Little Boy Lost

by Shane Dunphy

  ‘The one thing I had plenty of all my life was books,’ he explained. ‘My mother and my aunt had a huge library, and they taught me to read very young. I can’t remember not being able to read, actually. They soon discovered that when I was reading I was quiet, so they gave me any book I wanted.’

  ‘What were your favourites?’

  He shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘You’ll laugh.’

  ‘Why would I laugh?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘I liked Tolkien.’

  I could have kicked myself. Of course he’d love Tolkien. Here was a writer who had created an entire dwarf culture, and a network of diminutive characters who were as tough, as strong and as resilient as any of their taller associates.

  ‘I love his stuff too. Have you seen the films?’

  ‘Never much liked films. Only thing I ever really watch on telly is sport.’

  ‘Fair enough. The books are always better anyway.’

  ‘So I’ve heard.’

  I talked to Tristan about my concerns the following Monday, and told him of a plan I had.

  ‘He loves to read, and he loves fantasy stories,’ I said. ‘Maybe we could use that to get him talking.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I could give him a story, one with all the elements he likes, that might push a few of his buttons.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Tristan asked.

  ‘Well, let’s look at Lonnie’s life so far: he’s been ostracized, locked away for fear he’ll bring shame on his family, let down at every turn, made feel to different and ashamed of who he is… if there was a fantasy story that sort of combined all those elements, it might just open up something for him.’

  Tristan rubbed his chin.

  ‘And you propose to write such a story?’

  ‘I’d like to have a go at it, yes.’

  ‘And how will you get him to read it?’

  ‘We’re friends now, he and I. I’ll just tell him I’ve written something, and want his opinion on it, what with him being a big reader and all.’

  Tristan shrugged. I could tell he was a bit dubious. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘It can’t hurt.’

  The following lunchtime, when Lonnie came in, I handed him an A4-size envelope, with some pages inside.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I’ve been doing some writing,’ I said. ‘I’d like you to read it and give me your honest opinion.’

  ‘What if I hate it?’

  ‘Then say so.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘It’s a fantasy story. It’s called “The Wolf Boy”.’

  ‘Are there any dwarves in it?’

  ‘There are.’

  ‘Is the hero a dwarf?’

  ‘You’ll have to read it and see, won’t you?’

  ‘I’ll read it tonight.’

  ‘I’d appreciate that.’

  This is what I wrote:

  The Wolf Boy

  Part I

  Not so very long ago, and not so very far away, there was a great forest that stretched right across the land.

  In this forest there lived many different birds: the little robins with their red breasts, the big black crows with their deep voices, the tiny brown wrens with their stubby tails, the night-jars, who made their nests on the ground and came out only after dark, and the skylarks, with their beautiful sweet song. The forest was home to lots of animals too: the red-haired fox with his handsome face, the wise gentle badger, who lived in a great sett under the earth, the spiky hedgehog, all slow and snuffly, the quiet pine marten, who could climb trees just like a squirrel, and the mice, who came and went without a rustle.

  In the caves that could be found right in the heart of the great forest lived the dwarves, who mined for gold and silver deep down among the roots and the soil, and took sparkling diamonds and glittering emeralds from the rocks with their picks and shovels. By the river that ran along the western edge of the great forest dwelt the elves, who built boats of ash, kept hives of bees which made the most delicious honey, and tended great gardens of beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers. And in a clearing, under an ancient oak, in a little house with honeysuckle round the windows and doors, lived a little boy called Joseph and his mother and father.

  Joseph loved his life in the forest. He knew the names of all the birds, animals and plants, and spent his days playing in the long grass, climbing trees and fishing for brown trout in the clear waters of the Blue River.

  Joseph’s father was a woodsman. He was friends with the elves, whom he helped by cutting down trees for them to make into their boats. They gave him honey and fresh flowers for the table. The dwarves liked and trusted him, because he brought them logs to burn in their fires (sometimes it got very cold underground). They gave him tools they made with their nimble hands: a sturdy spade or a bright sharp knife.

  Joseph’s mother was a huntress. She caught wild rabbits and hares for the pot, and this was good for the great forest, because these animals sometimes grew too great in number and ate the young shoots until none were left. She knew all the wild berries that were pleasant to eat, the mushrooms that tasted nice and were safe to put in a stew, and which trees had sweet sap to make toffee.

  So the little family lived in great peace and happiness. The forest gave them everything they needed.

  One night in winter, there came a knock on the door. Joseph answered it, and there in the snow stood Brownbeard the dwarf.

  ‘Hello, Brownbeard.’

  ‘Hello, young Joseph. I would like to speak to your parents.’

  ‘You had better come in, then.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Joseph’s father got Brownbeard some bread and honey and a cup of tea.

  ‘I am here to warn you,’ said the dwarf. ‘Greyfang has come back to the forest with his pack.’

  Joseph had never seen his father look so frightened. His mother went and got her gun from the chest, and placed it by the door.

  ‘Who is Greyfang?’ Joseph asked.

