One Dog and His Boy

9 Dog Rescue

Mr Carker put an advertisement for his Easy Pets business into the papers every month. The advertisements were very glossy and there were pictures of the particularly beautiful or rare dogs which could be hired. In the latest advertisement there was a mention of the Tottenham terrier, a new breed of which there were very few specimens in England, and it said that Easy Pets was the first rental agency which had such a dog on its books.

This advertisement was read by a Miss Gertie Gorland, a tall, thin woman who lived with her brother Harold, who was also tall and thin.

The Gorlands ran a hotel by the seaside which was doing badly, and a steam laundry which was doing badly, and a delicatessen which was not only doing badly but had actually gone bust, and when they saw the advertisement they had a brainwave. “We could breed Tottenham terriers,” said Gertie. “Set up a puppy farm. If they’re so rare, people will pay fortunes for them.”

So they went round to Easy Pets and arranged to hire out Fleck for a couple of hours. They wanted to make sure that this new breed was not fierce or liable to attack strangers.

When they saw Fleck they quickly stopped worrying about his fierceness. He was curled up in his cage and scarcely looked up when they came in – there is nothing like misery for making one tired – but when Kayley put on his collar and lead, he followed them dutifully out into the street. To tell the truth, he didn’t care who he was with or where he was going.

The Gorlands hadn’t gone far when they decided that the Tottenham terrier was not likely to catch on as a fashionable pet. No one stopped them and asked them where they had got that dear little dog, no heads turned – and out in the strong light they had to admit that the terrier was an odd-looking creature with his short legs and bat-like ears.

When they had walked for a while, Gertie said she was hungry, and Harold said he was hungry too. Tall, thin people need a lot to eat.

“We could see what he’s like in crowded places,” said Gertie, looking down at the dog.

So they turned into a well-known department store where there was a grand restaurant which permitted one to bring in dogs. The owners had been forced to do this because a lot of famous people ate there who refused to be parted from their pets.

When the waiter had shown them to their table, the Gormans put the loop of Fleck’s lead under the leg of Gertie’s chair, and when he had smelled the hundred or so pairs of uninteresting feet and the over-rich smells of the food, Fleck crawled under the table and went to sleep.

“I’m not being difficult,” said Hal. “It’s just that I don’t mind whether I have a blue tuck box or a brown one. I would mind if I could, but I can’t. It doesn’t make any difference.”

Albina sighed. “I don’t know what to do with you. I’m spending a fortune to make sure you’re properly kitted out for your new school, and you just stand there like a dummy.”

They were in a famous department store, buying Hal’s school uniform for Okelands. They had already bought four pairs of navy blue trousers, six white shirts, two striped ties and a cap with the Okelands motto on it. The motto was in Latin and usually Hal would have asked what it meant but now he didn’t care. If it said, “Go Out and Kill People With a Hatchet” it wouldn’t have mattered. Nothing mattered to Hal any more.

After the tuck box came the scarf and the blazer and the socks…

When everything had been paid for, Albina decided to go round the store. Although she didn’t need a wedding dress she took Hal through the bridal department, and though she already had eighteen nightdresses she took him through lingerie, and though she never gardened, only got the maid to hose down the gravel, she went through the gardening department, fingering wheelbarrows and tubs of artificial roses.

In the jewellery department she bought herself a diamond bracelet, and after that she was in such a good mood that she said she would take Hal out to lunch in the restaurant which was famous for its exotic and unusual food. Hal had eaten there before and been sick afterwards but he followed his mother and the waiter to a table covered in a pink cloth, with a vase of lilies in the centre. The smiling waiters wore tailcoats and an orchestra played softly on a dais.

“Now isn’t this nice,” said Albina. She took the huge menu the waiter offered her and became absorbed in it.

“I think we’ll have—” she began.

But she didn’t go on.

Three tables away, Gertie was just dipping her spoon into her tomato soup when a kind of earthquake hit the store.

The Tottenham terrier who had been lost to the world leapt to his feet and pulled so hard at his lead that Gertie’s chair fell over and she went crashing to the floor, followed by the plate of soup, which landed upside down on her blouse.

And as she lay kicking and screaming, Fleck took off.

This exhausted little dog who had hardly been able to put one foot in front of the other raced across the room like a bullet from a gun, passed the first table – felling a waiter who was carrying a tray of glasses and a bottle – and the second table, where a man tried to catch him and toppled over backwards, and crashed violently into the third…

… where a boy had jumped to his feet, knocking over the vase of flowers, which rolled on to the floor and tripped up a lady making her way to the toilet.

The head waiter, hurrying in through the double doors from the kitchen to see what had happened, found everyone screaming and complaining and mopping at their clothes. Everyone except a young boy and a small dog, who saw nothing but each other.

“It’s absolutely extraordinary,” said Albina to her husband when he came home that night. “They had to send for a security guard to carry the wretched dog away, howling and struggling, with his head twisted towards Hal. And yet Hal just sat in the taxi on the way home without any fuss. He didn’t cry or anything, and he seems quite resigned to going away to school. He’s asked if he can spend a night with Joel tomorrow to say goodbye. That was the friend he made in his first school – do you remember? Rather a common little boy, but I’ve said yes.”

“Well, it looks as though he’s growing up at last,” said Donald. “We’ve obviously done the right thing, not letting him wear us down. I’ll go and say goodnight to him.”

Going up to his son’s room, Donald saw that Albina had been telling the truth. Hal seemed calm and quiet, he hardly mentioned having met Fleck in the restaurant, and said he was looking forward to going to school and that he was glad to have a chance to say goodbye to Joel.

