Walker

by Shoo Rayner

  Walker pulled out a plastic bag. He put his hand inside the bag like a glove. He took a deep breath, reached down and put the bag over the poo and scraped it up off the grass.

  He tried not to think about it. About how it was still warm, how it was softish to the touch, how only a thin skin of biodegradable plastic stood between him and this little pile of dog poo. He turned the bag inside out and tied it up as tight as he knew how.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Stella, as she watched Walker deposit the bag in the bin by the church gate. ‘I hate that man, Arlington. Jenny is so scared of him. Being so close to him in the woods back there, I just couldn’t hold it in!’

  Walker thought of the ice-blue eyes that had made him feel so uneasy. ‘He is very bossy. He acts like he owns the place!’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ Stella laughed. ‘He does!’

  They arrived at the back gate of Number 36.

  ‘Why didn’t you speak to me before?’ Walker asked.

  ‘I don’t know, I suppose it seemed a bit odd talking to a human. But now I feel like I’ve always known you. As for that man Arlington… I just couldn’t stay silent any longer.’

  ‘It does feel a bit strange talking to you,’ Walker admitted, ‘but it also seems so natural, like you’re a friend.’

  ‘There you are!’ Jenny called across from her vegetable patch, where she was thinning out seedlings and weeding.

  Stella seemed to switch off and became a dog again. She winked at Walker, barked and ran to Jenny, bouncing around her, greeting her with little woofs, snuffles and licks, just like any other dog would.

  ‘She looks like she’s had a really good time. Thank you so much. Say thank you for my walk, Stella.’

  Stella woofed, ran back to Walker and jumped up for him to make a fuss.

  ‘She really likes you!’ Jenny smiled. ‘See you again tomorrow?’

  ‘I can’t wait!’ said Walker. There were so many questions he wanted to ask his new canine friend.

  Every day, after school, Walker got changed as quickly as possible, getting ready to take Stella for a walk. She was always waiting for him, bouncing up and down with excitement.

  ‘She knows when you’re coming!’ Jenny said. ‘About five minutes ago, she went and picked up her lead. She’s been carrying it around ever since, waiting for you to arrive!’

  When she was with Jenny and other people, Stella acted like any other dog. But when they were alone, Walker and Stella were just two friends, out for a walk together.

  Every day Walker threw sticks, or an old tennis ball, until they were both worn out, he from throwing and Stella from fetching, then they’d sit at the top of the hill, away from passers-by, and talk about what it was like to be a dog or a human. There were some things that humans did that Stella just couldn’t understand.

  ‘Why do people go to work?’ she wanted to know. Some of her friends were left alone all day, locked up like prisoners. At least Jenny was with her all day and let her out into the garden with her, even if she couldn’t take her out for walks anymore.

  Walker was fascinated by Stella’s sense of smell. Stella could smell a lamp post or a tree and know exactly who had been there before and when. More than that, she could tell if the dog leaving the smell was unwell. She could even tell their breed and what size they were – all by smelling their wee!

  One afternoon, while out walking with Stella, Walker was desperate for a wee himself, so he went behind a large oak tree where no one could see him. Stella had a good long sniff. ‘Mmm! That’s a very friendly smell,’ she said. ‘Did you have fish for lunch?’

  ‘We had fish fingers at school.’

  ‘And peas?’

  ‘That’s amazing!’ Walker laughed.

  Anyone watching would have just seen a boy talking to his dog, the way that boys do. They would not have heard his dog talking back.

  It’s a strange language that dog whisperers speak. It’s almost like the words they say have another meaning that only dogs can understand. It works the other way around too. All the yaps and barks and squeaks and growls have quite another meaning that only make sense to the special, chosen few, like Walker.

  Stella often talked about Arlington Wherewithal. She didn’t know why, but she knew that Jenny was frightened of him and that made Stella frightened of him too.

  ‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘the wind blows across from his house, and I think I hear the sound of dogs and puppies crying – maybe I’m just imagining it. But I do not like that man. I don’t think there’s a dog in the village that does.’

