The Pharaoh's Curse E-Book

Holly Webb

• Herausgeber: Little Tiger Press
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: Museum Kittens
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 75

Beschreibung

Brave, clever and never more than a whisker away from adventure! When the museum's visitors are gone for the day, it's time for the cats to come out to play…The kittens are curious when a rare Egyptian papyrus comes to the museum on loan. But from the moment the artefact arrives, things start to go wrong and rumours of an ancient curse begin to spread. When a pipe leaks and the Egyptian gallery is flooded, the kittens find themselves trapped. Will they be the next victims of the pharaoh's curse?The second in a charming new series from Holly Webb. Purr-fect for fans of the OTTOLINE books and THE ROYAL RABBITS OF LONDON.

Leseprobe

iii

iii

For my readers in St Petersburg – HW

For Alby and Neri – SL

iv

Contents

Title PageDedicationMuseum MapChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenCats and CursesBook One ExtractAbout the AuthorCopyright

v

Museum Map

vi

1

Chapter One

“What are they all so excited about?” Boris whispered to Peter and his sisters. He was peering round the huge, painted mummy case that hid the tunnel down to the cellars, where the museum cats lived.

The Egyptian Gallery was full of museum staff, talking in whispers as they opened up a large packing case and started to unwrap something that had been inside. The elderly professor who ran the Egyptology department was actually squeaking with delight.2

“Is it jewels?” Bianca asked hopefully, pushing the large ginger kitten out of the way so she could see.

“It could be one of those golden masks that the pharaohs had in their tombs,” the small tabby Tasha suggested, slinking further round the mummy case to look. “It 3must be something very special.”

“Gold…” Bianca purred. “Diamonds too? Maybe pearls?”

“I don’t think so,” said Tasha. “The masks are mostly gold and lapis lazuli – that lovely blue stone. The ancient Egyptians used it a lot.”

“Hmf! Blue stone.” Bianca looked disappointed and her white tail drooped. “Not as nice as diamonds. But I do like gold.”

“That doesn’t look like a jewelled golden anything,” Peter pointed out. The black kitten had given up trying to see round Boris and crawled underneath him instead. “It’s just … a bit of paper.”

“Huh? That’s not a treasure!” Bianca said crossly.

“What are you lot looking at?”4

All four kittens skittered sideways in surprise as Grandpa Ivan appeared behind them. He was the oldest of the cats, white and long-haired with a great drooping moustache of whiskers, his ears looked chewed and he only had one eye. But he knew everything that was going on in the museum and he was very good at sneaking up on the kittens. “Ah, it’s arrived then!”

“Do you know what it is?” Boris asked. “It doesn’t look very exciting but the museum people are making a lot of fuss about it. They’re putting it in an enormous glass case, look!”

“It’s a temporary loan from a museum on the other side of the country,” Grandpa Ivan explained. “They’re rebuilding their 5Egyptian Galleries so they’re lending out their precious exhibits. It’s part of the Book of the Dead.”

“The what?” Tasha squeaked.

“The Book of the Dead.” Grandpa Ivan chuckled. “It’s a set of ancient magic spells for how to get safely to the afterlife, written out on great long strips of papyrus. That’s paper made of reeds, you know.”

6Tasha nodded intelligently and the other kittens tried to look as though they knew what he meant too. All four of them were gazing at the strange piece of paper in fascination. Ancient magic spells!

“The Egyptians used to put copies of it into people’s tombs so the spirits would know what to do. The scrolls were expensive, though, so they were mostly made for royalty and important officials. This one came from the tomb of a pharaoh, Thutmose I, so it’s very grand, with beautiful pictures. This isn’t the whole thing, of course. Only a little bit of the scroll is left. All the tombs were raided by thieves many times – and you can imagine that a long roll of papyrus is quite delicate.”7

“Hang on… This is a list of instructions for ghosts?” Boris looked shocked.

