Figaro ran back to the fat bloke. Sputnik ran back to me, threw himself on the grass, pulled down his goggles and said, ‘Sorted that out.’
Figaro was sitting in front of his owner with his head cocked on one side. ‘Who’s a lovely boy?’ said the man.
‘I am,’ said Figaro. His voice was a bit like Grandad’s – deep and rusty, like he’d had too many cigarettes – but he was definitely speaking.
The man looked sideways at me as though he was hoping we hadn’t noticed. He said, ‘Sorry about that. Just, errrm . . .’ He picked up the ball and threw it, shouting, ‘Fetch, Figaro! Go on, fetch!’ as if nothing had happened.
‘No,’ said Figaro.
‘Fetch,’ said the man.
‘No.’
‘Go on, boy.’
‘If you want it fetched,’ said the dog, ‘you fetch it. I am done with fetching. If you want to keep the ball, put it somewhere safe. Stop throwing it away.’
The man was trying not to look at us. With his head turned to one side, he said it was nice meeting us and that he’d better be getting home now.
‘That’s right,’ said Figaro. ‘We’re going back to the caravan, to sit on the sofa bed and talk things over. If I’m going to carry on being your best friend, we need to get a few things straight.’
The man bent slowly down and tried to clip a leash on to Figaro’s collar.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ growled Figaro.
‘How,’ I said out loud, ‘did you do that?’
‘It’s all in the instruction book.’ Sputnik showed me the book he’d been reading to Figaro. Dogs – A Companion it was called. ‘Why do people never read the instructions properly? You’re never going to get the most out of things if you don’t read the instructions.’
He swung the backpack off his shoulder, ready to put the book back inside, but then he said, ‘Hard about! I almost forgot.’
‘What?’
‘This is no mere backpack for carrying luggage. This is my gravity ballast. The gravity’s very different where I come from.’
I don’t know much about gravity. For all I know they’ve got different gravity in France or China or wherever. But I do know that what he did next was unusual. ‘Look . . .’ I looked at his feet. They weren’t quite touching the ground. ‘Give me a shove.’ I pushed his shoulder. He wobbled a bit, then drifted a few feet away, like a feather floating on a breeze.
‘Gravity surf,’ roared Sputnik, ‘is up.’
Gravity surf?
‘I told you. Gravity comes in waves. All you have to do is learn to ride the waves.’
He took the big pair of scissors from his belt and stabbed them into the mud. Then he lay down on the grass, with his hands holding the scissors, as if they were the steering wheel of a tiny car. He lifted one leg off the ground, then the other. Then he let go of the scissors with one hand and grabbed hold of his backpack strap. ‘Now this –’ he gasped – ‘is the tricky bit. Can I do it? Yes, I can.’ He pulled the scissors out of the mud with his other hand, grabbed the other strap of his backpack and now he was floating over the mud.
‘Whooo, whoo. Come on, Prez!’
– I don’t think my backpack works like yours. I just keep my stuff in mine.
‘I keep my stuff in mine too. Have you read the instructions?’
– It’s a backpack. It doesn’t have instructions.
‘So you haven’t read the instructions?’
– No, but—
‘Hit the deck.’
– Honestly I don’t think it’ll work. Plus shouldn’t we be doing the list?
‘You can use my scissors. It’s all in the action of the scissors.’
I copied what he’d done. Got down on the ground, one hand on my bag strap, lifted one foot, then the other, then grabbed the other bag strap. And I was doing it. I was floating!
‘Point your head where you want to go. And . . . kick like a frog!’
I’d had dreams about flying, but they were usually about soaring over rooftops and diving into clouds. I’d never even dreamed about what it would be like to skim over mud, slice through patches of dandelions at nettle height. Even though we were moving fast, I could see everything that was happening. Worms heaving themselves out of the mud. Centipedes and snails twisting between blades of grass, their backs gleaming. A spider stitching leaves together with its web. Drops of dew nestling in flower petals like light bulbs. Pollen swirling and glowing around my head. Bees bombing along next to me.
