Eva Ibbotson: One Dog and His Boy

Olga’s face was grave.

“I make cocoa,” was all she said.

It was nearly an hour before they heard the sound of the car, and then Albina got out. She had no lead, no small white dog … only some parcels.

Hal ran towards her. “You’ve got Fleck, haven’t you?”

“No, Hal, I haven’t. Fleck’s gone back to where he came from.”

Hal did not speak, but something had happened to his face that made Albina step back a pace.

“You mean you’ve taken him back to Easy Pets?”

“Yes, that’s right. You see your father just rented him for the weekend. We could never put up with the inconvenience of a dog for longer than that, but we wanted to give you a treat.”

“You’re not going to fetch him back?” said Hal in a toneless voice. “It was just a trick you played on me?”

“Not a trick, Hal. We just wanted you to have a dog for a little while. You know how I feel about animals in the house. And I’ve bought you a present.”

She handed him a gaudily wrapped box. The next second the box flew across the room and crashed into a vase on the ornamental chest.

“Oh Hal, look what you’ve done,” shrieked Albina.

“It’s what you’ve done,” said Hal in a strange, grown-up voice. “That’s what you want to think about.”

And then he turned and went up to his room and shut the door.

The dogs in Room A were doing their best. They understood what had happened to Fleck: how he had felt about the boy who came to fetch him, and how the boy had felt about him, and now they did everything they could to cheer him up.

All of them had known sorrow. Francine still dreamed of the circus and the busy useful life she had led there. Honey, in her sleep, still raced over the heather-clad hills at the sound of her master’s whistle. Otto had never stopped yearning for the peace of the monastery and the silent dignity of the monks. Li-Chee still waited for someone who would look into his fiery soul.

They had all hoped, as Fleck had hoped, that they would find a master worth serving – and had found only borrowers who came and went and did not care – but they were older and wiser than the little mongrel and they knew that one had to pull oneself together and make the best of things.

Fleck, in his cage, tried desperately to take in what they were telling him, but he was overwhelmed by grief. He lay with his head between his paws. His coat looked dead, his eyes were dull and he had eaten almost nothing since his return.

Kayley was working in the cubicle next door and whenever she could she came in to look at the Tottenham terrier. She had saved the blue flannel that had been clamped between Fleck’s teeth when he was returned. Mr Carker did not allow it in the cage but fortunately the Carkers were away at a dog show looking for exotic dogs to buy and now she dipped it in Fleck’s water bowl and moistened his mouth.

“You must try and drink,” she told him. “You’re still a young dog. This isn’t the end of the world.”

But she was lying and she knew it. Fleck’s world had ended when the door of his cage shut behind him and Albina Fenton hurried away on her high heels.

“Please, Fleck, for all our sakes,” said Kayley, stroking his weary head.

But Fleck only looked at her with his unequal eyes, and gave a desolate whimper which he quickly tried to repress, because he knew that Mr Carker did not approve of unhappiness.

Yet the daily round had to go on. Kayley went to hose down the yard, Otto was led away by a weedy man who wanted to impress his friends. Li-Chee went off to sit on the lap of yet another ancient lady … and Fleck rolled himself up into a dismal ball at the back of his cage and escaped into sleep.

“Is he any better?” asked Pippa, as soon as Kayley had taken off her coat.

Kayley shook her head. She was very tired.

“But that’s ridiculous,” said Pippa. “He can’t go breaking his heart after only three days with someone. It isn’t what happens.”

“It has happened,” said Kayley, and flopped into a chair.

She wasn’t usually like that and Pippa, who thought the world of her sister, was angry.

“I expect the boy’s forgotten all about him,” said Pippa.

“No,” said Kayley. “He won’t have done. Some boys would have done but not this one. It was just one of those things.”

Ralph, one of the twins, looked up from his homework and said it was like Romeo and Juliet. “They only saw each other for a moment on a balcony or something and that was it.”

“How did it turn out?” asked Pippa.

“Badly,” said Ralph. “Everybody died.”

“Idiot!” said Pippa. She could see that Kayley was at the end of her tether. She poured her sister a cup of tea, but she was scowling. Things did happen that were over the top. There was the story of Greyfriars Bobby – a Skye terrier who wouldn’t leave his master’s grave and lay on his tombstone every night for eight years till he died too. It was supposed to have really happened – one could go to Edinburgh and see the grave.

“Well, if the boy hasn’t forgotten about him, then he’s just feeble. It’s because he’s rich, I suppose. Rich people are always wimps. I wouldn’t let someone give me a dog and then take it away again. Not on your life.”

“What could he do?” asked Kayley. “He’s only a kid.”

“He could steal Fleck,” said Pippa. “That’s what I’d do. It wouldn’t be proper stealing. It would be taking back what belongs to one.”

But Kayley, remembering Hal, so small and well behaved beside his overbearing father, didn’t think there was much likelihood of that.

“We’ll have to leave for work very early on Sunday,” she told her sister. “The Carkers will still be away. I must say I’ll be glad of your help.”

But Pippa meant to do more than just help. She meant to investigate.

“I’m going to ask Dr Rutherford to come and see Hal,” said Albina, to her husband. He had just come back from Beijing, where he had done an important deal, and looked surprised.

“Is he ill?” he asked.

Albina looked annoyed. “I told you – he’s off his food and he looks thoroughly peaky and he hardly speaks to me. School begins again on Monday. We can’t send him back looking like something out of an orphanage.”

“Oh well, I suppose it can’t hurt to get him checked out,” said Donald. “There’s been a nasty flu bug around. I sat next to a man on the plane who kept sneezing. I hope I haven’t caught anything.”

When ordinary people want to see a doctor they go to the surgery and wait for their turn, but Albina was too rich to be ordinary, and she had a private doctor who would come and see patients in their houses.

Dr Rutherford was elderly, with white hair and a pleasant face, and when he had examined Hal he asked Mrs Fenton to leave him to talk to Hal on his own.

“I can’t find anything wrong with you physically,” he said to the boy, “though of course if you don’t eat you’re going to get steadily weaker.”

Hal shrugged. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “There’s nothing I have to do.”

Dr Rutherford waited. “Nothing?” he said.

“No. Not now.”

“But you did have? You did have something to do?”

“Yes.”

But he wasn’t going to talk to the doctor about Fleck, or the way his parents had betrayed him.

“Well, I’ll leave you a tonic,” said Dr Rutherford. He smiled. “That’s what doctors do when they can’t think of anything else. I think that what’s the matter with you is in your mind, but if you don’t want to speak about it, I won’t force you.”