by Nette Hilton
‘Early, isn’t it?’ said Mr Stig.
‘Very early,’ said Auntie Mor. She was in her old tracksuit and had tucked her nightie into the bottom, which made her look a bit fatter than usual. ‘S’pose we should’ve expected it, though. Becks is able to get in and out of his doggy door at his house. Not like us in a camper.’
‘And he’s not always on a lead,’ Pyro said as he took off again around the block. Becks really loved to check out every post and bush.
‘Don’t let him go!’ yelled Mor. ‘He’ll take off.’
Pyro held him tight. They passed other dogs on their morning walks and everyone said hello and what a nice dog and hadn’t they seen him before and things like that. Pyro didn’t have time to answer as Becks seemed to have many places she had to be.
He was ready for a rest, though, by the time they got back to the camp with the croissants and the paper and some extra coffee for Auntie Mor who said she thought she might need it if she was going to keep up with the dog-walking.
As soon as the sun was properly up and they’d eaten breakfast and cleaned up and everyone had taken turns to hold Becks while they rushed off to clean teeth and have morning washes and toilet breaks, they went down to the rock pool for another swimming practice.
Becks and Pyro stayed on the edge. Becks did a bit of diving, trying to fetch rocks from the bottom of the pool and, in between rock fetching, Pyro dug around looking for crabs. He even forgot to be afraid when he found one hidden in a shallow pool and he had to put his hand down and flip over a rock so Becks could see it as well.
Becks did. And finished up in the little pool with the crab and the anemones.
She also found some old fish heads and spent a very happy few minutes rolling about making herself smell a bit like the inside of a garbage can. Auntie Mor took time out from teaching Mr Stig to swim to take Becks in for a bath.
It didn’t work exactly and they had to go back to the camper and fill a dish with water and detergent and dump Becks in. She smelt a bit like clean undies when they’d finished but it was better than a garbage bin any day.
Everyone was so worn out by the time they’d emptied the dish and hung up the towels that Becks was locked in the camper in her basket and told to GO TO SLEEP!
She only scratched at the screen door for a little while before she did as she was told and Auntie Mor and Mr Stig settled down in the annex with a cup of coffee and the papers and Pyro sat with his pencils and his pirate map.
An afternoon with a dog who wasn’t used to living in a camper was much the same as the mornings, Pyro discovered.
When Becks woke up she had to go out STRAIGHT AWAY and do a quick wee on the grass and then another under the tree and then another over by the wheel of the old couple’s caravan who were still not going any further around Australia yet.
Pyro had to go with her as she wasn’t allowed off her leash. The park manager said it was an absolute rule and the only way she could stay, even though Gran Mitchell was an old girlfriend, was if Pyro made sure she was always tied to him.
They set off down the cliff path after a quick lunch and Pyro took time to take Becks into the hide-out to check that no one had been in there and messed it up.
They had and so he spent some time sweeping the floor again. He didn’t climb the tree as it was a bit hard with a dog on a lead.
They explored the foreshore and Becks chased some more rocks and Pyro found some more crabs.
The Worries were nowhere to be seen. Neither was anybody else and Pyro decided the wet day and over-cast sky were keeping a lot of campers at home. Or on the road somewhere dryer.
The Worries were probably still in school and Pyro had already made up his mind that, as soon as school was out for the day, he was going to stick close to the camper. He had a new idea of another pirate map and treasure and was going to draw Becks in a pirate outfit. In fact, the more he thought about it the more he thought he could design a whole lot of dog-pirate things. A special hat with ear holes. A coat with a tail hole. A dog tail that could act as a rudder as the dog-pirate sailed on its raft. And, of course, the dog raft.
He dreamed along making his plans and when the first school bus trundled over the bridge, Pyro hiked back up the hill to the camper.
It was a day for surprises, as Mum liked to say when things happened one after the other.
