Free Ratastrophe Catastrophe by David Lee Stone

you.”
    He stopped halfway toward the elderly wooden gateposts and turned around, a tired smile playing on his lips. He seemed to study the authenticity of Jimmy’s ludicrous facial expression, before whistling in an awkward fashion and disappearing into the gathering evening mist. Jimmy sighed with relief and prepared himself for the climb. The only foothold attainable from a standing position came in the form of one of the hinges that attached the drainpipe to the brickwork. He thrust his right foot hard between wall and iron and pulled himself toward his goal….
    He’d nearly reached the first-floor window when he slipped.
    Jimmy scrambled frantically, his feet beating against the brickwork in a valiant attempt to relieve the pressure on his aching arms. Finally he managed to regain his grip, haul himself through the narrow window, and slither into the room beyond.
    Relief swept over him.
    Jimmy made a number of keen observations about the candlelit chamber he now occupied. The first was that the golden idol he was looking for rested on a cushion inside an ornate glass cabinet standing against the east wall. Then, in the following order, he noticed the lock on the cabinet door; the imposing four-poster bed with an elderly couple snoring away peacefully inside it; and, finally, the key fastened on the chain hanging around the sleeping old man’s neck. In the silent shadows of that room, Jimmy discovered why the Rooftop Runners had just thirty-seven members. This situation looked, to all intents and purposes, impossible. How on earth was he supposed to retrieve the cursed key without waking the old boy?
    Suddenly the figure lying next to the key holder shifted uncomfortably beneath the blankets. Jimmy looked on in fascinated horror as the old woman sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and shuffled into a pair of bedroom slippers. Lord Buckly stirred in his sleep as his wife disturbed a number of creaking floorboards on her way to the door. Jimmy remained still, a silhouette against the window. When the old woman had departed, he breathed a sigh of relief; perhaps luck favored him tonight, after all. It was as he considered his good fortune that a plan became clear to him. He crept forward, dodging the planks that the old woman had identified on her noisy journey a few moments before.
    Hesitating to consider the implications should his plan fail, Jimmy climbed into the rickety four-poster bed and pulled the covers up over him. He remained perfectly still for a few seconds, pondering on how to advance his movement. Then, with lightning dexterity, he shot out a hand and looped the key up and over the old man’s head in one swift movement. Even Uole Twonk (the greatest thief in Dullitch history) would have been proud.
    The key now in his possession, Jimmy lay panting on the bed with the satisfaction of success. He was about to climb out when a hand reached around his waist and grasped him tightly. At first he feared that Buckly had awakened, but then it became apparent that the old lord, though sleeping, simply desired some affection from his wife. The thief considered briefly what her Ladyship would do in this situation and consequently shoved the old man aside.
    The key turned in the lock with a loud click, and Jimmy snatched up the idol, which felt strangely sticky against his palm. Reaching down into his trousers, he pulled out the sack and tried, in vain, to slip the ornament inside. It wouldn’t leave his hand. The vindictive old fool had daubed the piece with glue!
    However, Jimmy had no time to revise his actions, as Lady Buckly was now on her way back up the stairs, footsteps echoing loudly through the open door. Jimmy considered his drastic situation and dashed toward the window. He burst from the first floor of 14 Sack Avenue in a shower of glass and landed awkwardly in the petunia patch he had managed to avoid earlier. As screams erupted from the room above and various lights flicked on all over the