And then spray!
We were scudding over the water.
Oh. Over the water. What if we fell in?
‘Just keep kicking your legs.’
A small wave smacked my face. Sometimes the sunlight sliced through the brown water so you could see fish flash, seaweed waving, ghostly jellyfish opening and closing. We swung around in a curve, speeding back towards the land. There was the red farmhouse in the crook of the green hill. And there were the white caravans huddled like sheep. Cars stampeded by on the main road above.
I wanted to shout my name or just ‘Yes!!!!’ or ‘Look at me!!!!’ or something.
I looked across at Sputnik.
His head was up. His legs were kicking.
We were over the land now, skimming over the grass near the caravan toilet block.
‘Tuck your knees in!’
I brought my knees up to my chest and straight away, tumbled over, landing flat on my back, looking up into the empty blue sky.
– Wow!
‘Feeling hot?’ asked Sputnik.
Now that he came to mention it, I did feel really hot.
‘Stick your tongue out. Cool you down in no time.’
We lay with our tongues out, cooling down. It actually works.
‘I did pick up one or two things from those dog conversations,’ said Sputnik.
Puffs of white cloud were scattered around the blue like kites.
– That one looks like a giraffe. The four short bits are the legs. The long bit is the neck.
‘Whoa! How did you do that? One minute it was just a clump of puffy steam. The next it’s a sky-wide animal picture! That was genius.’
– I didn’t do anything. I just noticed something. The cloud didn’t change, just the way you looked at it. That one over there looks like a ship. See the sails? Or it could be a giant cigar.
‘Whoa! Done it again. It looked nothing like a cigar, then you said it looked like a cigar and now it looks completely like a cigar just waiting for me to go up there and smoke it.’
– So . . . could this go on the list then?
‘Yes!’ He took out the red notebook and a pencil and wrote down ‘Prez’s Cloud Adjuster’ – straight into the Companion.
– But I’m not adjusting the clouds, I’m just seeing them differently – the way I see you differently. Or the way Laika saw things differently. The things she said about Earth weren’t wrong. They were just the way she saw them.
‘You’re right!’ said Sputnik. ‘Which means . . .’
He began rubbing out what he’d written.
– What are you doing?
‘I can’t put Cloud Adjuster on the list if there’s no such thing as a Cloud Adjuster.’
It was horrible watching him make the list shorter when I’d only just made it longer.
– Couldn’t you just put clouds on?
‘Everywhere has clouds. Jupiter’s got a red cloud the size of two Earths. It’s not the cloud. It’s the atmosphere. I don’t know why more planets don’t have an atmosphere. It makes such a difference when a planet has a duvet of breathable gases to snuggle down in. Think about it – lovely puffy clouds and mists and breezes and hurricanes – there’s a whole circus of atmospheric fun whirling around your head every day.’ He flipped his pencil again.
For once I felt like I was saving the world.
‘Atmosphere. Third on the list. And now I need food.’
– Yes, let’s go back to the house and get breakfast.
&n
bsp; But breakfast in the kitchen turned out not to be what he meant by ‘finding something to eat’. He dashed down to where the caravans were and . . . well, he bit a caravan.
He bit it on the front left-hand tyre.
Bit right through it. The tyre exploded. Scraps of rubber flew through the air like bewildered bats. Sputnik cannoned right into me. We went sprawling across the grass.
– What did you do that for? Why would you bite a caravan?!
‘In the original Companion, it says everything on this planet is edible. Remember? You can eat anything on the planet.’
– What?! No no no. The only edible thing is food. And no one eats car tyres. Ever.
‘I’ve eaten worse. Tangy. Want some?’
– No! I thought you were supposed to be looking after me. So far you’ve set off a hand grenade right in front of me, nearly blown me sky high with a tyre . . . let a little kid chop down a tree more or less on top of me and—
‘Taken you gravity surfing. Come on. That was good.’
– . . . and put my entire planet down for shrinking.
Clang!
I actually did think the world was ending there and then.
