Chapter Seven
That night Holly had a nightmare about a dog with eyes like saucers. She was crouching in a dark cave, and something big was in there with her, looking for her. She was trying to work up the courage to run, when suddenly a great black dog was standing over her. Its huge round eyes whirled weirdly and its lips curled in a growl: but no sound came out.
She woke with a start and lay still for a moment, her heart thumping, until she gradually remembered that she was not in a cave, but in her bed. Unable to get back to sleep, she crept downstairs to look for Doofus.
He wasn’t in the kitchen. Then she remembered that he had refused to come inside the night before, and that Dad had shrugged and decided the weather was mild enough for him to sleep in the porch.
So after Dad had blocked the gap in the fence with a piece of board, it was in the porch that he put Doofus’s beanbag bed.
Only Doofus wasn’t lying on his bed. He wasn’t in the porch. The kitchen clock told her it was half past three. Holly poked her head out into the chill dark air and listened. A solitary bird had woken and was calling plaintively for dawn. Other than that, she could hear nothing.
Cautiously, she padded out onto the lawn in her bare feet, feeling the dew cold upon her toes. The garden rested, motionless and shadowed.
No Doofus. She checked the fence: the board was still in place over the gap. The gate was shut.
“Doofus!” whispered Holly. But he was nowhere, and there was nothing she could do. So she went back inside and crawled into bed where she lay trying unsuccessfully to sleep, until three hours later she finally slipped back into unsettling dreams.
She was woken abruptly by the sound of Doofus howling quite close by. Groggily she fumbled for her alarm clock. She’d been asleep for a full thirty minutes, and it was nearly time to get up again for school.
Lurching out of bed, Holly stumbled down to breakfast feeling clumsy and stupid. Somebody had filled her head with clay. Doofus was in the kitchen blithely crunching up Doggibix. She wondered what he had killed with that latest howl, the one that had awoken her.
“Where was Doofus last night?” she asked.
“In the porch, of course,” said Mum, scraping burnt bits off the toast. “Where else would he be? I’ve just let him in. There’s a letter for you.”
Holly tore open the envelope and tried to focus her tired eyes.
“I’ve been invited to a Pooch Party,” she said dismally.
“A what?”
“A Pooch Party. By the lady who ran the Puppy Parties. It’s in the village hall tomorrow tea-time.”
“You’d like to go to a Pooch Party, wouldn’t you, boy?” Dad told Doofus, ruffling his ears. “You great big softie, you. See if you can balance a cornflake on your nose.”
“Dad!” groaned Holly. She wanted to tell him that hellhounds did not balance cornflakes on their noses. It was Dad who was the big softie, not Doofus. The cornflake fell off and Doofus crunched it up.
“You should go to that pooch party,” said Mum.
“I don’t think I want to,” said Holly.
“Don’t be a spoil-sport!” Dad tickled Doofus’s chin. “Doofie will enjoy it, won’t you, boy? He doesn’t get to meet any other dogs. It’ll be good for him.”
“Take Clive with you,” Mum suggested.
Holly thought Clive might not be speaking to her. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to speak to Clive. A ball of pride and hurt and anger seemed to swell in her throat. And Clive was angry too, which was awful, because it was so unknown.
So it was with some trepidation that she called for him on the way to school.
She stopped half way up his garden path. What looked like a bedraggled black mop-head was lying on the grass. It was the baby crow. When she touched the ragged bundle of feathers with her foot, it did not stir.
Clive opened the door.
“Your crow,” said Holly. “I think it’s dead, Clive.”
“Oh, Stupid,” said Clive, agonised. He fell to his knees by the body. “Why couldn’t you just eat?”
“Sorry,” said Holly.
“Why? It wasn’t your fault.”
“No, but…” Holly paused. If she could only have stopped Doofus from howling earlier that morning, maybe Stupid would still be alive.
However, she didn’t say this. She didn’t need to. She knew that Clive had heard Doofus howl, because he avoided meeting her eyes as he stood up, dangling Stupid by the legs.
“You go on,” he said. “I’ll be a bit late.”
“Are you going to bury him?” said Holly, trying to be sympathetic.
Clive shook his head. “I’ll leave him in the back lane, where the foxes will find him.”
“Oh, yuck!” She couldn’t stop herself.
