by Iva Ibbotson
“You can’t imagine what a thing this is,” said Mick, and in a few words he gave them Nini’s history.
The children had moved a little way away, giving Nini as long as they could. They were talking quietly, beginning to make friends, when two stable lads came past.
“Look at this,” said one. “Here on page two.” There was a rustle of pages being turned. “That’s the spit an’ image of the boy with the white dog. The one that’s staying with Bill and Myra. Don’t tell me it isn’t.”
The children, hidden by the side of the lorry, froze into silence.
The other lad whistled through his teeth. “‘Twenty-thousand-pound reward for news of him,’ it says. It can’t be the same boy.”
“Maybe not. But it looks like him and it’s worth a chance. The phone number’s here.”
The men moved away out of earshot. Mick, looking at Hal and Pippa, saw the shock on their faces.
“I don’t want to pry, but if there’s anything I can do to help?” he said. “I mean if you’re on the run or something.” And as the children exchanged glances, he said, “You don’t have to explain, I’ll help you just the same. It makes no odds to me.”
Hal only hesitated for a moment. The redheaded boy was probably quite as much in need of twenty thousand pounds as the circus lad. But Hal felt certain that Mick was to be trusted, that he was honest and truthful and brave. He said, “Yes, maybe you could help. We’ll have to leave here at once, but we don’t really know where we are or anything. We ought to hide somewhere overnight, I suppose, and then start off at dawn.”
Pippa looked at him, frowning. It was usually she who made the decisions – and they knew nothing about the boy.
“You can spend the night at our place,” said Mick. “There’s a big boiler room in the basement. No one goes there. I know where the key is. I’ll get it and get some food down there and blankets. There’s only Mrs Platt at night and she sleeps like a top.”
“Would you really?” said Hal. “I think that might work. But how do we get to you? Did you come in a bus?”
Mick shook his head.
“We walked. It’s only twenty minutes from here. I’ll draw you a map.”
“What about the other children?” asked Pippa. “Can you trust them not to give us away?”
Mick said, “Yes.”
They left a note for George. It was hard lying to someone who had been so helpful but there was nothing else to do. The note said that Aunt Elsa had got in touch and told them that she couldn’t manage to get north because her brother-in-law was in hospital, so they were taking the overnight bus back to London. Fortunately Bill and Myra had gone out to the cinema, so the children were able to say goodbye by letter, and to thank them for all they had done.
Then they gathered up their belongings and went to fetch the dogs.
At first all went well. The dogs liked the idea of a late-night walk. They noticed that Pippa had strapped on her haversack and Hal carried his holdall, and both of them wore their anoraks. For Fleck and Otto and Li-Chee and Honey this meant that they were off on another adventure and they were ready for it.
But not Francine. Francine knew that they were leaving. Leaving the circus – and leaving Rupert.
She sat down where she was. She threw back her head and she howled. It was the most desperate and forlorn sound the children had ever heard. And from George’s camper where he now slept, Rupert replied and came to her.
What followed was almost unbearable. The poodles stood together in the dusk; their bodies so close that they might have been one thing. They did not bark or complain; they only shivered as sorrow gripped them.
Hal and Pippa watched, and the other dogs too. Could they force Francine away? She loved the life of the circus, and she loved Rupert. It was a proper enduring passion, they knew that.
Yet could they go on without her? This flight was an adventure they all shared.
The two poodles still stood like statues. No one else existed for them. Otto took a few steps towards them and then stopped. He and Francine had been friends for a long time, but he did nothing. Francine would have to decide this for herself.
“Come on, Hal,” said Pippa, who could bear it no longer. “We have to get on. She’s got a right to stay.”
They turned and made their way slowly over the trampled grass. They had reached the entrance to the circus when Francine gave a last, heart-rending howl. Then she turned away from Rupert and raced after them.
