Echo Come Home

by Megan Rix

  Echo wagged his tail and let the dinner lady stroke his head before his head went down and the chicken was gobbled up.

  ‘I think he liked that,’ she laughed and Jake nodded. Maybe the dinner ladies weren’t so scary after all.

  Jake’s mum texted him.

  How’s it going?

  Best school day ever! Jake texted back.

  Do you want me to come and pick Echo up?

  No way!

  They did more on the dog project after lunch.

  ‘So it can be absolutely anything at all about dogs?’ Chloe asked Miss Dawson.

  ‘Yes, and there’s lots of interesting topics to choose from. Did you know that Florence Nightingale’s first patient was a sheepdog called Cap?’

  ‘No – what happened?’

  But Miss Dawson only smiled and shook her head.

  ‘You can look it up when we go to the computer lab,’ she told her class. She looked at her watch: still fifteen minutes before they could go there.

  ‘Find a partner and have a quiet chat among yourselves about your ideas,’ she told the children.

  Jake looked down at his desk. No one ever wanted to be his partner.

  Around him children moved chairs and swapped seats so they could be next to each other. The room was full of excited voices discussing different projects.

  Jake felt the empty chair beside him being pulled back and when he looked up he saw Tony grinning at him.

  ‘Partners?’ Tony said.

  ‘Partners,’ Jake agreed and beamed back at Tony, as Echo stood up and wagged his tail.

  ‘I’m doing mine on search-and-rescue dogs,’ Tony said.

  ‘I’m doing mine on hearing dogs and Echo,’ Jake whispered. Or at least he tried to whisper, but one of the things his hearing loss meant was that he couldn’t tell how loudly he’d spoken and when everyone turned round to look at him he realized they’d all heard. But Miss Dawson didn’t mind.

  ‘Good idea, Jake,’ she said.

  In the computer lab Tony took a seat next to Jake, and Echo sat under the table. Jake looked at the Helper Dogs website. He clicked on the History of Helper Dogs button.

  ‘Helper Dogs was started with just two dogs twenty years ago. The first fully qualified hearing helper dog was called Mitsie. She was a bit of a character and loved eating fruit and vegetables. Her favourite fruits were tangerines, which she was able to peel for herself.’

  Jake frowned. He wasn’t sure how she peeled them. With her claws? Or with her teeth? It didn’t say.

  There was also a picture of Mitsie. She was a Jack Russell cross and she looked cheeky and mischievous, just like Echo. Jake thought she and Echo would probably have been friends, although as far as he knew Echo didn’t like eating tangerines.

  At least for his presentation at the end of term he already had some props, like Echo’s coat and collar and his squeaky ball.

  Echo nudged his hand with his head and Jake stroked him and then said, ‘Work time,’ and Echo lay down and went back to sleep.

  ‘I’m doing my project on Rip,’ said Tony.

  Jake didn’t hear him so Tony touched his arm and repeated what he’d said. But Jake only managed to lip-read the last word.

  ‘Trip? Who tripped?’ he said, looking around.

  Tony grinned and shook his head. ‘Not trip – Rip!’ He pointed at the picture of the little dog on the computer screen who’d won a Dickin Medal for his search-and-rescue work in World War Two.

  ‘Good one,’ said Jake.

  ‘So what makes it easier for you to hear me?’ Tony asked, and Jake frowned as he thought.

  ‘When you look at me when you’re talking,’ he said. ‘Look me in the eye and keep facing me.’

  ‘I do that already,’ Tony said confidently, but Jake shook his head because that wasn’t always true.

  ‘What about when you look at the computer screen at the same time you’re talking to me?’

  Tony looked at him and then back at the computer. ‘Must make it a bit tough?’ he asked.

  ‘Very tough.’

  ‘OK, what else?’

  ‘It’s hard when there’s lots of background noise or when it’s dark. You try lip-reading in the dark!’

  Tony laughed.

  ‘And don’t give up,’ Jake said. That was the worst thing. Sometimes people just stopped trying to talk to him if he didn’t understand straightaway.

  ‘I won’t,’ Tony promised.

