss Claw – once the world’s greatest cat burglar and now its best-ever police-cat – was lying in his basket at home in the kitchen at number 2 Blossom Crescent when the adventure began. Of course, it didn’t feel like the start of an adventure at the time. It felt like any other Saturday morning. Inspector Cheddar was standing at the back door, brushing cat hairs off his police uniform and grumbling to himself. Mrs Cheddar was frying sausages for breakfast. And the children, Callie and Michael, were making plans for the day.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ Michael asked his sister.

  ‘We could go and see Mr and Mrs Tucker,’ Callie suggested. ‘Mr Tucker might take us out on his boat.’

  Mr Tucker was a fisherman. He had a big beard-jumper (which was a sort of beard and a jumper all mixed up in one), and a wooden leg from the time a giant lobster had clipped the real one off when he was a pirate. Mrs Tucker was the family’s childminder. She was also a secret agent, named Agent Whelk. They lived in a big house called Toffly Hall.

  That sounds like a good idea, thought Atticus. He liked visiting the Tuckers. He could catch up with his friend Bones, Mr Tucker’s ship’s cat; and (with any luck) Mr Tucker would let him pick fishy morsels out of his beard-jumper and Mrs Tucker would feed him sardines. A visit to Toffly Hall was definitely worth getting out of his basket for, even on his day off.

  Atticus got to his feet and stretched. He glanced at the window. Outside it was pouring with rain. On the other paw, Atticus decided, it might be better just to stay at home and relax. He lay down again.

  ‘I’m afraid the Tuckers won’t be there,’ Mrs Cheddar said. ‘Mrs Tucker asked if I’d mind if she took a holiday, so I’ve arranged with work to spend some time at home looking after you.’

  ‘Where are they going?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Well, the weather’s been so bad recently, she booked them all on a cruise,’ Mrs Cheddar said. ‘The ship’s got a pet spa and everything.’

  A pet spa! Atticus thought enviously. Lucky Bones. He’d love to go to a pet spa. He could get his fur blow-dried. He gave a hopeful meow.

  ‘Don’t get any ideas,’ Inspector Cheddar told him.

  Atticus’s chewed ear drooped.

  ‘Poor Atticus!’ Mrs Cheddar said, dishing out the breakfast. ‘You work him too hard, darling,’ she told her husband.

  Atticus looked at her piteously. Maybe if she felt really sorry for him she’d give him a sausage. Unfortunately, though, Mrs Cheddar didn’t seem to take the hint. She sat down at the breakfast table with the others.

  ‘Hardly!’ Inspector Cheddar retorted. ‘All he does is a bit of community police-catting.’

  Atticus felt indignant. It was true that his main job was community police-catting. He spent a lot of time with the kittens from the local cats’ home, telling them how to keep out of trouble. He also took them on outings, most recently to cheer up the old people in the Littleton-on-Sea old folks’ home. What Inspector Cheddar had neglected to mention, however, was that Atticus’s other job was catching criminals, including Jimmy Magpie and his gang of black-and-white jailbirds, to say nothing of the evil Zenia Klob, Russian mistress of disguise, and her horrible cat, Ginger Biscuit: the animal responsible for chewing Atticus’s ear when he was a kitten. Thanks to Atticus, the villains were all safely tucked up in a very large shark (known as a megalodon), patrolling the waters of the Pacific Ocean, rather than on the loose causing more trouble.

  The delicious smell of fried sausage wafted round the kitchen. Atticus’s tummy gurgled. It seemed like ages since he’d had his breakfast. He got up again and wandered over to the table.

  ‘Do you want some, Atticus?’ Callie picked him up and put him on her knee.

  Atticus waited politely. He knew it would be very rude to steal something off Callie’s plate so he purred instead, which was his way of saying, ‘Yes, I would please.’

  ‘No cats at the breakfast table,’ said Inspector Cheddar. ‘It’s unhygienic.’

  Atticus frowned. Even though he had been living with the Cheddars for two years now, Inspector Cheddar still didn’t seem to know anything much about cats. Cats were very hygienic. Atticus spent ages every day grooming his brown-and-black-striped fur and making sure his four white socks were clean – a lot longer than Inspector Cheddar spent in the shower, anyway. And Atticus was wearing his special red neckerchief embroidered with his name, which meant he wouldn’t spill any food on his tummy, whereas Inspector Cheddar hadn’t even opened his napkin and was getting toast crumbs all over his cardigan.

  Atticus isn’t just any cat, Dad,’ Callie reminded him. ‘He’s a police cat sergeant.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I mean, you might as well say no police at the breakfast table and then you’d have to get down too.’ She gave Atticus some sausage.

  Atticus gulped it down. He thought Callie was very clever to think of such a brilliant remark, but then children were clever, like cats. He gave Inspector Cheddar a triumphant look.

