The Cat Who Guarded the Clock

Part One. The Lady at the Gate

The first time we properly met Mrs Bast was on a Monday, and Willow had not stopped bowing to her.

I don't mean that Willow bowed all day long. That would be silly. I mean that every time Willow saw Mrs Bast, she did a very slow, very low bow, with her chin on her paws and her tail stretched out behind her, like a golden carpet. And Willow, if you remember, is nine years old, and a Reading Cat, and has never bowed to anyone in her whole life.

Alex and Felix had brought Willow to school as usual. She lives at their house, and on Mondays she walks between them all the way to the gate, with her tail up, like a tiny golden queen escorted by two guards. But this Monday, she stopped dead on the pavement. She stared at the school gates. And then she did the bow.

The tall woman in the long white dress was standing under the oak tree, waiting. Her eyes were green and slanted, and she wore a golden headdress shaped like two cat's ears. Her badge said Mrs Bast, Pastoral Care and Pest Control.

"Hello again, little one," she said, to Willow.

Willow answered with a very small meow. It sounded a bit like a hello and a bit like a question.

"Hello, boys," said Mrs Bast, and she smiled at Alex and Felix. It was a warm, sleepy smile, like sunshine on a windowsill. "You must be the two I've heard so much about. I'm so glad you take such good care of her."

"She takes care of us," said Alex.

"Mostly," said Felix.

"Of course," said Mrs Bast, with a purr in her voice. "That's what cats do."

Part Two. Maya Has a List

Maya Singh was already waiting by the coat pegs, with a new notebook.

If you remember Maya, you will remember that she is the one who works out who the god is. She had been away for a bit, doing her own investigation into something called The Mystery of the Missing Biscuits, which turned out to be Mister Harris. But she had come straight back when she heard that a cat-goddess had arrived.

"I've got evidence," she said, flipping open her notebook. "Alex, Felix, sit down. Willow, you too, since you're involved."

Willow jumped on the bench and sat very straight.

"Evidence number one," said Maya. "Her badge says Pest Control. What eats pests? Cats. Number two. Her headdress has ears. Number three. Her purr."

"What about it?" said Felix.

"Listen," said Maya.

We all listened. And, very faintly, from the far end of the corridor, where Mrs Bast was talking to Mister Harris, came a low, gentle sound, like a small engine running in a very large room.

"It's coming from the whole building," whispered Alex.

"She's Bastet," said Maya. "Or Bast. An Egyptian goddess. Her name means something like 'she of the ointment jar', which is a funny name for a cat. She's the goddess of cats, and homes, and music, and joy. She protects families. She guards people from sickness and bad luck. Cats were so precious in Ancient Egypt that when one died, the whole family shaved off their eyebrows."

"Their eyebrows?" said Ollie, who had been listening from under the table.

"As a sign of sadness," said Maya. "It's true. It's in a very old book."

"And Willow bowed to her," said Felix.

"I think," said Maya slowly, "that Willow knows exactly who she is."

Part Three. The Gentle One and the Fierce One

"She has two sides," said Maya, at lunchtime.

We were sitting by the radiator in the dinner hall, with our trays. Willow was lying along the windowsill in the sun, with her eyes half shut, listening.

"In the oldest stories, she wasn't a house cat at all," said Maya. "She was a lioness. She was the daughter of Ra, the sun god, and she was fierce, and she fought on his side. They called her the Eye of Ra. Whenever the sun god needed someone to defend him from enemies, she would go out and fight them."

"That's cool," said Alex.

"But once she got so angry that she ran away," said Maya. "She went to a faraway desert, and she turned into a raging lioness, and she wouldn't come home. And all of Egypt began to miss her. The sun grew dimmer. The harvest went wrong. In the end, Ra sent Thoth, the wise ibis, to bring her back."

"Mrs Ibbs?" said Felix. He meant Thoth, who had been our dinner lady, back in a different story.

"The same," said Maya. "He told her stories, and he sang her songs. And little by little, she calmed down. Her fur went soft. Her claws went away. And she turned into the cat we know. Gentle, and warm, and sleepy."

"Is she still fierce?" said Alex.

"Inside," said Maya. "That's the thing. She's both. She's the soft cat who curls up on your lap. And she's the lioness who'll fight anything that threatens her family. If somebody makes her very, very angry, the lioness comes back. She turns into a different goddess, called Sekhmet."

