Echo Come Home

by Megan Rix

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. It was a blue Ford Mondeo. The number plate was PEP 51.’ He wasn’t going to forget that in a hurry.

  ‘He was driving like a maniac – almost knocked Jake over,’ Tony said.

  The policewoman nodded and then she turned back to Jake.

  ‘But you don’t have any proof? You didn’t actually see your dog in the car?’

  Jake shook his head and looked down at his feet. ‘But where could Echo have gone if he wasn’t stolen?’ he said.

  ‘It’s time we were going home,’ Jake’s mum said, putting an arm round his shoulders.

  But Jake shrugged her off. He refused to go until they’d done another sweep of the park and asked everyone they came across if they’d seen anything. But no one had. Eventually, they had to give up and go back to the car.

  Jake stared out of the window as Mum started the engine. There were flags outside the new shelter for the homeless. People laughed as they ate cake off paper plates and drank juice from paper cups. There was a banner saying GRAND OPENING.

  An old man wearing a tattered red-and-white spotted bandana round his neck caught Jake looking and waved his paper cup at him. But Jake didn’t wave back.

  Vicky burst into tears when she heard the news. ‘Poor Echo,’ she cried.

  Jake’s mum phoned Dog Lost, the RSPCA and all the vets and dog rescue centres in the area. She watched as Jake put messages on Facebook and Twitter. They set up a page just for Echo and called it ‘Echo, Come Home’.

  Jake uploaded a photo of Echo holding the squeaky ball to it. ‘Maybe someone’s seen him. Maybe someone out there will be able to help.’

  As the Ford Mondeo drove further and further away from the park, Echo stopped barking and began to whimper instead. But the man still had his radio on full blast and didn’t hear him. Finally, Echo curled up in a small, frightened ball, his little body trembling.

  CHAPTER 18

  As soon as the car boot opened, Echo was ready and he leapt out.

  ‘Hey – what – stop!’ a voice yelled and a hand grabbed Echo’s collar.

  But Echo squirmed and twisted until the dognapper was holding a collar but no dog.

  ‘Stop!’ the man shouted, as he tried to grab him again.

  But Echo wasn’t stopping for anyone. He had to find Jake, but he wasn’t in the park any more and he had no idea how to get home. Nowhere smelt even the least bit familiar. He ran on and on, desperate to get away from the man and find his way back to Jake. Down one street and up another, through an open gate and along an alleyway. Past a junkyard with a dog that barked at him. Over a footbridge and under an arch. On and on and on until finally he couldn’t run any more and he slowed to a walk as the sky above grew grey and stormy.

  It started to rain and Echo’s head drooped. He wasn’t frightened of thunder or lightning, like some dogs. But he hated the cold wetness of the rain. He crawled under some building rubble in a front garden to get away from it, but almost immediately he realized there was already something in there – a cat.

  Only this cat wasn’t like Jasper at Helper Dogs. It hissed and snarled as it swiped at him with its sharp claws. Echo crawled out from under the rubble and ran away.

  Finally, exhausted and soaked through, he curled up by some industrial-sized dustbins at the back of a building, miserable and shivering with cold.

  Jake’s keen-eyed information about the car’s make and number plate meant it wasn’t long after Echo’s escape that the police were knocking at the dognapper’s door.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ the man asked angrily. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘Were you at Addison Park earlier today, sir?’ the policewoman asked him.

  ‘No … Never been there …’

  ‘We already know you were there, sir,’ the policeman said mildly.

  ‘So what if I was? It’s a free country.’

  ‘May we come in, please?’

  Inside the house the two police officers found three miserable-looking dogs in a cage.

  ‘They’re my dogs,’ the man insisted.

  ‘Then you won’t mind if we check their microchips,’ the policeman said, as he dialled the number for the RSPCA.

  ‘You’ve got no right,’ the dognapper said.

  ‘I think you’ll find we do,’ the policewoman told him.

  She held up Echo’s collar that she’d found thrown on the dresser. ‘Would you mind explaining this, sir?’

