Dear Hound

by Murphy, Jill

  ‘Running about!’ said Rita briskly, as the three dogs she had been leading raced off to join Boris and Dixie.

  ‘You too, Alfie!’ called Jenny, pulling Alfie away from the gate by his collar. ‘Stretch those great long legs of yours.’

  They set off round the field, Alfie slinking along with them, inspecting the thick hedge for escape routes. He had noticed that there were areas further up the field that looked as if the hedge might be thin enough to shoulder his way through.

  Unfortunately, he hadn’t noticed the wire stretching between rough posts, set along the inside of the hedge all the way round the field. It was an electric wire, put there to keep cattle from breaking through the hedge in exactly the way that Alfie was planning to try. The wire was very rarely turned on, but on this particular day the farmer was planning to use the field for some of his cows and had turned it on only minutes before Jenny and Rita decided on their walk.

  Alfie set off at a brisk run towards a gap that looked worth investigating. Dixie ran after him, barking joyfully.

  ‘Glad you’ve cheered up!’ she called. ‘You can chase me if you like. I’ll pretend to be a rabbit then you can –’

  ‘AARK! AARK! AARK!’ Piercing yelps of pain burst from Alfie as his wet nose touched the wire. He couldn’t believe it. The fence had bitten him. He zigzagged in a frenzy from right to left, barking and yelping. Jenny and Rita were calling his name, trying to calm him down, but Alfie knew that he had to escape and the only way out was the way they had come in.

  He ran headlong at the huge, barred gate, which loomed like a mountain as he approached it at gathering speed – thirty, thirty-five and a final burst of forty miles per hour. Jenny and Rita clung on to each other, watching in horror.

  ‘He’ll break his legs!’ gasped Jenny. ‘He’ll never get over it.’

  But he did.

  Bunching his ultra-strong deerhound back legs at exactly the right moment and tucking up his front legs as neatly as a gazelle, Alfie sailed above the topmost bar with inches to spare and was out of sight within seconds, leaving Jenny and Rita speechless with shock.

  Day turned to evening. Jenny and Rita had spent the whole day searching for Alfie.

  First of all, they had taken the other dogs back to Jenny’s house and Rita had telephoned the police and the animal rescue centres, while Jenny began looking everywhere: around the farm buildings, in people’s front gardens and in the children’s playground nearby, finally arriving at the station-end of the road. On either side of the station was a small parade of shops called Station Row, consisting of a corner shop selling all the usual things, an Italian restaurant named ‘The Gondola’ and a flower shop, with buckets containing bouquets of bright chrysanthemums and dark red roses, ready wrapped for the train passengers to buy on their way home. The florist noticed Jenny peering into the station entrance and down the side alleys of the shops, and came out to speak to her.

  ‘You’re not looking for a lost dog, are you?’ she asked.

  Jenny’s heart exploded with joy. ‘Yes! Yes!’ she exclaimed. ‘A huge, grey dog – a deerhound.’

  ‘I’ve seen it, then,’ said the florist firmly. ‘It flew past here about – oh, two hours ago. I’ve never seen such a big dog – and so fast – just a grey streak it was.’

  ‘Did you see where it went?’ asked Jenny, her heart plummeting when she realized how long ago he’d passed by.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ said the florist. ‘It turned into the entrance to Hawkland Heath – it’s just along there.’ She pointed it out helpfully, and Jenny thanked her and hurried to take a look. She peered through the parking area into the dense woodland beyond, then hurried back to collect Rita and the van, so they could start looking straight away.

  They were there for hours, calling Alfie’s name until their voices gave out.

  ‘Are you going to ring the owners?’ asked Rita.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Jenny. ‘I’m sure we’ll find him. He must be here somewhere.’

  ‘But it’s getting dark,’ said Rita, ‘and the heath is huge. There’s miles of it. He could be right on the other side by now – you told me how fast a deerhound can run.’

  Jenny burst into tears. ‘We’ve just got to find him,’ she sobbed. ‘How can I ever face that young lad and tell him I’ve lost his dog?’

  In the early evening gloom, a pair of foxes emerged from their den and sniffed the air to make sure there were no humans around. Their names were Fixit and Sunset.

