The Secret Dog

by Joe Friedman

  Josh glanced towards the woods below as he arrived at the shed. For a moment, he thought he’d seen a flash of light coming from the edge of the woods – but when he stared at it, there was nothing. Just a reflection from some wet leaves, he decided.

  He turned off the MP3 player and started to open the padlock.

  ‘Yes it’s me,’ he said. He glanced back at the woods. Still nothing. It must have just been his imagination.

  ‘Just a week to go,’ Josh told Reggae, as she jumped up to greet him. ‘And you still have lots to learn. Let’s go.’

  Chapter 20

  Josh felt unusually alert as he entered his English class the following day. For once, he was prepared – he’d listened to the play three times and even had a tutorial from Yvonne about it.

  ‘As you all know,’ Mrs Margolies began, ‘this play takes place in two realms: in the human realm and in fairyland.’ Josh recognised his teacher’s joke – she knew full well most of the people in the class hadn’t even glanced at the play. ‘Today we’re going to concentrate on fairyland. Who knows how Oberon seeks to punish Titania?’

  Josh raised his hand eagerly. Mrs Margolies looked surprised, then annoyed.

  ‘Josh, couldn’t you have gone to the toilet during the break?’

  ‘I don’t want to go to the toilet,’ he replied indignantly. ‘I want to answer the question. Oberon punishes Titania by getting Puck to rub her eyes with a flower that will make her fall in love with the first person she sees.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Mrs Margolies said, looking surprised. ‘And why did he do that?’

  ‘Well, he thought she’d fall in love with an animal in the forest, and be shamed by it. The idea was that this would make her give him the boy who’s acting as her page.’

  ‘Very good,’ Mrs Margolies said with pleasure. ‘And now, as you’re doing so briliantly: why do you think Shakespeare introduced fairies into his story?’

  Josh thought for a moment. He really liked the way the mischievous spirits threw everyone’s plans into confusion. He remembered the way he’d thought Yvonne had dropped him for Eric. It was like for a moment, actually quite a few moments, everything he thought and felt had been turned upside down. But wasn’t this a bit like what the spirits did in the play?

  ‘I don’t really know,’ he said honestly. He heard a guffaw from Kearney and Angus, his sidekick.

  ‘Quiet you two, or you’ll get a detention,’ said Mrs Margolies sharply. She turned back to Josh. ‘You were saying . . .’

  ‘The thing is, what you feel and think can just change, in a moment, for no good reason. I think Shakespeare has fairies in the story to show how random life is, how we think we know what we’re doing, but we don’t.’

  Josh heard Kearney whisper to Angus, ‘He’ll find out how random life is . . .’ Angus chuckled maliciously.

  ‘Detention for both of you,’ Mrs Margolies snapped. ‘For today and tomorrow.’

  Suddenly, Josh wondered if he’d been talking nonsense. But Mrs Margolies was looking at him differently.

  ‘That’s very good Josh. It’s as good an explanation of Shakespeare’s fairies as I’ve ever heard. Well done.’

  Josh looked down at his desk in embarrassment. He couldn’t ever remember a teacher talking to him like that. He looked up to find Yvonne’s shining eyes on him. He mouthed ‘thank you’. She blushed.

  As the bell rang, Mrs Margolies said, ‘Kearney, Angus and Josh, I want to see you before you leave.’

  Josh put his copy of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in his rucksack and went up to the desk, where Mrs Margolies was scribbling detention notices for Kearney and Angus. They didn’t seem bothered.

  They went off, joking and laughing. Mrs Margolies pulled out a card from her drawer and started writing on it. ‘Have you been studying?’ she asked as she wrote.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘And I’m getting help too.’

  ‘But that answer didn’t come from someone else . . .’

  ‘No,’ Josh said. Then he admitted. ‘I don’t know where it came from.’

  ‘You’re a smarter boy than you let on,’ Mrs Margolies concluded, handing him a praise card. ‘Show this to your uncle.’

  Josh looked at the card, his first. It said ‘for superior work and great insight into Shakespeare’. He rushed out of the class.

  Yvonne was waiting for him outside. ‘Look!’ he said, showing her the card. She read it swiftly.

