Ross Welford - The Dog Who Saved the World

I happen to know (from Ellie McDonald at school) that Sass’s mum pays her to be a volunteer dog-walker, which if you ask me is totally weird. It’s not volunteering if you get paid for it. On top of that, I don’t even think Sass likes dogs all that much.

That day she was standing by the poop chute in the old vestry when Ramzy and I came in with the bucket and I felt my good mood deflate just a little.

The poop chute is a wide, square tunnel that leads to a big pit outside, where all the dog poo goes. You lift off the lid of the hatch and tip the poo down it, and then add a cupful of activator, which breaks down the poo into compost, which the vicar then spreads on his allotment. (I’ve only just found this out. We’ve been eating his home-grown stuff for years. Eww.)

You can imagine: twenty-five dogs produce a lot of poo, and doing the poop chute is the only bit of St Woof’s that I don’t really like, although, because of Ramzy, I was trying not to show it.

Sass is a big girl, who’s in our year at school, but looks about fifteen. She’s already got boobs and hips, plus a double chin and a round belly to go with them. She’s really strong and can lift up the twins, Roddy and Robyn Lee, one under each arm.

My stomach fluttered when I saw her because, although she’s not exactly a bully (Marine Drive Primary has a zero-tolerance approach to bullying), she still manages to be scary.

‘Wow – look who it isn’t!’ she said, fixing her small eyes on Ramzy. ‘You two make a happy couple walking up the aisle together!’

I gave her a tight smile, pretending to find her comment funny, but didn’t say anything, which I find is usually the best approach. Sass crossed her arms and tilted her chin towards Ramzy. ‘Is that your school shirt you’re wearing? At the weekend? You are allowed to change, you know.’

I hadn’t noticed till then, but Ramzy was indeed wearing his blue school polo shirt under his too-big jacket. Ramzy shrugged and murmured, ‘It’s clean. And I like it.’

She’s quite intimidating and, as I lifted the lid of the poop chute, Sass took a step forward and said, ‘Careful you don’t fall in.’

It made me flinch, as though she was going to push me. I kept quiet as I tipped the contents of the bucket down the hatch. Ramzy, though, never keeps quiet.

‘At least she’d fit,’ he murmured. Ramzy , I thought. That’s not necessary.

‘What was that? Are you making fun of—’ She was cut off mid-sentence by the vicar, who came in, rubbing his hands.

‘Ah! Good work, good work! The hands that removeth the dog poo are blessed in the eyes of the Lord .’

‘Is that the Bible?’ asked Ramzy.

‘No, no – that’s just one of mine,’ said the vicar.

As Ramzy and I left, Sass scowled at us.

That’s the thing with her. You know that expression, ‘If you can’t say anything nice, say nothing’? Well, Sass seems to have got it the wrong way round: ‘If you can’t say anything mean, say nothing.’

It was a mean comment by Sass Hennessey that, six months later, nearly caused the end of the world. And if you think I’m exaggerating then let me explain.

You see, up until recently, all of the dogs in St Woof’s were healthy. And now … well, now they’re not.

And it is all down to me.

It has become a big thing in the last year or two: Disease Transmission Risk. At school it’s DTR this, DTR that, and the only good thing about it is that you only need to cough in class to get sent home.

Last year, every classroom at Marine Drive Primary had a hand sanitiser installed by the door. I think it was a new law.

So one of my jobs when I’m at St Woof’s is the maintenance of the sani-mats and hand-sans in the quarantine area. The sani-mats are wet, spongy mats that clean the bottom of your shoes when you go in and out of the quarantine area, which is where dogs go when they’re sick.

Anyway, it all happened a few days after our first visit to Dr Pretorius and the Dome.

I had topped up the disinfectant in the sani-mats first, then I went into the quarantine section to see Dudley, who had a tummy bug. It wasn’t his first time there, either, so I wasn’t especially worried. If you remember, he’d been gnawing on a dead seagull at the beach, and I thought that might have been the cause.

He was behind a fence of wire mesh that comes up to my chin. There were wellies and rubber gloves by the entrance gate, which I put on before I went in. He wagged his bent tail weakly.

‘Hello, you funny old thing!’ I said. ‘Are you feeling better?’ Normally, I’d let Dudley lick my face, but we’re not allowed to do that with the quarantined dogs, so instead I gave him a good old tickle on his tummy. It wasn’t quite the same with rubber gloves, but he didn’t seem to mind.

A family had been in to see him a few days before, perhaps to adopt him, but I think he was just too odd-looking.

‘The little girl thought he was cute,’ said the vicar, ‘and she said something to her mum in Chinese. Then they all had a long conversation which I didn’t understand – except the dad was pointing to Dudley’s eye, and his teeth and his ear, and then they left.’

Poor, ugly Dudley! I thought of the little Chinese girl falling in love with him and then her dad saying he was too strange-looking.

Secretly, though, I was very relieved. I know it’s better for a dog to be with a family rather than in St Woof’s, but I couldn’t bear it if Dudley was adopted.

I looked at him carefully. He didn’t seem very well, poor doggie. He hadn’t eaten much of his food, but he had drunk his water and done a poo in the sand tray, which I washed out and sanitised, and I did everything right, exactly according to the rules. Then I threw his soggy tennis ball for him a little, but it didn’t excite him very much and anyway I bounced it too hard so that it went over the fence and rolled away and we had to stop.

I was coming out of the quarantine area, I’d done the sani-mats and I was about to do the hand-sans (which were empty) and who was standing there but Sass Hennessey. She did this little hair flick and stood with one hand on her round hip.

‘ Hiiiii! ’ she said but there was zero warmth in her eyes.

‘Hello, Saskia,’ I said.

‘I was just saying to Maurice that he’s got the place looking really smart now,’ she said.

Maurice? Maurice? Nobody calls the vicar Maurice, apart from my dad who’s known him for years. Everyone else calls him vicar or Reverend Cleghorn. It was so typical of Sass to call him by his first name, though. I was annoyed already, and what came next was worse.

‘That ugly old mutt in there,’ she said with her head on one side, all fake sorrow. ‘It really would be kinder just to put him down, don’t you reckon?’

That was it: the mean comment I mentioned before. It took me a few seconds to realise she was talking about Dudley. Dudley – my second-favourite dog in the whole of St Woof’s! I could feel my jaw working up and down, without any sound coming out.

‘Are you OK, Georgie?’

‘Yes, I’m fine, Sass.’ But I wasn’t. I was furious. In silence, I refilled the hand-sans, removed my gloves and put some of the gel on my hands, rubbing it in angrily while she just stood there. Then I took off the wellies.

‘Look, I didn’t mean …’

‘You know we don’t do that here. So why did you even say it?’ I was furious.