Without its front wheel to hold it up, the caravan slumped forward like an old grandad falling asleep in front of the telly. Its door fell open. A woman came out to see what was going on. A chair came tumbling out after her, nearly knocking her down the steps.
‘Earthquake!’ she shouted. ‘Was that an earthquake?’
Even if I’d been really good at talking I could never have explained the link between the explosion, the flat tyre and the wee alien dog sitting in the road chewing a big chunk of rubber.
But I’m not good at talking. So we ran. All the way back to the farmhouse.
The mum was moving the cows out of the Coo Palace, back into the field. She stood on the drawbridge, waved at me and asked if I managed to get any.
– Any what?
‘Eggs.’
I’d completely forgotten about the eggs. I looked at the floor and screwed up my eyes, ready to be screamed at.
‘Look at you. Your feet are all muddy and your hair’s all wet. Your T-shirt’s torn. Where’ve you been? Were you looking for eggs in an eagle’s nest?’
I wasn’t sure that she’d understand if I said we’d been out surfing on gravity.
‘Oh, Prez! You went to the shop, didn’t you? You went down to the caravan site at Rumblecairn, to the little kiosk there. I didn’t mean you to buy eggs. We never buy eggs. I meant you to get eggs from the hens.’
Oh.
‘Do you want to go and do it now? Ray will show you. Then it can be your job every day.’
That was the first time she’d given me a proper job. It felt good having something to remember to do. Like being back at Grandad’s, where I had to remember to do everything.
To collect eggs straight from the hen, all you have to do is slip your hand under the hen and nudge her away. Really gently and smoothly so she doesn’t notice it’s happening. Ray showed me how to do it. I was slightly nervous.
‘Don’t be nervous. The hen can feel it if you’re nervous and she thinks, I’m just a hen, so he must be nervous about something else like . . . FOXES!!! And she’ll go off on a big chicken fear rampage. Feathers. Clucking. Fluttering. Hay everywhere. All the other hens catching the fear. You don’t want to see that. So take a deep breath, think about something else and . . . good.’
I slid my hand under the hen. Felt the smooth shell of the egg. Still warm. When I opened my hand and looked, the egg still had tiny feathers stuck to it.
‘Yours was the best!’ said Sputnik, when we carried the bowl of eggs back to the house. ‘That chicken looked like it was going to explode! Loved it. Can you eat hens?’
‘Yes, but not while they’re alive, OK? And not while they belong to someone.’
‘What do you do with the little round things you stole from them?’
– The eggs? We eat them.
‘Go on then.’
– We eat them in the kitchen. You have to cook them first.
‘Where do the eggs come from?’
– From inside the chicken. They’ve got baby hens inside them.
‘The eggs come from inside the chicken?’
– Yes.
‘But the chickens come from inside the egg?’
– Yes.
‘So the chickens are in the eggs but the eggs are in the chickens? This is the most amazing thing ever.’ He kept staring at the eggs. ‘Eggs in chickens, chickens in eggs. The chicken is a magic bird. It’s like the universe in feathers.’
– I think every bird does it, to be honest.
‘What? No. That can’t be right. Even ducks?’
– Even ducks.
In the kitchen, Ray cracked a couple of eggs on to the frying pan. Sputnik sneaked in to watch.
– You’re not supposed to be in the kitchen.
‘Come on! I have to see this. You might be looking at the fourth thing on the list.’
– So the Taj Mahal can’t go on the list but eggs can?
‘Let’s see, shall we?’
I have to admit that when Ray cracked those eggs into the pan they did look good. Their yolks were bright yellow and round and, when they cooked, the whites were creamy white.
‘Whoa!’ said Sputnik. ‘Are they going to turn into chickens now?’
– No. We’re going to eat them on toast.
Ray put one on a plate in front of me. ‘What d’you think?’ he said.
They weren’t just the best eggs I’d ever eaten, they were the best thing I’d ever eaten. Sputnik watched every forkful go into my mouth.
‘Now the chicken is inside you?!’ he gasped. ‘This is just too much.’
