One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (10 page)

“I’ve never theen that before.” Susanne nudged Melissa, and giggled. She pointed at Fat Choy. “That policeman thitting over there on the wall. He must be very new. You know how nicely they all twiddle their night-thticks. Well, he can’t. He just hit himself on the nose with his.”

Hettie looked at her friends. “Everybody’s here, then? Nae too many problems, we hope, arranging for tonight off?” The nannies shook their heads. “Well, now, we think we begin by synchronizing our watches, don’t we, Emily?”

“Definitely,” said the old nanny, her nose twitching faster with excitement. “Always synchronize watches before a big military operation. And, by the way, I think we should call this one by a code name, so we can maintain absolute secrecy. In future, we won’t use the word dinosaur. It’s to be referred to as Sassenach. It can even be our password, in the dark, in the museum. Everyone agree?”

Susanne squeezed Emily’s arm for attention. “But pleath don’t shoot if thomeone thays thathenach.”

Hettie frowned.

‘‘Ready with your watches, everybody?” she asked. She fidgeted while her friend, Emily, hoisted in half a yard of silver chain, like a battleship weighing anchor, to reach her massive silver timepiece. “We’ll start counting,” began Hettie. “Five . . . four . . . three . . .” Her voice cracked, and she sighed as she remembered the last count-down on the museum steps. “It’s no use, we can’t manage to count here.”

Emily consulted her clock, dangling it on its chain. Her eyes followed it, as it swung like a pendulum, in front of her twitching nose. “At the third stroke,” she said, briskly, “it will be four thirty-two, precisely ... pip--pip--pip-”

The nannies adjusted their watches.

“We’d better split up, now,” advised Hettie, her voice strong again. “Action stations! In we go, in ones and twos. We’ll meet on the fourth floor at four forty- five exactly. Tally ho, girls!”

The museum guard stood at the entrance to the Early Dinosaur Hall. “Och, dear,” Hettie muttered to herself. “How on earth can we sneak in with him around?”

She stopped short of the doorway, and pretended to study a case of fossilized eggs. Then she checked the time on her watch.

“Make mine a three-minute one, Nurse,” said a voice. She turned. It was the guard. Hettie gazed at him, thoughtfully, wondering if she could find a quick way of luring him from his post. Suddenly, her problem was solved. A weird noise burst from the far end of the hall, and a strange, portly figure lurched into view, singing a wavering off-key Oriental melody, and hiccupping and belching alternately.

“Holy cow,” grunted the guard. “A drunken gook.” He drew himself up, authoritatively, and strode down the corridor. The drunk disappeared round the comer. Hettie watched the guard follow him. There was a babble of confused argument. Gradually, it died away into the distance.

The other nannies joined Hettie.

“What was all that about?” asked Melissa.

“A drunken Chinaman,” said Hettie. “Just as well he was there, otherwise we might have had trouble with the guard. Quick, let’s get to work, now, while no one’s around.”

She led the way into the hall, and held the edge of the canvas covering the dinosaur, while the others crawled in underneath.

“It’s ever tho exciting,” whispered Susanne. “Like midnight feathts and pillow fights.”

“Sush . . warned Emily, switching on the lantern she’d suspended from the skeleton the previous night. “Keep very quiet, and you’d better change into your working clothes.” The old nanny was carrying a duffel bag by its string. She hung it near the lantern, on one of the bolts that had previously held a tail vertebrae.

“It’s quaite dirty in here. As black as Newgate’s knocker,” remarked Una, wiping her finger along one of the bones. “We’ll be quaite filthy by the morning.”

“Hurrumph,” snorted Hettie. “HONEST dirt’s no sae bad. It comes off wi’ a scrub. Plenty of hot water, soap and a scrubbing brush. That’s what we taught the royal children ... and a good hot bath EVERY Friday night ... And look at them now.”

Melissa smiled in the dim light. “I can see now why Miss Emily says you were the power behind the behinds on the throne.”

The museum was soon asleep, but inside the dinosaur tent the nannies worked away in the yellow light of the lamp.

The removal of the neck bones now meant a mountaineering attempt every time one was loosened.

“Got to get some steps,” said Hettie. “Melissa and Susanne trot outside and borrow one of the painter’s ladders.”

The two young nannies sneaked out of the canvas tent, unlashed one of the ladders from the scaffolding, and dragged it back under the tarpaulin. It made the work a lot easier. Hettie climbed up to the shoulders of the brontosaurus and for two hours levered away with her wrench.

