by Jenny Dale
He couldn’t stop trying to make sense of the few scraps of news that had come through. “What are we going to do?”
Bob took a deep breath. “I’m going to ring the police.”
“But we don’t even know where Mum is!” “They can put out a call to all cars to look out for her. That’s more than we can do, stuck here without transport.” He started to dial again. “Take it easy, Neil. Panicking won’t help. In this sort of weather, a few cars are bound to get stuck here and there.”
Neil couldn’t bear to go on listening. He went back into the kitchen. The few words of his mum’s phone call kept churning around in his mind. If only the battery hadn’t failed! There was a spare in the office. She should have taken it with her.
Then Neil started to think. If his mum was stuck, if Emily was hurt and something – Neil didn’t let himself wonder what – had happened to Jake, she might not be able to leave them to get to a proper phone. What could he do to help her? If someone took them the spare battery, then Carole could call the police, or an ambulance, or a breakdown service for the car, or whatever she wanted. But there wasn’t anyone to do it. Except me, Neil thought. And I don’t know where she is.
He considered the garbled phone call again. His mum had said, “. . . over the bridge and up the hill.”
The Cash and Carry was over the other side of Compton, across the river and about as far as it could be from King Street Kennels. The route Carole would have taken was well used, and if she was stuck there she could easily have found someone to give them a lift or take a message. But she hadn’t, so they were somewhere else. Carole must have had a reason to turn off the main road. Neil’s mind was racing with possibilities.
On this side of the river was a whole maze of minor roads and lanes, leading over the hills and dropping down again to rejoin the main road on the King Street side of town. What Neil’s mum had said would fit if she was up there somewhere. Neil swallowed, and clenched his fists.
“I’m going to do it!” he said aloud.
Just then Bob came into the kitchen; Neil wondered if he’d heard, but all he said was, “Stay by the phone, Neil,” and went outside.
Feeling like a thief, Neil crept down the passage to the office and slid the spare phone battery into his pocket. As he was putting his jacket and boots on again, Sam came padding up to him. His head was cocked and his tail waved hopefully. Neil stooped and patted him.
“Poor old boy, you’ve been stuck inside for ages. But you can’t—”
He broke off, and poked his head outside the back door. Since he had been indoors the snow had stopped completely. A pale, watery sun had broken through the cloud, and the surface of the snow glittered faintly. Neil thought it wasn’t as cold as it had been. He went back to Sam.
“OK, boy, why not?” he said. “It’s not so bad out there now, and you could do with a walk.” Sam needed his exercise like all the other dogs, after all. “Let’s go and find Jake, shall we?”
Cautiously Neil emerged into the courtyard, with Sam following him on a lead. He couldn’t see his dad, but he could hear barking from the rescue centre, and he guessed Bob was in there. Swiftly he led the Border collie across the courtyard and out through the side gate. He didn’t relax, or stop listening for his father’s voice behind him, until he was down the drive and out onto the Compton road.
To begin with, Neil turned away from Compton, along the road for a little way, and then climbed over a stile leading to a footpath. That would take him in an almost direct line to the area he wanted to search. Sam hopped deftly over the stile behind him, reminding Neil of how clever he had once been at Agility competitions. He stood beside Neil on the other side, tongue lolling, head up as if he was asking, “Which way now?”
The footpath itself was obscured by snow, but the outline of it, alongside a hedge, was easy to follow, and from time to time there were small yellow waymarks, intended for country walkers. Neil knew this terrain well, but it was almost unrecognizable under its thick coat of snow. He felt thankful for the friendly dog trotting along beside him.
The smooth layer of fresh, untrodden snow covered uneven places in the ground, so Neil kept stumbling into holes he could not see. Snow trickled down over the tops of his boots and slowly began to turn his feet to lumps of ice. Once he slipped and fell. As he got up painfully, brushing snow off himself, he realized that he might get hurt. If he was stuck up here alone, probably no one would find him. He hadn’t even left a note. For a few seconds he stood still, shivering and looking back. Had he done the right thing? Then, swallowing his fear, he went on.