  ‘Try explaining it a different way if I don’t get what you’re saying, or even write it down. But don’t give up. Don’t think it’s not worth bothering. Don’t think it doesn’t matter because it does. I want to know what’s going on. I don’t want to be left out.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Tony said, but he looked in Jake’s eyes when he said it.

  ‘Right,’ grinned Jake. He’d talked far more than he usually did.

  ‘We should get the rest of the class to try it.’

  ‘Try what?’

  ‘Try being deaf and see if they can lip-read. Learn a few signs. See what it’s like.’

  Miss Dawson overheard the two boys and thought that sounded like a very good way to spend the rest of the afternoon once they went back to class.

  First she got Jake to show them how he signed Echo’s name.

  ‘Both index fingers come out from your chest and then one index finger returns,’ Jake said. ‘And you say the word “Echo” at the same time.’

  Echo looked around at the children and then up at Jake. He wasn’t sure why everyone was signing his name, but Jake was smiling at him so he must have done something good. He wagged his tail.

  ‘How would you do my name?’ Tony asked, and Jake showed him how to sign the letter ‘T’ by using his hands. Tony copied him.

  ‘If it’s someone’s name, you don’t always need to finger-spell it all – just the first letter will do,’ Jake said.

  ‘What about mine?’ Chloe said, and Jake cupped his hand to form a C and Chloe copied him.

  Everyone wanted to know how to sign their own name and Jake finger-spelt most of the alphabet with them.

  Because sign language was something he knew lots about, he didn’t feel too embarrassed standing at the front. Plus he had Echo there, and with the little dog beside him he didn’t feel as self-conscious as usual. Although he was still pleased when it was over and he could go and sit down.

  ‘Thank you very much, Jake,’ Miss Dawson said, smiling. ‘That was really interesting. Now how do I sign “home time”?’

  Jake grinned and put the fingers of both hands together like a roof and touched his watch. Miss Dawson copied him.

  ‘See you all tomorrow,’ she said, as the bell rang.

  Echo touched Jake’s leg and lay down on his tummy. Then he jumped up and wagged his tail as the children stood up and he and Jake followed them out of the classroom.

  CHAPTER 17

  On the way home from school Jake and Tony took a shortcut through the park. But today it wasn’t almost empty as it had been the last time Jake and Echo had been there. Stalls were being set up and caravans were parked on the grass.

  A man in a brown suit was looking at a clipboard and directing the stallholders to where they should be.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Jake said, as Echo sniffed at the smell of hot dogs and burgers, pakoras and onion bhajis cooking.

  ‘They’re setting up for the Fresh Start Festival at the weekend,’ Tony told him. ‘There’re going to be over a hundred stalls, plus bands playing and dancers and re-enactors and fire-eaters.’ He was looking forward to seeing the fire-eaters. ‘My sister Tara’s helping on the face-painting stall. All the money that’s raised is going to help fund the Fresh Start Hostel next to the park. By tomorrow this place’ll be full of stalls.’

  And noise, thought Jake. It was much easier for him to hear when there wasn’t a lot of background hubbub. The festival didn’t sound like fun to him, even if it was for a good cause.

  They headed away from the st
alls further into the park before Jake took Echo’s hearing helper dog coat off so he’d know that it was time for play. Then Jake took the squeaky ball Tony had given him out of his school bag and threw it as far as he could. ‘Fetch, Echo, fetch!’

  ‘Good throw!’ said Tony.

  Jake looked over at him to make sure Tony truly meant the words and wasn’t just messing with him. But Tony’s expression seemed to be genuine as he watched Echo race after the ball.

  The little dog picked it up in his mouth and ran back with it; he dropped it at Jake’s feet, skipped back a step, and then looked down at the ball and up at Jake with a wag of his tail. It was perfectly clear what he wanted.

  Jake picked up the ball and gave it to Tony. ‘Your turn.’

  Tony threw the ball across the grass and Echo went tearing after it. But it wasn’t Tony he brought it back to but Jake. Tony didn’t seem to mind.

  ‘You’re really lucky to have a dog like Echo,’ he said, as Jake threw the ball. ‘Even if he wasn’t a hearing dog, he’d be great on the cricket team!’

