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Chapter 32

In the entrance hall, the security guard was talking to the lady at the information desk again. Neither of them noticed Kirsty. She sidled into the Africa gallery. Where could she hide? Glass cabinets backed up against the walls; there was no room behind those. The exhibits in the middle of the room were way too open; there was nowhere to hide among those either. Think, think. There! A modern wooden bench, a bit like a church pew designed by IKEA, leaned up against the wall. It had a tall back and the section between the seat and the floor was boxed in, but it had no side panels. Just big enough for her and her bulging school bag. Kirsty grinned, then looked around quickly before ducking down into the hollow space. It was a good job that Ben’s photo hung in front of the camera. It meant that no one had even seen her come in.

The space that she found herself in was low and narrow. She couldn’t sit up. She lay on her side with her knees pulled up towards her chest. She tried to make her body relax. It was difficult. It was dark and uncomfortable, with wooden panels on either side of her. She could smell the dust, and small balls of grey fluff had gathered in the corners. She gasped; it was almost like being inside a coffin! Was she really going to stay here until midnight?

Dong! Dong! Dong! An old-fashioned school bell rang in the distance.

‘Closing time. Closing time.’ The shout echoed through the empty halls.

Kirsty held her breath and pulled her knees up closer to muffle the sound of her heart beating. This was it!

A few moments later she heard the stern clip of heavy soles on the stone floor. A radio crackled into life. ‘This is Charlie One. Gallery 10 is clear. Over,’ a man’s voice said.

He spoke like a policeman. Kirsty bet he wore a smart uniform and black shoes so polished you could see your face in them. She wanted to take a peek at him, but she knew that if she made the slightest noise she would ruin everything. She stayed frozen still until the shoes clipped away again. Then a heavy clunk, and the lights went out. Kirsty gasped. She hadn’t planned on being crouched in her coffin-shaped space until midnight in the dark. She felt her skin crawl as she imagined the mummies lying upstairs, the gravestones and urns and skeletons dotted around the vast, black museum halls. It was as though clawed fingers were walking slowly up her spine. She clamped her hand over her mouth to stop herself screaming.

Then, a small fizzing sound; the open ends of the seat were filled with a pale blue light. It wasn’t bright, just enough to see shapes, but not colours. Kirsty crawled forwards slowly and edged her head out enough to peek into the gallery. High above, on the ceiling, two small lights were on, like the emergency lights in the corridors at school. She sighed in relief; at least she wasn’t going to be totally terrified all night.

She crawled back into the dim space. She was going to have a long wait until midnight. Kirsty tried to read the dial on her watch. The hands were impossible to see. But she knew it wasn’t anywhere near midnight yet.

Her school bag was wedged into the space by her shoulders, with Ben’s lunch box inside. It was as good a time as any to see what was for tea. She unzipped it; the sound of the teeth springing apart sounded way too loud in the darkness. Kirsty prized off the lid and her hiding place filled with the cheesy smell of old butty-boxes. It was horrible, but her stomach rumbled anyway. She groped inside the container. There was an apple; she could feel its waxy skin beneath her fingertips and, yuck, the squelchy part where he had taken a bite before putting it back in the box. Revolting. She could also feel a few crusts. They had been hardening all afternoon so that now they were like cold toast. She put back the lid in disgust.

Clip, clip, clip. Someone was coming! The footsteps trotted in the same precise march that she had heard earlier. Charlie One! He was coming this way! She froze. She heard him speak into his radio, but he was too far away for her to make out the words. The footsteps came closer. Was he in the Africa gallery?

‘This is Charlie One, 6 p.m. check on Galleries 1 through 10 complete. All clear. Set the alarm. Over.’

The radio crackled with static and a tinny voice answered, ‘Roger that, Charlie One. I’ve just put the kettle on. Fancy a brew? Over.’

‘Affirmative. There’s some HobNobs in my locker. Over.’

The footsteps retreated.

They were ready to set the alarm. The gallery was still and quiet. Kirsty tried to keep as motionless as the stuffed animals around her. The minutes trickled away painfully slowly. Then Kirsty heard Charlie One’s footsteps. He was in the Africa gallery again. Why was he back? Had they spotted her? Did they suspect? She heard a dramatic sigh and the short static burst of the radio.

