Doofus, Dog of Doom

  Chapter Ten

  “Have you seen this?” said Matt. “It looks as if Clive wasn’t off his head after all.”

  He held up that week’s local paper, so that Holly could read the headline:

  WOLF PACK TERRORIZES MOORLAND FARM

  Underneath the headline were two pictures. One showed Jarvis Turnpike looking smug and holding up his phone, while the other was a shot that he had taken of the dogs – except that it was obvious, seeing the picture blown up, that these weren’t just dogs.

  Holly caught her breath. “So Clive was right.”

  “This is so cool! Wolves on our moors! Listen to this.” Matt began to read aloud. “The grey wolf became extinct in England hundreds of years ago. These animals have obviously escaped from a wildlife park or possibly a private zoo...”

  Holly leaned over him to read it herself. The local wildlife park was most indignant at the suggestion.

  “We have never kept wolves,” said its Director. “And none of our animals have ever escaped, apart from those wallabies. And the wild boar.”

  But the next sentence made her draw a sharp breath.

  “Some people have suggested that local dogs are running with the wolves. ‘I am convinced of it,’ said farmer Jarvis Turnpike.”

  “Cool?” she cried. “You think having grey wolves on our doorstep is cool? And what about Doofus?”

  “They’re not on our doorstep. And you can’t tell it’s Doofus in the picture,” Matt pointed out. “You can only see his back legs. The article doesn’t mention him, or us.”

  “Good!”

  Mum came to tidy the paper away and paused, peering closely at the front page.

  “Good heavens,” she said, “just look at that! Water restrictions. I’ll have to stop hosing the garden.”

  Matt and Holly glanced at each other.

  “Mum,” said Holly, “there’s a pack of wolves up on the moor. You shouldn’t go running up there.”

  “Too hot for running,” agreed Mum. “I’ll go swimming for a while instead. I’m not sure if I believe all that about wolves, though. Wolves? In a crowded country like ours? Somebody would have noticed.”

  “They just did,” said Matt.

  “But, Mum, if it’s true–” began Holly.

  “If it’s true, they’ll find them soon enough,” said Mum. “It’s not a big place, after all. Now get your shoes on, the pair of you. We’re going to see Nan.”

  “When’s she coming home?”

  “Monday, I hope,” said Mum. “Luckily I’m off work next week, but we’ll get home visits from a nurse as well.”

  Holly was not sure if she wanted Nan to come home yet. Nan was weak and fluttery. It was confusing; although she loved Nan, she thought she would be better off in hospital.

  But Nan was not happy in hospital. She pined. It was a quandary.

  Holly did not particularly care for the hospital, with all its rattling trolleys and clacking feet constantly passing the bed where Nan lay helpless. She did not like to see Nan this way. It reminded her too sharply of Pancake’s final week, when Pancake got so listless and exhausted and wanted to do nothing but sleep, until one morning she simply didn’t wake up any more.

  So Holly fidgeted by Nan’s hospital bed, kicking at the chair legs until Mum told her off. But what else could she do? She couldn’t really talk to Nan because now Nan could talk back even less than before. When Holly gave her a pen and paper, the pen fell from Nan’s limp hand.

  None the less, Mum kept up a steady stream of one-sided conversation about their expedition to buy Holly’s uniform for High School, and her curtain-bowling, and Matt’s latest exploits in a cricket match.

  “The pitch is really dry,” said Matt. “Great for spin, but now it’s starting to crack.”

  “There’s a pack of wolves up on the moor,” said Holly suddenly. The old face turned to look at her.

  “I doubt it,” Mum said, frowning at her. “I think that photo in the paper was a fake. That Turnpike fellow doesn’t have too high a reputation, according to Ailsa. Anyway, Nan doesn’t want to hear rubbish about wolves.”

  It seemed to Holly that Nan didn’t hear very much at all. She plucked at her sheet with trembling fingers, looked at Holly with appeal in her cloudy eyes and said,

  “Do? Do?”

  “Doofus is at home, Nan,” Holly said. “Clive’s looking after him. He’s fine.”

  “He misses you,” Mum added. Holly didn’t think that this was true. Doofus showed no sign of missing Nan or anyone else. But Nan sighed, and plucked at the sheet some more.

  “We’d bring him to see you,” said Matt, “but it’s not allowed. The nurses aren’t even too sure about me.”

  “Well, you are barely human,” said Holly. Nan did not even try to smile.

  “Uncle Ted’s coming on a visit for your birthday soon,” said Mum. “That’ll be nice, won’t it?”

  Nan brightened a little; but only a little. When Holly kissed her goodbye, Nan’s cheek was as soft and silky as a rose petal just about to fall. Before they even left the room, her eyes were closed. Holly felt suddenly afraid.

  “Nan will be all right, won’t she?” she asked on the way home.

  “Of course she will,” said Mum.

  “Why is Uncle Ted coming all the way from Cornwall to see her?” Uncle Ted was Nan’s younger brother.

  “For her birthday, like I said. Nan’s going to be fine,” said Mum firmly.

  But of course Mum would say that. Holly just worried more. Uncle Ted hadn’t been up this way for years. Why this birthday, now? Was it because they thought it would be the last one?

  And what if Nan came home and Doofus howled? What if Holly’s first idea had been right, and his howl truly was deadly? What if it contained some dreadful note that made animals keel over? What might that do to Nan, so thin and frail? It was like a weight around her neck.

