15
The Dog File
For the remainder of that week Eric and Roy continued to give much thought to the question: When would Eric change again? (or, as the days passed: Would he change again?). Eric himself had trouble getting to sleep at night, and woke up each morning in a state of some anxiety. Roy couldn’t sleep either; he kept thinking (hoping) he could hear a howling dog. During the day he stayed as close to Eric as he could for as long as he could. He made frequent – too frequent, Eric said – enquiries about how he was feeling.
The other question which occupied them was, of course, why was he changing? This, in fact, took more of their time than the first question. They talked incessantly about it, read dog books to each other, and made notes, even – well, Eric made notes. Inevitably, their school work suffered. Roy, especially, heard very little that his teachers had to say during this period.
On Tuesday morning Eric came to school with one dog book and a pocket–sized clip file, complete with paper and cardboard section-dividers. It also had a pencil down the spine. It was a so-far-unused Christmas present from his gran. Roy came to school – staggered would be nearer the truth – with all three of his books, plus his dad’s Guinness Book of Records and a bag of apple peel and carrot tops for the rabbit.
As they neared the school gates, Eric showed Roy the file and explained its purpose. ‘We’re going to collect data,’ he said. It was a phrase he had come upon inside the lid of his junior science kit.
‘What’s data?’
‘Notes,’ said Eric, ‘lists and things, from the dog books.’
‘How about tracings?’
‘The question is, what makes a boy turn into a dog? We might not need tracings for that.’
‘But I like tracings,’ said Roy.
In the playground, Roy brought up the subject of colour-blindness. Dogs were supposed to be colourblind, that’s what he’d read.
‘I wasn’t colour-blind,’ said Eric.
‘You should’ve been,’ Roy said; ‘according to this.’
He also found the rarest breed of dog in his Guinness Book of Records. ‘You should’ve been a Chinese Fighting Dog, they’re worth quids!’ And he said, ‘They eat dogs in China, y’know.’
Later that morning there was a lull in the classroom. Mr Cork, with the help of a few girls, was pinning children’s work up on the walls, though he was due to leave on Friday and would take most of it with him. Mrs Jessop was in the staffroom with the slow readers. Eric opened his dog book and began to read; Roy did likewise.
After a time, Eric said, ‘I might not be the first -think of that!’
‘The first what?’ said Roy. As an aid to concentration, he had his hands over his ears, though he heard Eric well enough.
‘Boy to turn into a dog,’ said Eric. ‘Listen to this: “The screen’s most versatile acting dog was Teddy”–’
‘That’s no name for a dog,’ said Roy.
‘ “In one remarkable routine, filmed entirely without a break, Teddy opened a kitchen door, lit the stove with a match held between his teeth, filled a kettle at the sink, put it on the stove, and then, picking up a broom, swept the floor. He could play comedy or drama with equal ease, never missed a cue, and his pheno … pheno …” (‘Phemonimal!’ said Roy) “phenomenal memory put many a two-legged co-star to shame.’ ”
Eric and Roy were silent for a moment.
Roy said, ‘No dog could do all that!’
‘That’s what I think.’ Eric opened his bag and took out the clip file. ‘I bet he was a boy.’
Eric and Roy were much taken with the idea that other boys before Eric could have turned into dogs. Even on the way home from school, they were still discussing it. As they window-shopped in Russell’s sweet shop, Eric spoke of the ‘wolf boys’ in India he’d read about. Perhaps there was a clue there. Roy said he was sure there was an ‘elephant man’, but couldn’t remember where he’d heard of him. ‘Anyway, he never turned into an elephant, I don’t think. He only looked like one.’
Then Kenny Biggs joined them, picked up a snatch of their conversation, and offered a thought of his own. ‘I heard a talking dog once.’
‘When?’ said Eric.
‘Where?’ said Roy.
‘On the radio, months ago. It was Australian.’
‘Hey, I remember that!’ said Roy.
‘Yes,’ said Kenny. ‘It could say “mum” and “sausage and egg”.’ And he said (Kenny was clearly intent on being useful), ‘I heard a singing cat as well.’
On Wednesday Eric and Roy continued to speculate. At nine o’clock, as they lined up in the playground, Roy said, ‘I’ve been thinking – you could’ve dreamt it, y’know.’