Eventually, she spoke. “You know, there is something we forgot,” she said, peevishly. “We must go.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Una.

“All right,” said Hettie. “Where is it?”

“Where’th what?” asked Susanne.

“The ladies’, of course. What did you think ae meant, the Braemar Gathering?”

“I’d like to come too,” said Melissa: “I saw one downstairs.”

Emily lifted her duffel bag off the dinosaur frame. “Let’s all go.”

“Your washing things?” asked Una, looking at Emily’s bag.

The old nanny shook her fuzzy head and poked her pince-nez back into place. “No,” she said. “It’s Tarzan.”

“Tarzan?” Una looked horrified.

“It’s who?” asked Hettie, startled.

“Tarzan,” Emily repeated. “He fretted last night. Wouldn’t sleep, pulled out nearly all his feathers. Today, he wouldn’t eat. I couldn’t leave him again, so I brought him.”

“You must be a loony, woman, bringing your parrot along on a thing like this. Holy haggis, leave him up here, or he’ll scream the place down.”

“No, I shan’t. I can’t,” said Emily, firmly. “If I leave him here on his own, he WILL scream the place down. He has to know I’m near. He’ll be quite all right.”

Hettie sighed. “Och, come on, then.” She led the way out from under the canvas, and into the museum corridor. The building looked bigger by flashlight. Macabre shadows stirred among the trapped exhibits, as Hettie shone the beam from side to side.

“Round here.” She back-tracked down the first staircase, followed by her platoon. “Shhhhh.” Another light glimmered ahead of diem. “It must be a guard,” she whispered. They all pressed themselves against the wall. The light glowed for a few minutes, then disappeared. They heard the man cough in the distance.

“Surely there was a ladies’ on the dinosaur floor,” said Emily, clutching the duffel bag to her bosom

“The only one I’ve noticed was on this floor,” whispered Melissa. “It was near the elephants.“

Just ahead of them, in the darkness, the herd of pachyderms lumbered and trudged, in frozen action, with their trunks bellowing soundlessly, and their eyes glinting blindly.

“Maybe it’s somewhere here,” breathed Susanne. “Use the torch again.”

Hettie switched it on. Susanne jumped. “A man,” she squeaked in a horrified voice. “A naked man. I thaw him. Disguthting.”

“Shhh. It’s only a model, lassie. We know the one. It’s a Montana Indian, shooting birds. The toilet’s away over there.”

The guard’s cough, close at hand, startled them. Una grabbed Hettie and pushed her into the plastic undergrowth of the Indian display. They crouched near the Indian. The others scattered.

Una glanced up at the figure, and felt her nose tingle. Don’t be foolish, she told herself, it’s a model, not a man. You can’t be allergic to it! It didn’t seem to matter. Her nose still threatened to sneeze.

The cough sounded closer. A flashlight illuminated the display. Then the beam swung downward as the guard hung the torch on a hook on the wall. The man leaned back against a cabinet, fished a paper bag from his pocket, and took out a sandwich. He munched for several minutes. From another pocket he produced a hip-flask. He removed the stopper with his teeth, and gulped at the brandy.

“A noisy eater,” whispered Hettie. “Bad upbringing.”

“Shhh,” hissed Una. She was suddenly embarrassed as she realized on what part of the Indian’s anatomy she was resting her head. She blushed unseen in the darkness.

The guard swigged again at his brandy flask and started another sandwich.

“Och, he might be here for hours,” murmured Hettie, her legs beginning to feel cramped. There was a slight scuttering sound behind her. “Shhhh,” she said.

The leaves of the jungle display surrounding the Montana Indian rustled. In the reflected light of the guard’s torch, Hettie and Una watched his jaw stop its champing. The man listened. The plastic leaves rattled again. To Una it seemed the guard was staring straight at her. He rested his sandwich and flask on the cabinet, and unclipped the flap of his gun holster. He pulled out the pistol and pointed it at the display. Una gulped. The guard then reached for his torch and swung the beam toward them.

Out of the foliage of the synthetic forest marched, a strange, diminutive nightmare. Its ten-inch tall body was nude, apart from a neat crimson waistcoat around its middle.

“Oh, no! Tarzan.” Una covered her face with her hands.

The small figure continued its swaggering march, like a clockwork barbecued chicken, straight at the muted guard. Hettie could see the beam of his torch quiver as his hand began to shake. Meanwhile, Tarzan goose-stepped on, until he was only three feet from the man. Then he unleashed his normal welcome.

