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Chapter 31

If the wait on Monday had been bad, on Tuesday it was much worse. She had to go to school, but the lessons were like irritating insects buzzing around her head. All she could think about was the elephant.

As soon as the end-of-day bell rang, Kirsty grabbed her bike and dashed towards the town centre. She rattled her way over the cobbled street that led down to the oldest part of the town. She skidded to a halt in front of the cathedral. There was a bike rack just to the side of the main entrance. Once her bike was locked, she skipped over to the museum steps. The carved and blackened stone front of the museum towered over her. She sat down to wait. A few minutes later, Dawn and Ben arrived. Dawn clutched her huge school bag to her side with both hands, as though she was frightened that it would fly away. Ben looked twitchy and scared.

‘Hello!’ Kirsty said cheerfully.

Dawn grinned back. Ben just nodded.

‘So, let’s go through the plan,’ Kirsty said. ‘The transport is in Grandad’s shed. The elephant is just going to roll out of the museum! I’ll go and get everything from the allotment before tonight. We’ll get in through the goods lift. What about the alarm and the CCTV camera?’ Kirsty asked.

‘I have to disable the alarm now from inside,’ Dawn said.

‘And I have to disable the camera too,’ Ben said.

‘Cool. So we knock out the alarm and the camera now. Then we go to the shed to wait until everyone is asleep. Then we come back here. How about eleven o’clock?’

Dawn laughed. ‘Not eleven! Things like this have to be done exactly at midnight. It’s kind of the rules.’

‘Midnight, then. Perfect. How are you going to disable the alarm?’

Dawn held up her school bag, which seemed to be stuffed fuller than usual. ‘Plan A,’ she said. ‘Do you want to shock and horrify a few people?’

Kirsty smiled. ‘I could give it a try. What do I have to do?’

Dawn opened her bag, then grabbed wildly. A red balloon, filled to bursting with helium, tried hard to float out of her grasp. ‘You just have to help me up the stairs. I can’t do it alone in my condition.’ Dawn shoved the balloon up her jumper. Her school uniform stretched across her middle, as though she were pregnant. It looked very uncomfortable. ‘We have to get this into the Africa gallery. And, by the way, we can’t stuff this up – there isn’t a Plan B.’

‘No problem,’ Kirsty said and obediently held out her arm.

Dawn leaned heavily on Kirsty as they walked up the steps. Ben followed behind, his face glowing red with embarrassment. Dawn struggled through the revolving doors – they were old-fashioned and very narrow, designed for people a lot thinner. The main hall was quiet again after the noisy crowds at the weekend. There were only two people there: the lady behind the information desk and a security guard who leaned up against it, chatting as though it were a neighbourly fence between them. The security guard’s jaw fell open. Kirsty tried to stop herself grinning but it was so hard. Dawn sighed heavily and put her hand to the base of her spine as though it was sore. The lady behind the desk prodded the guard to stop him staring. Kirsty smothered a giggle. Together they hobbled towards the Africa gallery. The sad troupe of savannah animals huddled tight together as though they were waiting to board Noah’s Ark.

‘That was brilliant!’ Dawn said. ‘Did you see their faces?’

‘Awesome,’ Kirsty agreed.

Dawn pulled the balloon out from under her top.

‘What’s going to happen when you let it go?’ Kirsty asked.

‘Well. Nothing yet. But when they come to turn on the alarm tonight, they’ll find that this gallery registers an intruder. The motion sensor will go off. And when they come to investigate, they’ll see that the culprit is this little balloon, bobbing around the ceiling. And they won’t be able to get it down, so they won’t be able to set the alarm. Simple, but incredibly clever.’

‘Cool,’ Kirsty said. Dawn held up her hands and let the balloon float gently up towards the high, high ceiling two floors above. She watched it bob against the pale blue plaster work, as though it were free in the sky.

‘Lovely,’ Kirsty said. She turned to Ben. ‘What’s the plan for the camera?’

He rummaged in his own school bag and pulled something out. ‘This.’

‘What’s that?’ Kirsty asked. Ben was holding what used to be a wire coat hanger. It was now pulled into a narrow rectangle. The hook extended from one of the short edges of the rectangle – it looked like a skeletal arm, with a hook for a hand. A small piece of card was taped to the other end, where a shoulder might be.

‘I’ve not got a name for it yet. Maybe Ben’s Brilliant Idea, or Ben’s Blinking Awful Plan. I guess I’ll wait to see if it works out before I name it.’

‘Yes,’ said Kirsty patiently. ‘But what is it?’

‘Come on, I’ll show you.’

They moved out of the Africa gallery, back towards the sweeping staircase that led upstairs. On the first floor, Ben steered them on to the balcony that looked down over the stuffed animals. If they peered between the bars, they could see the security camera screwed to the bottom edge of the balcony.

