Doofus, Dog of Doom

  Chapter Three

  It did not take long for Holly to become quite sure that, whatever else Doofus might be, he was certainly not brainless.

  On the contrary, he learnt very quickly, and without fuss. He only needed telling once about not weeing in the kitchen, for instance; and after the second time she had shown him how to sit and come to heel, he remembered without difficulty. She suspected that he knew what to do after the first time, but just wanted to be sure that she did.

  What was more, Doofus never jumped up at people’s legs with muddy paws or went mad barking or chased squirrels or stole sausages, or did any of the naughty and delightful things that Pancake had done.

  Holly was glad. To have Doofus behaving in that way would have meant being constantly reminded of Pancake.

  She tried to explain this to Clive when she went round to his shed one Saturday morning. Clive was very keen for them to take Doofus to a Puppy Party, as soon as he had finished cleaning out his hamster cage.

  Clive frowned at her halting explanation. “But Doofus ought to jump up at you and bark and chase things. Puppies are supposed to be active and naughty,” he pointed out. “It’s not normal for them to be so listless.” He tried to stroke Doofus’s ears. Doofus didn’t care for being stroked; he pulled away and stared intently at the door of Clive’s shed.

  “He’s fine. He’s eating plenty,” Holly said defensively.

  “But he’s not interested in anything. Look at him!”

  “He’s interested in the door,” said Holly.

  “Does he want to go out?” Clive opened the door of the shed wide. Doofus stood in the doorway, neither in nor out.

  “No, he just likes doors,” said Holly. The only bad habit Doofus had acquired so far was to lie down in the middle of doorways, usually when somebody was just trying to get through them.

  Clive shrugged and went on cleaning out the hamster cage. “Here,” he said, “hold Mr Finney.”

  Holly took the curled ball of brown and white fur gingerly in her hands. She could feel the tiny, rapid beat of Mr Finney’s heart.

  “And you call Doofus listless,” she remarked. “Aren’t hamsters supposed to be more active?”

  “He’s a very nocturnal hamster. I have to get up in the middle of the night if I want to observe him.”

  “What do you observe?”

  “Everything,” said Clive. “What he eats, how he plays, where he puts his nose. I write it all down in my notebook.” Holly couldn’t even see Mr Finney’s nose. “The thing is,” Clive continued, “dogs aren’t nocturnal. Doofus should be livelier. He might be depressed. Is he sleeping all right?”

  “Well, he doesn’t make any fuss at night,” said Holly, avoiding a direct answer. On the first night in his new home, Doofus had ignored the bean bag put in the kitchen for him and tried to sleep on top of his water bowl, before deciding he was more comfortable curled around it.

  Since then, he’d nudged his water bowl over to the kitchen door every evening and spent the night draped round the one and in front of the other. It was, admittedly, an odd way to sleep.

  What was equally odd, though, was that he didn’t seem to do much actual sleeping. When Holly crept down to the kitchen for a drink of milk, Doofus was awake. He was awake when Dad went late to bed. He was awake when Mum got up early for her morning run.

  “He still howls. I’ve heard him,” said Clive, taking the little bundle of pulsing fur back from her and replacing him carefully in his clean cage. Mr Finney never uncurled himself during this process.

  “Not very often.”

  “I heard him howl twice yesterday. Do you think he’s pining for his mother? Or maybe he misses his old owners.”

  “Of course he doesn’t.” Holly was exasperated. “Why would he miss them? They abandoned him on top of Whitten Moor.”

  “That doesn’t mean he didn’t love them,” Clive pointed out. “Howling in dogs is usually a sign of distress.”

  “He’s not distressed,” insisted Holly. This was all rubbish. She knew Doofus was fine. She didn’t want to have to start worrying about him. “Does he look distressed?”

  “No,” said Clive. He took off his glasses and rubbed them on his jumper. She noticed for the first time that his eyes were a little pink. “I’m distressed, though.”

  “Why?”

  “Rover and Dobbin. The goldfish. They’re dead.”

  “Both of them? Oh, no, Clive!” Holly saw that the goldfish tank was empty. “What happened? Was it too cold? Did they freeze?”

  “Lily got them out yesterday to play with them and forgot to put them back.” Lily was Clive’s sister. She was two. “Still.” Clive took a deep breath, and replaced his glasses, looking more cheerful.

  “At least I’ll have somewhere to put the frog-spawn now, when I find some,” he said. “I thought of making the tank into a wormery, but the worms seem happy enough where they are.”

  “Where are they?”

  Clive led her out of the shed to a yellow washing up bowl lying half-buried in the soil. He pulled out a worm that seemed to go on forever, like spaghetti.

  “This is Renaldo,” he said proudly. “He’s the champion: 28 centimetres, and I think he’s still growing.” He looked over at Doofus, and frowned. “Doofus is growing.”

  “Of course he’s growing. He’s a puppy.”

  “No, but he’s growing fast. Have you measured him?”

  “Stop going on about him,” Holly said. “Are we going to this Puppy Party or not? We don’t have to.”

  “Yes, I want to! Just let me get my notebook.” Clive made a vague attempt to brush the sawdust off his jeans, and loped into the house.

  Holly sighed, and clipped Doofus’s lead to his new red collar. She liked Clive in general. She certainly felt she knew him back to front, having lived next door to him since they were both five. In some ways she was closer to him than to her other friends at school; for Clive seldom sulked, or took umbrage and flounced off in a huff, unlike some people. But the notebook business could be a little wearing.

