Eva Ibbotson - One Dog and His Boy

“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.

Hal’s arms were getting tired. He had not expected to have to carry his dog to King’s Cross station. He had bought a map and learnt the route from Easy Pets and it shouldn’t have taken more than an hour to walk, but that was when he thought that Fleck would be trotting at his heels.

To begin with the little dog was just a dead weight, but now he was beginning to stir in Hal’s arms. His back leg twitched once, then again, and Hal turned into a small park with a fountain and sat down on the rim. It was dusk, and the people were all leaving. Soon the street lights would be lit.

The panic Hal had felt when he found Fleck stretched out in his cage had died down. Pippa had told him that he would recover, and Pippa knew about dogs. Now he laid Fleck down across his lap and began slowly, steadily to stroke his back.

“Please wake up,” he begged his dog. “Please.”

And it worked. The injection was wearing off and now Fleck turned and opened his eyes – and then he looked at Hal. Looked and looked with his dark right eye and his gold-flecked left eye, trying to believe what he was seeing. He gave a ghost of a whimper and then another. He was still too weak to do more than faintly move his tail, but as he took in that he was really there, where he needed to be, he began carefully to lick Hal’s wrist. He licked it steadily, thoroughly, making sure that everything was as clean as it ought to be.

Then he began on the other one. No piece of skin was left unwashed; every inch was cared for. Only when he had made certain that everything was as it should be did his tail start to wag, slowly at first, then fast, and faster … and from his throat came a burst of ecstatic barks.