  ‘You deserved it!’

  ‘I just imagined I was talking to you.’

  Yvonne didn’t reply. Had he said something wrong? She turned and set off for their next class. But Josh would have sworn he heard her mutter, ‘That’s the nicest thing anyone ever said to me.’

  * * *

  Josh jogged towards home and Reggae’s shed. It had been an amazing day and Mrs Margolies’ words were on a repeating loop in his head. He couldn’t wait to show her card to his uncle. His first praise card! And such an amazing one – ‘insight into Shakespeare!’ Uncle Calum would be surprised and pleased.

  His head was so full of the day’s events that he didn’t really notice the shed door until he was almost upon it. It was slightly open. He must have forgotten to lock it after he took Reggae for her morning walk. He imagined Reggae seeing the open door and taking advantage of it, wandering off to explore. She’d be all right . . . He began to wonder where she might have gone.

  That was when he noticed the padlock. It was on the ground. Unable to believe his eyes, he picked it up and stared at it. The shackle had been cut clean through. A chilly wind seemed to blow right through him.

  He hadn’t left the door ajar. Someone had broken it open. Josh felt numb. Someone with a big pair of bolt cutters. Who?

  Operating his body mechanically, as if with a remote control, Josh opened the shed door and went in. The afternoon sun flooded into the dark space. Reggae’s bed wasn’t in its usual place, and it was upside down. Her toys were scattered over the wet side of the shed. She hadn’t gone without a fight, he thought.

  There was something dark and glistening on the floor. He knelt to have a closer look. He guessed what it was, but touched his finger to it to make sure. It was blood. Reggae – or someone – had been hurt in the struggle.

  Josh tried to stand but the numbness he’d felt a moment earlier seemed to have drained into his legs – they just didn’t seem to be working properly. He could only kneel, looking around at the shed, full of so many memories.

  Who could have done this to him? His first thought was that his uncle might have noticed the lock on the shed . . . If he had, he might have cut it open.

  But Josh couldn’t imagine his uncle struggling with Reggae, fighting to remove her. His uncle was always incredibly kind to his animals. Josh knew if Uncle Calum had found a dog in a shed on his land he’d guess who it belonged to . . . And he’d have left her until Josh got home.

  So it wasn’t his uncle. Josh stared at the blood on the floor. Reggae wouldn’t have fought like this unless someone was treating her cruelly . . .

  A series of images flashed into his head. Dunham shouting at and striking his two young dogs. Kearney catching him looking at the YouTube video in the library. Meeting Dunham in the small grocery store. Kearney at school showing off his binoculars. The glint of light from the woods as he opened the padlock.

  Now Josh knew what had happened. Dunham had seen the dog food. He’d figured out Josh had a dog and had asked Kearney to find out where he kept it. He would’ve been pleased to do that, after Josh had shamed him. He must’ve followed Josh home after school, watched him from the woods with his binoculars . . . He’d seen him open the shed.

  It would have been easy for Dunham to take Reggae while he was at school. Getting praised for the first time ever, he thought bitterly.

  A tremor started in Josh’s legs, and spread to his arms. What would Dunham do with her? He remembered Dunham in the valley, striking his dogs repeatedly. If Reggae bit him . . . Surely he wouldn’t h
ave killed her! Josh held his eyes shut as a wave of dismay and loss swept over him. The shed suddenly fell into darkness, as if a cloud covered the sun. No! It wasn’t possible!

  Josh struggled to get out from under the despair which threatened to swamp him. Reggae couldn’t be dead. Dunham would’ve recognised she was a working dog. He wouldn’t get rid of a working dog until he’d tried her out with some sheep. Especially when his dogs were so rubbish.

  Josh had a scary thought. No one knew that Reggae belonged to Josh. Apart from Yvonne . . . If Dunham saw what a good working dog she was, he might try to pass him off as his own!

  At least, then, she’d still be alive.

  Josh noted distantly his numbness was going. He managed to stand. He needed to think. There had to be something he could do.

  Chapter 21

  But as Josh wandered onto the commons, thinking seemed impossible. Everywhere he went reminded him of Reggae.