‘Look at this – Sputnik wants one!’ Ray grinned. ‘Here, Sputnik.’
Ray put a plate with one egg on it down in front of him.
‘I couldn’t eat that,’ Sputnik said. ‘That is a miracle of fluffy yellow engineering. I’ve got too much respect to put it in my mouth.’ He pushed the plate away. Then he said, ‘On the other hand, that does smell good.’
He wolfed three fried eggs.
That night I sat outside while Sputnik added eggs to the list and the ponies munched hay in their stables, as though they were thinking things over.
‘I don’t know what to put,’ said Sputnik. ‘Chickens or eggs?’
– Why not put both? The more we have the better.
It always felt special putting something on the list for the Companion.
‘So far we have high-vis jackets, the tide, the atmosphere, chickens and eggs, your grandad’s harmonica . . .’
– Really?!
‘Don’t you think the harmonica is amazing?’
– Not the way you play it. Wait till you hear Grandad on it. We’ll have loads more ideas once I move back to his. That’s where all the maps and stuff are.
‘You’re moving back to your grandad’s?’
– Of course. As soon as he’s sorted out.
Jessie was coming over with some leftovers for Sputnik.
– She saves half her dinner for you. It seems mean. Couldn’t you say something to her, so that she knows you’re not a dog?
But when she put the food down he rolled on to his back with his tongue hanging out and let her tickle his belly. She loved doing that. He pretended to love her doing it.
– You do realize that’s just about the most doggy thing you could possibly do?
‘She likes it.’
– But it’s doggy. How am I ever going to tell her you’re not a dog if you keep acting so doggy?
‘I think in the days to come, when we’re saving this planet, it might turn out to be really useful that some people think I’m just a dog.’
12.
Concealer
That was Jessie. She said, ‘Sputnik let me tickle his tummy last night. I’m finally getting somewhere with him so I should be feeding him from now on.’
&n
bsp; I was standing in the doorway. No one had noticed me yet.
‘But Prez likes to do it,’ said the mum, ‘and it’s good for him to have—’
‘Prez is temporary,’ said Jessie. ‘He’s going to leave soon. Sputnik is staying here for good. Sputnik’s got to get used to me. Prez is just for summer. Sputnik is for life.’
I knew I was only staying for a while. I knew that. Probably not even the whole summer. Because if Grandad got himself sorted, I could go any minute. I just hadn’t considered that it might mean leaving Sputnik behind, that’s all.
The mum had seen me standing in the doorway. She knew I’d heard. She wished I hadn’t. She acted like nothing had happened. She gave me a big smile and held Sputnik’s bowl out to me. ‘Morning, Prez, why don’t you and Jessie take Sputnik his breakfast. Someone needs to turn out the ponies too. Oh. And eggs, please.’
I let Jessie carry the food.
She put it down in front of Sputnik. Sputnik was kind of horrified.
‘What are you playing at? Bringing a woman in here when I haven’t got my kilt on. And what’s this?’
– Food.
He took one look at the gooey mess of dog food and said, ‘I’d rather bite a caravan, thanks. I’ll go in and fix myself some cheese on toast with Worcester sauce.’
– You’re not allowed in the house.
‘That’s the legal position. But, you know, I have charm.’ He put his head on one side and did that smile.
‘He’s not hungry yet,’ said Jessie – something that was never, ever going to be true. ‘Sputnik, want to come and help us with the ponies?’
‘Are ponies edible?’
– No.
‘You say that about everything. I’ll come and see for myself.’
Jessie opened the stable doors, talking all the time. ‘They love the sound of my voice. It keeps them nice and calm. They’re not our ponies. We just look after them. The owners live in Kirkcudbright. They come here to ride them at the weekends and on Wednesday nights. They’re called Mannie and Gallus – the ponies, I mean, not the people. Come in. It’s a bit scary sometimes because the pony’s so big and the stall’s so little, but all we have to do is slip the bridle on, like that. Then clip the lead rein on, then we lead them out up the loaning and into the field.’
Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth Page 8
