Sky Wolves

by Livi Michael

  He would have to leave, he thought. But how?

  When Gordon finally came in, he couldn’t look at Gentleman Jim, but Gentleman Jim stared accusingly at Gordon, his outraged gaze following him round the room.

  ‘What?’ said Gordon finally, then, ‘Stop looking at me like that!’

  The clock ticked loudly in the quiet room, and Gentleman Jim was horribly aware that each tick was bringing him closer to the end of his life. Suddenly Gordon put away his paper and stretched, and remained for a moment staring at the ceiling.

  ‘Shall we go for a walk?’ he said, looking at last towards Gentleman Jim.

  The big dog stared at him. Gordon was a creature of habit and never went out for a walk at this time. He might almost have said one last time, thought Gentleman Jim, but he was also aware that this was an opportunity and so he thumped his tail slowly on the floor.

  Then once again, while Gordon got his coat and boots, Gentleman Jim struggled to his feet. He was a warrior, he told himself, remembering his dreams of battle. He would not be so easily defeated. He didn’t know where he was going or what he would do when he got there, but as Gordon opened the front door to a blast of freezing air and reached for Gentleman Jim’s lead, he was suddenly flattened against the vestibule wall. Gentleman Jim blundered past him before he had chance to recover his breath and shout ‘Hoy!’, lumbering along the garden path towards the gate. The gate was shut, but Gentleman Jim didn’t let that stop him. He gathered speed and crashed straight through it, and suddenly he was out in the freezing air.

  Boris was in trouble again and this time it was serious. His mum, Mrs Finnegan, had finally caught him in the act of leaving the baby out for the bin men.

  He had been tugging the baby, whose name was Sean, along the garden path by the seat of his disposable nappy, when suddenly he was deafened by a powerful shriek.

  ‘Boris!’ screamed Mrs Finnegan. ‘What are you doing?’

  In fright, Boris dropped the baby, who rolled on to one side and started to roar. Mrs Finnegan picked him up instantly, but carried on screaming and shouting at Boris, so that Boris’s brain and ears quietly shut down. If people shouted at him for long enough, he simply went to sleep. But Mrs Finnegan took in the arrival of the bin men, and the direction in which Boris had been hauling the hapless Sean, and the truth hit her in all its enormity. She even stopped screaming for a moment as she took it all in. Then, when she recovered her breath, she towered over Boris, looking tall and terrible, though in fact she was short and round.

  ‘Right!’ she said, lashing his lead on to his collar. ‘You’re coming with me!’

  And she hauled Boris into the garden shed, attached his lead to a hook and slammed the door shut.

  ‘You can stay there for the rest of the day!’ she shouted through it. ‘You wicked, wicked dog!’

  She said one or two more things, about waiting until his father got home, but Boris wasn’t listening. He sat on the damp stone floor, sniffing all the strange, mouldy, musty smells, then nudged at a slug with his nose. It clung to the end of his nose and he got very distracted for several moments, trying to shake it off, while Mrs Finnegan harangued him outside. Then eventually she turned away, and he could hear her heels clicking on the path. He let his head sink on to his paws, feeling very sad. It was cold in the shed. Outside he had sniffed a hint of snow. There had to be some mistake. He had only been trying to help – the baby was getting everyone down and Boris thought he had come up with the perfect solution. Surely Mrs Finnegan would come back for him soon.

  But no one did, and Boris spent a miserable, freezing day in the shed. The cobwebs and dust made him sneeze, small beetles crawled over him, and he was forced to relieve himself on the floor. When Mr Finnegan finally opened the door, Boris was overjoyed. But Mr Finnegan was clearly not happy at all.

  ‘Boris, Boris,’ he said, when Boris had finally stopped barking, and he squatted down and took Boris’s head in his hands. ‘Whatever am I going to do with you?’ And he shook his own head.

  ‘It’s no good, Boris,’ he said, and ‘If only it wasn’t the baby,’ and ‘You do understand, don’t you, old fella?’