‘No,’ said Eric. ‘Anyway, if I dreamt it, what were you doing?’
‘Perhaps I dreamt it as well.’
‘And Hopper?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Kenny — and my mum — and yours?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Roy. Then, as a glare from Mrs Jessop cut short the conversation, ‘Anything is!’
Later, in the classroom, during an art lesson with Mr Cork, Roy took up the idea again. He was still not convinced. ‘We could’ve dreamt all of it,’ he said;‘Hopper and everything. We could be dreaming now.’
‘Pinch yourself, then,’ said Eric. ‘Better still, I’ll pinch you. No, even better, I’ll stick these compasses in you. If you yell out, you were dreaming.’
‘That won’t prove it,’ said Roy. He smiled and edged away. ‘I could be dreaming I’m yelling.’
That afternoon at two o’clock all the third and fourth years trooped out of the school, up Rolph Street, down Ethel Street, across Joining’s Bank and into Hobbes’s recreation ground. This was where the school sports would be held on Saturday. Today, however, it was the heats, plus demonstrations of technique from various members of staff: Mr Hodge and Mr Cork (baton changing), Mrs Jessop (rounders ball) and Mr Blocker (starting pistol).
The weather was warm and sunny. When they were not competing, Eric and Roy sat on the grass with the rest of Class Three and watched the others, and talked.
‘It says here,’ said Roy (he still had one of his books with him), ‘ “Each year more than four thousand British postmen are bitten by dogs”.’
‘My dad never gets bitten,’ said Eric.
‘ “The Post Office procedure, following an assault, is to send a letter of complaint to the owner” – hey, this is good! – “which the postman has to deliver”!’
Just then Joan Spooner and Caroline Wicks came hobbling towards them. They were tied together with a skipping rope, practising for the three-legged race.
Joan said, ‘What’re you reading – a dog book, I’ll bet!’ And she said, ‘They’re mad about dogs, them two.’
‘Where’s Alison?’ said Eric, but got no reply, as the girls at that point tumbled over and rolled noisily away. In any case he knew where she was: she was tied to Sheila Smith. Joan and Alison had quarrelled earlier in the day and were ‘not speaking’.
Then Roy said, ‘There’s a dog!’ The dog – a black-and-white collie – was sniffing along the perimeter fence a short way off. From time to time it paused and peed against one of the wooden posts.
‘It’s marking its territory,’ said Eric. ‘I read about that.’
‘Territory?’ Roy laughed. ‘It doesn’t own all this -it’s Hobbes’s!’ He turned and threw a handful of grass at Tony Abell, who had previously thrown one at him. He said, ‘Hey, Eric – I’ve been thinking — did you ever …?’ He nodded towards the now departing dog.’Y’know…’
‘No!’ said Eric.
‘Not even…?’
‘No!’
At that moment there was a commotion down on the track. Mr Blocker could be seen looking particularly fierce. Mr Hodge was running towards the main gate. Hopper, it seemed, had just thrown the rounders ball into the road.
‘It’s a record!’ said Roy.
On Thursday, Rolfe Street Primar
y was closed for polling. There was a bye-election. Eric went to town with his mum in the morning to get a pair of walking boots. In the afternoon Roy came round. The two of them spent their time in the garden. They paddled in Emily’s playpool (she was at her gran’s) and sat in her Wendy house. Eric showed Roy some work he’d done in the clip file (now known as the ‘Dog File’). ‘It’s a list of theories; it’s not finished yet.’
Roy took the file and began to read:
1. THE NOT-THE-FIRST THEORY. (You should’ve put that second, then.)
2. THE RAYS-FROM-SPACE THEORY.
3. THE REINCARNATION THEORY.
4. THE-’
‘That’s as far as I’ve got,’ said Eric.
Roy stuck his head out of the side of the Wendy house – it was made of plastic sheeting – and looked up at the sky. ‘What about “The Chinese-Fighting-Dog Theory”?’
‘That’s not a theory,’ said Eric.
‘What about…’ Roy turned and made a grab for Eric’s ankle, “‘The Body-Snatcher’s Theory”V
‘Let go – what’s that?’ said Eric.
‘Dunno,’ said Roy; ‘but it sounds good.’