“Ahhhhheee, ahhheeeee, aaaaaah ...”

The ape-man scream echoed round the museum halls. The guard dropped his flashlight and pistol. The nannies heard his feet thudding across the polished floors. There was a crash as he collided with a display. Then a door slammed. The footsteps faded into the distance. Another door banged and there was silence.

“Och, my goodness,” gasped Hettie. Susanne giggled. Emily chased after Tarzan on her hands and knees, and scooped him back into the duffel bag.

“Quick,” said Hettie. “We’ve no much time. Into the toilet, and back upstairs again before we’re invaded by the police. And for heaven’s sake, Emily, keep a tight hold on that beastie.”

Moments later, they were hurrying up the stairs toward the dinosaur hall.

“Phew,” puffed Melissa, as they dashed along the last corridor, into the hall, and wriggled under the canvas.

Hettie watched Emily, as the old nanny adjusted Tarzan’s bed inside the duffel bag. “Emily Biddle,” she said, exasperatedly, “you’re the sticky limit.” Emily pretended she hadn’t heard, and tickled Tarzan’s head. “Hang that dratted thing up, and let’s get on wi’ the work.”

“Oh, bother!” said Susanne.

“What’s the matter, now?” demanded Hettie.

“It’s all the excitement. I want to go to the loo again.”

“Goodness, child. Weren’t you ever toilet trained?” asked Emily from the back of the tent.

“Quaite,” said Una.

The dinosaur, beneath its canvas cover, was now unrecognizable. “It looks like a torture chamber,” hissed Susanne, looking at the disarticulated skeleton. “Imagine thcreaming prisoners thwinging upside-down, dripping blood. And red-hot pincers.” She stretched up and stuffed her fingers in the monster’s mouth.

“Concentrate on what you’re doing, child,” gasped Emily, her nose twitching rapidly. She struggled to support the weight of the head as she straddled the framework.

“Take hold of it properly. If it drops, it’ll swallow you.”

They lowered the skull to the ground.

Susanne nudged Melissa. “I wath thinking. I bet an expectant brontothaurus was really thomething.”

“They laid eggs,” Melissa told her. “They became extinct because whenever they climbed up to their nests, the trees collapsed.”

“Poor thingth,” said Susanne, sadly.

Emily slid down the iron support that had held a front leg She rubbed the dust off her glasses and clipped them back on her nose She surveyed the remains on the framework. “Not much more. Just the pelvis and odds and ends. I think it’s time we all had a nice cup of tea “

An hour later, only the hip bone remained bolted to the brown tubing. Emily pulled up the baggy front of her overalls and wiped away a faceful of perspiration. The dust turned the sweat into a layer of mud. “I’ve got to make some sort of a pulley system to take the weight of that heavy piece. When we’ve got that down, we’ve almost finished.”

Lui Ho trod carefully along the night-dimmed path, just inside Central Park, and parallel to the road running past the front of the museum. He held his nightstick, nervously, and kept reminding himself that his police uniform was probably good protection against being mugged.

Lui Ho wondered what Central Park bandits did to their victims. If they were anything like those in his home province, they cut throats. On the other hand, some bandits in the border districts specialized in a quick kick to the victim’s knee-cap. Lui Ho clipped the nightstick to his belt, tucked his chin hard down against his chest, to guard his windpipe, then stooped and clasped a hand over each knee. He hoped there wasn’t another bandit standing behind him.

“Pssst.”

Lui Ho tried to look up toward the hiss. He found it difficult. “If anyone attacks us and if the conditions are favourable for battle, we will certainly act in self- defence to wipe him out resolutely, thoroughly, wholly and completely,” he said, quoting Mao Tse-tung aloud in English.

The flat voice of Sam Ling came out of the darkness. “Had I been an enemy, I would have been terrified by that courageous threat, and I would already be fleeing for my life. As it is, I remained because I was so impressed by the important readings, I could not resist staying until you’d finished.”

Lui Ho wished there was sufficient light to see his second-in-command’s expression. “A true worker can always find comfort and advice in the words of our beloved Mao,” he replied. “A pity that the rest of you have not learned more from them. Had you done so, we would not now be suffering from fifty per cent casualties. And we haven’t had a battle yet.” He sighed.

“Fat Choy’s broken his nose. You’ve got an ear cracked by frostbite--and in New York on a hot autumn day. And Pi Wun Tun has been arrested for being drunk and disorderly in the museum.”