His determination renewed, the going became easier as the footpath joined a farm track, where there were wheel marks for Neil and Sam to walk in. Before it reached the farm itself, another footpath led off to a second stile and a lane. Its surface was unmarked; no cars had been along there recently, but at least it was more solid underfoot.
Neil felt a rising excitement. He was getting close now to the area where he might expect to find his mum, Emily and Jake. He led Sam along the lane, uphill, because they would need to cross the ridge of moorland that surrounded Compton on this side.
They had not gone far when Neil realized that the sun had gone. Grey clouds were massing overhead again, and flakes of snow began to drift down, growing heavier with every step Neil took. He glanced down at Sam, padding undaunted alongside him.
“Thanks for sticking with me, boy. Not long now,” he muttered.
As the bushes and trees on either side of the road thinned out, Neil became more conscious of the wind. It swirled snow in front of him so his eyes started to hurt as he tried to see his way. It drove snow into his face. His skin stung with it and his bare cheeks glowed bright red. He couldn’t feel his feet any longer, and his hands were starting to go numb. He wound Sam’s lead around his wrist, in case he should accidentally let go of the loop.
After what seemed like hours, but was probably less than fifteen minutes, Neil realized that the upward slope was levelling out. They must be up on the ridge. He swallowed a gulp of snowfilled air, and bent down to pat Sam.
Snow was matted in Sam’s coat, but the Border collie didn’t seem at all bothered. He gave Neil’s hand a friendly lick, and padded on into the wind. Neil began to wonder if he had been right to bring him.
He was finding it harder to see his way. The road stretched across the moor, with nothing on each side but a ditch. A few paces further on he tripped over a cattle grid, and barely saved himself from falling again. He kept veering from side to side, and only realized it when he saw the ditch open in front of him. Once he startled two or three sheep, huddling together in the shelter of a rock; they broke and ran off, bleating.
“Sorr-ee!” Neil cried after them.
Neil was so tired he could barely keep moving, but he knew it would be fatal to stop. People who were lost in the snow could lie down and go to sleep, and never get up again.
“We’re not lost, are we, Sam?” he said, to comfort himself as much as the dog. “We know where we are.”
He was beginning to feel really frightened, not for himself, but for Sam. How could he have been so stupid, to bring a sick dog out in weather like this? He should have known the snow would start again. He even stopped and peered round through the curtain of snow, but he could see nothing through the whirling whiteness. There was no shelter, and it was too late to go back.
As he went on, Neil realized that instead of walking correctly at heel, Sam had taken the lead. Instead of trying to guide them both through the snow, Neil started to follow. Straight away, the going was easier. He just had to keep on putting one foot in front of the other, shield his eyes as best he could from the driving snow, and let Sam find their way.
Soon they started to go downwards again. They crossed another cattle grid, and gradually more bushes appeared beside the road, sheltering Neil and Sam from the worst of the wind. It was easier for Neil to see, and he started to feel more hopeful; now he really might stand a chance of fi
nding his family.
Not long after, they came to a crossroads. There was no sign to give Neil any idea of which direction to take, and Sam seemed to want to go straight on. Neil was too tired by now to do anything except let him have his way.
But about a hundred metres down the road, Neil had to stop. In front of him was a tumbled wall of snow, reaching above his head. Neil wasn’t sure where it came from – blown there by the wind, or abandoned by a snow plough, or deposited like an avalanche from the hillside above. He only knew that there was no obvious way round it.
“Bad idea, Sam,” he said.
Together he and the dog slogged back up the hill. Going over ground they had already covered made Neil feel even more exhausted.
When he reached the crossroads again, he stooped beside Sam. The Border collie stood with his head down. His breath was coming fast, and Neil could feel a rapid heartbeat. It was vital to find somewhere the dog could rest.
