Читать книгу I, Houdini - Lynne Banks Reid - Страница 8

Of course the children wanted to know all about Houdini, and so did I, as you may imagine. The Mother put them off for the moment, but that night, when they were ready for bed, she told them about him like a story. Fortunately I had given them the slip again by then and was under Guy’s bed (a nice low one, with a frill-thing right to the floor which he hates but I love) and heard all about my namesake.

Houdini, in case you don’t know, was an American of Italian parentage who began by doing conjuring tricks and ended up as the most famous escapologist of all time. An escapologist, of course, is someone whose profession is escaping. It’s an act, like an act in a circus or on the stage. His helpers would tie him up tight with ropes, chains and handcuffs, and so on, then they’d put him in a thick sack which they’d fasten at the neck; after that they’d wrap more chains round the sack, padlock them, and then – if you can believe it – they’d often hang him up by the feet a couple of yards off the ground. Then they’d give him the old ‘ready, steady, go’, the drums would roll, and in a matter of a few minutes somehow or other he’d have wriggled free. Don’t ask me how. Nobody ever really knew his secret. Of course he must have had flexible bones, and joints that would bend backwards, and he had a few obvious tricks like swelling himself up while they were tying him so the knots wouldn’t be so tight. Still, there was more to it than that – more than anyone ever found out.

One of the most extraordinary things he ever did was to go over a waterfall, tied up in a barrel. He even survived that, though he was bruised.

Naturally it was hard for me to understand all this at the time. I hadn’t then watched all the television, and seen all the pictures that I have now, which meant I really didn’t have a clue about handcuffs, chains, waterfalls, etc. But I realised that this human had been world-famous for the very thing I had already decided to dedicate my life to. I shuddered at the idea of being tied up or dangled in mid-air, and hoped nothing so terrible would ever happen to me; but I determined then and there that no matter what challenges faced me in the future, even those, I would try to overcome them. After all, I had one priceless advantage over the human Houdini. I had rodent teeth. Ropes would be nothing to me. And when it came to flexible bones, and being able to make oneself look bigger and then squirm through places you’d think a snake couldn’t get through…I betted I could hold my own in that respect with the greatest escapologist ever.

I was able to prove this, and a great deal more, very soon.

My new home arrived the following day. The boys came charging into the house with cries of “Where’s Houdini? We’ve got his cage.” But I was nowhere to be found, having, as I mentioned, got away the previous evening. I was, in point of fact, exploring a new room – Mark’s – and when I heard them tramping about looking for me I dived into a very small hole I’d noticed earlier, in the floor by the fireplace. I swear a fair-sized mouse might have got stuck in it, but I made myself into the merest thread of my former self and in a moment I found myself huddled in the deep dust between the joists.

These are long planks standing on edge which you’ll find between the floor of an upstairs room and the ceiling of a downstairs room. Between them are long spaces, roadways to someone my size, and as there were plenty of places where I could climb over the tops of the joists I had what then seemed like a huge playground.

For a while I rejoiced. They would never catch me now! How could they? There was only the one way in, and not even a child could get his hand through that! Happily and, I fear, smugly, I made a nest in a very warm corner near where I had come in (I like a bit of light). I did wonder at the time just why it was so warm; I didn’t have the experience to realise that that thick, long, hot thing nearby was a hot-water pipe. It was much too hot to touch, but it gave off enough warmth to make me comfortable and sleepy. I curled up and dropped off, not feeling the least bit guilty about the row that was going on about me overhead.

I woke up feeling distinctly uncomfortable. To begin with the heat had increased to a point where I had dreamt I was being roasted alive. I jumped up hastily and moved to a cooler spot. There was no light coming through the hole now, I noticed, so I decided that it would be perfectly safe to pop up and attend to my other discomfort – hunger.

I hadn’t managed to eat much the day before, what with one thing and another; that’s the trouble with escaping upstairs, there’s very little food lying about, and I hadn’t yet thought of leaving stores hidden in various strategic places all over the house. I realised I’d probably have to go downstairs to forage. I’d already seen the stairs, while being carried up and down them; they were thickly carpeted and I felt sure I could manage them all right, though getting back up might be a bit of an effort.

I returned to the spot, below the hole, where I had been sleeping. It was awful just standing there, right next to that pipe – if hamsters could sweat, I’d have been wringing wet. I looked upwards. I could just about see the hole. I stood up on my back legs idiotically convinced that if I stretched to my fullest height I would somehow miraculously find myself climbing out. But alas! The hole was a good twice or three times my height above me.

When I realised this I didn’t lose my head, at least, not until I had explored every possibility. I climbed on to the top edge of the nearest joist and ran to and fro, but it didn’t pass near enough to the hole. The only thing that did, was that wretched hot pipe. I could see an easy way on to that, further along, and once on top of it nothing could be simpler than to run to the hole and climb out – it passed just nicely under it. But who could stand on a thing like that? Even standing near it I felt my fur was scorching.

Now I did begin to panic. I’m ashamed to admit I felt really sick with fear. How would I ever get out? How would I live if I had to stay in here? My nose had already told me there wasn’t so much as a mouldy breadcrumb anywhere in the large space between the floors where I now grimly realised I was trapped. As for water! Not a drop of course. And wasn’t I beginning to be thirsty, what with the heat and my growing terror!

A grown-up hamster who’s got himself into a mess will, if he’s got any sense, at once sit down, partly to conserve energy and partly to think. I behaved ridiculously. I ran round in circles, I made funny little noises that I hadn’t known I could make; I climbed up on the joist and fell off it again; I even tried to climb the pipe, and hurt my paws of course. Oh, that pipe! It was maddening to see the way it lay, just beneath the hole, offering the perfect escape route, and yet – impossible to use.

At last I was fairly worn out. I couldn’t sleep, I was too distracted, but I did lie down, at some distance from the hole, and just stared at it in misery. I supposed I would just waste away there in the dusty dark, slowly starve to death and be found, perhaps, years later, a mouldering skeleton…If hamsters could weep, I would have wept, with frustration, fear and self-pity, though of course I’d brought it all on myself.

Morning came. A ray of light fell through the hole. I heard Mark moving about above me. And suddenly I knew what to do.

When I’d escaped before I had often been caught when accidentally or carelessly making a noise. Hamsters have no proper voice, as I’ve said, though they can utter faint squeaks and hisses; but their feet scrabbling on a hard surface draws attention to them. Now I had to draw Mark’s attention. But how? It wasn’t so easy in that hot hell-hole I’d landed myself in. The floor was thick with dust and I could walk there without a sound. The joists were the same. The pipe was metal and I could have made a terrific row on that, but…! So what was I to do? In a flash of genius it came to me.