  ‘Don’t you just love the autumn?’ said Fixit as they trotted through the leafy carpet. ‘We’re the same colour as the leaves.’

  ‘So we are!’ agreed Sunset. ‘Now we’ll be able to hide even more easily.’

  ‘I think the weather’s on the turn,’ said Fixit, pointing his nose upwards and sniffing hard. ‘Look at those clouds.’

  Despite the perfect start to the day, a bank of ink-black clouds had suddenly appeared behind the treetops, moving fast in a sinister way, blown by a wind that had sprung up from nowhere. The branches were bending this way and that, sending showers of dry leaves turning and tumbling to the ground around them.

  ‘What a shame,’ grumbled Sunset. ‘I was looking forward to a nice warm evening out hunting, and now we’re going to get soaked.’

  ‘Not if we hurry,’ said Fixit. ‘It’ll be dark in five minutes. Let’s go and check out that parade of shops that backs on to the heath. The people at The Gondola often forget to put the lid down on their bins and there might be enough leftovers for us to grab a quick takeaway and get home before the rain sets in.’

  ‘Good idea, sweetheart,’ said Sunset fondly. ‘They don’t call you Fixit for nothing. Race you there!’

  There was one small van in the car park and Jenny and Rita were just climbing into it when the two foxes arrived.

  ‘Freeze!’ said Fixit. He and Sunset stood motionless in the bushes as the two exhausted women got into the van.

  Jenny sat down sideways in the driver’s seat with the door open, blowing her nose. She stood up one last time and leaned on top of the van. ‘Alfie!’ she yelled, her tearful voice whisked away by the rising wind.

  ‘It’s no use, Jen,’ called Rita. ‘It’s nearly pitch dark. We’ll have to go home. Let’s come out and try again at first light.’

  Fixit and Sunset watched as Jenny got back into the driver’s seat and shut the door. The headlights suddenly sliced through the darkness as the van crunched through the gravel and away down the short track that led to the street.

  Sunset looked at Fixit in the last remnants of grainy light. ‘I wonder who Alfie is?’ she said.

  ‘Well,’ said Fixit, ‘whoever he is, they’re really upset about him.’

  A full-force storm had blown up over the city; a really bad one, with continual flashes of lightning, followed by deafening thunderclaps. Fixit and Sunset slunk through the undergrowth to their den, doing their best to keep out of the sideways-driving rain as they hurried back home.

  ‘Such a good idea of yours, Fixit,’ said Sunset, licking her lips to catch the last morsel of Parmesan cheese from a pile of spaghetti Bolognese they had found in one of The Gondola’s dustbins.

  Now, as they turned in through the dense thicket of bramble and bushes which led to their den, both foxes froze.

  ‘Who’s there?’ growled Fixit in a low voice. ‘Come on out. I can smell you.’

  There was no reply in the rain-lashed, wind-howling darkness, but they both knew, by the scent, that another animal was there. They could also tell that it wasn’t a fox or, indeed, a squirrel or badger, or any other animal you might expect to find on a wild night-time heath.

  ‘Show yourself,’ snarled Fixit, taking a cautious step towards the strange smell. As the two foxes peered into the darkness, they could just make out the shape of a huge, hairy creature, dripping water, its head bowed, shoulders hunched, shaking from head to foot. A surprisingly small whimper burst from the huge shape.

  ‘Do you think it’s a horse?’ as
ked Sunset.

  ‘Doesn’t smell like a horse,’ said Fixit, moving right up to the shape and sniffing hard. ‘Anyway, it’s too small for a horse. It smells like a dog, but it’s too big.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask it what it is?’ suggested Sunset, backing away so that Fixit was between herself and the enormous quaking thing.

  Fixit relaxed. He could tell by the trembling and whimpering, and by the smell emanating from the huge thing, that it was terrified and would not attack them.

  ‘Come on now,’ he said, trying to sound firm but kind. ‘Pull yourself together and tell us what’s happened.’

  ‘What exactly are you?’ asked Sunset, peeping round her husband.

  The creature kept its face pointing at the floor, but raised its ears, twisted them together and flopped them over its forehead.

  ‘I’m lost,’ it said.