As he straightened up, Neil realized something else. Although the snow was slackening off, he could not see more than a few metres in any direction. Darkness was falling. The thought of how stupid he’d been hit Neil again. In the dark he wouldn’t be able to find anything, not even his own way home.
“Left or right, Sam?” Neil asked. A lot depended on that decision. Sam just panted, obviously exhausted.
The left hand road looked as if it led up to the moor again. On the right the lane turned a sharp corner. Neil tugged on Sam’s lead.
“OK, boy. Right it is.”
This road twisted gradually downwards. Finally Neil came to a place where it seemed to zigzag back on itself and start leading back up.
“Oh, no,” Neil groaned. Was he never going to get off the moor?
He kept trudging on, Sam padding wearily at his heels. Then as he came to the next bend, he halted. After rising a little way, the road dipped again.
And below him, at the bottom of the dip, barely visible in the dying light, was the King Street Kennels Range Rover.
“Mum!” Neil yelled. “Emily!”
Energy flooded through him again. Slipping and sliding, he dashed down the road. Seeming just as excited, Sam bounded after him. The slope was so steep that Neil was only able to stop when he crashed into the side of the car sending a wodge of snow sliding off the roof.
“Mum?” he said uncertainly.
The Range Rover was tipped forward, with its front wheels in a ditch at the side of the road. The windows were frosty on the outside and misted up inside. Neil dashed snow out of his eyes and scraped a circle of ice off one of the side windows. He tried to peer into the car, but he couldn’t see anything.
“Mum!” he called, more loudly now.
He tried the driver’s door, but it was locked. So was the rear door on the same side. Neil floundered through the snow around the back of the Range Rover. The ground gave way under him as he slid into the ditch. In his fall, he grabbed the handle of the rear door on the other side, and it swung open.
Apart from some crates of dog food, the Range Rover was completely empty. Carole and Emily and Jake were gone.
8
For a minute Neil stood and stared at the Range Rover. He couldn’t think what to do. His plan didn’t cover this.
He tried to work out where his mum, Emily and Jake might be. Perhaps they’d left the car and tried to walk home, and that was how Emily had been hurt. But his mum surely had more sense than to try doing that in heavy snow, especially when they had a small puppy to carry.
More likely, Neil thought, they’d been picked up, by the police or by a passing driver. Maybe they were safe at home now, while he was stuck here. Neil groaned aloud. His mum and dad would be furious with him when he got back! But even that would be better than spending the night out here, and not getting home at all.
Neil used the car door to heave himself out of the ditch. Looking around in the gathering darkness he saw a spot of something bright on the snow further down the lane. “Stay, Sam,” he said.
Leaving the Border collie to rest by the car, Neil struggled down the lane until he reached the bright object. When he picked it up, brushing snow off it, he saw it was Emily’s crimson scarf. There were marks in the snow, too, though Neil could not make out what they were.
Just beside him was a five-barred gate; the snow was pushed away on the other side, as if someone had opened it recently. There were more marks on the hillside beyond, though the snow and the wind had partly erased them.
“Sam!” he called. “Sam!”
The Border collie came trotting towards him; Neil pointed up the hill. “Let’s take a look, boy.”
Sam squeezed through the space between the gate and the hedge, and scrambled away, scattering snow as he went. Neil clambered over the gate and struggled upwards in his wake, floundering in deep, loose drifts.
“Sam, wait for me!” he shouted.
Suddenly Sam was there again, pawing eagerly at his knees. Neil grabbed the lead. “You daft dog. What have you found?”
Sam let out a single bark, as if he was answering. Looking upwards, Neil could make out the shape of a building, black against the darkening sky. Hope surged through him, and died as he realized it wasn’t a house, just a barn or a shed with blank walls.
“Sam, that’s not—”
Neil’s voice was cut off as Sam’s bark sounded again, and as if in reply a light appeared ahead of them, by the dark building. Not light from a window; it looked more like a torch.
