Atticus Claw Hears a Roar Page 4

  ‘Well … er …’

  ‘It’s not actually stealing, Benjamin.’ Lady Toffly stuck her face up to the computer. ‘If it belonged to Howard Toffly, then technically it’s ours! Of course you’d know that if you were a lord,’ she added snootily.

  It was Benjamin Posh-Scoundrel’s turn to grind his teeth. Some very un-ambassador-like thoughts flitted through his head. Condescending old bat was one of them; stuck-up snob was another; big-headed battle-axe was a third (I’m afraid the rest were too rude to print). He couldn’t help not being a lord! If he were one, he’d show that silly moo a thing or two. He considered for a moment. A fantastic idea occurred to him. Maybe, if he could be the one to find the lost treasure of the jaguar gods and claim all the credit, Her Majesty the Queen might actually make him into a lord! That would shut Lady Toffly up!

  ‘Leave it to me,’ he said imperiously. ‘I know exactly what to do.’ His brilliant mind was already at work on a plan. ‘Just get over here to Nicaragua as quickly as you can. I’ll send the diplomatic bag for you first thing in the morning. And bring everything that was in that chest. Everything, do you hear?’

  The picture on the computer screen began to flicker.

  ‘Very well, Benjamin,’ Lord Toffly said. ‘But are you sure you want the magpies?’

  It was too late. The connection had cut out.

  ‘Better bring them,’ Lady Toffly said. ‘Just in case.’

  The next day by the beach huts Atticus told Mimi about the events of the weekend.

  ‘The Tofflys and the magpies!’ she said. ‘What a horrible combination.’

  ‘They weren’t exactly working together,’ Atticus said, ‘but I know what you mean.’

  ‘What do you think the Tofflys will do with them?’

  ‘Let them go, I suppose,’ Atticus replied. ‘Although I’m surprised they haven’t already. I checked the magpies’ nest under the pier on the way here and it’s still empty.’

  ‘Maybe Jimmy and the gang are lying low for a while,’ Mimi suggested, ‘in case you arrest them again.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Atticus agreed. ‘They certainly left some incriminating evidence at the scene of the crime. Well, Thug did, anyway. There were quite a lot of his tail feathers on the ground. Even Inspector Cheddar managed to work out the magpies had been there.’

  ‘What about the Tofflys?’ asked Mimi. ‘They’re the ones who actually stole the chest. Isn’t Inspector Cheddar going to arrest them?’

  ‘I hope so,’ Atticus sighed. ‘The problem is he doesn’t remember talking to anyone at the car boot sale and no one else saw them, so he’s just going on the spoon that he found in the shed this morning. He’s sent it off to forensics for fingerprinting.’

  ‘That’s a start,’ Mimi said cheerfully, adding, ‘You know him, he’ll get there in the end!’

  That is probably true, Atticus thought, although it might be a lot easier for everyone if Inspector Cheddar just got there in the beginning, like he did. He didn’t say it though in case Mimi thought he was being mean.

  ‘We’re taking the journal to Professor Verry-Clever today,’ Atticus said instead. ‘Mrs Tucker is giving us a lift to the British Museum on her motorbike.’

  ‘Is Nellie going too? And Thomas?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Atticus hesitated. He desperately wanted to talk to Mimi about Nellie, but he didn’t want to come right out and tell Mimi he suspected Nellie might be a witch, just in case Mimi thought he was being silly. He decided to tackle the subject in a more roundabout way. He fiddled with his neckerchief, wondering how to begin. ‘Talking of Nellie,’ he said eventually. ‘She was acting very strangely yesterday.’

  ‘What do you mean, strangely?’ asked Mimi.

  Atticus told her. ‘What was really odd was that I had a bad feeling too when we got the chest down from the attic. But it passed quite quickly. I didn’t pick up half the stuff she did from it.’

  ‘She must have a sixth sense,’ Mimi said slowly.

  ‘I didn’t know humans could have a sixth sense,’ Atticus responded. ‘I thought it was just animals.’