  The village hall was at the other end of the long, thin road that snaked between the houses, following the line of the river. Their Derbyshire village was a large one – almost a small town – but bootlace-shaped, with odd knots and bows of houses clumped at intervals along it, while the bare, grim hills reared up on either side.

  They could hear the Puppy Party from a distance. On entering the village hall, they found themselves inside an echo-chamber full of yelps and growls from over-excited puppies, and yelps and growls from over-excited owners who were trying to keep them under control. Clive opened his note-book, bright-eyed and happy.

  “This is great! Did you see that poodle just try to pull off the beagle’s ear?” he murmured. “Whoa! Look at that terrier eating the chair-leg! Now why do you suppose it’s doing that?”

  Holly shook her head and sidled round the edge of the room, hoping Clive wasn’t going to try and interview any of the owners. They looked harassed enough as it was. What was worse, they were all adults: she felt totally out of place.

  “Come in, come in, and welcome to our party!” cried a lady with frizzy, oddly yellow hair. Holly knew her by sight. She had often seen her around the village, being dragged along the pavement by the straining leads of three fluffy white poodles.

  “I’m Vera. Do take a seat! Down, Kiki darling! Leave poor Fifi alone. Naughty, naughty!” She wagged her finger at a poodle, which took no notice but kept chasing two more identical poodles round and round a table, skidding and whirling, snapping at their tails as if they were a cartoon. The three of them had legs like pipe-cleaners.

  Holly perched on a chair between Vera and an old man with a shy retriever puppy the colour of honey. He smiled at her kindly.

  “Bill Barton,” he said, and offered her a gnarled hand to shake. “This is my Joey.”

  She patted Joey, who gave her a tentative lick. Nobody else seemed very friendly, including the dogs. A poodle strutted ove
r to sniff disdainfully at Doofus.

  Doofus gave it one of his looks. Then he sat up by Holly like a sober uncle majestically ignoring his silly young nephews.

  “What a very, um, remarkable dog,” said Vera doubtfully. “What breed is it?”

  “We’re not quite sure yet,” mumbled Holly.

  “Oh, a cross-breed… Well, never mind. Now, now, Lulu!” She admonished her poodle fondly as it dug its claws into the quivering Joey. “My darlings are pure pedigree, you know, and rather highly strung. Aren’t you, sweetie-pie?”

  Lulu yipped petulantly in answer and pounced on Clive’s pencil. Wrestling it from his hand, she attacked it with vicious snarls. Clive tried to get it back and quickly retreated, sucking his finger.

  “Yours might be a mongrel,” said Bill Barton, pointing at Doofus, “but he’s definitely a hound.”

  “A hound?” Holly was puzzled. “Aren’t all dogs hounds?”

  He shook his head. “Oh, my word, no. Hounds are trackers, chasers, runners. Hunting dogs. Look at the legs on him! You can tell he’s a hound.”

  Holly studied Doofus. The old man was right. Doofus was growing muscles. He was becoming fast and powerful. As she watched, he let out a deep, doleful sigh and lay down with his nose on his paws.

  Could Clive be right? she wondered. Could Doofus really be depressed? He got plenty of food, and pats and fuss from Dad, and runs with Mum, and occasional walks around the park with Holly and Nan’s wheelchair. What more could a dog possibly want?

  “Is he always this quiet?” asked Bill.

  “Oh, yes,” said Holly, but the old man had leapt up in sudden alarm to rescue his puppy from a poodle that was trying to tear off its tail.

  “Bad dog!” he told the poodle sternly.

  “Little Kiki’s only playing!” said Vera indulgently. Little Kiki growled ferociously, sprang at the cowering retriever and bit it on the nose. Bill flicked the poodle away with the back of his hand.

  The poodle jumped away from him and spun round in a frantic circle, yelping. Then it streaked across the room and dashed out of the open door like a rocket-propelled cotton-wool ball.

  “Kiki! Come back, Kiki!” shrieked Vera. She grabbed the collars of the other two poodles, who had immediately tried to follow Kiki. They began to yap shrilly in protest, and were followed by more and more dogs starting to bark until Holly felt as if she was back in the dogs’ home.

  Doofus did not bark. Instead, in the midst of the raucous din, he raised his head. He pointed his nose at the ceiling, and he howled.

  It was the longest, loudest, most mournful howl that Holly had yet heard come from his mouth. It made her want to cry.

  All the yapping puppies were subdued into mere whimpers. Clive was staring at Doofus open-mouthed: and he wasn’t the only one.

  Into the suddenly silent hall strode a young man. He wore a leather jacket, and carried a motor-cycle helmet in his hands. He stopped and gazed around, looking sombre and anxious.

  “I’m awfully sorry,” he said. “It ran straight out in front of my motorbike. I didn’t have a chance to stop. I’m afraid it’s....”

  He held out the helmet. Inside it, Holly could see a limp body made of cotton wool and pipe cleaners.

  Vera clapped her hand to her mouth and let out a wail. “My Kiki! My little sweetie-pie!”

  “Oh, Lord,” said Bill Barton.

  Holly felt herself growing cold inside. She stared, not at the dead poodle, but at Doofus, who had closed his mouth, and now sat as black and immobile as if made of stone.