They’d no sooner arrived back at the camper and were settling down for a long drawing session of dog-pirate designs – the Daggy Dogs, which was a good name for pictures of dogs in pirate outfits – when Mr Stig arrived with a letter.
‘It’s from your mum,’ Auntie Mor said and handed it across. ‘And when you’ve read it you’d better scuttle on down to the post office with that project of yours. You could post your mum’s card as well.’ Auntie Mor glanced at it. ‘And add a PS and tell her that the dish isn’t the real washing-up dish. It’s the extra one.’
Pyro hadn’t realised there were two dishes but he added the PS and went, with Becks, up onto his bed to read his letter.
An actual letter. Not an email or a postcard. A letter in an envelope that drifted out a bit of perfumy smell that was very much like the way his mum smelt when she got out of the shower. It made him feel a little bit homesick.
Pyro set off for the post office. He wasn’t too thrilled at the prospect of meeting up with the Worries again and kept all thoughts out of his head to be sure he was really looking out for them.
This time they were definitely not going to creep up on him.
The sky was rumbling again and lightning was sizzling out over the ocean. The waves were whipped up and white foamy caps flung themselves at the shore and along the side of the little inlet. Becks wasn’t too keen on being out in all the noise and the gusts of wind that started up without any warning at all and she pulled hard at her lead.
‘It’ll be all right,’ Pyro assured her as he walked. ‘Look, I’m not scared.’
And he did his best, his absolute best, to make sure that he looked as brave as he imagined someone brave would look who was pretty well frightened to death on the inside and worried that the storm would break on top of them.
‘Let’s run, eh girl?’
They ran along the footpath. Becks was like a rocket and in no time at all they were at the post office. There wasn’t much time for dropping the project because it was nearly five o’clock, only it was getting so dark and angry-looking it might well have been almost night time.
Pyro tried to shove his envelope in the slot.
It wouldn’t go. Becks quivered as the thunder growled above their heads. At least the lightning was a bit further away.
‘It’s all right, girl.’ Pyro stopped to pat her and then tried to shove it in another way.
‘It’s no good shovin’ it, laddie,’ a man said. ‘You’ll have to take that one inside or you’re going to jam the whole thing up.’
Pyro looked at the man who was waiting behind him. And then he looked at Becks who looked back up at him.
‘Come on, then,’ the man said. ‘Tie your dog up over there and take it into the end counter.’
Tie the dog up?
Pyro had never tied a dog up before and he wasn’t too sure that Becks had been tied up either.
He could just take the envelope home again and come back down tomorrow. He was about to turn for home when the first raindrops fell loudly on the post office roof.
The project would be ruined if it got wet and by the sound of those drops it was going to get wet, big time.
Pyro looked at the bench where old people sat when they were waiting for something to happen. Sometimes they just sat there while they chatted but today there was no one. It was out of the rain, though. And it did have a nice little crossy-over bit where Pyro could tie Becks’ lead.
‘Hold still, girl,’ he said as he looped the lead into a knot. He tested it and it seemed to be the right sort of knot for holding a dog for a short time while he went inside. ‘I won’t be long.’
In he went. The door was supposed to be a push but it was a pull so that took a bit longer and the man who’d been out the front and told him to go to the end counter was already at the end counter and having a big whinge about the electricity bill he was paying.
And then there was a humongous crash of thunder. It was so loud and so sudden that the lights dimmed and lots of people made ‘aaaah’ noises.
Pyro leapt from one foot to the other. Poor Becks. She’d be so afraid out there with that thunder but it did seem as though the last crash had been it for a while. He waved his envelope in the air and the man behind the counter frowned.
Pyro didn’t take any notice. He knew that frown meant to stop bouncing around and wait your turn. It was what Mzzz Cllump was always going on about only she got tricked the day Smithy was jumping about and waving his hands because he was bursting to go and he nearly didn’t make it.
As soon as the electricity grumbling stopped, Pyro sprang forward and shoved his envelope on the counter and turned to go.