Willow, on the windowsill, opened one eye and looked at us.

"I think," whispered Felix, "we should be very polite to Mrs Bast."

Part Four. The Odd Week

Things started to go wrong on Tuesday.

At first it was only little things. Ollie's socks didn't match. Kenji's left shoe appeared on his right foot, and his right shoe on his left foot, and nobody could work out how. Missus Tibbs rang the lunch bell at ten o'clock in the morning, and then rang it again at ten past, and then three times in a row for no reason.

"That's a bit weird," said Maya, writing it down.

On Wednesday, it got worse. Pudding turned up before the main course. The classroom clock started going backwards. In the middle of the morning register, when Mister Harris called out, "Alex Bailey," a voice from somewhere said "Yailey Balex," and he called "Felix Bailey," and it came out as "Bailey Felix," and by the time he reached "Dot," he was reading the whole list upside down.

"I don't understand it," said Mister Harris. His glasses were on his forehead. His tie was over his shoulder. He looked at his own hands as if they belonged to someone else. "I've been doing this for twenty years. I know my own register."

The library books jumbled themselves up on the shelf. The letters in the alphabet frieze on the wall switched places. The big hall clock, the one with the round white face, started to run so fast that its hands whirled round like helicopter blades, and then stopped altogether at a quarter to midnight.

"Everything is out of order," said Maya. She held up her notebook. Every page was covered in crossings-out. "It isn't just a mix-up. It's chaos."

"That's the word," said a soft voice behind us.

Mrs Bast had come up silently. Her green eyes were serious, and her golden headdress glinted. She looked at the stopped clock.

"It's here," she said. "Tonight."

Part Five. The Serpent in the Drain

She told us at the end of school, in the empty hall, with the light fading through the high windows.

"Every night," said Mrs Bast, "when the sun goes down, the sun god sails his boat through the dark river of the underworld. And every night, a great serpent rises out of the water to try to swallow him. His name is Apep. He is the spirit of chaos. He doesn't want anything in particular. He just wants everything to be a muddle. No order. No time. No rules. Just a big, jumbled, tangled mess."

"What's he got to do with us?" said Alex.

"He's found a crack," said Mrs Bast. "In the old drain under your playground. It runs all the way down to the underworld, and he's been wriggling up it, a little further every night, and tonight he will reach the school."

"What does he want?" whispered Felix.

"The clock," said Mrs Bast. "Time is the thing that keeps the world in order. Morning, then afternoon, then night. Breakfast, then lunch, then tea. If he swallows it, nothing will ever happen in the right order again. Everything will happen all at once. For ever."

Maya went very pale. "That would be terrible," she said. "I have a timetable."

"I fight him," said Mrs Bast. "I have done it every night for thousands of years. But I have a problem. Tonight, I am tired. And he has grown strong. I cannot do it by myself."

She turned and looked at Willow, who was sitting very still, with her ears pricked forward.

"I need a cat," she said.

Part Six. The Sleepover

It was Mister Harris's idea to hold the sleepover.

It had been planned for ages. Every year, our class has a sleepover in the school hall, with sleeping bags and torches and midnight cocoa, and parents pick everyone up at breakfast. Alex and Felix had been looking forward to it for weeks. Normally it's the nicest night of the autumn.

"It's just a bit of fun," said Mister Harris, in a shaky voice, as he rolled out the mats. "A cosy night. What could possibly go wrong?"

"Everything," whispered Maya.

At eight o'clock, the whole class was lined up in sleeping bags on the hall floor. Kenji and Ollie shared a torch. Dot, from Reception, had come for a special visit, in pyjamas with cats on. Nana had stayed in the corner, in a deckchair, with a flask of tea and a knitting bag.

By ten, everyone was asleep. Even Willow had curled up on a cushion at the back, with her tail over her nose.

By eleven, only four of us were awake. Alex and Felix, lying side by side. Maya, with her notebook under her pillow. And Mrs Bast, sitting very upright on a stool beside the hall clock, with her gold bracelet gleaming in the moonlight. She hadn't moved for an hour.

At a quarter to midnight, the big white clock gave a shudder.

And the floor of the hall began to crack.

Part Seven. Apep

The serpent came up through the floor.

First there was a rumbling. Then a groan, like a thousand rusty hinges. A long grey head, as wide as a bus, pushed up through the wooden floor and tore the boards apart. Its scales were the colour of mud and slate, and they rippled as it moved. Its eyes were yellow slits. And its voice, when it spoke, was a long dry hiss, like gravel sliding down a hill.