Neil took a few more paces, toiling up the hillside, feet slipping under him. Then he was flooded with relief as he started to make out the figure holding the torch, and heard a voice calling, “Neil? Is that you?”
It was Neil’s mum.
The barn was stacked with bales of hay. Carole had pulled some of them out to make a cosy nest where Emily sat with one leg stretched out in front of her. Jake was curled up asleep in a blanket on her lap. But what made Neil stand gaping, when Carole guided him into shelter, was the other dog, lying nose on forepaws, by Emily’s side. It was Denny.
“You’ve found him!” he exclaimed. “Is he OK?”
“Fine,” said Emily. “He’s lost his collar somehow, but he’s not hurt.”
“But what happened? What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you that,” Carole said. “Coming out in weather like this by yourself was really stupid. And bringing Sam. What if you’d got lost?”
Neil wasn’t going to tell her how close he had come, up on the moor. In fact, he felt so exhausted that he wasn’t sure he could tell the story at all.
Carole must have seen how tired he was, because she stopped asking questions, just pushed him further into the barn and closed the door tightly against the harsh weather outside.
“OK,” she said. “Our story first. But you’d better have a really good explanation when it’s your turn.”
She switched off the torch to save the battery and settled down in the hay beside Emily. Now the barn was dimly lit from windows high up under the roof. Neil collapsed on the floor on the other side of Denny. After so long out in the snow, the barn felt warm; he stripped off his gloves and pushed back the hood of his jacket.
To Neil’s relief, Sam seemed none the worse for his struggle through the snow. He shook himself, scattering snow everywhere, and flopped down panting, his tongue hanging out in a satisfied grin. Neil grinned tiredly back.
“Go on, Mum,” he said. “What happened?”
Carole began by telling Neil about the visit to Mike Turner, and how Mike had reassured them that Jake would be fine.
“Then we went to the Cash and Carry. That was fine, too. We bought what we needed and set off home. And that’s where our problems started.
“There must have been some sort of accident or hold-up on the main road, because there was a queue of cars stretching right back to the bridge. We were about half an hour just inching along. So when we came to the turn-off on to the moor, I decided to be clever and drive home by the back roads.”
She swiped a hand across her forehead, pushing away straggling dark hair.
“It was fine to start with. But the snow on the road was really thick, and even the Range Rover started to skid.”
“And we ended up in the ditch,” said Emily.
“So why didn’t you stay with the car?” Neil asked. “I was scared stiff when I found it and you weren’t there.”
“You can thank Jake for that,” Carole went on. “Emily and I got out to see if we could push the car out of the ditch. Not a hope, of course. We left Jake in the back, and then before we knew what had happened, he’d taken off down the lane.”
“I ran after him,” Emily explained. “And I fell and sprained my ankle.” She tried to move the outstretched leg, and winced.
“We’ll hope it’s just a sprain,” Carole said. “Anyway, I chased after Jake, and I caught him just outside here. He was yapping fit to bust. And just before I started to carry him back to the car, I heard another dog barking inside. I had a look, and it was Denny!”
“Jake found him!” A beaming smile spread over Neil’s face. “He’s a real tracker dog!” He stared at the sleeping puppy. “I don’t believe it!”
He guessed that Jake had just been feeling mischievous, but if his yapping had made Denny reply, that was good enough for Neil.
“So I helped Emily up here. I thought it would be warmer than the car,” Carole went on. “That’s when I tried to phone, but the battery was too low. I could kick myself for not bringing the spare with me.”
Neil felt a sudden warm flood of triumph. He had almost forgotten about the mobile phone battery in all the confusion of the journey, but now he pulled it out of the pocket of his jeans.
“You mean this?” he asked innocently.
Carole stared at it. “Neil . . . you didn’t? That’s unbelievable! I thought we were stuck here all night, for sure.”
She slid the mobile phone out of the inside pocket of her jacket, and fitted the spare battery. “Neil,” she said as she punched in their home number, “I think you’ve just got yourself out of trouble.”