One Dog and His Boy

15 Greystoke House

Mrs Platt was snoring – a great juddering noise that sounded as though it would rattle the window frames. One of the boys whom Mick had put on guard leaned out of the landing window and signalled to Mick in the shrubbery to say that all was clear.

In the girl’s room, Nini lay silently in her bed, but she was not asleep.

It was almost dark now. They would be here soon – and Mick settled down to wait.

The dogs walked slowly. They had had a hard day and their performance in the ring had tired them. The last dog, as they made their way through the unfamiliar streets, was Francine. She was usually so light on her feet, but now she could hardly put one paw in front of the other, and her head was down. Every step was taking her further from where she wanted to be and she looked as though she didn’t care whether she lived or died.

Hal was trying to read Mick’s map, hastily scribbled on the back of an envelope. In the failing light they took a wrong turn – but at last they came to the iron gate of Greystoke House.

There was no time to be anxious – Mick was there in a moment.

“You must be absolutely quiet,” Pippa told the dogs. They understood, and followed as Mick led them round to the back of the building and down a short flight of stone steps.

They found themselves in a boiler room with a bare stone floor, coiled pipes round the walls, a big heater humming in one corner. The windows were shuttered and a faint blue light hung overhead. It was dry and warm, and in a corner they found blankets and pillows which Mick’s friends had “borrowed” from the storeroom and brought down in secret. A big bowl of water, and plates piled with meatballs and rice, pinched from the children’s supper, were laid out on the floor.

“Did you have to go without your meal to give us this?” asked Pippa.

Mick shrugged. “The girl who serves supper is pretty sloppy. It isn’t difficult to get stuff off the table, and we don’t go hungry here. The food’s dull but it’s perfectly OK.” Then he said, “Nothing happens, that’s the worst of living in a place like this. We’d do worse things than going without meatballs to know we can help.”

The dogs were too well trained to start eating without permission, but they looked hungrily at the plates, and then at Hal and Pippa, and when they got the signal to begin, they put their heads down and ate.

All except Francine. Francine looked at the food and turned her head away and walked to a quiet corner of the room, wanting only to be alone with her grief.

“Come along, Francine,” said Pippa, fondling her head. “Try just a little.”

But Francine wouldn’t eat. She gave her paw to Pippa a few times to say she understood that Pippa was sorry for her. Pippa wasn’t to worry, she was saying, but right now she couldn’t swallow even the smallest mouthful.

“We’ll be keeping watch,” said Mick. “Someone will wake you first thing in the morning so that you can be off in case the boiler man comes – though he’s not due tomorrow.”

Hal and Pippa looked at him. There was nothing to say except thank you, so they said it, and several times over.

“We won’t forget this,” said Hal. “Not ever. And if there’s anything we can do for you, well, you know…”

Now that they were temporarily safe, Hal and Pippa had time to wonder what the stable lad would do, and how likely they were to be pursued. It was not so far to Hal’s grandfather overland, but it couldn’t be done in less than two days’ hard walking, across moorland and fields, towards the coast.

But soon they stopped whispering and curled up on the blanket, and although the stone floor was not exactly comfortable, they slept.

The dogs slept too. Otto lay close to Francine and his reassuring bulk did something to calm her. Once or twice she woke up briefly and whined, remembering what she had lost, but then Otto would move closer to her, and she was quiet again. Fleck lay across Hal’s feet, his flannel beside him.

Upstairs, Mrs Platt still snored, the breath wheezing in and out of her great bulk, and while they heard the steady, unpleasant noise she made, Mick and his friends knew that the fugitives were safe.

But in the room she shared with the other little girls, Nini sat up in bed. She had been waiting, and now she pushed back the bedclothes and fetched the brush and comb from her locker and crept, silent as a wraith, along the corridor.

At the top of the stairs she ran into Mick, who was keeping watch.

“See small dog,” she said. “See Li-Chee.”

