by Iva Ibbotson
When she got home at last, Kayley was so exhausted she could hardly put one foot in front of the other. But one of the twins was stuck with his homework and needed help, and Grandfather had to be wheeled out to the shop. Nothing could convince him that he wasn’t going to buy back the family farm with his winning lottery ticket.
Mrs O’Brian was still out, working late for Mrs Naryan. For a moment Kayley wondered whether to go and fetch her. The Naryans were always so friendly and welcoming, and the warm house with its wonderful silks and perfumes seemed very tempting on this miserable night. Once when it was raining badly, Mrs Naryan had sent her mother home in her husband’s silver Rolls-Royce, a car so silent and so beautiful that it was hard to believe that it was just an ordinary machine and not something out of a dream.
But she was too tired to go anywhere. When she had finished her chores, Kayley picked up the phone meaning to ring Pippa – she had an emergency number for the school camp and perhaps it was best to warn her. But then she thought better of it. It seemed cruel to spoil Pippa’s holiday, and she put the phone down again and climbed wearily into her bed, and tried to sleep.
At MMM the phone rang, and rang, and rang again as Donald tried desperately to get news of his son, while upstairs, Albina, wearing no make-up for the first time in her adult life, wept over the beige carpet which had arrived that afternoon to replace the blue one in Hal’s room.
17
Honey on the Hill
Mick had told them the quickest way out of Todcaster. They had walked steadily along quiet streets, which turned into country lanes as they came closer to the moors. Li-Chee had started off very full of himself. He had been a small dog before but now, shorn of his golden pelt, he was a very small dog indeed, not much bigger than a well-fed rat. Inside, though, he was a lion, and when Pippa tried to carry him part of the way, he yelped with outrage. But after a few hours everybody needed a rest. Now they were leaning against a low stone wall, and around them were fields and low hills. A curlew called, a soft wind blew. Mick had managed to find some bread and butter for them and a few biscuits which they shared with the dogs.
“I don’t know why he did all this for us,” said Hal. “I hope I get a chance to repay him some day.”
“You could do it by going on being his friend,” said Pippa – and Hal looked at her, surprised. He hadn’t been brought up to think that friendship was enough. You had to give people something solid: a present or money. But of course Pippa was right.
They were thinking of moving on when they heard a piercing whistle from the hill behind them. The dogs pricked up their ears, as they did at any sound, and flopped down again.
Except for Honey. One minute Honey was beside them. The next second she had jumped the wall – and was gone.
Old Selby the shepherd had come out of his cottage in a gloomy mood. His back ached, his knees were stiff, but that wasn’t what was making him feel wretched. His niece had found a place where he could spend the rest of his life in comfort: a room in a block of flats called Rosewood, built as sheltered housing in the town. Rooms like that were hard to find and she had showed him round proudly.
“See how warm it is,” she said, pointing to the radiators. “And there’s a warden here all the time. If you want anything you just have to press the bell.”
It was very kind of his niece, but when he thought of Rosewood his blood ran cold. He had not found it warm but unbearably stuffy. The people looking out of their rooms to give him a friendly greeting as he went down the corridor made him feel stifled, and out of the window you could see nothing but houses and still more houses.
Selby had been a shepherd on these hills for fifty years. He’d lived in the same stone cottage, run the same breed of sheep, woken each day to the sound of birdsong and the soughing of the wind. But old age had overtaken him, as it had overtaken his dog, Billy. Billy had been one of the best sheepdogs in the country but now he limped and wheezed when he had to run fast.
Well, it was no good fighting against what had to be. His niece was right. He couldn’t really manage any longer. He’d have to sell the flock and find a home for Billy, and with luck both he and the dog wouldn’t last too long.
Meanwhile, the sheep had to be gathered from the hill and brought down into the fold for dipping. The dog had done it a thousand times, and now he waited, ready for the command. He would go on till his lungs burst, but Selby knew how much it cost him.
Selby fetched his crook and sent him off. Billy ran up to the flock and lay down behind the sheep. He was panting pathetically but he waited, ready as always to do his job.
Old Selby put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, the sign that Billy was to start the gathering. The sheep were widely scattered today, and as obstinate as only sheep can be and they knew that Billy was no longer the threat he had once been. He began to round them up, but a couple of ewes broke away and went off to the left. The dog chivvied them back but now the rest of the flock was separating again. One old ewe, a thoroughly bad-tempered animal, had begun to graze.
Old Selby, watching, shook his head. It was no good hoping. He was too old to train another dog. There was no escaping Rosewood.
But now, when Selby was feeling so wretched, there was worse to come. A honey-coloured blur streaked up the hill and headed straight for the flock. A fox? No, a stray dog. A sheep worrier as likely as not.
“Blasted townies, letting their dogs off the lead,” he grumbled.
He began to struggle up the hill, waving his stick, knowing there was nothing he could do if the dog was a killer.
Then he stopped dead and stared.
The new dog had come round behind the unruly flock in a wide run and now, head low, totally concentrating – sometimes darting left or right to check breakaways – she was gathering the animals into a tight bunch. Then she dropped down behind them, ears pricked, with Billy at her side.