  But, of course, Boris didn’t. He understood that Mr Finnegan wasn’t happy and, when he gave him a great lick on the nose, was astonished to find a tear on the end of it and was immediately terribly miserable too. But Mr Finnegan stood up, brushing his tears away, and took hold of Boris’s lead.

  This was more like it, Boris thought – a walk. Though he would rather have got warm first. Still, maybe a walk would warm him up, and he trotted along happily at Mr Finnegan’s side.

  But Mr Finnegan went straight to his car. Boris was stumped by this development, until he remembered that in the good old days before the baby arrived, Mr and Mrs Finnegan would sometimes drive out to the seaside and then take Boris for a walk. Of course, it was rather cold for the seaside – it was actually snowing now – but still Boris wagged his tail hopefully when Mr Finnegan opened the door.

  And once he was in the car, Boris began to warm up. Mr Finnegan put some nice music on and began to talk to Boris, though he was still saying things that Boris didn’t understand, like ‘I wish I didn’t have to do this to you, old son,’ and ‘Still, maybe it’s all for the best.’

  Then a feeling began to grow in Boris that he actually did know where he was going. But it was only when they rounded the final corner and he saw the sign for the dogs’ home that he fully understood what was going on.

  Mr Finnegan stopped the car and opened the door.

  ‘Come on, Boris, old son,’ he said.

  Boris stared at him in anxiety and dismay. Mr Finnegan couldn’t be taking him back to the dogs’ home! It was horrible there! Boris would have to live in a cage again and would only be taken out once a day to walk past all the other abandoned dogs. Worst of all, he would not belong to anyone any more. He would be no one’s dog.

  Boris backed away along the seat as Mr Finnegan took hold of the lead.

  ‘Out you come, Boris,’ he said.

  Boris wasn’t coming out. He braced himself against the lead as Mr Finnegan tugged. Boris was quite a weighty dog, in spite of all the terrible food, and though Mr Finnegan tugged hard, he wouldn’t budge. Mr Finnegan tried reasoning and pleading, and finally swore, but it wasn’t any use. Then Mr Finnegan let go of the lead.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ he said, and he walked away.

  Boris was so busy trying to work out what was going on now that he didn’t notice Mr Finnegan sneaking round the other side of the car. He had backed himself up against the other door and was taken completely by surprise when Mr Finnegan flung that door open and seized him by the collar, crying, ‘Gotcha!’

  For the first time in his life, Boris acted fast. He lunged forward, hauling Mr Finnegan with him through the open door in front of him, so that Mr Finnegan was dragged the length of the car’s back seat and pulled out of the car on the other side.

  ‘OW!’ he roared, as he hit the floor. But he let go of Boris’s collar and Boris lumbered off, straight into the traffic of the main road.

  Checkers was very excited. There hadn’t been a real storm for ages – ever since, well, ever since the last one. He barked when the wind got up and when it dropped again. He barked when some leaves flew past the window, and when the TV flickered, he barked at that. When hailstones clattered against the window, he went barking mad.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Checkers,’ Freda said. ‘Give it a rest, can’t you? My nerves are shot!’

  But Checkers charged from one window to another all round the house, raising the alarm and sounding his special war cry, which was part growl and part howl. When the wind howled threateningly at him, he howled back, and when a door slammed shut he went completely insane, convinced that the enemy was finally inside and after them.

  ‘Checkers! Checkers!’ Freda roared, but Checkers was barking too loudly to hear. At last she caught hold of his collar and hauled him upstairs into the study.

 
; Checkers hated the study. It was a tiny, queerly shaped room that the estate agent had optimistically referred to as having ‘third-bedroom potential’. He hung back, growling, as Freda tried to tug him inside. It was the one room in the house where he couldn’t charge madly at the window, since there wasn’t one. Freda finally managed to thrust him in and lock the door.

  ‘I’m sorry, Checkers,’ she called through it, ‘but you’re driving me mad. I’ll let you out when the storm dies down.’

  Checkers didn’t want to be let out when the storm died down. He wanted to be out fighting the storm while it attacked the house. Freda obviously didn’t understand. He barked at the door for a long time, trying to explain, then, when she didn’t come back, he vented his feelings by eating all the papers on the desk, then chewing the wires that led into the computer.