  ‘Ten pounds a week!’ Walker’s dad looked astounded. ‘Why, that’s over five hundred pounds a year!’

  Walker was feeling rich and successful, holding up the ten-pound note that Jenny had given him.

  ‘That’s a lot of money,’ said Mum. ‘You should open a savings account and not spend it all.’

  ‘I really want to buy something for Stella,’ said Walker, ‘and I need to pay Mr Bonus for the card in his window.’

  ‘Oh well, if you’re going to the shop…’ Mum checked in the fridge. ‘Can you get some milk while you are there?’

  It was Saturday morning. Anje was in charge behind the counter. She looked different out of school uniform. Her long hair was plaited round the top of her head and she wore an old-fashioned denim jacket with badges sewn all over it.

  ‘Hey, Walker. How are you doing?’ Anje smiled. She didn’t smile much at school. Sometimes it was easy to forget she was there, at the back of the class, working away quietly. But when she did smile … there was something about the way she wrinkled up her nose, and the sun had brought out her freckles, painting little brown flecks across her nose that made her look…

  ‘I-I’m good,’ Walker spluttered. ‘I-Is your dad here?’

  Anje shook her head. ‘He’s gone to the cash and carry to get more stuff. Can I help?’

  ‘No, I just came to get some milk,’ he said, picking up a bottle of semi-skimmed. He mooched around the rest of the shop. The pet food corner was full of Arlington’s Chumpkin Chunks.

  Walker examined the few pet toys on display. There was nothing special – just knobbly, rubber bones with bells in them, or dried-up, leathery chewy toys and something squeaky that a dog would destroy within five minutes.

  He’d just finished paying for the milk, when Mr Bonus bustled through the door. Walker perked up. He took a pound coin out of his pocket and placed it proudly on the counter. ‘That’s the pound I owe for my card.’

  Mr Bonus smiled and nudged Anje. ‘This is good boy! He’s good businessman!’ He turned to Walker. ‘Hey, you want to leave card up for two more weeks?’

  Walker shook his head. ‘I don’t think I could cope with more than one dog at the moment, but thank you.’

  Mr Bonus slapped his forehead. ‘Hey! Wait till you see what I got!’ He went off to his van and was soon back with more stuff.

  ‘You give me idea. If stupid people pay you to walk their dogs, they gonna want one of these too.’ He placed a box on the table and cut along the printed dotted lines, then he opened it up to make a display. Inside were balls on sticks, wrapped up in plastic.

  ‘This is good!’ said Mr Bonus, handing one to Walker. ‘Make you throw ball very far. Make dog do all the running. You take it easy!’

  Anje picked one out of the box and looked at it. ‘Can I have one for Boss?’ she asked.

  Mr Bonus furrowed his eyebrows. ‘Boss is guard dog, he not need exercise! Ha! You think I going to pay some dog walkie person to throw balls for Boss? Ha! Ha! Ha!’ Mr Bonus laughed till tiny tears squeezed out of the corner of his eyes.

  Anje sighed and tidied up the till receipts.

  The ball-thrower was the perfect present for Stella. ‘I’d like to buy one, please.’ Walker had money in his pocket now, and was in the mood to spend it. ‘How much are they?’

  Mr Bonus patted Walker on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry,’ he winked. ‘I give you a good price!’

  Boss w
as waiting by the wrought-iron gate as Walker passed by. Boss caught his eye, tilted his head and raised an eyebrow a millimetre. Walker replied with a similar motion and a nod of acknowledgement. They couldn’t have a conversation right there on the street, but Boss knew that he knew that they could if they wanted to.

  It all happened in a micro second. Any humans watching would never have noticed the exchange – unless they were a dog whisperer too.

  The day of the Village Fête was as crazy as always. Over the past few days, tents and marquees had gone up on the village green. Colourful triangular bunting was strung between the lamp posts and cars were parked all over the place. Tiny fairground rides were set up for the little children and there were coconut shies and tombola stalls down by the pond.