"Mmmmmm," said Apep. "A clock."

He wound his huge body round the school hall, coil after coil, until the room was filled with the sound of scales scraping on wood. His tail curled up the wall. His head rose up and up, until he was looking down at the clock face.

"A very nice clock," he said. "Orderly. Tidy. Ticking away. I'm going to swallow it. And after that, I'm going to swallow the morning. And after that, I'm going to swallow Thursday. You'll never know what day it is again."

"You shall not," said Mrs Bast. She rose from her stool, and her voice was cold and clear.

"Oh, it's you," said Apep. He sounded delighted. "Good evening, Bast. Do you know, I'm so glad you came. It's much more fun when there's someone to fight."

All around the hall, the sleeping children began to stir. Dot rolled over. Ollie muttered. Mister Harris sat bolt upright in his sleeping bag and said, very clearly, "Is it Thursday?"

Apep turned his great yellow eyes on them.

"Sleep," he hissed. "Sleep, little ones. Forget. Let the tangle take you."

And one by one, everyone in the hall fell back into a deep, drooling sleep.

Everyone except Alex, Felix and Maya.

Part Eight. Maya Reads the List

"Why aren't we asleep?" whispered Felix.

"Because we're holding each other's hands," whispered Alex. He looked down. He and Felix and Maya had linked fingers in the dark, without even thinking about it. "Something's keeping us awake."

"It's order," whispered Maya. She was clutching her notebook to her chest with her other hand. "He can't send us to sleep, because we're in a pattern. We're three. We're connected. We're holding on. It's the one thing he can't tangle."

Apep's head swung down. He peered at them.

"What are you three whispering about?" he said. "It's rude to whisper."

Maya stood up. She was trembling. But she held her notebook out in front of her like a shield, and in a loud, clear voice, she began to read.

"Monday," she said. "Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Saturday. Sunday."

Apep flinched. A shudder ran down his coils.

"Spring," said Maya. "Summer. Autumn. Winter. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven."

"Stop that!" hissed Apep.

"A, B, C, D, E, F, G," said Maya. Her voice grew stronger with every word. "Breakfast, lunch, tea. Sunrise, noon, sunset. Please. Thank you. You're welcome."

Every word hit Apep like a small hard pebble. He reared back, hissing, with his coils shaking and his scales rattling. The clock on the wall, which had been spinning, slowed. The letters on the alphabet frieze slid back into the right places.

"It's working!" cried Alex.

"Keep going!" said Felix.

But Apep was not beaten. He gave a roar, and the floor split wider, and a gust of black wind poured out of the crack, and the clock began to spin again.

Part Nine. The Scales

"It's not enough," whispered Maya. "He's too strong."

"We need something else," said Alex.

Mrs Bast was standing in the middle of the hall, fighting. Her claws had grown long. Her eyes were green fire. But she was tiring, and Apep was winding himself round her, tighter and tighter. She tried to leap away, but his tail swept her feet from under her.

"There's one more thing," she gasped. "Ma'at."

"Who's Ma'at?" said Felix.

"The goddess of truth, and balance, and order," said Mrs Bast. "She weighs the heart. She holds a feather, and a pair of scales. If your heart is as light as a feather, because you have been honest and kind, then you pass. Apep cannot stand it. He hates things that are balanced and true."

Alex and Felix both went quiet.

"Balance," said Alex slowly.

"A pair of scales," said Felix.

"That's us," they said together.

They stood in the middle of the hall, on either side of the stopped clock, a good arm's length apart. Alex held out his right arm. Felix held out his left. And Maya, in between, held up the page of her notebook, like a small white feather.

"One true thing each," said Alex.

"I'll go first," said Felix. He took a deep breath. "I am very scared right now. But I'm still here."

"Me too," said Alex. "I'm scared too. And I'm staying."

A shimmer ran across the hall. Their raised hands glowed. And between them, in the air, a tiny pair of golden scales appeared, balanced perfectly, with a single white feather resting on each pan.

Part Ten. The Cat

The scales rang like a bell.

Apep screamed. He recoiled from the light, with his coils unwinding. The clock stopped spinning. The black wind faltered. And for one clear, ringing instant, the serpent was off balance, with his great head swaying.

"Now!" gasped Mrs Bast. "Willow!"

