Atticus Claw Goes Ashore

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 adventure is 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)

1

Atticus Grammaticus Cattypuss Claw, once the world’s greatest cat burglar and now a police cat sergeant, was on beach-tidying duty at Littleton-on-Sea with the kittens from the local cats’ home. The cats’ home was where Atticus had done his first bit of community police-catting. His job was to teach the kittens how to stay out of trouble and do good things instead. It had taken them a while to get the hang of it but Atticus was pleased to see that all his hard work had paid off. Most of the kittens were meowing enthusiastically. They were keen to get started.

It was early morning. Atticus squinted at the sky. It was going to be a beautiful day. The sun was beginning to shine through the mist and the calm
sea was turning from a flat grey to a sparkling blue. The beach would be busy later and Atticus wanted to help make sure everyone had a great day out by keeping the sand rubbish-free.

Atticus enjoyed his work as a community police cat. It beat cat burgling any day, even if it meant litter picking. Cat burgling was lonely work. When Atticus did it, he’d never had a proper home. He had to go from one job to another and adopt a new temporary human each time and pretend to himself that he didn’t really mind when he did. True, he got paid in sardines and travelled to lots of exotic places like Monte Carlo, but it didn’t really make up for the fact he didn’t have a family.

Luckily for Atticus everything changed when he came to Littleton-on-Sea to do some burgling for Jimmy Magpie and his gang of thieving birds. That was when Atticus met the Cheddars and decided to stop being a cat burglar and start being a police cat instead. Now he lived with Callie and Michael and their parents, Inspector Cheddar and Mrs Cheddar. And he didn’t just have a family. He had
loads of friends as well. His best friends were Mr and Mrs Tucker who lived at Toffly Hall and Mimi, the pretty Burmese. Mimi was the most sensible cat Atticus had ever met as well as the prettiest. He was looking forward to meeting her by the beach huts later and going for a stroll.

‘You start that end,’ he told one group of kittens. ‘The rest of you come with me.’ Atticus straightened the red handkerchief he wore round his neck, gave his police-cat badge a quick rub and set off briskly towards the pier, the kittens trotting behind him.

It seemed strange going back to the pier. The pier was the first place Atticus visited when he arrived in Littleton-on-Sea almost exactly a year ago. It was where the magpies had their nest. It was where they hid the stolen jewellery before Atticus told them to take it back.

The tide was out just like it had been on that first day. Atticus picked his way between the clumps of seaweed. It was dark under the pier, and gloomy. He gazed up at the iron rafters. The sunshine came in stripes through the wooden planks. Yes, there it was, the magpies’ old nest – a
messy heap of twisted twigs, just as he remembered. He wondered where Jimmy, Thug and Slasher were now.

Atticus’s whiskers twitched. Last seen, the three magpies and their mates had been trying to escape from a plague of locusts in an Egyptian pyramid along with Atticus’s old enemy Ginger Biscuit – a horrible tomcat who had once chewed Atticus’s ear when he was a kitten. Unfortunately Biscuit and the magpies had got away. So had Biscuit’s evil owner, Zenia Klob, Russian mistress of disguise. She was believed to be in hiding, possibly dressed as a melon seller. No one knew if the villains were still in Egypt. There had been no sign of them for several months. Interpol were still on the look-out.

‘Recycling in the blue bag; rubbish in the black one,’ Atticus told the kittens briskly.

One of them yawned. ‘This is boring!’ he said. ‘I want to have an adventure, like you. I want to catch a criminal.’

The kitten’s name was Thomas. He was a tabby,
like Atticus. He’d once got into trouble with Inspector Cheddar for stuffing a ball of wool up the exhaust pipe of Inspector Cheddar’s panda car, and ripping the seats. He reminded Atticus a lot of himself when he was a kitten.

Atticus looked stern. ‘Thomas,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you – adventures are dangerous. Criminals are bad news. Beach tidying is much more fun.’ Even as he said it, Atticus realised he didn’t sound very convincing. Beach tidying might be better than being a cat burglar but it wasn’t much fun compared to having an adventure. Thomas was right.

Thomas wandered off to one of the iron pillars to sulk. The other kittens collected a few ice-cream wrappers and an old bucket and threw them into the rubbish.

Atticus glanced round. ‘Thomas, can you grab that?’ he called. A squashed blue and white parcel rested against the base of the pillar. ‘Look. Just there.’

Thomas slouched towards it. ‘Ergh!’ He prodded the parcel with one claw. ‘I’m not picking that up.’

Atticus marched over to take a look. He grimaced: the squidgy parcel was an old nappy.

‘You do it,’ Thomas said cheekily. ‘You’re the police cat.’