  ‘Don’t be cheeky!’ Inspector Cheddar said, although it wasn’t clear whether he was addressing Callie or Atticus.

  Both, probably, Atticus thought gloomily.

  ‘Does anybody want some of this?’ Mrs Cheddar picked up an enormous glass jar from the breakfast table and unscrewed the lid. ‘Mr Tucker gave it to me for my birthday. He says it’s very good with sausages.’

  Atticus inspected the jar. It was full of something brown and sludgy. He hoped
Mr Tucker would give him something better than that for his birthday, like a jar of fish paste or some sardines.

  ‘What is it?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Butteredsconi’s Italian Truffle Pickle,’ Mrs Cheddar said, reading the label.

  ‘What’s truffle?’ Callie asked.

  ‘It’s a type of fungus that grows underground, round the roots of trees,’ Mrs Cheddar told her. ‘You use it in cooking as a kind of magic ingredient to make everything taste better. Pigs go mad for it. They’re very expensive,’ she added, as Callie wrinkled her nose. ‘Truffles, I mean. Not pigs.’

  Atticus felt smug. He already knew what a truffle was and that pigs went mad for them because once, when he was a cat burglar, he had been hired by a pig called Pork to steal all the truffles in Italy. He finished cleaning his whiskers and looked curiously at the pickle jar. He started. A pig that closely resembled Pork stared back at him from the label. It looked like a nasty piece of chop. For one mad moment Atticus wondered if Pork had started making pickles. He told himself not to be so silly.

  ‘I’ll try it,’ Michael said. He reached for the jar, spooned a bit on to the side of his plate, speared a sausage and dipped it in. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, chewing the mouthful slowly, ‘but I prefer ketchup.’ He squirted a large dollop on to his plate and handed the pickle jar back to his mum.

  ‘So what are we going to do today?’ Callie said. ‘We can’t even go to the park if it’s raining.’

  ‘How about you tidy up your bedroom?’ Inspector Cheddar said.

  ‘That’s boring, Dad!’ Michael protested.

  ‘Homework, then.’

  ‘We did it yesterday,’ Callie said smartly.

  ‘What about going in for a painting competition?’ Mrs Cheddar said.

  ‘A painting competition?’ Callie repeated. ‘That sounds fun. Where?’

  ‘Here!’ Mrs Cheddar showed them the writing on the label on the back of the pickle jar.

  Atticus squinted at it.

  Butteredsconi’s Italian Pickle Products

  proudly present its annual

  pickle-painting competition!

  For more details, peel here.

  He watched as Mrs Cheddar peeled off part of the label carefully with her fingernails.

  Mrs Cheddar read:

  Are you art’s NEXT BIG THING?!

  Enter our pickle-painting competition

  today to find out. Paint the perfect pickle

  and win a visit to our famous pickle factory.

  Competition closes 30th September.

  ‘That sounds brilliant!’ Michael said excitedly. ‘Can we go in for it, Mum?’ He looked at the calendar. ‘The deadline is next week.’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ Mrs Cheddar replied. ‘It doesn’t say anything in the small print about you having to be over eighteen.’

  Atticus was pleased for the children – Callie and Michael liked painting – although he didn’t think much of the prize. (A trip to a pickle factory sounded about as exciting as cleaning Inspector Cheddar’s panda car.) It probably didn’t matter very much, though, he reflected. They wouldn’t win anyway. There were bound to be zillions of people entering the competition. But at least painting pickles for the pickle-painting competition would give Callie and Michael something to do while Atticus kept an eye on the weather and snoozed. Maybe if it cleared up later, he could go and visit his friend Mimi, the pretty Burmese, by the beach huts. He prepared to jump off the chair.

  ‘Mum, does it say anything about you having to be human to enter the competition?’ Callie asked suddenly.

  ‘No … I don’t believe it does,’ Mrs Cheddar said.

  ‘Then Atticus can do it too!’ Callie cried. Her hands closed around his tummy. He felt himself being lifted into the air. ‘Come on, Atticus, we’ll find you an apron.’

  It didn’t take Atticus long to discover that he wasn’t very keen on painting pickles. First there was the indignity of being wrapped up in a mini-apron that Mrs Cheddar found in the doll’s clothes box. Then it took ages to get everything ready, during which time he had to sit on the kitchen table instead of going back to bed. Finally there were the pickles themselves. Mrs Cheddar sent Inspector Cheddar off to the shop to buy all the different types of pickled vegetables he could find. He returned with jars of brown and white onions, purple beetroot, red and green peppers, soggy cucumbers, even soggier cabbage, yellow cauliflower, broccoli with a blue tinge and something greyish-green and knobbly called a gherkin – all of which, Atticus noticed, bore the same Butteredsconi pig logo as the jar Mr Tucker had given them, and all of which smelt equally disgusting. The sour stink of vinegar and sugar made Atticus’s eyes water.

  ‘There we go.’ Mrs Cheddar finished arranging the vegetables on a plate.