  Walker offered to help Jenny carry all her entries over to the judging tents. She was entering something in almost every category. Peas, beans, onions, carrots, tomatoes, an enormous marrow that Walker had to take over the road in a wheelbarrow because it was so heavy, and flowers of every description. He looked like a walking flower shop!

  Then there were the cakes and biscuits. Walker knew how good they were! He’d been walking Stella every day during the long, summer holiday. With no school, Walker and Stella spent most afternoons together. He would often offer to help Jenny with little jobs around the place, just so he could spend a bit longer with Stella. Every time they returned from a walk, exhausted from throwing and chasing balls and sticks, there was always a slice of cake waiting for him and they were all delicious!

  ‘Can I take Stella to the dog show in Foxley Fields?’ he asked her, placing a stack of cake tins on one of the long, wooden trestle tables in the tent.

  ‘Why, yes, of course!’ said Jenny. ‘She’d love it. She’s so good with you, I’m sure she’d behave herself.’

  Walker looked down at Stella, and winked. ‘She’ll be a champion!’ he smiled.

  Foxley Fields, which was usually so empty when Walker walked Stella, was packed with people and dogs. The little kids were running egg-and-spoon races, concentrating fiercely on their spoons. Some were actually holding their eggs on the spoons with a finger. ‘That’s cheating!’ Walker laughed to himself.

  Running lanes had been painted on the grass in white chalk. Proud parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and grandparents spilled onto the racing track, screaming at the top of their voices. ‘Pick the egg up, Poppet. Keep going… No! The other way!’

  The parents competed in the sack race, hop-hop-hopping along like demented Duracell bunnies, getting hotter and redder, until they collapsed over the finishing line in fits of giggles as their children jumped on top of them. Tug-of-war teams from the five surrounding villages limbered up – the tug-of-war was serious business!

  The dog show ring was a large rectangle marked out by ropes, tied to stakes in the ground. Walker had never been to this part of the fête before. Because his mum wanted to keep as far away from dogs as possible, he’d only ever been to the cakes and flowers contests on the village green.

  But this year was different. Now that he had Stella, his parents felt a lot more confident about letting him walk around the village on his own.

  ‘What do we do?’ Stella asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Walker didn’t want anyone to see him and Stella talking, so he tried speak without moving his lips, while looking in the opposite direction. He looked like a bad ventriloquist. ‘I think we have to go there first.’ He nodded at a sign.

  A man and a woman sat behind a table at the entrance to the ring. They watched Walker and Stella approach.

  ‘Hello!’ the woman smiled. She leaned over the table and took a look at Stella. ‘Who have we got here, then? Are you entering the show?’

  ‘This is Stella,’ said Walker. ‘We don’t know what to do.’

  ‘It’s very simple,’ said the man. ‘You need to choose which category you want to compete in…’ He leaned over the table to look at Stella. ‘I would put her in for the prettiest girl competition.’ He smiled. ‘She’s bound to win that! When you hear your name called, go into the ring with the others and line up. The judge is Mr Arlington Wherewithal. We’re so lucky to have him. He’s very important in the dog-judging world.’

  Stella growled and pulled away from the table, straining to drag Walker away.

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute!’ Walker chuckled nervously.

  ‘Ha-ha! Don’t put her in for the obedience category!’ the woman laughed.

  ‘I’m not going near that man!’ Stella hissed. ‘I don’t want him touching me! And I’m not going to enter the prettiest girl category either! That’s so sexist!’

  Walker didn’t feel too comfortable about meeting Arlington either, not after seeing him in the woods. They headed back to the table.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Walker told the couple. ‘We’ll just watch so we know what to do next time.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked the man. ‘It’s free for kids, and there are prizes too.’

  ‘I’m just looking after her,’ Walker said, as if that explained everything.

  There were stalls around the show ring, selling all sorts of doggy stuff. There were artists selling drawings of dogs and other pets. Another stall was heaving with plates and china stuff with pictures of dogs on. The dogs’ home charity had a table full of cards, badges and stickers.

