Yes, he was right.
So we ran over to Vetka's, climbed into her front garden and peered
through the window. Vetka was doing exercises in her blue swimsuit but
not ordinary exercises: she was holding onto her bedstead and standing on
tiptoe and doing all sorts of ballet steps. Sunbeams were prancing over
her shoulders and blazing on the nickel bedstead.
Vitalka sighed and gazed at her in admiration, and I must say I did
too because she was doing it so well. But remembering the job in hand, I
prodded Vitalka with my elbow and rapped the pane with my knuckles.
Vetka glanced round in confusion and then evidently became rather
annoyed. She flung open the window and demanded, "What do you want?"
"Help," said Vitalka.
"But where's Sanya?"
"He's probably still snoring his head off," replied Vitalka. "Get
dressed. It's no joking matter. We need someone to keep a lookout for
us."
Shrugging her shoulders, she pulled her dress on in a flash and
jumped outside.
"What exactly do you mean? What's going on?"
"We don't really know ourselves," said Vitalka gravely. "The main
thing is that you keep watch. If needs be, we'll shout instructions to
you."
Vetka was marvellous. Instead of pestering us with questions, she
simply said, "Right!"
So off we ran to the bus stop.
The streets were deserted, fresh and sunny, and the wind got caught
in our hair and fluttered Vetka's short frock. The heavy key bounced
about on my belt and banged against my hip. And so we hurried towards an
adventure.
Once inside the belfry we closed the door behind us so that it did
not look unlocked.
Then we looked round. There were narrow apertures like loopholes at
different levels in the thick wall. The sun was shining brightly through
them and slicing the shadows with flat razor-like blades of light.
The floor was covered with granite flagstones which were cracked and
badly crushed in the middle where the bell had fallen. We stared up at
the hole in the ceiling and broken beams. There was a brick stairway by
the wall leading up to a hatch.
"Shall we climb up?" asked Vitalka.
"Let's."
So up we went to the second storey, which, like the first, had slit
windows in its walls and smelt of limestone and damp bricks but was not
as quiet. We became aware of a regular tapping sound and a shrill jingle.
"It's the clock tapping away," whispered Vitalka. "Oh, Oleg, look!.."
I glanced behind and spotted a large deep niche containing a cogged
wheel with a metre-long lever, or, to be more precise, a cogged drum
fixed to an axle sticking out of the wall. Colossal chains were
stretching out on both sides of the drum and it was they that were
jingling as the mechanism moved.
Three chains were descending through round apertures in the vaulted
niche's ceiling and disappearing through similar apertures in the brick
floor, all of them, that is, except one which had a rusty weight on it,
the size a large milk can.
"Look," whispered Vitalka, "it's moving..."
The weight was going down very, very slowly but you could still see
it moving, and it only had half a metre left to go to the floor. This
was obviously the end of its journey. Soon it would touch the brick floor
and the clock would come to a standstill.
The weight had most likely never touched the floor before for, being
so heavy, it would have surely left a dent in it.
Vitalka was about to say something, but all of a sudden the clock
overhead struck half past seven... Another weight crawled out through the
empty round hole in the niche's vault, and began swaying gently.
I guessed at once that it was attached to the clock's bells, for
whenever the cuckoo popped out of Auntie Valya's clock a weight would
come swaying down in exactly the same way.
"It's got no more than two hours left," I said.
Vitalka gave me a firm look and said, "This thing's used to lift the
weights." He nodded to the lever and the drum.
I had realised that myself but had no idea how it worked.
Vitalka, however, had already guessed.
"Let's fit the chain onto the cogs."
We had no difficulty at all swinging one chain over and fitting it
onto the drum's cogs. Then we seized hold of the handle at the end of the
lever.
"Heave-ho!"
It was like turning a windlass and pulling a heavy bucket out of a
well, only instead of a bucket we had a weight and it was creeping away
from us and not towards us.
The whole tower was vibrating with rumbling and clanking. Scaly
particles of rust came showering down from the chain as it began slipping
down from the drum and we could hear it clinking as it curled up on the
basement's stone floor. Meanwhile the weight slipped up through the hole
in the ceiling.
"We've done it!" breathed Vitalka.
