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never heard of a mouse slimming. Auntie Vi, yes. Auntie Vi was always refusing sugar for her tea, but it never seemed to make any difference.
    â€œNot that sort of diet,” said Jacko. “It won’t eat anything but cream buns, and they only have them on Sundays.”
    He chattered on about all the happenings in the castle, and about the other animals that lived in the various drawers. Gradually the light failed and it went velvet black and we nodded off to sleep.

Chapter 5: The Singing Chef

    Crash! The filing cabinet drawer shot open like an express train. The light was brilliant. I hadn’t time to say good-bye to Jacko - or even to get a proper look at him - because I was hauled out by my left ear.
    â€œYou might as well see round today,” said the boy, “because I’ll soon have your cupboard ready and then I only get you out once a month for inspection, and every year for dry-cleaning.”
    Dry-cleaning! What a terrible thought - to be going round and round in those dreadful machines with little round windows.
    â€œAnd moth balls every winter,” added the boy.
    So that was the funny smell inside the filing cabinet last night!
    The boy took me into the next room and I had to wait while he finished his bread and jam and coffee.
    There was a knock at the door and a little man with a bow tie came in.
    â€œYour paper, Master Philippe,” he said, and laid it out next to me on the window seat.
    I was just about to watch him go out to see whether he had long tails on his coat, when I caught sight of a picture on the front page of the paper that I recognised.
    It was me! Well, it was a photograph of my portrait - the one the artist had painted the day before. In large letters it said:
    VALUABLE BEAR STOLEN IN MONTMARTRE
    A rare English Teddy bear was stolen yesterday while its portrait was being painted by Gaston Delaunay, the well-known artist. The bear was on a visit to the Capital and was staying with the family of Sergeant Hector Pigeau of the Paris Sûreté.
    The boy noticed me looking at the paper and snatched it up.
    â€œWell, what a find,” he giggled. “So you’re valuable. I must alter the entry in the computer. I only put you at 10 francs.”
    He treated it as though it was a great joke, and I had hoped he might have been scared - reading about Sergeant Pigeau. But I suppose he was too conceited.
    â€œThey will never find you here, of course,” he said, reading my thoughts. “We’re 20 miles from Paris, and anyway no-one is allowed through the gates.”
    He finished off his breakfast, dipping chunks of bread into his coffee and making sucking noises.
    â€œCome on then,” he said, grabbing me by the jersey. “You can see my collection.”
    We started with the A’s and worked on right through all the cupboards until we reached X. There were all sorts of things - some I’d never even heard of, like Pterodactyls and Gnus, and Duckbilled-Platypussies - as well as the usual selection of dogs, cats, pandas, mice, donkeys and so on.
    We hurried past X.
    â€œThere’s just nothing beginning with X,” said the boy crossly. “I’ve looked everywhere and nothing is X-something. I suppose you wouldn’t know ...”
    I didn’t. And I wouldn’t have told him anyway.
    He frowned so hard that his eyes got lost inside his thick spectacles.
    â€œX-something. X-elope or X-osaurus or an x-apotamus. There must be a word.” He parked me on the edge of his computer desk. “Perhaps if I feed in all the names of all the animals, and then all the letters of the alphabet, and then mix them all up I might get the answer,” he said. “Yes, yes, I might find a new animal altogether that no-one’s even discovered yet!”
    He went pink with excitement and clicked the switches and started to type. Tickets began to pop up everywhere. One of them shot out and hit me on the nose. It was just enough