  Jake laughed as Echo brought the ball back, dropped it and looked up at him, his head tilted to one side. Tony picked it up and threw it for him and Echo set off after it again, tail wagging like mad, and brought it back. Then he sat down in front of Jake, his eyes glued to the ball, willing it to be thrown.

  Jake picked the ball up. ‘Fetch, Echo!’

  Echo didn’t need to be asked twice. He was already racing after it as fast as he could before it even touched the ground, his tail wagging. He skidded to a halt just in front of it, grabbed the ball in his mouth and ran back with it to Jake and Tony and dropped it at Jake’s feet.

  ‘It’s my turn again now,’ Tony said.

  But, when Tony threw the ball this time, it landed in one of the large rhododendron bushes close to the car park.

  ‘Oops,’ he said. The ball had gone further than he’d intended it to.

  ‘Echo’ll find it,’ Jake reassured him. ‘He’s really good at sniffing out his ball when we play hide-and-seek at home. Wherever I hide it, he always manages to hunt it out.’

  Echo raced into the rhododendron bush, determined to find the ball and take it back to Jake. But the ball had got caught on a branch and he whined and stretched up to try to reach it.

  When he’d lived on the streets, Echo had needed to be aware of everything that was going on around him. Instantly alert to a movement in the corner of his eye, the sound of a step or a scent that only his super-sensitive nose could detect. But, since being trained as a hearing dog and living with Jake, he’d let his guard down. When people came up to him, he expected them to want to stroke him or give him a treat. When people spoke to him now, they did so with kind, gentle voices. It was what he’d become accustomed to.

  So Echo wasn’t thinking of anything other than retrieving the ball and taking it back to Jake as he stood on his back legs and stretched up for it. But as he did so two large hands grabbed him and threw him into the boot of a car and slammed it shut.

  ‘Echo!’ Jake called, when he didn’t come out of the bush. ‘Echo, where are you?’

  He never usually took this long to bring the ball back and now there was a car over by the bush. It must be part of the Fresh Start Festival, but Jake didn’t want Echo to get run over.

  ‘Echo!’

  Echo barked and barked from inside the boot of the car.

  ‘Stop that racket,’ the man growled, and he turned the radio up as loud as it would go to try to drown out the sound of Echo’s barking. He turned the key and pressed his foot down on the accelerator.

  Jake didn’t see or hear the car as he and Tony headed over to the bush where the ball had landed to help Echo find it.

  ‘Look out!’ Tony shouted. He pushed Jake to one side as the car that had been next to the rhododendron bush careered past them.

  Jake stared at the car that had almost hit him as it drove on.

  ‘My dad says drivers like that should be banned for life,’ Tony said. ‘Look – now he’s going out of the entrance instead of the exit.’

  ‘Pepsi,’ Jake said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The number plate – PEP 51,’ Jake said over his shoulder, as he hurried over to the bush. ‘Echo?’ he said. ‘Echo, where are you?’

  He saw something in the grass and bent down to pick it up. Now Jake was frightened. ‘Echo!’ he shouted, as loudly as he could. ‘ECHO!’

  ‘What is it?’ Tony said. ‘What’s happened?’

  And Jake opened his hand to show him what he’d found inside the bush: Echo’s squeaky ball.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He was right here.’

  ‘Where can he have gone?’

  ‘Echo! ECHO!’

  But, although both boys shouted as loudly as they could, Echo didn’t come back.

  ‘Do you think he went over there?’ Tony said, pointing back to where the festival stalls were being erected.

  ‘He might have gone to see if there was any food,’ Jake said. He didn’t think Echo would have done so, but he couldn’t be absolutely sure. Helper dogs were trained not to take food unless it was given to them. But the smell of burgers and hot dogs had been very strong. Maybe too strong for a hungry little dog to resist.

  Jake and Tony kept on looking all around for Echo as they headed back across the park.

  ‘Excuse me, have you seen my dog?’ Jake asked a man walking a poodle.

  ‘It’s a Border terrier cross about this big,’ Tony said, putting a hand to his knee. But the man shook his head.

  Tony ran over to some children playing football to ask them while Jake headed over to ask one of the gardeners. But no one had seen Echo.