“Mmmm, not quite. I think they’d only be ghosts if they got it wrong,” Grandpa Ivan said thoughtfully. “Mind you, no one’s quite sure where Thutmose I’s body ended up… He had at least three different coffins. But what’s really special about this bit of papyrus is that no one knows what it means. Most of the Book of the Dead has been translated – it’s all written in hieroglyphics, you know. Picture writing. But this part of the book is tricky to read, apparently, and this is the only copy that’s ever been found! I heard the staff talking about it in the café. They’re pretty sure it’s a spell to do with a magical amulet – or it could 8be a curse on anyone who steals it…”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Peter muttered, his whiskers shivering. “What if it’s bad luck for it to be here in the museum?”

“There’s no such thing as bad luck!” Tasha gave him a grown-up sort of look. No one was exactly sure how old Peter was. He had been left at the museum as an orphan, so the other kittens liked to think he was the littlest. “Spells and curses are all nonsense. And even if they weren’t, this one is thousands of years old! Its power must have run out by now.”

“Or it’s spent years and years getting worse and worse,” Boris growled, and Peter nodded at him, round-eyed.9

Tasha sighed. Really, the other kittens were all so superstitious. She knew there was absolutely nothing to be worried about.

On the other side of the gallery, someone else was eyeing up the new exhibit too. Four rats were peeking out of a hole in the skirting board. It was a very small hole and they had to keep elbowing each other out of the way.

“What do you think it is?”

“Dunno, but it’s got to be something good. Look at that case! Look how thick the glass is!”

“Definitely special. See all the fuss they’re making. And did you spot those 10horrible cats over there? Behind the mummy? They’ve got their eyes on it too.”

“Oi, let me have a look! Do you think it’s something specially delicious?”

“Got to be. And look, you can see it’s all nibbled around the edges. Someone’s already had a taste.”

11The rat leader nodded. “Well, there we are,” he said, looking round at them all. “We can’t let those mangy cats have it then, can we? We’d better start making a plan…”

News of the special new exhibit in the Egyptian Gallery began to spread around the museum. And so did rumours about the curse.

The lorry that had brought the old artefacts to the museum had got two flat tyres and suffered a mysterious engine failure on the way, the café staff muttered.

Then the day after the papyrus arrived, one of the guards slipped over in the gallery and banged his head on 12the display case. He said he didn’t know how he’d done it – he was fine one minute and on the floor the next. All the water pipes started to make strange whistling noises and there were eerie shrieking sounds whenever anyone flushed the loo in the washrooms by the Egyptian Gallery.

The day after that, a school trip came to visit and one of the children was sick all over the floor. The cleaners said there was definitely a curse.

“I told you,” Peter whispered to Tasha as they sat watching the others practise hunting one evening after the museum had closed. “That papyrus is bad news. The pharaoh doesn’t like it being here! Grandpa Ivan said no one knows where 13Thutmose I’s mummy ended up and I bet his ghost’s furious! Something really awful’s going to happen to the museum!”

“No, it isn’t,” Tasha said, rolling her eyes. “Is it my turn yet?” she added, twitching her tail. But Boris was already creeping forwards in a hunting crouch.

“Very good,” Grandpa Ivan growled. “And wait … wait and watch… Don’t spring… I said don’t spring, you ginger oaf!”

Boris tumbled head over heels and landed with a meaty thump. Then he glared at the others. Bianca was smirking, and he could tell Tasha and Peter were trying not to laugh. Peter’s black muzzle was all wrinkled up with the strain of holding it in.14

“Are you all right, dear?” their mother Smoke murmured, nudging him gently.

“Yes,” Boris muttered as he stood up. Why did being the biggest and strongest of the kittens always mean that he was 15the clumsiest too? They were all supposed to be practising their ratting skills so they could grow up to be museum guard cats, like their mother and their grandfather and all their aunts and uncles. Boris knew that one of these days he was going to be a mighty hunter. He just needed to grow into his paws first.

“Have a rest, Boris,” Smoke said. “Tasha, you try. Imagine a great grey rat, sneaking along the edge of the wall. You spot him…”

Tasha tensed up, her ears pricking and her tail beginning to swish from side to side. Boris watched her slinking towards the imaginary rat and sighed. She looked so … professional. At the moment, it seemed that the only way he’d ever catch a 16