She was waiting for instructions. A trained dog? Was it possible?
Half wondering if he was dreaming, Selby whistled again, giving the signal to start the fetch.
And slowly, expertly, the unknown dog began to move the flock down the hill towards the fold. Any stragglers were immediately brought back. She seemed to know what the sheep were going to do before they knew it themselves. She could run like the wind when it was needful, but there was no hassling, no snapping at their heels. With Billy helping as best he could, she sent them steadily to where they needed to be.
For Honey, as she worked, the miserable months she had spent at Easy Pets fell away. It all came back to her – how to anticipate the movements of the flock, how to prevent trouble… She could feel the wind blowing through her coat. Her eyes shone. She could have run like this forever.
Within minutes the sheep were streaming like a white river into the fold, and Selby moved forward to close the gate.
“That’ll do,” he said to both the dogs, and Honey, who had flopped down beside him, looked up, her plumed tail waving, for she remembered those words from her former life, and knew what they meant. That the job was over, and had been done well.
Ten minutes later Selby sat in his kitchen, drinking a cup of tea. Honey was lying on the hearth rug beside Billy, who had made room for her, and as he looked at her, Old Selby allowed himself to dream.
What if it really was a miracle? What if this wonder dog had come to save him and his flock? With a dog like that he could last another five years, and then they’d know what they could do with Rosewood.
He was interrupted by a knock at the door and he opened it to find a small girl, breathless and looking very worried.
“I’m sorry to bother you but you haven’t seen a dog – a rough collie, white and black and sable? She just took off and vanished when she heard a whistle.”
Selby let her in and pointed to the rug.
“I thought it was too good to be true,” he said as Honey got to her feet, tail wagging, and came to greet Pippa. “You know she’s a proper sheepdog, don’t you? One of the
best. You should have seen her on the hill.”
“Yes, I know. She was trained somewhere not far from here but the man who owned her had to sell his farm. She was bought by a family with small children who teased her and—”
Pippa broke off. She had nearly been stupid enough to mention Easy Pets.
Honey was still welcoming Pippa, rubbing her nose against Pippa’s legs. It was Pippa who had set her free. She remembered the other dogs, she remembered the journey they were taking.
But then she ran back to Selby, and looked up at him. Here was her true master; it was here that she could do her real work and be herself. And she sat down between Selby and Pippa, in a moment of confusion and despair.
Old Selby bent down and pulled her ears. He knew he could keep her. If he said “sit” she would sit. If he said “stay” she would stay, and she would do this till the day she died.
Pippa was silent, remembering Francine. Honey would have to choose, but was it fair to make her? She was a different kind of dog. There had been a girl in Pippa’s class whose parents had decided to get divorced. The girl had managed all right till she was asked to choose which of her parents she wanted to live with, and after that she had simply fallen apart.
If it was so hard for a person to decide, could one ask it of a dog?
In the end it was old Selby who did the choosing. He had never taken another person’s dog, and he would not do so now, but the next moments were the hardest he could remember.
He raised his stick and spoke to Honey.
“Go on. Be off with you,” he said in his gruffest voice. “Get out of here.”
Honey whined, and looked up at him and licked his hand, but his stick was still raised, and slowly, very slowly, looking back over her shoulder, she followed Pippa out of the door.
Selby stood on his porch and watched them go. Miracles occurred all right, but not, it seemed, for him. His eyes were watering, and angrily he wiped them with his sleeve.
“Blasted wind,” he muttered.
Then he turned back into the house, and went to phone his niece.
18
The Dumper
Kevin Dawks was a kind man. One knew this because he was always helping people. He helped the manager of the supermarket in the town with the pile of rotting vegetables and plastic bags and oozing paint tins which wouldn’t go in the bins, and he helped the owner of the pub with the old telly and the bicycle his son had written off – and he helped the man in the garage with the oil cans and bottles of poisonous liquids which were cluttering up his shelves.
He helped them by taking these things away and finding a place for them. The places he found were some way out of towns and villages, in quiet parts of the countryside. It might be in a bluebell wood or a river valley or a freshly planted field. Kevin didn’t mind, as long as it wasn’t overlooked by anyone and he could tip out his load of filth without anybody seeing.
Of course, he charged quite a lot for this service. Being a dumper is a dangerous business, and he always had to look out for the police or busybodies who said that what he was doing was illegal and disgusting. And because he didn’t make as much money as he deserved to, he had other jobs. He stored things that had fallen off the back of lorries, like cartons of cigarettes and bits of jewellery, or tools that had been nicked and needed to be kept before being sold on – and he hid these in a lock-up shed on the edge of the moor.
The children had kept up a steady pace after they left the shepherd, and by early afternoon they were on a quiet country road leading up to the moors. Beside them, in a dip sheltered by birch trees, ran a crystal stream.
“My grandfather says you can drink from all the streams up here. The water comes off the Cheviots and it’s the cleanest in the country,” said Hal. “If you go on ahead I’ll just go down and fill my water bottle.”
“All right, but don’t be long,” said Pippa.