15
Greystoke House
Mrs Platt was snoring – a great juddering noise that sounded as though it would rattle the window frames. One of the boys whom Mick had put on guard leaned out of the landing window and signalled to Mick in the shrubbery to say that all was clear.
In the girl’s room, Nini lay silently in her bed, but she was not asleep.
It was almost dark now. They would be here soon – and Mick settled down to wait.
The dogs walked slowly. They had had a hard day and their performance in the ring had tired them. The last dog, as they made their way through the unfamiliar streets, was Francine. She was usually so light on her feet, but now she could hardly put one paw in front of the other, and her head was down. Every step was taking her further from where she wanted to be and she looked as though she didn’t care whether she lived or died.
Hal was trying to read Mick’s map, hastily scribbled on the back of an envelope. In the failing light they took a wrong turn – but at last they came to the iron gate of Greystoke House.
There was no time to be anxious – Mick was there in a moment.
“You must be absolutely quiet,” Pippa told the dogs. They understood, and followed as Mick led them round to the back of the building and down a short flight of stone steps.
They found themselves in a boiler room with a bare stone floor, coiled pipes round the walls, a big heater humming in one corner. The windows were shuttered and a faint blue light hung overhead. It was dry and warm, and in a corner they found blankets and pillows which Mick’s friends had “borrowed” from the storeroom and brought down in secret. A big bowl of water, and plates piled with meatballs and rice, pinched from the children’s supper, were laid out on the floor.
“Did you have to go without your meal to give us this?” asked Pippa.
Mick shrugged. “The girl who serves supper is pretty sloppy. It isn’t difficult to get stuff off the table, and we don’t go hungry here. The food’s dull but it’s perfectly OK.” Then he said, “Nothing happens, that’s the worst of living in a place like this. We’d do worse things than going without meatballs to know we can help.”
The dogs were too well trained to start eating without permission, but they looked hungrily at the plates, and then at Hal and Pippa, and when they got the signal to begin, they put their heads down and ate.
All except Francine. Francine looked at the food and turned her head away and walked to a quiet corner of the room, wanting only to be alone with her grief.
“Come along, Francine,” said Pippa, fondling her head. “Try just a little.”
But Francine wouldn’t eat. She gave her paw to Pippa a few times to say she understood that Pippa was sorry for her. Pippa wasn’t to worry, she was saying, but right now she couldn’t swallow even the smallest mouthful.
“We’ll be keeping watch,” said Mick. “Someone will wake you first thing in the morning so that you can be off in case the boiler man comes – though he’s not due tomorrow.”
Hal and Pippa looked at him. There was nothing to say except thank you, so they said it, and several times over.
“We won’t forget this,” said Hal. “Not ever. And if there’s anything we can do for you, well, you know…”
Now that they were temporarily safe, Hal and Pippa had time to wonder what the stable lad would do, and how likely they were to be pursued. It was not so far to Hal’s grandfather overland, but it couldn’t be done in less than two days’ hard walking, across moorland and fields, towards the coa
st.
But soon they stopped whispering and curled up on the blanket, and although the stone floor was not exactly comfortable, they slept.
The dogs slept too. Otto lay close to Francine and his reassuring bulk did something to calm her. Once or twice she woke up briefly and whined, remembering what she had lost, but then Otto would move closer to her, and she was quiet again. Fleck lay across Hal’s feet, his flannel beside him.
Upstairs, Mrs Platt still snored, the breath wheezing in and out of her great bulk, and while they heard the steady, unpleasant noise she made, Mick and his friends knew that the fugitives were safe.
But in the room she shared with the other little girls, Nini sat up in bed. She had been waiting, and now she pushed back the bedclothes and fetched the brush and comb from her locker and crept, silent as a wraith, along the corridor.
At the top of the stairs she ran into Mick, who was keeping watch.
“See small dog,” she said. “See Li-Chee.”
Mick stared at her. How did she know? Had she overheard something when he was talking to Hal and Pippa or did she have some other way of knowing things? Whatever it was, he couldn’t take any risks. Even Mrs Platt couldn’t sleep through one of Nini’s tantrums.