Willow was already moving.

She had woken up the moment the scales rang. She was a tiny golden shape on the dark floor. But as she crossed the room, something changed. Her fur began to glow. Mrs Bast stretched out a hand, and a beam of golden light ran along the floor and touched the little cat's head.

Willow grew.

She grew as tall as a pony. Her shoulders swelled. Her paws grew as big as dinner plates. Her whiskers lengthened. Her spotted coat shone like a leopard in the sun. And her eyes, wide and green and fierce, were the eyes of the oldest cat in the world.

"The great cat," whispered Maya. "The one who defeats Apep. In the old story, she fights him with a great big sword, under a sacred tree."

"No swords," said Mrs Bast, in a strained voice. "Not in a school."

With a roar that shook the windows, Willow leapt. She landed squarely on the serpent's neck, and pinned his head to the floor with one enormous paw. Apep thrashed. He hissed. He struggled. But he couldn't move.

"Boys," said Mrs Bast. "The rope."

Part Eleven. A Very Neat Bow

Alex and Felix looked round the hall. By the PE cupboard, tangled in a heap, lay the long blue skipping rope that Mister Harris used at sports day.

"I've got it," said Felix.

"I'll take the other end," said Alex.

They ran across the hall, dodging the thrashing tail, with the rope trailing behind them. They looped it round Apep's jaws. Round his neck. Round his head. They crossed it over and under, and pulled it tight. Maya, from the sidelines, called out, "Left over right! Right over left! That's it! Tie it neat!"

In ten seconds, the serpent was tied up.

It was not a rough knot. It was the neatest knot you have ever seen, and at the very end, on top of Apep's nose, was a big blue bow, with two loops and two long ends.

"Nice bow," said Mrs Bast, in a tired voice that was nearly a purr.

Willow, still as big as a pony, looked at the bow. Then she looked at Felix, and Alex, and Maya. She said nothing at all. She did not need to. She looked very pleased.

Apep opened one yellow eye and stared at the bow.

"This is humiliating," he hissed.

"It's tidy," said Maya.

Part Twelve. Back Down the Drain

Mrs Bast stood up. She was tired, and her golden headdress was bent. But she looked calm.

"You can't destroy him," she said to us, in a low voice. "He will never really go away. Chaos is part of the world, just like order. There will always be a bit of muddle in everything. What matters is that it doesn't win."

"So what do we do with him?" said Alex.

"We send him home," said Mrs Bast. "And we keep doing it, every night, for as long as we need. That is the work."

She knelt down by the serpent's head. "Apep," she said. "Go home. It's late. You've had your fun. Tomorrow night, you may come again, if you must. And tomorrow night, I will be waiting."

"Fine," grumbled Apep. "Just take the bow off."

Willow looked at the bow. Then she looked at Apep, and slowly blinked.

"She says no," said Mrs Bast.

The serpent sighed. Slowly, with a long, sliding hiss, he began to pull back, down through the hole in the floor, coil by coil, back into the dark. His tail disappeared last, with a flick. The floor knitted itself together, plank by plank. The cracks closed. The big hall clock gave one long deep chime, and began to tick, steady and slow.

It was exactly midnight.

Willow shrank back to her usual size. She gave a tiny sneeze, and curled up on Felix's lap, and went straight to sleep.

Part Thirteen. What Mrs Bast Said

We didn't tell anyone, in the morning. They wouldn't have believed us.

Mister Harris woke up with the sun, rubbing his eyes. The sleepers stirred and stretched. Kenji said it was the best sleepover ever. Dot announced that she had dreamed about a giant snake wearing a bow. Missus Tibbs counted heads, and found everyone present and correct, in the right order. Nana woke up in her deckchair, said, "Lovely sleep," and went back to her knitting, which had somehow grown an extra sleeve.

Mrs Bast sat by the window, in a patch of dawn sunlight, with a plate of toast on her knee. She looked softer, and sleepier, and very pleased.

Alex and Felix and Maya came and sat beside her.

"I used to think I had to do it alone," she said. "That being strong meant never needing anyone."

"But you needed Willow," said Alex.

"And you," said Mrs Bast. "All of you. And that is not weak. That is wise."

Maya wrote it down in her notebook. Then she crossed it out, and wrote it again, bigger.

"People think you must choose," said Mrs Bast. "Gentle, or fierce. But I am the cat on the lap, and the lioness in the doorway. And so are you."