  The man saw what she had and gulped. ‘Never seen it before in my life,’ he said. ‘You must have planted it on me!’

  But they all knew he was lying.

  ‘Where’s Echo?’ the policewoman demanded.

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ the man said grumpily. ‘This is police brutality, this is. I’ll get my lawyer on to you …’

  ‘The little dog that was wearing this collar,’ the policewoman said, waving it in front of his nose.

  ‘All right, all right, I did have him but he ran off. Slippery as an eel, that dog. He was running for the main road last I saw him. Been knocked down most likely and serve him right.’

  The policeman and woman looked at each other and shook their heads.

  A few minutes later, a man from the RSPCA arrived and checked the microchips of the dogs in the cage. All of them had been reported missing.

  ‘I’ll make sure they get safely home. Lucky for them they were all microchipped,’ he said, as the dognapper looked daggers at him.

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. I found those dogs. I was looking after them!’ the man said, and then he smirked because there was no one to say it wasn’t true. The dogs couldn’t talk.

  The policewoman looked down at Echo’s collar.

  ‘What’s the maximum penalty for theft from a public place?’ she asked her partner.

  ‘Seven years in prison.’

  ‘You can’t … I haven’t …’ the dogsnatcher said, looking from one to the other.

  ‘And if there’s blackmail or a ransom note involved?’

  The dogsnatcher bit his lip as he looked over at the kitchen drawer. The policeman smiled. He pulled on a pair of latex gloves and opened it.

  ‘What do we have here?’ he said, pulling out three ransom notes.

  ‘I’ve never seen them before in my life!’ the dog thief shouted. But he looked really scared.

  ‘Oh, I’ve just remembered,’ the policewoman said. ‘It’s fourteen years when there’s a ransom demand involved, isn’t it?’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind coming with us, sir,’ the policeman said.

  The dognapper’s shoulders slumped as the handcuffs were put on him.

  Lenny came round shortly after Jake had finished putting Echo’s picture on the Dog Lost website.

  ‘I heard what happened,’ he said.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Jake said. ‘One minute we were playing and the next …’ His voice trailed off. Although he knew Lenny couldn’t know the answer, he still had to ask: ‘Do you think I’ll get him back?’

  Lenny frowned. ‘That dog loves you,’ he said. ‘Plain as the nose on my face, and dogs like that …’

  Jake swallowed hard. ‘What about dogs like that?’

  ‘They’ll find a way to get back to the person they love or die trying,’ said Lenny softly.

  ‘I don’t want Echo to die!’ Jake said. ‘I’d rather he lived with someone else than suffered trying to come home.’

  Lenny nodded. ‘I know you would. It’s probably why he loves you so much.’

  ‘I love him too,’ Jake said.

  ‘You’re probably the first and only person who did. We loved him as well, of course. But you two had something special.’

  A tear rolled down Jake’s face as he choked out the words that were so hard to say.

  ‘What if he wasn’t stolen …? What if he ran away … because I did something wrong?’

  Lenny shook his head firmly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That dog would never run away from you.’ />
  ‘Jake, Jake!’ Vicky shouted from the front door. ‘The police are here!’

  Jake and Lenny hurried to join her.

  Jake’s heart lifted and then sank when he saw that the police didn’t have Echo with them.

  ‘But we did find this,’ the policewoman said, and she gave him Echo’s collar.

  Jake stared down at it. It looked so small and fragile. He swallowed hard and then looked back up at her as she explained that Echo had been dognapped, but had managed to escape.

  ‘The patrol cars are keeping an eye out for him. Don’t give up,’ said the policeman and Jake nodded. He wouldn’t give up. He’d never give up. At least now he knew Echo was out there somewhere. That he had definitely been taken. That he hadn’t just run away.

  ‘Where did you find the collar?’ Lenny asked the police.

  ‘Wellston.’

  It was about thirty miles away, but Jake had never been there and neither, as far as he knew, had Echo. How was the little dog supposed to find his way home from there? It was impossible. Jake just hoped one of the patrol cars spotted him.

  ‘We’ll be in touch as soon as we hear anything,’ the policewoman said, as she turned to leave.