‘Come in, Alpha One. This is Charlie One. It’s a ruddy balloon in Gallery 10. Some kid must have lost it. It’s up on the ceiling now. Shall I come and get the air rifle? Over.’

‘No, Charlie One. You know what a fuss Dr Livingstone made about the holes in the plaster last time.’ There was a pause. Kirsty strained to hear. Alpha One spoke again. ‘Best just leave it, Charlie One. It’ll come down of its own accord tomorrow. I won’t set the internal gallery alarm. We’ll still have the alarms on all the external doors. We can do hourly checks instead. Come on, your tea’s getting cold. Over.’

Charlie One’s shoes squeaked on the stone floor as he turned and left the gallery.

Kirsty stayed completely still until her left leg began to tingle with numbness. But there were bigger things to think about than her legs. The alarm in the rooms was off, but the exit door alarms were still on! Dawn had assumed that all the alarms were on the same circuit – that if you couldn’t set one, then you couldn’t set any of them. But she had been wrong! It was fine to wander around the galleries, but the minute Kirsty turned the key and opened the lift doors the alarms would ring through the whole museum! And, to make things worse, Charlie One would be clip-clopping his way through the rooms every hour.

Kirsty felt a huge emptiness open up in her stomach. It wasn’t hunger, or at least, it wasn’t just hunger. It was fear. She was alone in the museum and she had only a few hours to come up with a plan to disable the alarm and keep the guards out of the Africa gallery. It was all up to her. If she failed, it all failed.

What could she do? She took a few deep breaths and tried to think. What if she sneaked out of her hiding place and locked the guard room? No, they were bound to have a phone in there; they could just call the police. Could she lock herself in the Africa gallery? They’d know something was up, but there might be time for them to steal the elephant. She sighed. No. As soon as the alarm went off, the guards would just come around the outside of the building, catch them red-handed and still call the police. What she needed was a diversion, a way of sending them off on a wild goose chase to the other end of the museum to give her time to sneak off with the elephant. But what? And how?

Kirsty twisted around in the cramped space until she found her school bag. There must be something in there she could use.

She felt inside: a water bottle, a sketchbook, tissues, a tube of mascara, her pencil case, an iPod, her bike lock and the lunch boxes. None of them turned into deadly gadgets. None of them launched missiles. None of them could be assembled into a super-intelligent robot. This was going to take a lot of thinking. Well, she had hours.

There were no windows in the gallery, so there was no moonlight or starlight marking the beginning of night. It would have been hard for Kirsty to judge how quickly the time passed, but Charlie One kept her straight. He patrolled the gallery every hour. The first time, at 7 p.m., Kirsty had been terrified of being spotted. But as the hours crept by, she became more used to his visits. He was like a scary cuckoo clock, popping out every hour.

In the quiet, dim light, between his visits, Kirsty thought about the diversion. What would keep Alpha and Charlie away from the Africa gallery, even when the alarm went off? An explosion? That would do the trick, but she had no idea how to make something explode. A strange noise to be investigated? That was more possible. She could definitely make a noise. In fact, she could even set off the alarm in a different gallery. That way they’d be investigating in the wrong place! She began to feel excited. That would work. She thought about all the galleries she knew in the building. Where should she send them to investigate? Oh yes. Kirsty grinned at the darkness. She knew the perfect place.

Now that she knew what she was going to do, the moments seemed to drag on endlessly. She fought hard to keep still and quiet. Charlie One had his eleven o’clock check to do before she could move. Finally, she heard his steps.

‘Come in, Alpha One. Galleries 1 to 10 are completely fine. The animals are still stuffed. The mummies ain’t moving. Can I come back now? Over.’

‘Roger that. Fancy a game of backgammon? Over.’

‘Lovely. Set it up. I’ll beat you this time. It will be Game. Over.’

There was a chuckle and the steps receded.

Kirsty squirmed out of her hiding place. She whipped the black mascara wand across her cheeks, Apache-style. Then she grabbed her bag and stuffed everything into it. She was ready.

She walked swiftly across the Africa gallery. The camera here wouldn’t spot her. It would be a different story in the rest of the museum. She took a deep breath before stepping into the next room. She hoped the guards were playing a long and interesting game of backgammon, with their backs to the CCTV screens.