Clive stalked past her to the gate, his thin face set. “It’s called a natural cycle.” He still wasn’t looking at her.
She tried to push down the resentful lump that rose again in her throat. There was a turn of phrase about swallowing your pride. That was exactly how it felt.
“Clive? Do you want to come to a Pooch Party tomorrow?”
“No,” said Clive. The gate clanged behind him.
Holly walked on to school alone. After school, she walked home alone. Her two best other friends lived in a village miles away, and caught a bus. Clive was her only friend who lived nearby.
The next day, after walking home alone from school, she took Doofus to the Pooch Party alone. Dad was so keen for her to go that she didn’t know how to refuse.
“Holly! How nice to see you!” barked Vera enthusiastically, as she crept into the village hall. She’d hoped to slip in and out unnoticed; but Doofus was no longer a dog that anyone could ignore.
Vera was wearing a frilly yellow dress that clashed with her hair. “Welcome, Holly! And – er – your dog?” She blinked, less enthusiastic this time. In fact, she sounded a little alarmed. “My word. Hasn’t he grown!”
“A bit,” murmured Holly. Glancing around, she recognised many of the dogs and owners that she had met last time. She was glad to see Bill Barton with his shy retriever, which now looked small next to Doofus. All the other dogs did. Bill shuffled up to leave a chair for her.
“By heck, he’s a big lad!” he said, kindly. “What have you been feeding him?”
“Just dog food,” Holly said. But she realised again that Doofus had a presence. His muscles rippled as he walked: his black coat gleamed like moonlight on a wet pavement. The other owners looked at him askance.
Doofus gave Bill’s Joey a sniff which was not unfriendly; but paid no further attention to any of the dogs. And they kept their distance, all except the poodles.
There were three poodles again, leaping and squawking around the tea-table like over-excited toddlers at a party, while Vera looked on fondly.
“Careful, Lulu! No, Mimi darling, nose out. That nasty hot tea will burn you!”
Mimi darling looked exactly like Kiki, the poodle that had been run over. To Holly’s relief, nobody mentioned the dead poodle or the way Doofus had howled that day. Maybe they didn’t remember the howl, or it didn’t seem important to them; they hadn’t made the connection the way Holly had. They didn’t know Doofus’s terrible secret.
Holly sat silently with her hands gripping each other in her lap, praying Doofus would not howl again. He hadn’t howled since Stupid’s death. At least, he hadn’t howled loudly, just in a sort of husky whisper. Although he did this quite frequently, nothing had died that Holly could discover.
Trying not to think about it, she listened to the conversations going on around her.
“Bad business, this, on the farms,” a motherly lady with a collie was saying.
“Terrible!” Bill Barton shook his head. “No knowing what will happen next!”
Vera leaned over curiously to ask, “Why, what is happening?”
“Sheep dying!” said the collie lady dramatically. “My brother farms up on Grindle Low. Last week he went out to find dead
sheep all over the place. He said it looked like a massacre.”
“I think I read that in the local paper,” Vera said. “Didn’t they blame it on a dog or something?”
Holly, who hadn’t seen the paper, sat up straighter with a start and began to listen intently.
“Not just one dog,” said Bill Barton. “A pack of them.”
“My brother lost six lambs and three ewes. He reckoned some of them were scared to death,” said the collie lady.
“Can a sheep be scared to death?” asked Vera in surprise. “I mean, they’re stupid big lumps. They’re not delicate things like my little fluffy fairies here.” She put out a loving hand to caress Lulu, who tried to bite her finger. Holly wished Clive was there. She needed somebody to pull a puking face at.
Bill Barton’s next words made her forget everything else.
“Oh, aye!” he exclaimed. “Sheep can be scared to death all right, if a pack of dogs start barking and howling and chasing them round until they drop dead of shock and exhaustion. When dogs get a taste for worrying sheep, then you’re in trouble. They won’t leave off.”
Howling? thought Holly. She stared at him, wide-eyed and horrified.
He smiled at her reassuringly. “Don’t worry, pet. These dogs are up on the moors, not down in the town.”
“Some-one’s seen them, then?” asked Holly, her voice croaking.
“Oh, aye! But not close enough to get a shot at them.”
“Poor little doggies!” cried Vera indignantly.
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but these are not poor little doggies,” said Bill severely. “They’re someone’s pets turned bad and wild.”