  ‘Aisha says they can,’ Mimi said. Aisha was Mimi’s owner. She had a flower shop in Littleton-on-Sea and a lovely baby. ‘It’s just that most of them have lost it.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Atticus. Aisha was pretty switched on as far as people and animals were concerned. If that was what Aisha said, it was probably right. He decided to stop beating about the bush and ask Mimi straight out about Nellie. ‘Er, Mimi, I hope this doesn’t sound weird, but you don’t think Nellie could be a witch, do you?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Mimi, after a pause. ‘Why? Do you?’

  Atticus felt relieved. Mimi didn’t seem to think the idea was ridiculous at all. He thought carefully before he answered. ‘I’m not sure. I mean I don’t really believe in magic but I did notice yesterday that everything about her is kind of witchy: the way she looks; the way she acts; all that stuff about the masks. Oh, and her Old Hag’s Cure-All Ointment …’

  ‘Her what?’

  ‘It’s some medicine she offered to Inspector Cheddar when he broke his tooth,’ Atticus explained. ‘She’s even got a broomstick in the shed!’ he added.

  Mimi thought for a minute. ‘It sort of makes sense if she is a witch,’ she remarked after a while. ‘I mean, that’s probably why she’s so keen on taking in cats, if you think about it. She’ll be looking for her familiar.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A cat companion,’ Mimi answered. ‘Not just any cat, but a special one that understands her; one that knows what she’s thinking and she knows what it’s thinking. That way her magic will be stronger.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Atticus. He was feeling a bit out of his depth. He didn’t know anything about witches and their cats. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. In fact, he rather wished he hadn’t brought it up. That remark of Nellie’s about her not being the only one who thought they shouldn’t mess with the masks: had she actually made it or not? He still couldn’t decide. And now Mimi was looking at him hard with her intelligent golden eyes as if she was mulling something important over.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked her. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘Well, if Nellie really is a witch and you’re the one that knows about it, then logically that can only mean one thing,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Atticus said a little sulkily. He wasn’t very good at logic.

  ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’ Mimi said. ‘You must be her familiar.’

  ‘No way!’ Atticus shook his head in disbelief. He didn’t like the turn the conversation had taken. The idea that Nellie could read his thoughts and vice versa was downright scary! ‘I can’t be! I’m not a witch’s cat!’

  ‘Aren’t you?’ Mimi said. ‘Everyone apart from Inspector Cheddar knows you’re special, Atticus. I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if you were.’

  ‘But I can’t do magic,’ he protested.

  Mimi gave a delighted laugh. ‘Are you sure about that? You can do everything else! Now go and find out about that lost treasure. I’m dying to know more about it.’

  A little while later, at the British Museum, Mrs Tucker stepped off her motorbike and removed her leather jacket. She was wearing a different tank top today, Atticus saw, as he clambered out of the sidecar with the kids. This one said “Watch out, Edna’s about!” Nellie must have knitted her a whole drawer full, he thought.

  Professor Verry-Clever was waiting for them at the entrance. He was a tall thin man with long bony fingers and a big dome-shaped head. A pair of gold-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose. Atticus didn’t remember those from the last time he had seen the Professor. He thought they made him look brainier than ever.

  The Professor greeted them all warmly. ‘This way.’ He led them across a huge hall full of imposing stone statues. Atticus felt slightly overawed. The statues were from ancient times. They sent a shiver down his spine. He had already learnt from experience that you had to treat the past w
ith respect if you didn’t want it to come back and bite you on the tail.

  Professor Verry-Clever opened the door to his office and offered everyone a seat. He took up a position on the other side of the mahogany desk. Beside the desk was a large globe on a stand. Except it didn’t show modern countries. It was a globe of the ancient world.

  Mrs Tucker removed the journal from the lining of her crash helmet and handed it to the Professor.

  ‘Goodness me!’ the Professor exclaimed. ‘Where did you find this?’

  ‘It was in a chest in Nellie’s attic …’ Mrs Tucker explained everything to Professor Verry-Clever, ending with the break-in to Nellie’s shed.

  ‘Fortunately, Atticus and Thomas managed to save the book.’

  ‘Is it valuable?’ Michael asked the Professor.