  ‘Greyfang is the king of all the wolves in the land,’ Brownbeard said. ‘He is as tall as a horse, his teeth can bite through a tree trunk, and fire leaps from his eyes. He is a great and terrible wolf, and he is a man-eater.’

  ‘Once, when you were only a baby,’ Joseph’s mother said as the shadows grew long in the little house, ‘I was out shooting ducks on a frozen lake. I had you in a sling on my back. We used to have a hound called Gerret, and he was running out among the reeds and bringing the birds I had shot back to me, when I suddenly heard him whine. It was a noise I had never known him make before. I ran in the direction of the sound, and found Gerret lying on the ground, his throat torn out and a huge, snarling wolf standing over him as he died.

  ‘I knew it was Greyfang, for there was no other wolf of that size in the forest. He made to spring at me, but my gun was loaded, and I shot at him, hitting him in the shoulder. He turned, and fled back into the trees. It is said that he has never forgiven me for wounding him that day. I heard, shortly afterwards, that he had left the forest with his wild pack.’

  ‘At last he has returned,’ Brownbeard said. ‘I have seen him. Whitemane, our chieftain, asked me to travel across the forest to the dwarf outpost in the north. They have found a rich vein of jewels there, and have called for more miners to join them, the better to take the precious stones from the rocks where they lie. So, yesterday, before the sun had climbed over the top of the trees, I set out to help my cousins.

  ‘I walked all through the day and by nightfall I was still a long way from the mouth of the Northen Caves. Dark snow clouds were covering the moon, and Jack Frost was dancing on the branches of the trees all about – it was bitterly cold. I was thinking of making camp for the night, when I heard a commotion, as if many big dogs were fighting over a juicy bone. I followed the sounds, which led me to an open space in the trees. And there I found the wolves.

  ‘I hid behind a bush, do
wnwind, so they could not smell me, and I watched and listened. There were many, many wolves: big males with long shaggy fur; young pups who rolled and played in the thick snow; old females with wrinkled snouts. And in the centre of them all, fighting to the death, was Greyfang and a young male. They bit and tore at one another with their teeth and claws, and as they fought hundreds of yellow eyes watched them and countless voices howled and roared at the night sky. Long they fought, but at last Greyfang caught the young male by the throat, and that was the end of the fight. The clearing fell silent, and Greyfang, the blood of his enemy still dripping from his mouth, spoke to his pack. “Does any other among you wish to best me and take my place as king?” he growled, and there was not a sound from any of them. “I have brought you back to the great forest because it is time we claimed it as our own once more. The dwarves have grown fat and proud, the elves weak and vain. The men who walk under the trees are few, and will be little threat to us. The clearings and valleys are full of fat deer and plump rabbits. We can live here without fear. The great forest will be ours again.”

  ‘And then he threw back his big, grey head and howled long and deep, and the sound of it cast a shadow of terror across my heart. I abandoned my visit to the Northern Caves, and made haste back to my people with the news. Whitemane bade me warn you immediately, because it is well known Greyfang bears you no love, Huntress, for the hurt you dealt him.’

  Brownbeard finished his tea and said goodnight to Joseph and his family. The child was full of questions about wolves, for he had never seen one. There was not an animal in the forest that he feared. Even the wild boar, with its tusks and trampling hoofs seemed more frightened of him than he was of it. But his father hushed him, and told him it was time for bed. Joseph lay there as the candle burned low, listening to his mother and father whispering long into the night. He could not hear what they were saying, no matter how hard he tried, and as the moon poked its head above the trees outside, he fell asleep.

  The next morning, when Joseph awoke, he found his father sitting at the table, reading a note. Joseph’s mother was not there, and Joseph thought his father had been crying. That frightened him, because his father never cried.

  ‘Where’s my mother?’ Joseph asked.

  ‘She has gone hunting the great wolf,’ his father said. His voice was very quiet and sad.

  ‘That is good,’ Joseph said. ‘The others will flee when she kills their king.’

  ‘Go and draw some water to wash with,’ his father said in that same small voice.

  Joseph did as he was told.

  The huntress did not come back that night or the next. Joseph’s father sat outside the door of their little house waiting long into the night, but there was no sign of her. A week passed, and every morning Joseph leapt out of his bed to see if she had returned while he was asleep, but his father was always up sitting at the window, gazing out into the trees, fingering the sharp edge of his axe, and still she did not come. Joseph knew she was a great huntress, and that she had beaten Greyfang once before, and he tried to be brave. But he was just a little boy – he had not had his ninth birthday yet – and some nights he missed her so much that he cried himself to sleep.

  Two weeks passed, and Joseph’s father took to wandering far and wide during the day, seeking news of his wife. When he returned at night, he was often too tired to cook their dinner, so Joseph would cut slices of bread and heat some milk over the fire for them. The woodsman would sit and eat solemnly, his bearskin coat still about his shoulders and his axe at his feet. ‘The dwarves have not seen her,’ he would say, or, ‘No news from the elves,’ or, ‘The wolves are running. I killed one today.’ Then one morning Joseph awoke to find his father gone, and another note on the table.