  Outside it was spitting with rain.

  ‘Looks like we’re in for a storm,’ said Lenny.

  When they’d all gone, Jake checked his hearing aids to make sure they were working. Everything was so hollow and empty without Echo there. It felt all wrong.

  ‘You have to eat something,’ Jake’s mum said. ‘A sandwich at least.’

  But Jake just shook his head. He felt cold and numb as he went up to his room and lay on his bed.

  ‘Echo, come home,’ he whispered. ‘Please come home.’

  Now Echo was gone the tinnitus that used to fill his ears and his head came back with a vengeance and he couldn’t fall asleep because it was so loud. It went on and on until finally he gave up trying and stared out of the window, wondering where Echo was and wishing that he’d come back.

  CHAPTER 19

  The residents of the old people’s home weren’t allowed to keep pets, although sometimes one of the staff brought their dog in to see them. Those were ninety-three-year-old Violet’s favourite days.

  She’d had dogs herself, all sorts of dogs – big and small, pedigrees and crosses, good dogs and little imps – for almost her whole life and she missed not having one more than she could say. Waggy tails and woofs had been her world until she couldn’t manage to live on her own any more.

  Now she had to make do with the plants on her windowsill. The geraniums and begonias were thriving, and she talked to them every day, but they just weren’t the same as having a real-life pet.

  The staff liked the old people to be in their rooms early each night – it made it easier for them to tidy up – and Violet didn’t mind. She sat in her chair by the window and looked out across the grass. Then she remembered the bit of cake she’d saved from dinner for the birds.

  The windows on the ground floor at the home didn’t open as wide as normal windows for security reasons, but Violet’s window opened just enough for her to put her hand through and crumble the cake on to the narrow ledge outside.

  She knew the staff probably wouldn’t approve if they knew what she was doing. Health and hygiene … rats … She could almost hear them telling her off.

  Well, this time what the staff don’t know won’t harm them, Violet decided.

  She must have dozed off in her chair because it was getting dark by the time she opened her eyes. She looked out of her window and did a double take. She couldn’t believe it. There was a little dog standing there on its back legs and eating the cake she’d put out for the birds.

  ‘Oh my,’ she said. ‘Oh my goodness,’ and she pushed the window as far open as it would go. ‘Come on in,’ she said, and Echo hopped through.

  ‘You all right, Violet?’ one of the nurses said, tapping on her door.

  Echo looked up at Violet and Violet put her finger to her lips. If the nurse knew the little dog were here, she’d take it away.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Violet said shakily. ‘Quite all right, thank you. Just talking to myself. Night-night, dear.’

  The nurse shook her head as she headed back the other way. Violet had always seemed very with it. She hoped the old lady wasn’t starting to get confused.

  ‘Hello there,’ Violet whispered to Echo, as soon as the nurse had gone, and Echo wagged his tail. ‘I expect you’re thirsty. Let’s have a nice cuppa.’

  Violet made herself a cup of tea in the tiny kitchenette she had in her bedsit room, added two sugars to it and then poured some into a saucer for Echo.

  Echo had never had tea before, but he lapped it up with his little pink tongue while Violet sipped her own tea and nodded.

  ‘Nothing like a cup of tea to perk you up, is there?’ she said.

  Echo had finished his already. He sat down and held out a paw to Violet. His meaning was very clear to the old lady and Violet understood perfectly that Echo wanted more.

  ‘And eggs,’ Violet said. ‘They’re good too.’

  She looked in her mini fridge and Echo came to investigate too. But she didn’t have any eggs in there, just milk. Violet had most of her meals in the dining room with the other residents at the home, although she did have a small hotplate and saucepan for heating up soup and milky drinks. She’d hardly ever used it in the past year.

  ‘Porridge,’ Violet said. ‘That’ll fill you up, little dog.’ She had oats and plenty of milk so she set about making Echo some sugary porridge in a saucepan on the hotplate while Echo watched her. Once it was done, she took the saucepan off the heat and spooned the gloopy mixture into a bowl. She put the saucepan back on the hotplate and waited for the porridge to cool. Echo whined.