  Eventually, he calmed down. He couldn’t hear the storm so well, locked in the tiny room, and anyway his voice was getting hoarse. This didn’t mean that he could let himself off duty, however, and he sat erect as a sentinel by the door, guarding it while he waited for either John or Freda to come and get him.

  Some time later he heard John’s footsteps on the stairs and he started barking all over again, overjoyed that he might be let out at last. When John opened the door, he leapt at him in a single bound.

  ‘All right, Checkers, all right,’ John said, laughing and tugging his ears. ‘Calm down now. Settle down. I’ve just come up here to collect my –’

  Then he stopped, looking at the mass of chewed-up papers on his desk and the computer wires.

  ‘Oh – my – God,’ he said, and his eyes bulged and his face turned a funny colour. ‘Checkers,’ he said weakly, ‘you didn’t – you haven’t -’

  He fumbled frantically through the scraps of paper while Checkers watched him, astonished, his head cocked to one side.

  John’s face changed colour again, from pale green to puce. He stopped fumbling through the papers and picked up the chewed plug lead. He closed his eyes. He appeared to be holding his breath. He held it for so long that Checkers got quite worried and was about to bound on to his back to make him breathe again, when John emitted an ear-splitting, anguished sound.

  ‘NYYAAAARRRGGGHH!’

  An almighty row ensued. Checkers tried to help by tearing around the house, chewing the furniture and barking. Doors were slammed and pots and books flew around.

  ‘IT’S THAT BLOODY DOG!’John yelled at last. ‘HE’LL HAVE TO GO!’ And he advanced on Checkers, holding the special lead that was a kind of chain.

  Checkers knew he was in trouble. He had never before been thrashed, but as John advanced towards him, with a berserk expression on his face, Checkers ran. He bounded down the stairs, knocking over ornaments and pictures in his wake, burst through the kitchen door, scattering all the chairs, dived through the dog flap in the back door and charged straight through the hedge. Traffic roared and blared as he shot across the main road, leaving John waving his arms helplessly on the other side. He had no clear idea where he was going, but he knew he had to put as much distance as possible between himself and his enraged master. A freezing wind blew, and on it he caught the scent of his friend Boris.

  The croft, he thought. That’s where I’ll go. To the croft, to meet my friends.

  For once, Flo was having a peaceful afternoon. She was safe and warm in her house, not lost in a horrid cold storm. She lay on her side on her soft bed and closed her eyes, twitching slightly as she began to dream.

  She dreamed that she was running away from Henry. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear his unearthly howl behind her, to the left, then the right. Flo swerved away from the howling, up the stairs, through all the bedrooms, in and out of the bathroom, back down the stairs and down another flight of stairs.

  Gradually it began to dawn on Flo that she didn’t know where she was running to. The dimensions of the house seemed to be changing. There were corridors and stairs she had never previously encountered, and doors leading into rooms she didn’t know. What’s more, she seemed to be travelling through them all quite silently, while the yowling of the cat faded away.

  What’s happening? thought Flo. Where am I going?

  There was no sign of Henry and no sudden sensation of weight on her back. There was only Flo, travelling weightlessly and soundlessly, through corridors and past stairways and doors. Till at last she came to a halt in front of a door at the very end of the corridor.

  It was an old, oak door. It looked as though it hadn’t been opened for years. Flo stood in front of it, panting, and gradually brought her trembling breath under control. She hadn’t the faintest idea where she was or how she had got there, and she was too afraid to look behind her to see where she had come from, in case the fiend called Henry should suddenly pounce. So she trotted towards the door and opened it, quite easily, with her nose.

  It was an exact replica of the room she had curled up in so peacefully such a short time ago. A fire burned brightly in the hearth and a huge curved mirror hung over the fireplace. In the rocking chair there was a basket, full of the odds and ends of ribbon with which her owner had been tying Flo’s hair.

  Flo was mystified, but too exhausted to think. She trotted gratefully towards her spot near the fire, wanting only to sink into sleep. However, just as she reached the patterned rug, the mirror leaned forward.