  And everything that reminded him of her made him feel the hole in his world even more sharply.

  But what was almost worse than her disappearance was the fact that he was to blame. If he hadn’t interfered with Dunham in the valley, or been so careless in the grocery store, she’d be with him now. Even that carelessness wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d realised that Dunham had seen the dog food . . . He could have hidden Reggae in a place where she’d never be discovered.

  And then there were the binoculars . . . why hadn’t he figured out why Kearney had brought them to school? Or that the flash of light in the forest had come from them?

  Josh’s feet were getting heavier by the moment. His mum had mattered more to him than anything in the world. He’d lost her. Now he’d lost Reggae. But this time it was worse, because it was his fault.

  Josh’s feet had taken him to the hills overlooking the secret valley, where he’d spent hours training Reggae. He looked down into it. Several small groups of sheep were grazing peacefully. Then Josh remembered the valley while he had watched, hidden, as Dunham’s dogs charged into the sheep, biting, tearing chunks off their fleece, causing panic and distress to both the ewes and their young lambs . . .

  Did he really regret stopping him?

  No. He couldn’t have done nothing. Yvonne was right. It just wasn’t him.

  But then it hit Josh: it was definitely not him to leave Reggae with a man like Dunham.

  Up till now, it hadn’t occurred to Josh that he could do anything to save Reggae – Dunham had just appeared too powerful, too big to go against. It would be like a five-year-old against the Incredible Hulk.

  But remembering how he had confronted Dunham here, it didn’t seem so impossible. Dunham wasn’t the Incredible Hulk. Not even Iron Man. He was human. And he’d never expect Josh to have the courage to risk everything for his dog.

  Suddenly, he didn’t feel so helpless. Yes he’d made mistakes. But if he rescued Reggae . . . they wouldn’t matter.

  * * *

  At the house, he changed out of his school uniform and left his praise note on the kitchen table for Uncle Calum to see as soon as he got home. He attached a Post-It note saying he was having a tutorial with Yvonne and would eat there.

  It was already getting dark as Josh rounded the equipment barn on the vet’s farm. Josh automatically registered the vet’s van was there – he was home.

  The vet’s dogs started to bark as he approached the front door. He gathered himself for a moment, then pressed the fire-engine-red doorbell. The door opened. It wasn’t Yvonne. It was her father. Staring at the ground, Josh muttered ‘Sorry to disturb you. I need to see Yvonne.’ He started to sidle past him. He knew the time was coming when he had to have a proper conversation with the vet. But not now.

  ‘Yvonne!’ the vet called. He turned back to Josh. ‘I hear you did really well in English today.’

  Josh glanced up. The vet’s face changed from his usual good humour to concern. For a moment, Josh wondered why. Then he realised his eyes must be puffy, and he quickly turned away. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.

  He heard someone getting up from the dinner table and then Yvonne’s distinctive footsteps coming towards him down the hallway He looked up and could see her taking in the situation. Then he felt her hand on his back gently steering him towards the sitting room.

  ‘You haven’t finished dinner,’ the vet said.

  ‘I’ll skip pudding,’ Yvonne replied firmly. ‘And I’ll tidy up later.’

  * * *

  Once he’d realised he had to try to rescue Reggae, in the secret valley, all Josh could think was that he had to talk to Yvonne. But now that he was here, he didn’t know where to begin.

  ‘What happened?’ Yvonne had asked as soon as she’d sat Josh on the sofa. But all he could do was stare at the pattern on the brightly coloured Persian carpet on the floor.

  Someone came into the room. Yvonne said ‘ta’, then handed him a glass of water. He drank it mechanically. ‘My mum,’ she explained. The vet must have told her he looked terrible.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She’s gone,’ Josh said, in a voice he hardly recognised. ‘Someone took her.’

  ‘. . . Reggae?’

  Josh nodded. He looked up at her, feeling completely lost.

  ‘When did you find out?’

  ‘Just after school.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come straight here?’

  It never occurred to him. He was used to dealing with things by himself.

  After a pause, Yvonne said, ‘We’ll leave that for the moment . . . Tell me the whole story.’