Roy, in fact, was remembering a film that had been shown on TV a couple of months ago: ‘The Invasion of the Body-Snatchers’. He’d only seen the trailer, and not all of that; his mum had switched it off. Even so – from the title alone – it surely had some relevance to Eric’s situation.
At three o’clock Roy accompanied Eric to collect Emily from her gran’s. Eric’s gran gave each of them an ice lolly from her freezer. Emily had been grumpy when they arrived, not wanting to leave. But, with a lolly in her hand, she soon cheered up. Eric and Roy took it in turns to push her doll’s pushchair, leaving Emily free to concentrate on licking.
Roy’s lolly was the first to go, then Eric’s. Emily’s – though it dribbled a little down her arm and on her T-shirt – lasted longer.
Eric said, ‘I’ll give you 5p for a lick.’
‘No!’ said Emily.
‘10p.’
‘No!’
‘£10!’
‘No!’
Eric laughed. He often played this game with Emily, just for the fun of hearing her say ‘no’. He loved, above all, the certainty with which she said it. Then Roy joined in. ‘I’ll give you all the houses in this street.’
‘No!’
‘In this town!’ said Eric.
‘In the world!’ said Roy.
‘No!’
‘I’ll give you Eric,’ said Roy.
‘I’ll give you Roy!’ said Eric.
Emily sucked the final lump of her lolly into her mouth, licked her sticky thumb and stared up at them. ‘Lo!’ she said.
On Friday morning when Eric woke up he was still a boy. When they met on the paper – round, Roy – automatically almost – said, ‘Anything?’
Eric shook his head.
‘How’re you feeling now?’
‘Normal.’
‘It’s been a whole week, y’know.’
‘I know.’ Eric could sense Roy’s disappointment and was about to comment on it, when, suddenly, a small boy came up to him and asked where he could get a puppy from.
‘How should I know?’ said Eric.
The boy became immediately confused. ‘Well, I heard… a big girl told me … on the dinner table …’ he fiddled with the buttons of his jumper’… you was the one to ask.’
‘Joan, I’ll bet!’ said Roy.
‘That big girl’s up the creek,’ said Eric.
‘Oh!’ said the boy.
And Roy said, ‘Tell y’mum to try the R.S.P.C.A.’
An hour later, in his room, as he gathered his school things together, Eric considered the extent to which his secret was spreading. Only Roy knew everything, of course; but quite a few others (Hopper and Kenny, Joan and Alison, not to mention Caroline and Sheila) knew something, or thought they did. And now there was this infant…
Meanwhile, the main ‘dropper-of-hints’ himself was on his way to call for Eric. He had a bag on his shoulder, a ball at his feet and a book in his hand. He’d been reading about the relative merits of dog-baskets and kennels. Roy, in truth, had a small secret of his own. He was swotting up (mostly at home) everything he could find about the care of dogs: grooming, bedding, vitamins and health, dogs and the law — everything. But he’d so far said nothing to Eric about it, in case his motives were misunderstood.
The main events at school that day were a long speech about Sports Day from Mr Blocker in the morning, and the departure of Mr Cork in the afternoon. It was the end of his school practice. There were presents for him (and his rabbit), and cheers and tears, and requests for autographs, and increasingly nosy questions. What was his first name? Where did he live? Had he got a girlfriend? Could they write to him? Then he was gone, and the sudden silence and the bare walls (he’d taken most of their work with him) left everyone feeling rather solemn for a while.
On the way home, Eric and Roy discussed Mr Cork’s merits, and compared him with other students they had known.
‘I’m going to be a student,’ said Roy.
‘What’re you going to study?’
‘Something,’ Roy said. He balanced along the wall outside the Ebenezer Chapel, and fell off before the end. He threw his jockey cap in the air, aiming to graze the overhanging branch of a tree. And he said, ‘Hey, werewolves – think of that!’
16
Sports Day
On Saturday Eric did his paper–round with Roy and came home as usual for his second breakfast. His mum was in the kitchen making a shopping list. Emily was eating a bowl of Coco Pops. She had the help of a small teddy and a plastic frog, who were grouped around the bowl.
She said, ‘See my hat!’
Emily was wearing her Bo–Peep hat in readiness for a fancy-dress competition in the afternoon. (It was one of the extra events at the school sports.) She would’ve worn her Bo-Peep dress and been carrying her Bo-Peep crook, too, if her mother had let her.