  ‘Let’s try him,’ Tony said, pointing to the man in the brown suit holding the clipboard, and Jake and Tony ran over to the festival site.

  The man was directing the driver of a lorry pulling a carousel over to the left when Jake and Tony stopped in front of him.

  ‘We’re putting all the rides over there away from the stage,’ the man was saying.

  ‘Right you are, Mr Cooper,’ said the driver.

  ‘How can I help you?’ the clipboard man asked Jake and Tony.

  ‘It’s my dog …’

  ‘His hearing dog,’ Tony interjected.

  ‘He’s gone missing.’

  ‘What sort of dog is it?’

  ‘A Border terrier cross.’

  ‘He’s tan-coloured.’

  ‘I’ll put an alert out for you, see if we can find him,’ Mr Cooper said, looking concerned.

  ‘I used to know one of those,’ a woman said, handing Mr Cooper a mug of tea. ‘Used to live with us under the old bridge.’

  ‘This is a hearing dog, Jen,’ Mr Cooper said. ‘Not a stray.’

  ‘He could hear fine, but he didn’t like to be stroked until he got to know you. Bones we called him, didn’t we, George?’ she said to an elderly man wearing a red-and-white spotted bandana round his neck.

  ‘Alerted me more than once when a skateboarder was heading in my direction,’ George said.

  But the last part of what Jen and George said was drowned out by Mr Cooper raising a megaphone and speaking into it and Jake wasn’t looking at their faces to lip-read them.

  ‘Everyone please be on the alert for a missing dog called …’ He looked at Jake and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘His name’s Echo,’ Tony said.

  Mr Cooper raised the megaphone again. ‘The dog’s name is Echo. He’s a tan Border terrier cross. Anyone seeing him should report to me immediately.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jake said. It was getting late. His mum would be wondering where he was. But he didn’t want to leave the park until he was absolutely sure Echo wasn’t anywhere in it. Maybe he’d got himself caught on something or fallen down a hole. He might be injured.

  Jake remembered the speeding car. Perhaps Echo had been run over! He started running back to the rhododendron bush and Tony ran after him. Maybe Echo was lying amo
ng the leaves, unconscious.

  Jake felt sick as he ran. He should have checked inside the bush more thoroughly.

  ‘Echo, Echo!’ he cried, pushing his way through the thick foliage, dreading what he might find. Tony helped him look and they covered every bit of ground, but Echo wasn’t there.

  Jake was beside himself with worry as he phoned his mum. He dashed angrily at the tears that ran down his face. Crying wouldn’t help. When she answered, he choked out the words: ‘It’s Echo – he’s gone.’

  ‘What do you mean, gone?’ his mum said.

  ‘One minute he was here and the next minute he wasn’t. Mum, help – please. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At the park with Tony.’

  ‘I’ll be right there.’

  ‘We’ll keep on looking till you get here.’

  Jake’s mum brought Echo’s box of gravy bones with her. ‘I heard somewhere that they rattle treats to get dogs to come back,’ she said, when she found the boys.

  But, even though they looked all over the park again, and Jake called and called, while Tony shook the box of treats and asked everyone they passed, Echo didn’t come back.

  ‘Sometimes dogs get wanderlust,’ Jake’s mum said gently. ‘He was a stray before Helper Dogs trained him after all.’

  But Jake didn’t believe that.

  ‘He wouldn’t run off. Not from me,’ he said. ‘He wouldn’t, he couldn’t … would he?’ Doubt crept into Jake’s voice. Maybe Echo didn’t want to stay with him any more.

  Jake’s mum phoned Helper Dogs and the dog warden and the police.

  ‘Sometimes dogs are stolen and driven far away so they can be tricky to find,’ the dog warden told Jake’s mum softly when she arrived at the park. She didn’t mean for Jake to hear her, but he lip-read her.

  Stolen! But who would want to steal Echo? And why?

  Once the police arrived, they took down details about Echo and what had happened.

  Suddenly Jake remembered the car that had been so eager to get out of the park that it drove through the entrance gate.

  ‘He was in that car,’ he said. ‘The car that almost knocked me over. Why else was it stopped there?’

  ‘Are you sure?’ the policewoman asked him. ‘Can you describe it?’