Mick stared at her. How did she know? Had she overheard something when he was talking to Hal and Pippa or did she have some other way of knowing things? Whatever it was, he couldn’t take any risks. Even Mrs Platt couldn’t sleep through one of Nini’s tantrums.

He took her hand. “You can see Li-Chee but you must be very, very quiet or they will take him away. Do you understand? Absolutely silent.”

Nini nodded, and he led her down the cellar steps to the door of the boiler room.

The little girl knew about moving silently. She opened the door of the cellar so quietly that the huddle of dogs hardly stirred and the children did not wake. Only Li-Chee, who was on the edge of the circle because he had given his place beside Otto to Francine, raised his head.

He was surprised to be woken and at first he wondered if it wasn’t one of the other dogs she wanted because he was used to being small and unimportant and only suitable for old ladies. But as Nini knelt down in front of him he realized that it was really him she wanted, just as it had been him in the lorry, and though he was very sleepy and would have liked to close his eyes again, he made himself stay awake and began to lick her wrist.

Once again, Nini did not hug him or try and pick him up. Instead, she took up her brush and comb and very slowly, very carefully, she groomed the long, silky golden coat and smoothed back the hair that had tumbled into his eyes.

And as she brushed and combed and tidied him, she was back in her homeland, helping the girls who danced in the temple to prepare the little guard dogs that they worshipped for the festivals.

Everything came back to her – everything she missed so terribly that she had shut it out completely: the scent of jasmine, the temple bells, the quiet voices of the nuns in the orphanage … the warmth, the sun on her skin … and her own language.

Steadily, quietly, Nini brushed and combed and murmured. And as she worked, the homesickness which had crippled her and turned her into a mute came out, and the tears she had not been able to shed ran down her cheeks.

And Li-Chee stood trustingly in front of her. Already he loved her. She had chosen him and he had chosen her, but as the grooming went on, there came from his throat a low rumbling … a kind of gargling sound – and Nini put down her brush. She recognized the noise Li-Chee was making. In his polite way he was telling her that he did not want to be groomed. He did not want to be worshipped.

He wanted to be understood. To go forward…

For a moment Nini sat still, thinking. Then she gave a small shake of her head, and let it all go out of her; her memories, her sadness. She looked round the dimly lit room at the other dogs. She thought of the very small girl in the nursery who had tugged at her skirts, wanting to be her friend. She thought of the games they played in the garden of Greystoke House, the squirrel they had tamed, the cartoons they watched at bedtime. She thought of Mick.

It was time to move on.

“Wait here,” she said to Li-Chee.

She crept out again and made her way to Mrs Platt’s sitting room. The scissors were where she remembered, at the bottom of the sewing basket. Nini took them, being careful to carry them with the points down as she had been taught, and made her way downstairs again. It would not be easy, but she would do it. She would be brave.

Li-Chee was waiting where she had left him.

“I won’t hurt you,” she said. “Just stand still.”

Then she began to cut, and to snip and to cut again, and as she did so, the golden silky coat which had imprisoned Li-Chee fell silently to the floor.

Pippa was the first to wake, and it was all she could do not to let out a cry of horror.

“What have you done?” she said. “For heaven’s sake – oh, the poor, poor dog!”

Nini did not answer; she only smiled.

“He’s ruined,” said Pippa. “He’ll never be in a show again. Nobody will want a dog like that.”

But now Li-Chee got to his feet and shook himself, making sure that it had really happened. And then he went mad. He raced round the cellar, he rolled over and over waving his paws in the air, he let out high-pitched yelps of sheer delight.

He could see, he could move, he was revealed as the dog he really was. A lion dog, a fighter, the guardian of emperors, not a pampered plaything for old ladies. His little squashed face looked out at the clear, clean world, and his pop eyes glowed in the morning light. Someone had understood him; someone had found out who he really was!

Hal woke then and saw what had happened, but before he could say anything Mick came in and said it was time to go.