In order to turn the handle we had to first stand on tiptoe and then
squat on the floor. It wasn't easy work and I automatically started
counting the turns. After the tenth I said, "Phew!.. Let's rest. Will we
have to turn it much longer?"
Vitalka screwed up his eyes and stared at the drum.
"If you measured it all the way round, it would probably come to
about a metre. And how far it is up to the clock?"
"About thirty metres... That means, we've got to wind it another
twenty times."
Well, so we turned it and then paused for a rest and then turned it
again, first lifting the weight attached to the hands and then the one
attached to the bells.
Finally we straightened up, wiped our wet brows with our rusty brown
palms and smiled for it seemed to us that the clock was now tapping in a
cheerful and grateful manner.
And then all of a sudden another sound was added to the brass
clanking: two iron objects were being scraped together somewhere down
below.
We could not guess what it was at first but as the scraping sound
continued, it soon became clear that someone was playing about with a key
in the lock but not our key for ours was hanging from my belt.
We froze on our hands and knees at the edge of the hole.
The door finally opened slightly, letting sunlight in, and we
recognised our old acquaintances, beaky-nosed Edik and pink-scalped Fedya
the mountain-climber.
"It ain't locked," Edik said peevishly. "Couldn't you turn the key,
sap?"
"Shut up," Fedya replied gruffly. "I almost bust turning it - twice!
Someone's been in 'ere..."
"The shrimps," said Edik in a half-whisper, glancing up.
I stared at Vitalka, wondering what to do next. Perhaps we should
make our presence known at once? After all, there was no way of escaping
now...
But Vitalka was looking somewhere beyond me and pressing a finger to
his lips.
I looked round and saw something we had not noticed at first because
we were busy with the clock. In the other wall there was a niche, too,
with plywood boxes and tight bales in sacking stacked in it.
Vitalka and I could understand each other at a glance.
"It's clear who they are, isn't it?" Vitalka asked with his eyes.
I recalled the conversations about the burgled shops and, feeling
rather chilly and even slightly sick, winked back, "Yes."
Meanwhile the two of them were standing down below and gazing up.
Chapter Sixteen
Yes, they were standing there and gazing up...
I have to admit that in tricky situations Vitalka was quickerwitted
and braver than me. And, as it turned out, this occasion was no
exception: now, too, we had different plans in mind.
While I was wondering how to escape, Vitalka was thinking something
quite different.
He suddenly stood up on the edge of the hole and called out casually
as if to friends, "Hi there! We're already here!"
Beaky-nosed Edik started, stared round and then smiled belatedly,
while Fedya blinked and said, "What are you up to?"
"We were winding up the clock!" Vitalka explained cheerfully. "Phew!
Are we whacked! It's a shame you're too late..."
He yanked my collar to get me off my knees and so I had to get up.
"My word!" exclaimed Edik with a forced grin. "What early birds we
are! Flew here before us! Well, come on down and have a chat."
"What about?" asked Vitalka cheekily. "So you have got a key, after
all. Why have you been taking the mickey out of us?"
Edik sighed and said with a forced laugh, "My, you are sharp! Don't
miss a trick, do you? Just like spies. We found the key. We were
rummaging about in the museum's basement this morning and had a stroke of
luck."
Vitalka pointed to Fedya with his chin and asked, "And how did he
lock the door yesterday? With his finger?"
The smile vanished from Edik's face and he said in a quiet but
menacing tone, "Come down and have a talk."
"We've plenty of time," replied Vitalka playfully. "We've still got
to tidy up here: someone's knocked over your boxes."
"What d'you mean?" yelled Fedya and dashed over to the stone stairs.
Vitalka tugged me by the elbow, and we flew up the rickety wooden
ladder to second floor and then Vitalka dragged me over to the gaping
hole again. Was I exasperated by Vitalka's stupidity!
"Why did you say that about the boxes? They won't let us out now."
Vitalka gave me a glance that was both angry and merry.
"But who said we want to be let out? We've got to make sure they
don't get out! If they do, they'll scamper and we'll never find them
again!"
"But now..." I began.
But Vitalka looked down through the hole and said in a mocking tone,
"Poor little mites! Scared, are we? Don't worry, we haven't touched
your goods. It's up to the police to bother with them."