Atticus glared at him. Cats are very clean animals and Atticus was no exception. The thought of touching a nappy with one of his lovely white paws or, even worse, picking it up with his shiny white teeth made Atticus’s stomach squirm. But he had to set an example. That was what community police-catting was all about. Inspector Cheddar had made that very clear. And Inspector Cheddar sometimes got cross with Atticus if he didn’t do as he was told.

‘Okay,’ Atticus snapped. ‘Susan and Hamish, hold the black bag open.’

Two other kittens came forward and held the bag.

Atticus took up a position the other side of the nappy, facing away from it. ‘Ready?’ he called.

‘Yes!’ the kittens replied.

‘Aim!’ Atticus planted his two front paws firmly and braced himself. He wriggled his back paws into the sand under the nappy, being careful not to touch it. ‘Fire!’ He kicked backwards with his powerful hind legs. The nappy flew up into the air
and landed in the black bin bag. He turned to Thomas. ‘If you want to have adventures you need to be able to deal with a dirty nappy,’ he observed.

Thomas looked surly.

‘Right, I think we’re all done here.’

‘Wait!’ it was Thomas again. ‘There’s something else.’ He pointed to the spot where Atticus’s hind legs had flicked the sand.

Something glinted in one of the stripes of sunlight. For a moment Atticus thought it might be one of the jewels he had stolen for the magpies, which had fallen out of the nest. But then he reminded himself that all the jewels – every single one of them – had been returned to their owners when the magpies were arrested. It must just be another bit of rubbish.

‘I’ll get it,’ Thomas said eagerly. He didn’t look surly any more.

‘Okay.’ Atticus was pleased. Thomas seemed to have learnt a lesson.

‘Maybe it’s treasure!’ Thomas scampered towards it.

Or perhaps he hadn’t
. Atticus sighed. He didn’t want to disappoint Thomas but sooner or later the
kitten would have to learn that adventures didn’t come along just because you wanted them to.

Thomas dug around the shiny object and pulled it out with his paws. ‘It’s just an old bottle,’ he said in disgust, throwing it down again.

This time Atticus didn’t tell Thomas off. He felt sorry for him. ‘Green bag, please.’ Atticus picked up the bottle carefully with his paws ready to put it into the recycling. It was then he noticed there was something inside it.

Atticus squinted at the bottle. It was dark green with a rubber stopper. On the side was a remnant of a label, which read:

Thumpers’ Traditional Beard Dye!
Atticus stared at it in surprise. Mr Tucker used Thumpers’ Traditional Beard Dye to dye his beard-jumper!
Maybe the bottle had once belonged to him?

Mr Tucker was a fisherman. He was very proud of his beard-jumper. His beard had got mixed up with his jumper (or the other way around) when he was a baby and he’d been growing it ever since. That was until it got mangled in a nasty incident with Ginger Biscuit and the magpies. Fortunately, after a lot of failed experiments, Mr Tucker had invented a special beard-jumper potion, which made it grow back bushier and woollier than ever. In fact, it was so bushy and woolly that Mr Tucker had been nominated to host this year’s World Beard-Jumper Competition. It was due to take place at Toffly Hall the next day. Mrs Cheddar was in charge of the organisation.

‘Can I uncork it?’ Thomas asked. He held out a paw. ‘Please?’

‘Okay but be careful you don’t get anything on your fur,’ Atticus said with feeling. Mr Tucker had once dyed Atticus white with Thumpers’ Traditional to fool the magpies. The memory of it
was still painful. He watched as Thomas pulled the rubber stopper from the bottle with his teeth.

‘There’s a bit of paper inside.’ Thomas held the bottle out to Atticus. ‘Maybe it’s a message?’

Atticus doubted it. But, like Thomas, the bottle and its mysterious contents had made him curious. This
was
how adventures started. Perhaps wishing for them did make them happen after all! Atticus pinged out a claw, reached into the bottle, hooked the scrap of paper and pulled it out carefully.

The paper was thick and yellow, like something from an old storybook. The edges were rough, as if it had been torn from a bigger piece. Atticus unrolled it and smoothed it on a rock so that everyone could see.

The kittens crowded round.

‘I told you!’ Thomas cried.

Atticus squinted at the paper. It
was
a message! Thomas was right. Someone had scrawled across it with a blunt pencil in bold capitals.

‘What does it say?’ The kittens mewed. Not all of them could read yet.

Atticus read it out loud.

‘I knew it!’ Thomas shouted.

Atticus felt his heart beating fast. It definitely felt like the start of an adventure, but the message posed more questions than it answered.
Where was the island? What was in the casket? Who was Fishhook Frank? And what was that strange picture of the skull and two bones in the corner?
Atticus felt he’d seen it before, although he couldn’t remember where. It certainly
seemed
familiar. He examined it carefully. The skull’s empty eyes looked straight back at him. He shivered and turned the message over. On the back was a map of an island in the middle of a sea with squiggly lines and numbers scribbled all over it.