Beside Holly, Doofus stood up, stretched, and pointed his nose at the ceiling. Holly gasped. Don’t howl! she thought at him. Please don’t howl!
But Doofus merely made one of his strange, new, muted howls, halfway between a sigh and a groan, exposing his sharp white teeth before he settled down again.
“Listen to the lad yawning! He’s bored,” said Bill.
“Yes,” said Holly. “I’d better take him home soon.”
Yet Doofus did not look bored. He looked as if he was concentrating: listening. Now and then, his ears pricked ever so slightly, as if at a sound beyond her hearing.
As he stretched his neck and moaned again, she said quickly, “In fact, I think I’ll take him now.” She grabbed his collar and led him out before he could howl properly and cause anything dreadful to happen. There were too many dogs in there – it was just too dangerous. She should never have gone.
“What am I going to do?” muttered Holly to herself as she led Doofus home. She felt very anxious and alone. When she passed Clive’s house, she saw Clive sitting by his shed with his notebook on his knee.
Holly paused. Then she went through the gate and walked over to him, trying to think of something nice to say.
“How are the tadpoles?” she asked.
“Down to twelve now,” said Clive. “Ssh!” He was looking at his little sister, Lily, who was stirring a pink plastic bucket of water which had some grass floating in it. As Holly watched, Lily toddled over to the flower bed, pulled the heads off the pansies and dropped them in the bucket.
“What’s she doing?”
“She’s making soup. Or maybe perfume. I’m not quite sure.” He wrote in his notebook.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m observing her.”
“Why?”
“It’s practice for gorillas,” said Clive. Doofus wandered up to Lily and put his nose in the bucket.
“Bad Ad Dad!” shouted Lily, indignant. She whacked Doofus on the side and he sat down, looking surprised. “Fid fid!” scolded Lily.
“She sounds like Nan,” said Holly.
“Oh. That reminds me.” Clive closed his notebook. “A ambulance came for your Nan.”
“A what?”
“She was taken ill,” said Clive. “Your Mum and Dad went with her. They left a note on the door. You’re to stay here till they get back.”
Holly ran round to her own house and tore down the note taped to the letterbox. It didn’t tell her any more than Clive just had.
Holly. Nan poorly. Have taken her to hospital. Go round to Clive’s till we come home. Mum.
Holly crumpled the paper in her hand, ran back round to Clive’s house, and burst into the kitchen to find Clive’s mum.
“My Nan – how is she?”
“Now then,” said Clive’s mother, “you’re to be very sensible and not fret or panic. Your Nan wouldn’t want you to be upset.”
“How is she?” cried Holly, fretting and getting panicky.
“They think she’s had another stroke, just a little one, but she had to go to hospital. Don’t you worry, now.”
Holly ran back outside. God had stroked Nan again. Why?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she shouted at Clive.
“I did tell you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me straight away?”
“You were asking about the tadpoles,” said Clive. “They’re fine, by the way, except that they keep eating each other.”
“I don’t care about your tadpoles!” Holly ran back inside.
“Sorry, dear,” said Clive’s mother, “but please don’t let the dog in.”
Holly saw that Doofus had padded in after her and was standing like a black shadow in the doorway. He stretched himself across the threshold.
“No!” said Holly. “Out, Doofus! Out!”
Doofus got up and looked at her enquiringly, as if curious to know why she was so upset. She pushed him out into the garden, where Clive was watching Lily pick up pebbles and drop them in her bucket.
“Un, two, tee, eight,” chanted Lily.
Holly sat down on the grass with her back against the shed. Her legs felt very tired for no reason. She was shivering, although it wasn’t cold.
Doofus ambled over and leaned his head down against her shoulder. He nuzzled his cold nose at her neck, almost as if he was trying to comfort her. He had never done that before.
“Go away, Doofus,” whispered Holly. She gave him a shove.
Doofus straightened up and moved away with a shrug, strolling down the path. As he reached the end of it, he gathered his haunches, leapt effortlessly over the closed gate, and was gone.
“Hey,” said Clive, staring, “did you see that? He can jump. Aren’t you going after him?”
Holly shook her head and didn’t answer. Doofus could jump. She should have thought of that: it was so obvious.
That was how he’d disappeared at night. Jumping was the least of his abilities.
And the least of her problems. She closed her eyes.