And indeed Hal was calm and quiet, because he now knew exactly what he was going to do. One of the things which people had told him was that Fleck would have forgotten him. Well, they had been wrong about that, and it seemed to him that they were wrong about most of the things that mattered.

Hal was tired of living in a grown-up world. It was time to make his own world where things were right and fair and as they ought to be.

Mr Carker was in a towering rage. He stamped through his office, cursing and swearing. The restaurant had sent in a huge bill for the damage that the little dog had done. Gertie Gorland was suing him for the price of her blouse, which had been entirely ruined by soup. The businessmen whose suits had been damaged when the waiter’s tray fell on them were asking for hundreds of pounds to buy new ones, and the lady who had fallen on her way to the toilet was going to send him her medical bills.

“I won’t have it,” raged Mr Carker. “I’ll fight everyone. I won’t pay a penny to those rogues! As for that blasted dog, he’s out of his mind. It’s probably inbreeding – you get that in these pedigree animals.”

He sent for the vet and told him to give Fleck an injection which would keep him quiet till he had decided what to do with him, after which he and Mrs Carker set off for a nice weekend in Brighton to get over the strain of the last few days. Kayley would see to the dogs on Sunday. She always did.

But on Sunday morning, Kayley woke with a temperature, a sore throat and a splitting headache.

“You’ve got flu,” said her mother. “And you’re not going to work.”

“I have to,” said Kayley. “Pippa can’t manage everything on her own and she’s got all her stuff to get ready.”

Pippa was going off to spend a week at school camp on the following day.

But when Kayley tried to sit up in bed, the room spun round and she was forced to lie down again.

“Of course I can manage on my own,” said Pippa, looking mulish. “I know exactly what to do and you know it.”

“It’s too much,” Kayley repeated.

But by this time, Pippa was halfway out of the door.

All the same, Kayley was right. There was a terrible lot to do.

On Sundays there were no rentals; the dogs spent the morning in the compound while the rooms were cleaned, the cages swept, the water bowls rinsed out and the carpets hoovered. In the afternoon the dogs were taken back to their cages for a couple of hours while the yard was hosed down and the bedding in their sleeping quarters changed and the food prepared.

By four o’clock Pippa was exhausted. There were only the dogs in Room A now to be taken back, and the burglar alarm to be put on and she could go home. Otto and Francine and Honey and the little Peke sat quietly in their cages, but Fleck was stretched out barely conscious after his injection. Pippa had had to carry him in from the compound and she felt such rage that if Mr Carker had come in then she would have throttled him. It was for being loving and faithful that the little dog had been punished.

As she bent down to his cage, Pippa heard a noise coming from the office next door. It sounded as though the door from the street was being opened, and by someone who did not want to be heard.

The alarm was not switched on yet. Pippa waited till the sound came again. Then she pounced.

“Got you!” she said, bursting through the door.

The boy she had surprised was about her own age, a slight, fair boy wearing a rucksack and carrying a canvas holdall.

Pippa stared. At the same time from next door came the sound of Fleck whimpering in his drugged sleep, and suddenly Pippa knew.

“You’re the boy who had Fleck,” she said. “Hal, is that your name?” She looked more closely. “Have you come to steal him?”

Hal wasted no time.

“Yes,” he said. “And you’re not going to stop me.”

“I never said I was. But have you got a proper plan?”

Hal nodded. “My parents think I’m staying with a school friend but I’m going to take the night train to the Scottish border. You can buy a ticket for a dog. I’ve got money. My grandparents live there. They’ll take us in, I know they will.”

“Well, that sounds all right. But I warn you, you’ll have to carry Fleck at first.”

Hal’s face went white. “Is he hurt?”

“No. But that charming Mr Carker ordered him to have an injection to keep him quiet. Come on, we’d better hurry. I’ve got his flannel – you’d better take that. Thank goodness my sister’s not here. She’s one of those good people. She can’t help it; she thinks you mustn’t break the law.”

“I used to be like that,” said Hal.

He followed her into the room and bent over Fleck’s cage. Hal had no eyes for anyone except Fleck, but the other dogs got to their feet, quivering with curiosity and excitement … and then with despair.

For they knew what was going to happen. Fleck’s story was going to end happily. His master had returned and was gathering him up to take him out into the world. Fleck was going to be free.

Otto was as devoid of envy as any dog but his whole body trembled with longing. Francine had pushed her muzzle right up to the bars and her black eyes were full of grief. Grunts of frustration came from the Peke.

Hal, lifting up his sleeping dog, saw none of this. But Pippa saw it. She had grown up with these dogs and she knew them like she knew her own brothers.

“Let me know when you get there,” she said. She scribbled her name and phone number on a piece of paper and Hal put it in his pocket.

“Thank you,” he said. “I won’t forget.”

It was very quiet when Hal had gone. Time to take the other dogs back to the compound and put on the burglar alarm. Time to go home.

But Pippa did not move. She was looking at Otto, still trembling with longing, at the anguish in the collie’s eyes …

And she was their jailer. Hal, whom she had despised as rich and feeble, had freed his dog, but not she. She was dooming them to imprisonment, to sitting there like toys, day after day, waiting to be claimed.

The dogs expected nothing. They only looked. Then Otto moaned once softly – and suddenly Pippa went mad. She marched over to the cages and one by one she undid the catches and threw wide the doors. Then she opened the door into the office and the one out into the street.

“You can go,” she told the dogs.

And they understood her. Otto waited for a moment to lick her hand; Honey rubbed her head against Pippa’s skirt, saying thank you.

Then they were gone.

Only Queen Tilly stayed in her cage, though the door was open. Freedom did not interest this spoilt creature. Later she began to complain because her hot water bottle had gone cold, but there was nobody left to hear her. Nobody at all.