He took her hand. “You can see Li-Chee but you must be very, very quiet or they will take him away. Do you understand? Absolutely silent.”
Nini nodded, and he led her down the cellar steps to the door of the boiler room.
The little girl knew about moving silently. She opened the door of the cellar so quietly that the huddle of dogs hardly stirred and the children did not wake. Only Li-Chee, who was on the edge of the circle because he had given his place beside Otto to Francine, raised his head.
He was surprised to be woken and at first he wondered if it wasn’t one of the other dogs she wanted because he was used to being small and unimportant and only suitable for old ladies. But as Nini knelt down in front of him he realized that it was really him she wanted, just as it had been him in the lorry, and though he was very sleepy and would have liked to close his eyes again, he made himself stay awake and began to lick her wrist.
Once again, Nini did not hug him or try and pick him up. Instead, she took up her brush and comb and very slowly, very carefully, she groomed the long, silky golden coat and smoothed back the hair that had tumbled into his eyes.
And as she brushed and combed and tidied him, she was back in her homeland, helping the girls who danced in the temple to prepare the little guard dogs that they worshipped for the festivals.
Everything came back to her – everything she missed so terribly that she had shut it out completely: the scent of jasmine, the temple bells, the quiet voices of the nuns in the orphanage … the warmth, the sun on her skin … and her own language.
Steadily, quietly, Nini brushed and combed and murmured. And as she worked, the homesickness which had crippled her and turned her into a mute came out, and the tears she had not been able to shed ran down her cheeks.
And Li-Chee stood trustingly in front of her. Already he loved her. She had chosen him and he had chosen her, but as the grooming went on, there came from his throat a low rumbling … a kind of gargling sound – and Nini put down her brush. She recognized the noise Li-Chee was making. In his polite way he was telling her that he did not want to be groomed. He did not want to be worshipped.
He wanted to be understood. To go forward…
For a moment Nini sat still, thinking. Then she gave a small shake of her head, and let it all go out of her; her memories, her sadness. She looked round the dimly lit room at the other dogs. She thought of the very small girl in the nursery who had tugged at her skirts, wanting to be her friend. She thought of the games they played in the garden of Greystoke House, the squirrel they had tamed, the cartoons they watched at bedtime. She thought of Mick.
It was time to move on.
“Wait here,” she said to Li-Chee.
She crept out again and made her way to Mrs Platt’s sitting room. The scissors were where she remembered, at the bottom of the sewing basket. Nini took them, being careful to carry them with the points down as she had been taught, and made her way downstairs again. It would not be easy, but she would do it. She would be brave.
Li-Chee was waiting where she had left him.
“I won’t hurt you,” she said. “Just stand still.”
Then she began to cut, and to snip and to cut again, and as she did so, the golden silky coat which had imprisoned Li-Chee fell silently to the floor.
Pippa was the first to wake, and it was all she could do not to let out a cry of horror.
“What have you done?” she said. “For heaven’s sake – oh, the poor, poor dog!”
Nini did not answer; she only smiled.
“He’s ruined,” said Pippa. “He’ll never be in a show again. Nobody will want a dog like that.”
But now Li-Chee got to his feet and shook himself, making sure that it had really happened. And then he went mad. He raced round the cellar, he rolled over and over waving his paws in the air, he let out high-pitched yelps of sheer delight.
He could see, he could move, he was revealed as the dog he really was. A lion dog, a fighter, the guardian of emperors, not a pampered plaything for old ladies. His little squashed face looked out at the clear, clean world, and his pop eyes glowed in the morning light. Someone had understood him; someone had found out who he really was!
Hal woke then and saw what had happened, but before he could say anything Mick came in and said it was time to go.
16
Sprocket Gets a Call
The stable lad lost very little time. As soon as the horses were bedded down for the night, he made his call.