  When they got home, Holly went next door to collect Doofus. He was lying across the entrance to the shed, like a shadow.

  No, not just a shadow, she thought: he was like an absence of light, a body cutting off the sun. A black hole. Clive had tied his lead to the shed door.

  “I didn’t need to tie him, though. He hasn’t budged,” said Clive, stepping over him.

  He was carrying the tadpole tank. Instead of water, it held a mass of twigs and moss.

  “Is that a new armadilladarium?”

  “I saw a field mouse,” said Clive. “I think it’s living under the back fence.”

  “You can’t keep it in a tank.”

  “Why not, if it likes it? I’m luring it with mixed nuts and raisins.” He laid the tank carefully on its side by the fence, and threw a scattering of nuts into it.

  “That won’t work.”

  “You never know,” said Clive. He was cheerful, as always when planning animals. “And a boy on Egerton Street said he’ll sell me a snake.”

  “You’re catching mice to feed to the snake?”

  “No! Well, only if Doofus howls.”

  “Shut up, Clive! It’s not a joke.”

  “I wasn’t joking.” Clive settled the tank and straightened up. “Our town was on the telly,” he said. “They showed a picture of Whitten Moor. They’ve called in the Ministry of Something to check out the wolves.”

  “What will they do?”

  “They’ll hold meetings,” said Clive. “But they showed lots of angry farmers, too, shouting Action! and shooting crows.”

  “Crows? Why?”

  “Because nobody could find any wolves, and they wanted to film them shooting something. Apparently the moor is now crawling with film crews. But nobody’s seen any wolves at all,” said Clive.

  “What, none?”

  “It sounded like some people are doubting Jarvis Turnpike. Saying the photo’s a fake. Saying it’s a hoax to bring tourists to the area.”

  “But we know the wolves are there!” she cried. “Where can they be hiding?”

  “Ah.” Clive picked u
p his wormery and inspected it. “There was a separate newsflash about a barn collapsing a few miles away. There are old mine workings underneath it and the ground’s shifted with the drought.”

  “Old mines?”

  “I’m not saying the wolves are there… but the moors are riddled with tunnels from ancient lead mines, to say nothing of natural cave systems. I bet half of them have never been discovered. So what if Jarvis Turnpike was right, and the wolves are hiding somewhere underground?” He sighed wistfully. “I just wish I knew where.”

  “Clive, you cannot catch a wolf to keep as a pet,” said Holly.

  “I wasn’t thinking of that. I’d just like to observe them.”

  “Wolves are dangerous! You were scared of them!”

  “I know,” said Clive regretfully. “But I’ll have to get over being scared if I want to work with animals.”

  “I don’t think you need to get over being afraid of wolves.”

  He shrugged. “Well, anyway, you’ll have to keep Doofus in the house at night. Make sure he doesn’t get out.”

  She agreed with him on that. But Doofus did not want to stay inside that night. When Holly tried to keep him in her bedroom, he whuffled and thumped his tail and rolled over and got up to pace around so much that she simply couldn’t sleep.

  So she led him downstairs and shut him in the kitchen. An hour later, Matt woke her up by shaking her shoulder.

  “Go and sort that dog out. He’s keeping me awake,” he mumbled. His bedroom was directly over the kitchen.

  Matt’s eyes were almost closed. His hair stuck out in tufts. He smelt of sleepy, greasy teenager: of crisps and old deodorant and sweat.

  “You sort him out,” said Holly.

  “He’s your dog.”

  She rolled out of bed with a groan and stumbled down to the kitchen. It was quarter past four in the morning, and getting light. Doofus was scratching at the kitchen door.

  As she opened it he burst past her, ran to the front door and shoved his shoulder against it. He looked as if he wanted to whine, although Doofus never whined.

  “You don’t want a wee,” Holly said severely. “You just want to go outside.”

  Doofus began to lift his leg against the door.

  “Oh, no,” said Holly. Mum would never forgive her. She grabbed his lead from its peg and attached it to his collar before opening the door.

  “Do it quick, then back inside.”

  Outside the day was pale and clean, just waiting for people to wake up and notice it. A multitude of small birds were shouting at cross-purposes to each other.

  Doofus tugged at his lead.

  “No way,” said Holly, wrapping it around her wrist.

  He tugged harder, and pulled her over onto the grass. She had a vision of being dragged though the gate and down the footpath on her stomach.

  “Stop it!” she said. She managed to wind the lead around a gnarled branch of the cotoneaster bush by the path. Doofus strained against it.

  And then, away in the distance, Holly heard howling.

  Doofus went frantic. He jumped up and down, trying to leap the gate, but getting nowhere. He opened his mouth as if he was barking, although no sound came out.

  Holly wound the lead around the bush some more, and attempted to grab Doofus’s collar. He pulled away from her, rushing and bounding at the gate in a fever of excitement. She had never seen him so agitated.

  Someone’s feet were pattering briskly down the road: the milkman, thought Holly without paying proper attention, and she called out, “Please can you help me with my dog?”

  The pattering footsteps increased their pace. They arrived at the gate and stopped. Behind the gate’s metal curlicues stood a large, lean, shaggy animal.

  It was a little like a big grey dog, except that its head was wrong: it was too triangular, with a narrow jaw. Its half-bared teeth were long and yellow. This dog was not afraid of her. Black eyes stared through the gate, and she froze, staring back.

  There were no reflections in its eyes. They were holes into nothingness.

  She was gazing through the railings at a big, bad wolf.