  As the dog show got underway, an old man sitting on a straw bale shifted over to let Walker sit down. ‘She’s a pretty one,’ the old man said, letting Stella sniff his hand before he stroked the top of her head. ‘Are you showing her?’

  ‘No,’ said Walker, trying to think up a reason why. ‘She’s not been well.’

  The old man nodded. ‘Well, you’re looking bonny now!’ he told Stella in a who’s a good doggy sort of voice.

  The lady from the table entered the ring holding a megaphone. ‘First of all, ladies and gentlemen…’ she announce in her tinny, electronic voice, ‘…will you please put your hands together for our esteemed judge, Mr Arlington Wherewithal!’

  The crowd cheered and clapped as Arlington strode into the ring. He raised his bowler hat in greeting, to acknowledge the praise of the onlookers. Various enamel judging badges adorned the lapel of his white coat, that flapped open over his tweed jacket, red trousers and fancy leather boots.

  When Arlington came to examine the animals, the naughty dogs suddenly stood to attention, letting him poke and prod and feel for bits of fat that shouldn’t be there.

  Stella shivered at the thought of being manhandled by that man!

  The old man next to Walker watched the proceedings with his chin resting on his walking stick. He leaned towards Walker. ‘Arlington is so good with the dogs,’ he said. His face cracked into a smile. He pointed with his stick. ‘Look how they respond to him. He has them completely under his control.’

  ‘That’s because they’re terrified of him,’ Stella whispered.

  Arlington scratched his head and stroked his chin. He put his hands on his hips and looked at all the dogs again. In the end, he chose a fluffy white bichon frise and handed a rosette to the happy owner, a girl in the class below Walker at school. Her parents proudly took photographs of Arlington shaking her hand and shaking the dog’s paw.

  ‘Your dog is much prettier!’ the old man told Walker. ‘You should have been in there, you know? She’d have won it easily!’

  Stella growled and tugged her lead to pull Walker away. ‘What’s with all this pretty business?’ she whispered to Walker.

  ‘There’s a handsome boy category too,’ said Walker.

  ‘Oh!’ Stella snorted and rolled her eyes. ‘I suppose that makes it all right then!’ Her eyes darted about the field taking in all the activity. ‘What’s going on over there?’

  At that same moment, Anje took five minutes out for a cup of tea with Boss in the back yard. The day of the Village Fête was always busy in the shop.

  The shop was right in between the green and Foxley Fields, so she could hear a
ll the fun, music and laughter going on around her. But she was stuck behind the counter, selling ice creams and cups of coffee from their new automatic coffee machine.

  She drained her glass of water, ruffled Boss between the ears and went back in the shop to restock the freezer with Magnums and ice lollies.

  At the top of Foxley Fields, four young men were lifting up the front of an old car, while another was pushing a bale of straw underneath it. When the car was resting on the straw bale, they began unbolting one of the wheels.

  There was a lot of joking and laughter between them. One of them bolted on a new wheel. It had no tyre, it was just the metal rim. The others focussed on different jobs. They all knew what to do.

  One ran a long, thin piece of rope to the end of the field, then he tied something to the end of it.

  It looked like a stuffed, tartan, sausage-shaped bag with long floppy ears. Another of the team tied the other end of the rope to the wheel drum on the car. At the same time, the others built a sort of wall out of straw bales, leaving a gap in the middle for the rope to run through.

  One lad got into the driving seat and started the engine. He leaned out of the window and called down the hill, ‘Ready, Mikey?’

  Mikey raised an arm and gave the thumbs up sign. ‘Ready, Conn!’

  Conn revved the car engine and the drum began to turn, winding in the rope, so that the sausage at the other end streaked up the field, with its ears flapping crazily.

  ‘Rabbit!’ Stella yelped. She was off so fast that she pulled the lead clean out of Walker’s hand.

  Walker took off in pursuit. ‘Stella! Come back!’