  Joseph was not good at reading, and he had to try many times to read some of the words, and even then he was not sure he understood them all. But he did know what the note meant, even if he could not read every bit of it. This is what the note said:

  Dear Joseph,

  I have left to find your mother. I may be gone for some days. There is food enough for you for a week. Stay in the house and do not go outside until I come back. I will find her, I promise.

  I love you, and so does your mother,

  Father

  Joseph sat at the table, and cried for a long time. He suddenly felt very lonely.

  After a while, he got hungry, and he made himself a sandwich and drank some water. Then he pulled a chair over to the window, and waited for his father and mother to come home.

  When it grew dark, Joseph got a little bit afraid. He had never been in the house on his own before, and with all the shadows and the sounds from outside, it seemed to be much bigger and scarier than in the daylight. He tried to light a fire, because it had got very cold, but he had never done that before – his father always lit the fire when he came home from work.

  After a while, Joseph gave up, and climbed into bed. He tried very hard not to cry, but he did. He cried until he was too tired to cry any more, and then he fell asleep.

  Joesph waited by the window for three whole days, but his parents did not come, so he got out his toys and played with them instead. He looked at the pictures and tried to read the words in the big books his parents kept on the mantelpiece (which they usually would not let him touch). One afternoon, he ate a whole jar of honey with a spoon, and was sick afterwards, and the sick smelt of honey too, but didn’t taste nice. Because there was no one to tell him to go to bed, he stayed up as long as he liked; one night, he did not go to bed at all, but pulled some blankets onto the big chair and slept there. He woke up in the cold darkness, with the moon shining in through the window, and heard something snuffling at the front door of the little house.

  At first, Joseph thought it was his mother and father returning home. But as he listened, he heard scratching and sniffing, and he realized it was not them – it was an animal. He lay very still, barely breathing. At last, the noise stopped, and he knew that whatever it was had gone. Then, from very close to the clearing where the little house stood, came a long loud howl. Joseph had never heard a wolf howl before, but he knew what the sound was. He pulled the blankets over his head and lay there, shaking with fear, until he felt the first rays of the sun fall warm on his back through the window.

  Joseph lost count of the days he lived on his own in the house. One day, he opened the kitchen cupboard and there was no food.

  That’s okay, he thought. I’m not really very hungry.

  But he soon got hungry.

  Joseph was not a stupid child, and he knew how to find food in the forest. But his father had told him not to leave the house until he returned. So Joseph did not go out to get food.

  The next day, Joseph was so hungry he had a pain in his tummy. The day after that, the pain was gone, but he felt too tired to do anything. The following morning, Joseph knew that he had to find food to eat, or he would get very ill. He also knew that something must have happened to his parents.

  ‘I will go to the dwarves. They will help me,’ he said.

  So he put on his coat and boots, took a sharp, dwarfish knife from the chopping board, and went outside.

  The following day, Lonnie marched straight up to me.

  ‘What happens to that kid, Joseph?’

  ‘I’m working on the next chapter. I’ll have it for you soon.’

  ‘Write faster.’

  ‘Am I to take it that you liked the story then?’

  ‘When he was left all alone… you wrote that well. I remember being scared, like that.’

  ‘When your mum and your aunt died?’

  ‘And when I first moved into the house on the mountain. It was scary at night, sometimes.’

  ‘I’ll bet it was.’

  ‘In the big house, when I was lonely, I could open up this little window, and stick my head out, and I could smell the air and hear the cars, and there was sometimes the sound of people talking or dogs barking. Then I didn’t feel like I was all by my
self. But when I moved to the mountain – there was nothing. No streetlamps, no cars, no people… it was as though I was living in a big black hole, with nobody in it but me.’

  I laughed. ‘I think there might just be a writer in you, Lonnie Whitmore.’

  ‘Hurry up with chapter two,’ he said, and went to hang up his coat.

  24

  The unit seemed bizarrely quiet without Max. But it seemed positively dead when Annie did not come in on the second day of his sulking absence.

  The end of the week arrived, and she was still missing.

  ‘Well, she’s a hardy young one, and it’s not usual for her to miss days, but it’s not unheard of,’ Beth Singleton told me. ‘There have been one or two days when she got some really nasty bug or other, and couldn’t come in. I wouldn’t worry yourself about it. She’ll be back.’

  The weekend came and went, and Annie still did not come in to work. Max returned, however, giving me a wide berth. I was too worried about Annie by then to bother treading back over our row. I had told Sukie about it, and she had given him a good talking to, so I was off the hook, anyway.

  ‘D’you think one of us should go out there?’ I asked the gathered staff members at a team meeting that evening. ‘Maybe she’s really sick and needs a doctor. I wouldn’t trust that father of hers to get her medical help if she needed it. He’s more likely to call the vet and have her destroyed.’

  ‘William is probably fonder of her than any of us know,’ Tristan said. ‘He makes sure she is up and ready to come to the unit every day, and pays what money he can for trips and materials. He knows we’d take her and ensure she wants for nothing, but he gives anyway.’

  ‘I saw no love the few times I met him,’ I said.