  ‘I know you’re hungry,’ Violet said. ‘But you don’t want to burn your mouth, do you?’

  Echo sat down to wait, his eyes never leaving the bowl of porridge. At last, Violet decided it was cool enough for him to eat and set the bowl down in front of him.

  He ate it all up and licked the bowl clean while Violet smiled at him.

  ‘My little Tookie liked porridge too,’ she told Echo. ‘Especially if there was a bit of cream on top. Couldn’t give him too much though because he wasn’t a big dog. Only a little bit bigger than you. He was such a funny little thing. His curly poodle fur was almost the same colour as porridge.’

  Echo’s pink tongue came out to lick his lips.

  ‘My Walter wouldn’t touch oats, mind,’ Violet continued. ‘Acted as if porridge was poison if you put a bowl of it in front of him. But then Walter was a scavenging sort of dog and thought nothing of gulping down a raw rat.’ Violet shuddered at the thought.

  ‘So many dogs and cats and parrots and canaries over the years and all of them so different from each other with their own distinct personalities. I loved them all.’

  Violet’s eyes closed and she drifted off to sleep in her chair as she remembered the pets she’d loved. Echo lay on the rug beside her and went to sleep too.

  It was a while later when the nurse made her rounds and saw the light still on under Violet’s door.

  ‘You OK in there, Violet?’ she called, tapping at Violet’s door but not opening it.

  Violet blinked and looked down at Echo lying on the rug beside her. It hadn’t been a dream. The little dog was really here.

  The nurse knocked again. ‘Violet?

  ‘Yes, dear, just going to sleep. See you in the morning,’ Violet called back.

  ‘Sleep tight,’ the nurse said.

  ‘Don’t let the bedbugs bite!’ Violet replied cheerily. She used her walking frame to make her way to the bed and once she was in it she tapped the spot beside her and Echo jumped up on to it.

  Violet sighed with happiness. She didn’t quite know how she was going to keep the little dog a secret, but now it was here she very much wanted to keep it.

  The old lady drifted off to sleep with a smile on her fa
ce and didn’t give a thought to the saucepan she’d put back on the hotplate that was gradually getting hotter and hotter.

  She was so tired that she didn’t wake up as the smoke filled the room, but Echo did and he licked and whined and licked Violet’s face some more until the old lady woke up too.

  ‘It’s not time for playing,’ Violet said, but then she stopped talking and started to cough because of all the smoke.

  She threw back the covers and reached for her walking frame next to the bed. But, just as she took hold of the handles, a second wave of coughing shook her and, as she tried to grasp the walker, she tumbled to her knees instead.

  Echo barked and barked and ran to Violet, licking her face, wanting her to get up, but he wasn’t strong enough to lift her.

  ‘Do you hear a dog barking?’ one of the nurses in the break room said.

  ‘Sounds a lot like one to me,’ said another nurse and they went to investigate just as the smoke alarm went off. They wouldn’t have known the alarm had started in Violet’s room if Echo hadn’t kept on barking and led them to it.

  ‘What’s a dog doing in your …’ the first nurse started to say, as Echo came running over to them, frantic with worry for Violet who was still lying on the floor.

  ‘Oh, Violet!’ the second nurse said, as they ran into the room. One of them scooped Violet up and carried her out while the other nurse grabbed a towel and pushed the saucepan off the hotplate and turned the switch off.

  ‘We were only just in time,’ they said to each other, once they were safely outside.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for that dog …’

  The two nurses exchanged glances. Who knew what might have happened?

  Violet looked very small, fragile and a bit dazed as she sat in an armchair while the nurse who had carried her out held her hand. Echo sat on the other side of her and Violet rested her hand on his little head.

  ‘It’s all right, Violet, you’re safe now,’ the nurse said.

  The other nurse phoned the matron.

  ‘I’ll be there as soon as I’ve called the duty doctor,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Violet said to Echo, as she stroked his soft, furry head. Her throat was sore from the smoke and her voice was hoarse.