Curzon, of course, was no longer in his office. He often did not return after a long lunch, and Fiona never stayed once he had gone. So it was in Sprocket’s little cubbyhole that the phone rang, and he seized it eagerly.
“MMM here. Milton Sprocket speaking.”
He listened, getting more and more excited, trying to take notes with one hand.
“I’m pretty sure it’s him,” the voice at the other end was saying. “Looks just like the photo. You did say twenty thousand pounds? No funny business?”
“Yes, yes,” said Sprocket eagerly. “Now just tell me exactly where you are. Give me your coordinates.”
But the stable lad had not heard of coordinates.
“Don’t know what they are, mate. We’re in Todcaster with Henry’s Circus. And you better get up here quickly because we’ll be on the move again soon.”
When he put the receiver down, Sprocket was in a state of feverish agitation. It was clear that he had to act straightaway and not wait for Curzon’s instructions. What’s more, it seemed that the boy had not been kidnapped as everyone thought, but had run away. Children did run away to join the circus, Sprocket knew, and that meant he would not want to be recaptured and taken home. And this, in turn, meant some serious disguises while the boy was being stalked and cornered and brought back. The van would have to be disguised too – probably best to put on the greengrocer poem. They’d like the idea of fresh vegetables up in the north.
Sprocket hurried to the cabinet and opened the top drawer. He was a fair man and tried hard not to have any favourites among his moustaches, but there was one that he did love particularly. It was a rich nut-brown colour and wonderfully bushy, and it settled against his upper lip like the softest fur. He put it on and immediately felt ready for a great adventure. Then he packed up a couple of wigs, an ear trumpet and some pimples and boils, but not the scars – you couldn’t have everything. At the last minute he added the bottle of blood but left the one labelled saliva – there would be places up there where one could spit if necessary.
Running backwards and forwards, Sprocket loaded the van, putting in the new sat nav, the infrared heat-sensing device, the binoculars with night vision… The little packet containing Hal’s toothbrush and his handkerchiefs went in the secret compar
tment behind the driving seat. And of course he had a case ready packed with pyjamas and a change of underclothes. Sprocket’s mother had always been careful to see that her son understood the importance of being fresh and clean not just on top but all the way through.
He was removing the board which said, Have you lost it or misplaced it? In a jiffy we will trace it, and sliding in the one which said, When your appetite’s on edge, We will bring you fruit and veg, when he remembered that he had not left a message for Curzon. So he went back into the cubbyhole and sent a coded message from his computer to Curzon’s computer upstairs, telling him where he had gone.
Then he eased the van out of the garage and set off for the motorway. As he passed a row of shops he saw a big notice in one of the windows in which a light still burned.
Easy Pets, it said. Pedigree Dogs to Rent.
Sprocket drove on without a second glance. He was not fond of dogs.
The light should not have been burning at Easy Pets so late. Kayley had been due home an hour ago. She still had flu and should have been in bed. But one of the dogs, the mastiff who had eaten her mistress’s finger by mistake, was running a temperature. Her nose was dry and she was off her food and Kayley sat with her, wondering whether to call out the vet so late. The Carkers never came to the dogs after hours.
She was feeling wretched. She went on missing the dogs in Room A more than she would have thought possible, and she was terribly worried about Pippa. The police had been back asking a lot more questions and she felt that it was only a matter of time before they found out that it was Pippa who had been in the building on Sunday night.
She was putting on her coat when Queen Tilly started up again. The Mexican hairless was disgusted. She was a dog who in a way was born disgusted, but since her roommates had disappeared, life at Easy Pets had become impossible. The five dogs who had replaced Otto and Francine and the others were simply not fit to associate with a Mexican hairless who had belonged to an heiress and eaten off silver plates. There was an Airedale who suffered from hairballs, a dachshund who dribbled, and some others that it was better not to think about. So she twitched and screeched and yelped and grumbled, till Kayley came to her in the compound and put another cushion in her padded sleeping basket and gave her a drink of milk.