‘Wait up, sonny.’
‘It’s already got the stamp on it,’ Pyro called back. ‘My Auntie did it.’
‘Ah,’ said the man, ‘but she mightn’t have enough postage on it. Won’t take a second.’
It did take a second. It took about sixty as a matter of fact, but outside the rain had eased up a bit and the thunder had rumbled itself off to terrorise another town further from the coast.
The man pushed the envelope into a pretend letter box to make sure it would fit through the slot.
It did.
He weighed the envelope to check that the stamps on the front where enough to cover the cost.
They were.
‘Rightio,’ the man said. ‘Off you go now.’
Pyro was already at the door and out. He didn’t even stop on every step, instead he leapt over the three of them in one leap to get out to Becks and untie her.
He was too late.
He stood in front of the bench where there should have been a small, podgy little dog.
There was none. Not a lead. Not a collar. Not even a wet puddle to say she’d stopped for a few minutes.
‘Becks?’ Pyro looked around. ‘Becks? Where are you, girl?’ His voice was quiet, which surprised him because inside his whole body was screaming. He felt his eyes wide and wild as he searched behind him, in front and to the side. He tripped as he ran into the street and then stopped and turned to look back at the bench hoping that it might have been a bit of a horrible trick.
She wasn’t there. He ran back into the part of the post office where the letterbox stood but she wasn’t there either.
‘Becks!’ His voice was louder now. And sharper as if his breath was being squeezed by the panic inside his chest. ‘Come on, girl. Come on, Becks.’
A young man who had been sitting on his motorbike climbed off. ‘Have you lost your dog?’
For the briefest second, the merest tiniest little titch of a second, Pyro thought it was okay. This man probably had Becks, or had seen where she went. ‘She’s not mine,’ Pyro gabbled and wished he could slow his voice down a bit. ‘I’m looking after her …’
‘She won’t be far,’ the young man said. ‘Listen, how about I go and have a bit of a ride about and see if I can’t find her? What d’you say?’
‘She’s black and white.’ And lovely and has the warmest little body and when she’s happy to see you she smiles so you can see all her teeth. ‘She belongs to my friend.’
‘Does he live around here, your friend?’
‘Down there.’
The young man grinned. ‘That’ll be where she is then. My bet is she got a big fright in that thunderclap and took off.’ His bike roared into action. ‘You get yourself down to her house and see if she’s there and I’ll ride around these streets.’
Pyro was already on his way.
‘Meet me back here in ten minutes!’
He heard the man call over the roar of his bike as it took off. He didn’t even turn to see which way it went. Pyro simply ran. He ran until his breath hurt and his lungs felt like they might burst. He ran with the wind slapping his face and his feet stumbling over the edge of driveways.
He ran until he arrived at Min’s gran’s front gate.
‘Becks!’ he yelled and was so sure that she would come racing around the side of the house that he relaxed a bit and leaned on the gate to catch his breath. ‘Hurry up, Becks. Time to go home.’
There was no Becks.
Nothing.
Only the wind and the tall flowers in the garden nodding their heads as if they too knew that she’d gone and she hadn’t come back here at all.
He stayed at the gate. He called and called and was sure with every call that this would be the one that would send her hurtling around the corner and up into his arms. He could almost see her racing along the back lane trying to get to him before he turned to leave.
And so he couldn’t leave.
He couldn’t bear to think that he’d go and Becks would come and there’d be nobody waiting for her.
The young man found Pyro. He’d waited, he said, up at the post office and then he’d asked about. It didn’t take long to find him down this way, after all he’d seen him run off. He hadn’t found the dog, though, but he thought it would be a good idea if Pyro went back up to the caravan park.
Somehow Pyro couldn’t seem to take that first step.
The young man helped him. He sat him on the front of his bike and, very slowly, took him up to the main road. He would have taken him all the way to the caravan park except Mr Stig saw them and started running.