She kept to the shadows. If she remembered the map properly, she had to cross the entire museum. Like a spy stealing through an enemy embassy, she crouched, she ducked, she crept, she slunk. The future of everything depended on the success of her mission. She had memorised the plan. She was Girl-Spy Extraordinaire. She reached the archway and the main hall opened up in its full marble splendour before her: white walls, glistening columns, pale ceiling, emergency lights that seemed to sparkle like chandeliers.

How could she cross this huge, light, open space? In her dark uniform, Alpha and Charlie couldn’t fail to see her on the security cameras. What would Girl-Spy Extraordinaire do? Camouflage, that’s what she needed. She had to be as pale as the walls around her. She looked in her school bag again. Dawn’s sketchbook! There were loads of blank pages. She had some Sellotape in her pencil case. She tore out a few pages and stuck the edges together, then a few more, then a few more. Soon she had a white paper sheet just big enough to hide behind. She held it up, so that the pages touched the floor. Crab-like, she inched along the white wall. Every rustle of paper made her heart pound harder. Would they see her? Would they hear her? She was halfway across. Three-quarters. She was there! On the other side, she strained with every muscle to hear whether Charlie One was running to catch her. The hall stayed empty. She breathed out again. She left her paper sheet on the ground.

Beyond the main entrance, dark corridors stretched out into the opposite wing of the museum – dark arteries that she could creep through. She set off into the gloom.

The very last room at the end of the furthest corridor opened out before her. The Egypt gallery. The room where the mummies slept, their crumbling bodies shrouded in rotting bandages. Kirsty swallowed.

She stepped up to the doorway. Her foot moved reluctantly, as though it had a huge wodge of chewing gum sticking it to the floor. She could hear her own quick breathing. She was the only living thing within shouting distance – she hoped. Her eyes flashed around the room, noting objects and their positions. Eight coffins with mummies in. An open coffin in the centre of the room. Ignore the mummies, ignore the mummies. She couldn’t. Their staring gold eyes seemed to glow with malice. She gave a small moan. She had to do this quickly so she could get out of here! She forced her eyes to move on. Where was the camera? There! Set into the wall above the emergency exit. Its steady lens gazed down, unblinking. She couldn’t disable it; it was out of reach. This called for stealth and courage!

She took all the things she needed from her bag and then stashed it behind one of the entrance doors. The doors had handles – that would be useful later.

She checked her watch in the green light above the entrance. 11.50 p.m. Her heart lurched. Ten minutes left! It was time to set the trap.

She rushed into the room and crouched behind the coffin in the middle, which shielded her from the view of the camera.

Kirsty opened her packet of tissues and began tearing them into strips. When she had a small pile in front of her, she reached for the iPod. She knew Dawn had a creepy, whispering tune on there somewhere. She flicked until she found it, then hit the repeat button and turned the volume up full so it could be heard coming through the headphones. Finally, she looked at her lunch box, judging the width. She peered around the coffin edge, at the emergency exit. The box was about the same width as the gap between the push bar and the door. She took a deep breath. She was ready.

Kirsty tossed the iPod up into the air like a grenade. It landed inside the coffin. Now the muffled tune echoed off the coffin walls. It sounded terrifying, like something alive and moving.

She threw the strips of tissue after the iPod. They sailed over the coffin; some caught on the wooden edge, others floated to the ground.

She flung herself to the floor, then crawled, elbow over elbow, commando-style, towards the emergency exit, keeping to the shadows that spilled from the mummy cases. As soon as she was close enough, she leaned down heavily against the bar. It crashed open. Suddenly, the gallery filled with a cold breeze and the insistent wailing of an alarm. She struggled against the wind and managed to haul the door closed again. She jammed her empty butty-box under the bar. That would stop it opening again for a while! The wind died down but the alarm carried on ringing. They would be here any second! She had no time to lose. Kirsty pelted back to the entrance, then slipped behind the door where her bag – and her bike lock – were waiting.

In no time at all, she heard Charlie One’s footsteps pounding down the corridor. He was breathing hard. His radio crackled and squawked, ‘Report, Charlie One. Report. Is it a code 349? Over.’

‘Give me a chance, Alpha,’ Charlie One panted. ‘I’ve only just got here. Over.’

He was standing right next to her. There was only the thin door separating Kirsty and Charlie One. She squeezed her eyes closed. Please go inside, please go inside, she thought, over and over.