"Us?" said Felix.

"You were both scared and brave last night," said Mrs Bast. "You were both gentle and strong. You can hold two things at once. That is the most powerful thing in the world."

She put a warm hand on each of their heads.

"And one more thing," she said. "About Willow."

Part Fourteen. About Willow

Willow was lying on the windowsill with her paws tucked under her chest, pretending not to listen.

"She is nine years old," said Mrs Bast. "In human years, that is quite old. And sometimes, when you are old, people forget how much you matter. They think you've done your big things already."

"I would never forget," said Felix.

"I know you wouldn't," said Mrs Bast. "But Willow may have forgotten. Cats are proud, but they are also shy, and she has spent so many years being the Reading Cat, sitting quietly with small children and listening to their stories, that she might think that was all she was."

"It is a very good thing to be," said Alex.

"It is the best thing," said Mrs Bast. "A cat who listens is a cat who guards. Every child she has ever sat beside has felt safer for it. She has been protecting this school every day, in the quietest, gentlest way. That is guarding too."

She looked over at Willow. And Willow, who had gone very still, slowly blinked her green eyes. It was a long, slow, deliberate blink.

"She says thank you," said Mrs Bast, with a smile. "And she says she knew."

"You're not too old," said Alex, to Willow.

"You're exactly the right age," said Felix.

Willow stood up, stretched, walked across the windowsill, and rubbed her head against both boys' chins, one after the other. She did it twice, to be fair.

Part Fifteen. The Festival

That Friday, the school held a party.

It was called the Festival of Bast, though only Maya and Mrs Bast knew why. There was music in the hall, and dancing. Mister Harris had found a box of old tambourines in the music cupboard, and Mrs Bast showed everyone how to shake them, which is exactly how the ancient Egyptians did it with their rattles. Kenji and Ollie played drums on upturned buckets. Dot, in her cat pyjamas, led a conga line.

Alex and Felix danced in the middle, shaking a tambourine each, matched beat for beat. Maya danced next to them, carrying her notebook, and wrote, "Best party. Evidence: everyone is happy."

Mrs Bast danced at the front, in her white dress, with her golden headdress glinting. She danced slowly at first, then faster. And as the music rose, the sunlight streaming through the hall windows seemed to grow warmer and brighter, until the whole room glowed gold. And every single cat in the whole town was purring at the same moment.

Willow sat on the piano and watched. For the first time in nine years, she looked completely, utterly proud.

When the music stopped, there was a long silence. Then everybody cheered.

"That," said Mrs Bast, wiping her forehead, "is what I call a proper celebration."

Part Sixteen. The Ending, with a Hook

It was nearly home time on Friday.

The party was over. The tambourines were packed away. Mrs Bast was standing in the school doorway, saying goodbye to everyone, with a warm smile and a gentle touch for each. When it was Willow's turn, she bent right down and whispered something in her ear. Willow purred.

Alex and Felix were waiting by the gate, with their coats on and their bags on their shoulders. Willow trotted down the steps and sat between them. Maya joined them, hugging her notebook.

That was when Felix sniffed.

"What's that smell?" he said.

"It's honey," said Maya, sniffing too. "And something sweet. Like flowers."

A warm breeze was blowing across the school field. It smelled of honey and oranges and rain on hot stones. And down at the bottom of the field, where the school pond lay, something was glowing.

The water had turned gold.

It wasn't a trick of the light. The whole pond was shimmering, like melted butter in the sun, and little ripples of yellow were running out across the grass. Orange blossom drifted over the fence and settled in Willow's whiskers. Bees came out of nowhere, buzzing, in a happy golden cloud.

At the edge of the water, with her feet dangling in, sat a woman in a bright yellow dress. She had dark glowing skin, and a hundred brass bangles on both arms that jingled whenever she moved. In one hand she held a small round mirror, which flashed in the sunlight. In the other she held a pot of honey.

She looked up, and waved. Her smile was so wide, and so sweet, that it made your heart feel full.

"Hello, hello!" she called, in a voice like a river over pebbles. "I hear you have a very nice pond. I wonder, could I stay a while?"

Willow's ears went flat. She looked up at Mrs Bast, who was watching from the doorway, and who gave a tiny, amused shrug.

Maya had already started writing. Alex and Felix looked at each other, with the golden light dancing in their eyes, and said, at exactly the same time, "Monday."

The End.