‘What time is it?’ Ben whispered.

‘Museum closes in ten minutes,’ Dawn said, looking at her watch.

‘Should be OK,’ Ben said grimly. He glanced about him. The whole first floor seemed deserted. He dropped down on to his knees. ‘Keep watch for me.’ He slid the old coat hanger between the bars.

‘Oh, it’s a photo!’ Kirsty said.

‘Yes, I came in and took it yesterday.’

The small piece of card at the end of the contraption was a photograph of the gallery that they were looking down on. It was taken from exactly where they stood, showing exactly the same view that they were looking at: the giraffe and the back end of the elephant.

Ben adjusted the hook, then took one quick look around. He leaned forwards and slipped the hook over the back of the camera, so that the photo hung in front of the lens. The camera whirred slightly as it auto-focused.

‘Done. Now when they look, they’ll just see an empty room, which is the way it should be as soon as the museum closes,’ Ben said in a heavy voice.

‘Brilliant!’ Kirsty said loudly. ‘You two are geniuses.’

‘Shh,’ said Dawn, grinning. ‘Let’s try not to draw attention to ourselves as we plan a robbery.’

‘Good point.’

‘So, the alarm is out. The camera is sorted. Shall we go and check the transport?’

‘Before we leave, we should also check the primary access point for obstructions,’ Ben said.

‘What?’

Ben sighed. ‘I mean, let’s go outside and make sure no one has parked in front of the goods lift.’ He shoved his school bag at Dawn. ‘Here, put this up your jumper, or they’ll come looking for a baby in here.’

They slipped quietly out of the museum and down the steps. According to the map, the goods lift was set in the east wall, which was around to the right. The museum was made of huge blocks of sandstone, dark as puddle water. Kirsty dragged her palm along the stone as she walked. If she ever had a castle, this was the kind of stone she’d build it out of. They followed the wall as it turned the corner.

The road narrowed into an alley, with cobbled stones beneath their feet. Shadows sprawled on either side of them. Kirsty heard a sudden scurrying noise in the gloom. Rats? She smothered a squeal. Above them, the evening sky was darkening. A street lamp buzzed into life at the far end of the alley. Suddenly, the wall they were following dipped into an alcove. They could just make out the garage-door shape of the lift in the darkness. Ben took out his phone and held the bright screen up to give them light.

‘OK,’ Kirsty said. ‘Nothing in the way. We should be able to get the elephant through here.’

‘Oh no,’ Ben said. ‘Not good.’

‘What?’ Kirsty asked.

‘Not good at all. Look!’ He shone his phone along the edges of the lift where it met the wall. The beam of light inched up one side, across the top and then back down the other side.

‘I don’t see anything,’ Dawn said.

‘Exactly. There’s nothing there. There’s no key hole to operate the lift. You can’t open the lift door from the street. You have to be inside the museum.’

No one answered. Kirsty heard the faint sound of traffic in the distance, dulled by the sound of the blood rushing in her ears as she realised what needed to be done.

‘I’ll hide inside,’ she whispered.

‘No!’ Dawn and Ben said together.

‘I have to, don’t I? This is my idea. And I’m the smallest. I can find somewhere to hide much easier than either of you. I have to . . .’ Kirsty’s voice trailed off quietly.

She looked at Ben. His eyes glistened in the darkness and his mouth was pulled into a hard line.

‘She’s right,’ Dawn said. She looked worried too, but from the firm set of her eyebrows, Kirsty could tell that Dawn realised it was the only way.

‘I need the key,’ Kirsty said. She held out her hand to Ben. He slipped it slowly from his pocket and laid it in her palm.

‘You’ll need other things too. Food, water, stuff like that. Ben, look in your school bag. Give her anything useful.’ Dawn started pulling things out of her own bag and shoving them at Kirsty. Her sketchbook, a tube of mascara, some tissues, her iPod. Ben pushed his water bottle and lunch box into Kirsty’s open bag.

‘What about my bike? If I leave it out the front, they’ll be suspicious.’

‘We’ll take it to the shed when we pick up the transport.’

‘Fine. You can’t miss them. They’re the weirdest things in the shed. Let’s do this.’

At the bottom of the steps, Kirsty unlocked her bike. She slipped the lock into her bag and let Ben take hold of the handlebars.

Dawn checked her watch. ‘You have to hurry. The museum’s closing in a few minutes. Find somewhere good to hide. Then at midnight exactly, open the lift. We’ll be waiting. Go on. Good luck.’

Kirsty turned away and ran. She rushed up the steps and stopped for a moment. She looked out towards the town, where traffic crawled under orange lamps. She felt scared now; her heart beat so hard it was as though someone were using a sink plunger inside her chest. She took a deep breath and stepped back into the museum building.