‘Very nice,’ said Eric. ‘I’ll give you 5p for it.’
‘No!’ said Emily.
‘Don’t start all that,’ said Mrs Banks. ‘She’s got a bus to catch.’
‘I’ll give it her anyway,’ said Eric, who was feeling generous, having just been paid. After that he sat down at the table, overtook Emily in the eating of his bowl of Coco Pops, got up, and left the room.
Mrs Banks called after him, ‘We’re going to town!’
‘Right!’ said Eric, on the stairs.
‘Your dad’ll be back about twelve!’
‘Right!’ said Eric, from the landing.
‘Your sports kit’s in your bag!’
Eric entered his room and crossed to the dressing-table. He opened a drawer, felt beneath a pile of socks and took out the Oxo tin in which he kept his money. He tipped it onto the bed and added more from his pocket. He began to sort it into £1 piles. Eric had reached £5.45 when suddenly something happened which caused him to lose count: he turned into a dog.
Eric crouched on the bed and shut his eyes as the usual unusual sensations rushed upon him: the itching and the curious tingling, the shrinking feeling, the wet nose and the flappy ears. His body – if he could have seen it – had gone all blurry, like a bad photograph. His clothes had ceased to fit.
At that moment the phone rang.
‘Eric — answer that, will you?’
‘I would if I could,’ thought Eric. He opened his eyes and looked around.
‘Eric – the phone!’
‘Sorry, Mum.’ One of his trainers slipped off his shrunken foot and fell to the floor. The phone stopped ringing.
Eric pricked his ears. He could hear his mum talking in the hall, followed soon after by the ‘ping’ as the receiver was replaced.
Then, seconds later: ‘Eric, we’re off!’
Footsteps in the hall.
Emily’s little piping voice, ‘Bye-bye, Eric!’
‘Eric?’ His mum again, and soun
ding puzzled. ‘You all right?’
Emily’s little clumping feet on the stairs.
Rapidly Eric scrambled off the bed and hid under it.
Then, again, his mum: ‘No, Emily – come on, we’ll miss the bus. Bye, Eric!’
‘Bye-bye!’
And the front door slammed.
Eric stayed where he was for a moment and endeavoured to recover his wits. Eventually, he spotted a golf ball under the bed, which he thought he’d lost. He picked it up in his mouth and carried it onto the rug. His movements were, of course, hampered by his clothes. As he wriggled free of his shorts and T-shirt, the thought in his mind was: ‘If this lasts all day, I’ll miss the long jump.’ His underpants were the trickiest to get out of; his socks, the easiest; he just tugged them off with his teeth.
Eric sat on his haunches and studied the golf ball. ‘Now what?’ he thought. Well, at least he felt less panic this time; nor were there any swimming attendants to worry about. He wandered onto the landing. The smell of Emily’s bubble bath – she’d tipped too much in as usual – filled the air.
Eric considered his options. He could try to get out of the house – through a window, say – and go to Roy’s. He could stay where he was till his dad arrived, and hope to change back before he was found. He could … what else could he do? Eric decided there was nothing else he could do. He also decided that climbing out of windows would be ill–advised. Besides, assuming he would change back, he preferred to do it in the privacy of his own home. Meanwhile – he stepped into his parents’ room -perhaps he would just… nosy around for a while.
And ‘nosy’ was the word: for a boy who was a dog, the house was an absolute map of smells. In his parents’ room alone there was Lily of the Valley talc and Old Spice aftershave, Johnson’s Wax on the chest of drawers and Windolene on the windows, a hard-to-describe ‘overcoat’ smell near the wardrobe and a faint hint of soot in the fireplace. Even his mum’s book on a chair by the bed had its own smell; even her clock!
After a time Eric left the room and continued to prowl somewhat aimlessly about. He looked in at Emily’s room. She had a large Snoopy dog sitting in one corner. Eric resisted the urge to have a fight with it, and went downstairs. In the hall he was startled by a free newspaper which came suddenly hurtling through the letter-box and almost hit him on the head. He glanced briefly at the front page and went into the sitting-room. He walked in and out of the furniture. He looked out of the window. He jumped up and sat in an easy chair. He became motionless.
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