  ‘Yes, but what sort of creature are you?’ continued Fixit.

  ‘I’m a hound,’ mumbled Alfie – for it was Alfie who had run and run, escaping from the vicious fence until he felt far away enough to stop.

  Sunset jumped back in alarm. ‘You’re not a foxhound, are you?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘Of course he isn’t, dear,’ said Fixit. ‘My cousin from Kent told me all about foxhounds. They’re brown and white with floppy ears. You’ve got very strange ears, haven’t you?’ he continued, looking at Alfie’s ears, which were now raised and folded neatly on top of his head like a pair of tea-towels.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Alfie, his teeth still chattering with fright. ‘I can’t help it. My ears just do their own thing.’

  ‘Well,’ said Fixit briskly, preparing to enter the thicket. ‘Nice to meet you. Hope you find your way home.’

  There was a brilliant flash of lightning, lengthy enough for the two foxes to get a really good look at the pathetic, drenched bundle of misery hunched outside their front door. An ear-splitting crack of thunder made them all jump out of their skins. Alfie shuffled close to Sunset and leaned on her so hard that she almost fell over.

  ‘Steady on now,’ said Fixit. ‘It’s only thunder; it won’t hurt you. Off you go – your people will be wondering where you are.’

  ‘No, they won’t,’ sobbed Alfie. ‘They won’t know where I am. My boy and his mum sent me away and left me with a lady I don’t know. She took me to a field and the fence bit me. It was horrible! It bit me on the nose and it went on and on hurting. I had to get away and then the lights went out and the sky exploded and now I don’t know what to do. Please don’t leave me on my own. Please.’

  Fixit looked at Sunset and rolled his eyes. ‘We would invite you in,’ he said gently, ‘but you’re too big to get inside – you’ll just have to bed down here. Look, there’s quite a dry bit if you can get in deeper under this bush. We’ll be nearby in our den and the storm will be over by the morning. See that dark bit just along there? That’s our front entrance, so we won’t be far away. We can work out how to get you home first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Thank you,’ whispered Alfie, still trying to cuddle up to Sunset, who was much smaller than he was.

  ‘Come along, then, dear,’ said Fixit to Sunset. ‘We’re all soaked through.’

  ‘I can’t move,’ said Sunset. ‘The great big lump is sitting on my tail.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Alfie, not moving. He closed his eyes tightly again, hoping it was all a bad dream.

  ‘Now look here, old chap,’ said Fixit sternly. ‘You’re going to have to pull yourself together. Up you get. That’s it, back in under the nice dry bush – that’s right – and we’ll sort it all out in the morning.’

  Alfie crouched as low as he could and backed into the space the foxes had shown him.

  ‘You will come back in the morning?’ he whimpered. ‘You won’t just leave me here?’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ exclaimed Fixit. ‘Our home is right next to you – you can see the entrance from here. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a great big hound like you behaving like a puppy.’

  ‘But I am a puppy,’ explained Alfie. ‘I’m just big. It’s not my fault I’m big. I wish I wasn’t. I wish I was home with my boy. He lets me sleep on his bed sometimes. I’ll be so nice to our cat if I ever get home again.’

  He began to yelp and howl at the same time, making a noise rather like a sea-lion at feeding time.

  ‘Stop it! Stop it at once!’ ordered Fixit. ‘Or you’ll have to move on from here. It’s not the storm you have to worry about, my lad, it’s humans. There are lampers out on this heath at night, out to shoot us foxes.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Alfie, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to calm down. ‘You will come and get me in the morning?’

  ‘Don’t start that again,’ said Fixit, ushering Sunset towards the den entrance. ‘I’ve told you already. We’ll be back at first light – now stop your noise and go to sleep. Good night.’

  ‘See you in the morning,’ Sunset called over her shoulder as she entered the tunnel, followed by Fixit, leaving Alfie alone in the creaking, moaning, wind-torn wood.

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you, Charlie,’ said Charlie’s mum as they opened the front door to their house, home from their night away.

  Charlie suddenly realized that his mum was looking rather anxious.

  ‘What is it, Mum?’ he asked. ‘Has something happened?’

  They were still standing inside the front door. His mum had picked up the letters from the mat and was holding them tightly, looking at the floor.