Charlie One walked into the room. His steps were slow and reluctant. He paused.

‘Come in, Alpha One. Over,’ he whispered into his radio. His voice shook with a trace of panic.

‘Go ahead. Over.’

‘Exit 8 alarm activated. Probable suspect, a-a-a-mummy.’

‘What?’ Alpha One shouted.

‘Shh. Repeat, a mummy on the move. Bandages on the floor,’ his voice croaked. ‘Strange whispering,’ he whimpered. ‘And it’s freezing cold. They’re alive! They’re alive!’

Kirsty pushed hard against the door. It swung closed. She grabbed the other one and pushed that to. She could hear Charlie One running towards her inside the gallery. She whipped her bike lock through the handles and rammed it home. The door was locked tight.

Charlie One screamed into his radio, ‘Alpha, help! It’s got me trapped! It’ll eat my brains and turn me into a zombie. Come and get me!’

‘Don’t panic, Charlie. I’m on my way.’

Kirsty picked up her bag and raced back along the corridor. That should keep security busy for a little while. Long enough for them to steal the elephant anyway. She hoped Dawn wouldn’t be too angry about losing the iPod.

She crossed the hall quickly, not worrying this time about being seen. Alpha and Charlie were in exactly the wrong place for catching intruders.

In the Africa gallery, she checked her watch one last time. Midnight. T minus zero! She ran past the animals to the lift. She slid the key into the slot. She could just make out the whir of the lift engine beneath the roar of the alarm. The lift went down; she heard the doors scrape open, then the lift rose.

‘Kirsty, why is the alarm ringing?’ Ben said as he stepped out.

‘Long story. Zombie mummies. Anyway, we have to hurry.’

‘Let’s go!’ Dawn grinned. She held up two skateboards that had ropes flapping from them. Ben held two more.

Kirsty grabbed a skateboard from Dawn’s hands and raced over to where the elephant towered mournfully above the rhinos. She jumped over the low rope and crouched by its front leg. ‘Right, when I say three, everyone lift this leg up. Ready?’ Ben and Dawn stepped over the rope and grabbed the elephant’s knee. ‘One, two, three!’

The elephant’s leg wobbled into the air. Its body lurched to the right, showering dust on to the rhino below. Kirsty jammed the skateboard under its foot. ‘Down!’ She tugged the front loop over its toenails, jamming it on tight. Then she laced the back rope around its ankle, lashing it firmly in place.

‘And now the other legs,’ Kirsty said. They worked quickly. Soon, the elephant was wearing four giant roller skates. Kirsty giggled, sure she could see a gleam of surprise in its brown eyes. She unhooked the barrier. ‘One, two, three, push!’ Slowly at first, but picking up speed, the elephant rolled forwards. Together they guided it along the smooth floor.

Kirsty kept one eye on the halls behind them. Had Alpha rescued Charlie One? ‘Come on. We’ve got no time,’ she said.

The goods lift was metres away. And then, Kirsty heard the unmistakable sound of someone running – and not too far away.

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Alpha and Charlie are coming!’

Ben stopped heaving at the elephant’s shaggy leg. ‘Alpha and Charlie. Who are they?’

‘Security! Come on!’

‘What about Bravo?’ Ben asked.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Alpha, Bravo, Charlie. That’s the police phonetic alphabet. If there’s an A and a C, then where’s B?’

Kirsty felt a sudden sinking sensation in her stomach. ‘Perhaps he’s got the night off?’ she said.

‘Let’s get out of here. Now!’ Dawn said. Kirsty turned the lift key and the doors shuddered open. With a heave they got the elephant in. There was just enough room for the three of them to cram themselves in too. Kirsty slammed the ‘down’ button with the palm of her hand. The lift seemed to crawl towards the street. When the doors finally opened the air felt suddenly cold against Kirsty’s skin – they were out. And so was the elephant.

They pushed her out of the lift. The skateboards juddered over the cobbles. Somewhere outside in the darkness and not too far away Kirsty heard the crackle of a radio. ‘Goods lift. Roger that.’ And then footsteps running nearby and getting closer.

‘There’s a security guard out here!’ Dawn said.

‘I guess we’ve found Bravo,’ Kirsty said.

‘What are we going to do?’ Ben asked.

‘Run!’