  ‘It could be,’ said the Professor gravely. ‘Archaeologists have been looking for the lost treasure of the jaguar gods for centuries. This appears to be an account of Howard Toffly’s attempt to find it.’ He opened the journal. A few loose pages fell out. They contained strange pictures, scribbled notes, some compass directions and a hand-drawn map.

  ‘Hieroglyphs,’ the Professor muttered, looking at the pictures.

  Atticus regarded them curiously. He could read some hieroglyphs – ancient Egyptian ones – but he couldn’t make any sense of these. A hush fell on the room as Professor Verry-Clever examined the loose sheets of paper.

  ‘Do you know where they’re from, Professor?’ asked Mrs Tucker.

  ‘Yes.’ The Professor sat back in his chair and pressed his fingertips together. ‘Have you heard of the mysterious Maya?’ he said after a little while.

  The mysterious Maya? Atticus hadn’t but the children were nodding vigorously.

  ‘We learnt about them at school,’ Callie said. ‘They built cities in the jungle and had writing and books and played sport and did trade and everything.’

  ‘They died out about a thousand years ago,’ Michael chimed in. ‘No one really knows why – that’s why they’re called mysterious.’

  ‘Absolutely right,’ Professor Verry-Clever said. ‘At its height the civilisation of the ancient Mayan people spread most of the way through the jungle of Central America, from what we now know as Mexico into Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Perhaps even as far as Nicaragua.’ Professor Verry-Clever showed them on the globe.

  ‘Then their civilisation died out – boom – just like that. No one knows why.’ Professor Verry-Clever paused. ‘What we do know is that the ancient Maya were a deeply religious people. They believed in many different gods. They also believed that the way to keep them happy was to make them offerings.’

  ‘What sort of offerings?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Gifts, for one,’ said the Professor. ‘Treasure, food, that sort of thing. And, of course, sacrifices.’

  ‘Human sacrifices, you mean?’ asked Callie.

  ‘Very often, yes.’ The Professor nodded.

  Atticus listened solemnly. Some cats he knew took offerings to their owners – like birds and mice and frogs – because they thought they would be pleased. He didn’t bother, partly because he wasn’t very keen on killing and partly because his owners didn’t seem to appreciate it. The last time he’d put a dead frog in Inspector Cheddar’s shoe, the Inspector had made him eat dried cat food for a week. Atticus had no idea that humans had once done the same thing. AND with their own species! It was horrible.

  ‘Wasn’t it the priests who did the sacrifices?’ Michael was saying.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Professor Verry-Clever. ‘The priests were very powerful. They decided who would be sacrificed and they conducted the ceremonies.’ A frown creased his bulging forehead. ‘Come to think of it they wore masks, like the ones Mrs Tucker has just described.’

  Crumbs! thought Atticus. That’s exactly what Nellie had said. ‘The priests wore them when they made sacrifices to the gods.’ He cleaned his whiskers distractedly. Nellie had to be a witch. It was the only possible explanation. But where did that leave him?

  Michael was still asking questions. ‘Didn’t the Maya play a ball game?’ he wanted to know. ‘A bit like football?’

  ‘More like volleyball,’ the Professor said, ‘only you couldn’t use your hands. The consequences of losing were deadly. The winners were treated as heroes. The losers were put to death.’

  Yikes, thought Atticus. He was rubbish at ball games. He wouldn’t like to have to play if one of his nine lives depended on it.

  ‘So what exactly is the lost treasure of the jaguar gods, Professor?’ asked Mrs Tucker.

  ‘I’m coming to that,’ the Professor replied. ‘You see, the jaguar gods were the most powerful of all the Mayan gods. The Maya believed they controlled everything from the underworld to the harvest. When their civilisation collapsed, they thought it was because the jaguar gods were angry with them. So the king of the Mayan people set off on a journey from the great city of Pikan into the deepest jungle with his priests and trusted followers. The purpose of their journey was to find the valley where they believed the jaguar gods lived and persuade them to save their civilisation from destruction.’

  Atticus was transfixed. It sounded epic, like some of the adventure films that Callie and Michael watched on TV.