  ‘But you’ve got to tidy up . . .’

  ‘We have plenty of time.’

  * * *

  Yvonne sat, listening carefully, until Josh finished his account. ‘I can’t believe Kearney would have helped his father do such a terrible thing.’

  Josh didn’t bother replying. The evidence spoke for itself.

  ‘I’ve been to their place with my father a couple of times. But the last time was years ago,’ she continued.

  ‘Where did he keep his dogs?’

  ‘In his front yard.’

  ‘People don’t usually move their kennels.’

  ‘Do you really think he’d keep her in his kennel?’

  ‘I don’t even know if she’s alive . . . But if she is, my guess is that he’d keep her close.’

  ‘You won’t get near the kennel without the dogs raising a huge racket,’ Yvonne said quietly.

  Josh had realised this while he walked on the commons. That’s when he’d known he needed help.

  ‘I’ll need someone to provide a reason for the dogs’ barking.’

  ‘An accomplice,’ Yvonne mused. Then she looked at Josh sharply. ‘Me?’

  He held her gaze. ‘Who else could I ask?’

  Josh could almost see her thinking. Of course she wanted to help him. But it would mean going against the biggest bully on the island. This wasn’t something to do lightly. Josh had got into his bad books, and now he was paying the price.

  After some minutes, Yvonne asked, ‘Do you want to help me wash up?’

  Josh nodded.

  ‘Washing up helps me think,’ Yvonne continued, rising to her feet. ‘We have a lot of thinking to do.’

  Josh followed Yvonne into the kitchen.

  ‘And I suppose you haven’t had anything to eat . . .’

  * * *

  Josh sat at the kitchen table, munching on cold chicken as Yvonne turned on her laptop.

  ‘Here,’ she said, indicating the screen. ‘The Redlins’ farm.’

  It took Josh a moment to get his orientation. The photo was taken from above, probably from a satellite. ‘That’s brilliant!’

  ‘We can make a map.’

  ‘I can memorise it,’ Josh said, his spirits rising.

  ‘We need to anticipate everything,’ Yvonne said. ‘You won’t have a second chance if you don’t have everything you need with you.’

  ‘I’ll need to keep the dogs in the kennel quiet while
I free Reggae,’ Josh said, thinking aloud.

  ‘My dad has tons of bones in his freezer. He won’t miss a couple.’

  ‘At least four,’ Josh said. ‘And we’ll need to take them out tonight so they’re completely defrosted.’

  Yvonne nodded. ‘What if Reggae isn’t in the kennel? Or he’s chained her up?’

  Josh was sure Reggae would be in the kennel. But Yvonne was right. They should make plans in case she wasn’t. And even if she was in the kennel, Dunham might have chained her to something.

  ‘My uncle’s got bolt cutters. I can borrow them.’

  ‘Will they be strong enough?’

  ‘They’re old . . . But I’ll sharpen them.’

  Chapter 22

  This was definitely a case of a problem shared, a problem halved, Josh thought as he headed home. They didn’t have a proper plan yet. But they’d done a lot of thinking.

  And he didn’t feel so alone with it all. Which was nice, for a change.

  To his surprise, his uncle, who often said (and usually practised) ‘early to bed and early to rise’ was still up when he got home. Not up in the sense of awake, but up in the sense of sitting, fully dressed, in his favourite armchair.

  Josh tapped him gently on the shoulder. It took a moment for Calum to respond, but when he opened his eyes, they were already alert.

  ‘I’m so proud of you,’ he said warmly. ‘I never got a comment from a teacher like that.’

  ‘I was lucky.’

  ‘Great insight into Shakespeare?’ Calum recited from the card. ‘It would take more than luck to deserve that . . . I’m sorry I can’t give you a reward, like other parents,’ he went on. ‘But I just wanted you to know that I really appreciate the way you’ve buckled down and taken our conversation to heart.’

  ‘Thank you.’ It seemed an awfully long time since Mrs Margolies had written those comments. He wished he could tell Calum what was really on his mind. But that would mean admitting that he’d been lying. For months. How could he expect him to be sympathetic after that?