  Now, as you may know, dogs don’t take much notice of mirrors. The surface of a mirror seems like brightly patterned glass to them and usually they show no interest in their reflection or anything else reflected in it. Yet this time, as the mirror leaned towards her, Flo saw everything with startling clarity.

  There were three ancient women in the depths of the mirror. They were dressed in white and their hair hung over their faces like trailing fronds.

  Flo yelped in fear and spun round, expecting to see the three hags behind her, but there was nothing. The little clock ticked on, the fire spat and the chintz cushions glowed brightly.

  Flo didn’t know much about mirrors, but she did know they were supposed to reflect the room they were in. She turned round again, slowly, fearfully, and there were the three white figures, leaning forward. They appeared to be spinning something, and as she stared, with a dreadful fascination, the central one lifted her head and gazed at Flo with milky eyes. There was something familiar about her, but Flo couldn’t think what. And just as she thought this, the surface of the mirror rippled and changed to a kind of smoke.

  Oh dear, thought Flo, as the smoke wreathed its silky way towards her. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

  And she wrenched herself awake, trembling and sweating.

  Nothing had changed. The room was empty and quiet apart from the ticking of the clock and the crackling of the fire. Outside, the wind mourned.

  Flo couldn’t bring herself to look at the mirror. There was no sign of Henry or Myrtle. She felt disturbed by her terrible dream and wanted company. Though she was afraid to leave the room, she padded quietly to the door and poked her nose into the hallway.

  A blast of cold air came in through the front door, which was open. Flo felt more confused than ever. Myrtle never left the front door open – it let the outdoors in, she always said. Fearfully, in case Henry was waiting for her on the stairs, she trotted towards it and peeped out.

  The light had changed to a greenish yellow and there were snowflakes whirling round in it, dancing lightly in the air rather than falling to earth. Flo shivered, then, more disorientated than ever, she ventured on to the path, looking for her mistress. She didn’t dare to bark, in case Henry heard, but as she advanced towards the gate, she saw that it too hung open.

  Something was terribly wrong, Flo thought. No one was more security-conscious than Myrtle, who kept most of the doors and windows locked even when she was in. Finally she remembered that Myrtle was visiting her next-door neighbour, Mrs Drum.

  Next door couldn’t be that far, Flo told herself. She could go there, all by herself, and bark at the window until so
meone appeared. Still she hesitated. Terrible things happened to dogs who stepped outside their own gates. Beyond her gate was the croft, and she didn’t feel safe without a lead. She wished very much that Aunty Dot would come along and attach her to one. She didn’t even know if she could walk properly without one. Gingerly, as though the earth might open up beneath her and swallow her into its gaping mouth, Flo took one step forward, then another, and soon the gate was behind her and she stood, gasping a little in fright, on the scrubby grass of the croft.

  Lightning flashed and thunder rolled as Jenny reached the croft. The wind whipped leaves, twigs and small stones up into the air in a flurry before pelting them down again towards all the small creatures who lived there. Shrews, mice and beetles ran for cover. Jenny paused, squatting to begin the message she had to leave for her friends. It was the most complicated message she had ever sent by doggie post. It began with the creation of the world and ended with Ragnarok.

  Dear friends, she began, sniffing the electric air, I am running away from Fenrir, Hound of Ragnarok.

  She moved on to the next clump of grass. I have to return the mistletoe dart, which was the reason I ran away…

  As she left her messages, Jenny felt terribly alone. She could smell the scents left by her friends on previous, happier days. She could smell the disturbance in the air, and something else, which was more like the complete absence of smell. Ginnungagap, the void, lapping at the edges of the storm, surrounding the croft. It was waiting for her, she knew that now. She had been summoned and she would have to return. All her memories had come flooding back and she knew it was useless to attempt to escape. Who was she, a small Jack Russell, to defy Fenrir, Hound of Destruction?

  The last thing Jenny wanted to do was to jump into the void again. Just contemplating it made her feel even more lonely and afraid.

  ‘I wish I wasn’t alone,’ she said aloud.

  ‘WOOF!’ said Pico, and Jenny jumped violently. She looked all around before realizing that he was underneath her and she had been about to widdle on him.