  ‘Can we start painting now?’ Callie asked.

  ‘I think so,’ Mrs Cheddar said, laying newspaper on the table so that none of the paint went on the wood. ‘Which vegetable are you going to choose?’

  ‘The red pepper,’ Callie said. She dipped her paintbrush in a pot of vivid red paint.

  ‘Michael?’

  ‘Er … the gherkin,’ Michael said after some hesitation. He mixed some green and grey paint together in an old yoghurt pot.

  The two children began.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Callie looked up from her work, ‘which pickle is Atticus going to paint?’

  ‘Atticus can’t hold a paintbrush, silly!’ Michael scoffed.

  ‘No, but he can use his paw.’ Callie frowned. ‘Can’t you, Atticus?’ She smoothed a piece of clean white paper out in front of him and held out a pot of blue paint.

  Atticus looked at it. The paint was gloopy, like the jelly in tinned cat food (although of course the jelly in tinned cat food was brown, not blue). He backed away.

  ‘He doesn’t want to get his paws dirty,’ Mrs Cheddar said.

  ‘Oh please, Atticus,’ Callie begged. ‘It washes off, honest!’

  She looked so disappointed that Atticus hesitated. He supposed it couldn’t hurt just to do one paw print. Besides, cats are curious, which means they like to find out about things. And Atticus’s curiosity was starting to get the better of him. What he wanted to know was if he’d be any good at art. He didn’t see why not. He was good at everything else.

  Balancing on three paws, he reached out a front paw and dipped it in the blue paint. The paint oozed between his toes and on to his fur. He hoped Callie was right about it washing off. He didn’t want to end up with three white paws and one blue one forever.

  Quickly he dabbed his paw on the paper and sat back to take a look at his work. There it was: one round fat pad with four smaller ones surrounding it. His paw print! It wasn’t too bad, actually, for a cat. He felt quite pleased with himself.

  ‘That’s really good, Atticus,’ Mrs Cheddar encouraged him. She rubbed his paw with a damp cloth to clean it. The blue paint dissolved.

  ‘Try yellow, Atticus,’ Michael suggested. He held out the yellow pot of paint.

  Atticus dabbed again, this time with the yellow. Where the two paw prints overlapped he saw that the paint colour had changed to green.

  ‘Blue and yellow make green,’ Michael told him.

  How interesting, Atticus thought. He was beginning to get the hang of painting.

  He tried again with a different colour. And another and another and another until the whole piece of paper was covered with splodges of purple, green, blue, yellow, red, orange and pink.

  Just then Inspector Cheddar came back into the kitchen from the garden where he had been cutting the edges of the lawn with a pair of nail scissors.

  ‘Darling, I do wish you’d use a strimmer,’ Mrs Cheddar said. ‘It would be so much quicker.’

  ‘I’ve told you a hundred times, you get a much better finish with the nail scissors,’ he said.

  ‘Look at my painting, Dad!’ said Michael.

  ‘Very good!’ Inspector Cheddar nodded. ‘It looks just like a gherkin.’ He popped a
pickled onion in his mouth and chewed it noisily. ‘And that pepper is wonderful, Callie! Very realistic!’

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ Callie said. ‘What do you think of Atticus’s picture?’

  Atticus felt shy. He didn’t really expect Inspector Cheddar to like his painting very much but it didn’t stop him from wanting him to.

  Inspector Cheddar took a long look at it. ‘Well,’ he said doubtfully, ‘it’s very colourful, but it doesn’t look much like a pickle.’

  Atticus’s ears drooped.

  ‘That doesn’t matter, Dad!’ Callie said.

  ‘It doesn’t?’ Inspector Cheddar looked surprised.

  ‘No.’ Callie shook her head impatiently. ‘Everybody knows that.’

  Atticus didn’t. He listened carefully.

  ‘We’ve been learning about art in school,’ Callie explained, ‘and our teacher says that paintings don’t actually have to look like the thing you’re painting.’

  ‘What’s the point of them, then?’ Inspector Cheddar said, baffled.

  ‘The point is to make you see things differently,’ Michael told him.

  ‘Oh,’ said Inspector Cheddar. He helped himself to a gherkin. ‘I don’t get it.’

  Atticus wasn’t sure he did either.

  ‘The kids are right, darling,’ Mrs Cheddar said, smiling at them proudly. ‘Think of Picasso.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Picasso, Dad!’ Callie laughed. ‘He was a really famous artist who painted people in mixed up squares.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Michael agreed, ‘a bit like a Rubik’s cube.’

  Atticus was fascinated. He knew what a Rubik’s cube was, although he couldn’t actually solve it yet. But what he didn’t know was that you could mix paintings up like one. There was obviously more to art than he’d realised.

  Inspector Cheddar frowned. ‘Hmmm, well, it sounds pretty silly to me. How are you supposed to recognise people if they’re all in bits?’