  ‘Yes, it has,’ she said, looking up at him and trying to look like a person in control. ‘I’m afraid Alfie’s been lost, since yesterday morning.’

  Charlie’s mouth fell open in horror. ‘Yesterday morning!’ he exclaimed. ‘But that means he was out all night in that storm. He’s petrified of storms. He’s petrified of everything! He doesn’t even like the door banging shut – and he hates getting wet – he won’t go for a walk if it’s raining. Oh, Mum! Where is he? How are we going to find him?’

  Charlie’s mum put an arm round him and led him into the kitchen so that she could put the kettle on and make a reassuring cup of tea.

  ‘Now don’t you go getting in a state,’ she said soothingly. ‘I rang Jenny on the train home while you were having a snooze and she told me what happened. Unfortunately, that nice safe field I saw had an electric wire fence round the hedge because they sometimes keep cattle in there. Alfie got a shock from it and managed to leap over the gate. Jenny and her friend spent the whole day looking for him and they’re out again now, at this very moment, trying to find him. I’m sure they will. He’s so big now, someone’s bound to notice him.

  ‘Meanwhile, we can print some posters and go around pinning them up on the heath. He’ll be very easy to identify, especially with his ears half done.’

  The cat-flap banged and Florence barged through, miaowing and twining herself round Charlie’s ankles. Charlie picked her up and held her tight. ‘At least we’ve still got you,’ he said. ‘Don’t you go running off anywhere.’

  ‘Of course not,’ purred Florence, snuggling down in Charlie’s arms. ‘Why on earth would I want to do that?’

  Hawkland Heath was covered in a thick carpet of wet leaves after the terrible night before. Whole branches were strewn about, some of the streams had risen and overflowed into small lakes and in between everything was a layer of squelching mud.

  Fixit and Sunset crouched either side of Alfie under the bush where they had left him the night before. True to their word, they had come out at the very first paling of the sky to see if they could get rid of the enormous and rather embarrassing creature they had somehow got lumbered with. They had peered under the bush hoping he might have gone, but he was very much still there, hunched in the same shivering huddle, both ears curving sideways towards them, resembling a pair of Cornish wind-blown trees. (See earstyle number 3.)

  ‘Well, then,’ said Fixit in a rather forced jolly tone. ‘Here we all are again.’

&n
bsp; ‘Wind’s dying down,’ said Sunset, ‘and the rain’s stopped. I expect you’ll be feeling a bit peckish.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Alfie.

  ‘What sort of hound are you?’ asked Fixit, lying flat in front of the bush, so that he could see properly into Alfie’s face.

  ‘Perhaps he’s a type of anteater,’ said Sunset. ‘You know, a sort of anthound. He’s got a very long nose. Show us your tongue.’

  Alfie opened his mouth and rolled out his tongue like a rasher of bacon.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Fixit. ‘What’s your name, then? You must have a name. Mine’s Fixit, by the way, and this is my wife, Sunset.’

  ‘I’m called Alfie,’ said Alfie glumly.

  ‘Alfie!’ exclaimed Sunset. ‘That was the name those people were calling in the car park last night.’

  ‘Do you think they might still be there?’ asked Alfie hopefully.

  ‘Sorry, old chap,’ said Fixit, ‘they were just leaving when we saw them, but they did seem very upset that they’d lost you. Are you sure you’re a hound?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Alfie. ‘I think I might be a sort of loved hound.’

  ‘A love hound!’ laughed both foxes together.

  ‘No,’ said Alfie, ‘a loved hound. My boy used to call me his darling dear deerhound, so I suppose I’m a very much loved hound.’

  ‘Well, I’ve never heard of a “loved hound” before,’ said Fixit. ‘Anyway, hounds are always good at chasing things, whatever type they are.’

  ‘As long as you don’t chase us,’ warned Sunset.

  ‘Course I won’t,’ said Alfie. ‘I’ve taken a vow that I’ll never chase any animal ever again. Our cat, Florence, made me do it. I promised.’

  ‘I don’t know how you’re going to eat, then,’ mused Fixit. ‘You’ll have to go hunting if you don’t want to starve.’