She went on with the other dogs, while Fleck and Hal scrambled down the steep sides of the little valley. It was a beautiful place. The bracken fronds were uncurling, bluebells flowered between the birches… they were magical, these sheltered dells.
Fleck had been running ahead, but now he came back to Hal and stopped in front of him, holding up a front paw.
“What’s the matter, Fleck?”
Fleck whimpered, and Hal saw a piece of rusty wire caught between his toes. Hal took it out, and it was then he noticed the smell.
It was a smell that seemed completely unreal in this lovely place. A vile sick-making stench of decay and rottenness.
Then he saw it: a pile of rubbish spilling down to the edge of the water. There was a torn mattress; half open tins of oil oozed on to the grass. A heap of rotting food burst out of a plastic bag, and an old sofa lay on its side, its rusty springs sticking up from the stained upholstery. Some of the refuse had been tipped into the stream itself; foetid bubbles of gas broke the surface of the water. A twisted electric fire was wedged against a boulder. A young birch sapling had fallen across the stream, broken by the weight of an iron bath.
And over everything, this unspeakable smell…
Hal hardly remembered how he got back up the bank. He was in a state of shock. Who could do this; who could turn this wonderful place into a hellhole? He was still getting his breath, tying up his shoelace at the edge of the road, when a pick-up drove past him, braked, and backed towards him.
Kevin had just finished dumping his load by the stream before Hal came, and had had a rest, dozing in his lorry, as people do when they have done a good morning’s work. He was setting off again, bound for his lock-up on the moor, when he saw a boy sitting on the side of the road. The boy had fair hair and was wearing a blue anorak – and for some reason he seemed familiar.
The hair began to rise on the back of Kevin’s neck. He braked and reached for the newspaper.
Yes, it was what he’d thought. He’d seen the advert when he was having his breakfast and now he peered at it again. This was the boy for whom they were offering twenty thousand pounds’ reward! He peered again but there was no mistaking it. Hardly able to believe his luck, he leant out of the window of the cab, and in his oiliest voice, he said:
“Want a lift?”
Hal shook his head.
“Thanks, but I’m with a friend. I’m just going to catch her up.”
Kevin grinned. The boy was obviously lying. There’d been no mention of a friend in the advert, but he’d go along with it.
“Well, I’m going that way. I’ll pick her up and give both of you a lift to the village. It’s not far. My name’s Kevin, by the way.”
Hal hesitated. But it was true he’d been longer than he intended. He’d trusted Mick and it had been all right. People in the north were known to be friendly.
“All right,” he said. “Thanks.”
He climbed into the cab and pulled Fleck in after him, but Fleck was behaving badly. As the engine revved up again he began to growl and show his teeth.
“Quiet, Fleck,” said Hal.
But Fleck, usually so obedient, took no notice. Hal was looking down, trying to soothe him, and at first he did not notice that the van had swerved sharply to the left, up a rutted track.
“Stop,” he said. “That’s not the way. We should be going straight on,” and as Kevin took no notice, he said loudly, “Where are you going?”
“You’ll see soon enough,” said Kevin. His voice was quite different now, harsh and ugly.
They drove uphill towards an isolated shed. But Fleck was going crazy. He jumped off Hal’s lap and tried to clamber on the steering wheel, all the time barking at the top of his voice.
“Shut up, you little tyke,” said Kevin. And he seized the dog by the scruff of his neck and threw him out of the window.
Hal screamed and tried to get out too, but Kevin put out one arm and held him in a grip of steel. He wasn’t going to let twenty thousand pounds get away.
While Fleck yowled in anguish on the path, the pick-up drove up to a stone hut
with a corrugated iron roof, standing by itself on the edge of the moor. Pulling the struggling Hal out, Kevin dragged him to the door and pushed him in.
“Fleck!” screamed Hal.
Then the door was slammed shut, the bolts pushed across, and it was padlocked.
Kevin walked away, thoroughly pleased with himself. Now for a phone call to the number in the advertisement and then – twenty thousand pounds!
The wretched dog was still yowling and whining, trying to get to Hal in the shed. Kevin picked up a stone and threw it hard, and it hit the cur on the side. Then he took his mobile out of his pocket and went a little way up the hill to get a signal.
Fleck was absolutely beside himself, trying to reach Hal. The stone hadn’t drawn blood but it had bruised his shoulder. He could hear Hal’s voice inside, frantically shouting his name.
For a few minutes Fleck ran uselessly round and round the hut, trying to find a way in. Then quite suddenly, he took off and raced like the wind down the hill and along the road.
Pippa was getting annoyed. What on earth was Hal doing? It shouldn’t take so long to fill a water bottle. The dogs had been sitting round her obediently, waiting, but now they got to their feet and stared at the road, their noses twitching. Something was coming towards them – a white streak which, as they watched, turned into Fleck. But this was Fleck as no one had seen him. Not a wistful mongrel but a messenger bringing unspeakable news.
He raced up to the dogs, panting terribly, but he wouldn’t rest. He jumped up at them, he shoved his nose into their sides, all the time talking in frantic barks.