  ‘They took with them all the treasure they could muster. They also took slaves to carry it. That way they had plenty to offer the jaguar gods if they found them.’

  Poor slaves! thought Atticus. It was bad enough being a sacrifice but having to carry the treasure as well was taking it a bit far.

  ‘No one knows what became of them. And no one has ever found a clue to where the valley is or where the treasure is buried.’

  ‘Do you think Howard Toffly might have discovered something?’ Callie asked excitedly.

  ‘Quite possibly,’ Professor Verry-Clever replied, squinting at the hieroglyphs.

  ‘Then why didn’t he tell anyone?’ asked Michael.

  ‘That is a very good question,’ said the Professor. ‘Perhaps this will provide the answer.’ And with that, Professor Verry-Clever picked up the journal and began to read Howard Toffly’s account.

  In Search of the

  Lost Treasure of the Jaguar Gods

  By Howard Toffly

  1897

  Pikan

  My story begins in the ruins of Pikan, in the thick of the Honduran jungle. I had read in the newspaper that archaeologists had discovered a hieroglyph staircase there, which they believed might give a clue to the whereabouts of the valley of the jaguar gods. As a young explorer, it was my greatest ambition to find the lost treasure of the ancient Maya so I set forth at once to see the staircase for myself and offer my help on the dig. If there was a clue, I wanted to be amongst the first to see it.

  Pikan proved to be a strange, mournful place. It was hard to imagine that it had once been a bustling city; for apart from the cries of birds and the chattering of monkeys it was silent as a tomb. At its centre was the Acropolis, where the royal palace had stood. Above the Acropolis a great stepped pyramid rose high into the sky. On top of the pyramid perched the altar, where the priests had performed sacrifices to the gods.

  It made my blood run cold to think of it.

  The hieroglyph staircase ran up one side of the Acropolis. The man in charge of deciphering it was Bruce Butterworth, an expert in ancient writing. The problem for Butterworth was that parts of the staircase had collapsed over the centuries: it was difficult to know what order the stones went in. Work on the site progressed slowly. Weeks passed into months. I began to think that Butterworth’s work was doomed to failure.

  Then one day out of the blue Butterworth told me he had made a discovery. He said he had found the clue he was looking for, but to my frustration he refused to tell me more. Living amongst the ruins of Pikan had made Butterworth superstitious: he believed that the jaguar gods were watching us and that they would be angry if we revealed the secrets of the ancient Maya.

  Of course I pleaded w
ith him to tell me what he knew, but Butterworth’s lips were sealed. As only he could read the hieroglyphs, it seemed that the lost treasure of the jaguar gods would remain lost forever.

  The Death of Butterworth

  Our camp was on the edge of the jungle in a clearing beside a stream. One morning at first light I heard the sound of a tent flap opening and the soft squeak of boots. I peeped out. It was Butterworth. In his hands were a hammer and chisel.

  I dressed hastily and crept after him.

  Butterworth headed towards the Acropolis, to the base of the hieroglyph staircase. He searched amongst the piles of fallen stones until he found what he was looking for. Then he placed the chisel against the stone and raised the hammer. I realised with horror that Butterworth’s superstitions had got the better of him: he intended to destroy the evidence that could lead us to the lost treasure of the jaguar gods so that the ancient Maya’s secrets would be safe forever.

  I had to stop him!

  I was about to cry out when a great roar shook the air. At first I thought it was thunder but when I looked up I saw an enormous spotted cat. It was crouching on the altar at the highest point of the Acropolis.

  What I had heard was not thunder but the roar of a jaguar.

  Butterworth flung down the hammer and chisel and began to run. But the jaguar was too quick for him. It leapt from the altar and charged down the hieroglyph staircase after him. It fell upon Butterworth and snapped his neck before he even had time to scream. Then it pulled him off into the jungle and disappeared.

  I felt numb with shock. But at the same time I saw that this was my opportunity. Only Butterworth and I knew which hieroglyphs showed the way to the valley of the jaguar gods. Perhaps, if I acted quickly, there was a way I could profit from his death. With shaking hands I took a notebook and pencil from my pocket and copied the hieroglyphs down.