‘It was getting late,’ he said, ‘and we were worried.’
The young man told him about the lost dog and Mr Stig held Pyro’s hand as he climbed off the bike.
Then he walked back to the camper with one hand resting on Pyro’s shoulder. One hand that patted him gently as they walked along.
‘It will be all right,’ he kept saying. ‘We will find Becks.’
But Pyro could only think of that dear little doggy body and how she’d felt on his bed. And how she loved being patted.
And how afraid and lonely she’d be out there in the darkening day with a thunderstorm in the sky.
And a whole night to get through.
Alone.
San Simeon climbed the hill to the little shack where Miss Calam was probably awaiting him. She loved to dance and sing and he was surprised that she hadn’t hurried down to join in with the rest of the crew. Behind him he could hear them singing songs about Davy Jones’s locker and whales and lots of Yo ho hos.
She was probably still cross with him, he decided, and took a minute to smooth his hair back and straighten the ruffle on his coat. He had bare feet and he would like to have been wearing shoes with a high shine but he wasn’t so he polished his foot instead against the calf of his other leg.
‘Miss Calam?’ he called. ‘I’s come to get you to have a dance with me.’
She didn’t answer.
‘Oh, come on, Calam. Don’t be a grump. Come and have a bit of a dance and a sing-song.’
Still no answer.
San Simeon knocked which wasn’t easy to do as bits of the shack fell off if it was knocked on too hard.
‘Are you there, Miss Calam?’
Perhaps she’d gone out berry-picking again. But it was night-time and there were tigers in the jungle and great long snakes that’d wrap theirselves around her sweet waist and squeeze the very life out of her.
‘Calam!’ He’d given himself a fright now and burst in through the door.
The shack was empty. Her clothes were flung about and her smaller valise was missing. So were her hair ribbons and combs.
‘She’s gone,’ San Simeon said to the night. ‘She’s left us!’
He stood in the middle of her dear little house. He’d been cruel to her. Unmercifully cruel and had sent her off without a kind word of any sort.
And now she’d left him. How coul
d he face the world without her?
Another horrible thought dropped into place. His crew loved her. She was their sun and moon and stars and now he, San Simeon their captain, had made her so sad she’d run away.
How could he ever, ever tell them?
Pyro couldn’t sleep. He didn’t think he would ever sleep again and he didn’t care. His bunk at the front of the camper felt clammy and itchy. His sheets clung to his toes and his pillow was wet with his tears. Every time he felt that he could shut his eyes his feet found the place that had been filled with the lovely round Becks the night before. And his breath would panic out of his chest and choke around the hard lump in his throat.
Auntie Mor had given him a special drink of chamomile tea and had helped make a pile of Lost Dog posters. She’d said it would have been easier if they’d had a photo and Mr Stig said his laptop would have been great but they did the best they could. Between them they’d made fifteen posters and Mr Stig had gone out and pasted them on the wall of the post office and the bakery and the newsagent and anywhere else that wouldn’t get rained on.
The dog on the poster didn’t really look like Becks. Auntie Mor did her best but she was still getting good at birds and dogs hadn’t even been practised so Becks looked a bit like a barrel on four sticks. Her ears were a bit pointy as well but the spots were in the right place, especially the one on her eye.
As he thought about it Pyro felt new tears prickling at his eyes. New images of Becks trapped in the storm rushed into his head and then worse images of Becks lying bleeding beside the road swam before his eyes. The stone that had lodged itself in his throat was so hard he couldn’t swallow. He gasped and even that turned into a dreadful deep sob that rang around the quiet van.
‘Try to get some sleep, Pyro,’ Auntie Mor said. Her voice sounded sleepy but Pyro didn’t think she’d been asleep.
‘I’ll go out again,’ Mr Stig said. He pulled on his old oilskin coat and his thongs. ‘She might have gone down to her own house.’