Edik and Fedya glared at us furiously. Shiny little beads of sweat
appeared again on Fedya's nose, and Edik clenched his teeth.
"Rats," said Fedya hoarsely. "You want to grass on us, do you? Well,
I'm going to wind your guts round your flipping necks first."
Without waiting around for that to happen to our guts, we dashed over
to another ladder to discover it was half-broken and only its top rungs
were still intact. Vitalka jumped up, caught hold of one and shouted,
"Push me up!"
I grabbed his legs and pushed them as hard as I could. Then Vitalka
pulled himself up and sat on the rung and stretched a hand out to me,
"Come on!"
Gosh, how my heart was pounding away! I was sure that any moment now
Edik and Fedya were going to grab me by the ankles. Wildly kicking my
legs, I somehow managed to hoist myself up to Vitalka. Then we grabbed
hold of the edge of the hatch and crawled onto the third floor.
"Quick!" ordered Vitalka, bending over the hatch and seizing hold of
the charred bar to which the rickety rungs were fixed.
I got the message and, joining forces, we shook loose the bar and it
crashed down, almost crushing Edik and Fedya who were crawling up after
us.
"Well, kids, that's going cost you," promised Edik.
"How much?" asked Vitalka fearlessly.
"What you deserve... Look, lads, come down here yourselves and don't
make matters worse."
"Why should we?" asked Vitalka. "We like the air up here."
"Well, you'll be flying through it in a minute... And you'll be in
such a mess when you hit the ground nobody'll be able to stick you
together again..."
"Catch us first!"
Edik and Fedya started leaning the bar against the wall to climb up
after us.
"That's it," said Vitalka. "Work hard. Get the feel of it. After all,
you'll have to do a lot of work where you're going."
Fedya gasped and gave us such a bloodcurdling look that my teeth
started chattering.
"Don't be scared," said Vitalka.
"I'm not," I somehow managed to mumble although I had never felt so
scared before in my life.
I could not understand what Vitalka was trying to achieve and why he
was goading these crooks on. How would we get away from them? Perhaps he
had forgotten that we did not have our carpet with us?
These thoughts were jumping around higgledy-piggledy in my head, but
what difference did it make now? We couldn't get down anyway. All we
could do was keep on going up so as not to fall into the crooks'
clutches.
Puffing and swearing, Edik and Fedya started climbing up the bar
towards us.
"That's the stuff!" said Vitalka. "Exercises never did anyone any
harm. Edik, mind you don't tread on Fedya's nose, it's almost transparent
as it is."
"Let's push the bar away," I said hurriedly.
"All in good time," Vitalka whispered back. "We've got to make sure
they have a hard time getting down. Come on, up we go!"
We started climbing up to the fourth floor. There wasn't a ladder
and, quite honestly, I don't remember how we clambered up the beams,
brick projections and charred planks. Vitalka pushed me up first and
then overtook me and pulled me through the hatch by the scruff of my
neck.
The hollow vibrant sounds of the clock's mechanism were coming from
the fifth floor overhead reached by a strong ladder, which, however, did
not quite touch the floor as its bottom rungs were missing.
We climbed onto it and Vitalka said, "Hold me really tight," and,
pressing his stomach against the ladder, kicked the floor with all his
might. The rickety boards and beams began shuddering and squeaking. Then
he banged it a second time and the semi-dilapidated floor creaked and
began sinking for it was obviously on the verge of collapse. Then there
was a crack and the old wooden floor plunged downwards.
Howls and violent swearing broke out below.
"Great!" said Vitalka, genuinely pleased.
"What is so great?" I asked tearfully. "How are we going to get
down?"
"We will - somehow or other. But we've got to go up first! Come on!"
We passed the floor containing the clock's mechanism without stopping
and got up the landing with the bells.
There was sunshine and blue sky everywhere! And clouds, green land
and river, too! Were there really some crooks messing about down below?
Could anything bad really happen to us up here in the lovely bright
light?
Vitalka quickly unfastened my belt, pulled the key off, dashed up to
the railing, and bent down over them.
"Vet-ka," he yelled.
Of course, Vetka was down there! I was so scared, I had forgotten!
I caught a glimpse of Vetka's dress by the monastery wall. She jumped
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