Into the Wild

by Anh Do

  She was lying on her side, looking really sick. I bent down to give her one last hug, but once I had her in my arms I didn’t want to let go.

  I started crying and couldn’t stop. Mum let me lie next to her for a while, and then Kate lay next to her too.

  ‘Okay now, girls,’ said Dad. His voice sounded funny, like he needed to clear his throat.

  Dad loved Molly just as much as the rest of us. He was the one who found her as a puppy, lost and skinny by the side of the road. If it wasn’t for Dad, she probably would’ve died.

  All her life, Molly seemed to want to repay Dad for saving her. She had always been protective of him, going hunting with him and barking a warning if a snake or wild boar ever got too close.

  Dad gently picked Molly up, kissed her nose, and carried her out to the car.

  Mum hugged Kate and me really tight. ‘This is going to sound strange, girls, but you must be thankful for hard goodbyes. Because the hardest goodbyes mean that you’ve had a wonderful life together.’

  As we watched Dad drive her away for the very last time, I was thankful to Molly for being our friend and looking after us for all those years.

  I had a horrible thought. What if I never saw Mum, Dad and Kate again?

  No, no!

  I was being silly. They’d come for me soon, I was sure of it.

  I plonked down on the ground and began bawling my eyes out. Where was my family? Were they okay? Were they all together? Were they searching for me?

  Once I started crying I couldn’t stop. It was worse than the time I fell out of a tree and broke my arm.

  Puppy came over and started licking my face.

  It really tickled.

  ‘Stop it,’ I murmured.

  ‘Stop it!’ I yelled, but she kept going.

  All of a sudden, the licking made me laugh. ‘Ha ha ha . . . no, really stop it, puppy, I mean it!’

  I started scratching her behind the ear and she calmed down. I must admit, I calmed down a bit too.

  ‘I think I’m going to call you Puppy,’ I said. ‘I’ll ask Mum and Dad if we can keep you.’

  That was if I could find them.

  I looked up and down the river until I caught sight of a mountain in the far distance. After we’d crashed the car yesterday, I’d seen a mountain too. Was it the same mountain?

  There was only one way to find out.

  ‘C’mon, Puppy. Let’s keep going. Let’s go get Mum and Dad.’

  Puppy wagged her tail.

  ‘I just want one last drink before we leave.’

  We wandered back to the river’s edge. It was flowing really fast, making the shallows muddy, so I stepped out onto an overhanging tree root to reach the cleaner water. The root creaked a little bit as I bent down towards the water.

  Suddenly, the tree root snapped.

  I fell face first into the river, plunging beneath the surface! The strong current tumbled me head over heels. Which way was up? I began to panic and fought to remain in control. I opened my eyes and searched my murky surrounds for sunlight shining down. There! I fought upwards and burst to the surface, spitting water and sucking in air.

  I swam across the flow as it pushed me along, and flung out a hand for the bank. I managed to grab a clump of grass, and for a moment I thought I was saved. Then the grass ripped out of the ground.

  I thrashed my arms wildly to keep afloat, but the river was dragging me downstream fast.

  ‘Help!’

  Puppy was barking loudly, running along the bank, following me.

  But Puppy just barked back helplessly.

  My clothes and backpack weighed me down so much it was now impossible to swim, and hard just to stay afloat.

  Overhanging trees and branches flashed by above. I tried to grab hold of a few, but the water kept tearing me away.

  The water churned and tossed me about, and I gasped for air whenever I could. I was really panicking now – I wasn’t going to be able to stay afloat much longer.

  Up ahead, I spotted a vine dangling low.

  This is it, I thought. My last chance.

  As I hurtled towards the vine I kicked my legs and used all my strength to launch myself up.

  I grabbed the end of the vine and managed to wrap my hands tight around it. The water thrashed at my legs, but I held on as tight as I could.

  From the bank came a sound like a whole lot of dogs barking. What was going on? I could see Puppy jumping around like crazy.

  Suddenly three more dogs exploded out of the bushes in a wild flurry of legs, tails and teeth. They skidded to a stop at the edge of the riverbank, two of them barking loudly. The third, a labrador who looked like one of those guide dogs, had a long branch in his mouth. He stepped out as far as he could and lowered the branch towards me.

  He wanted me to grab it!

  I reached for the branch, but it was too far away.

  The dog dropped the branch and ran away. The rushing water snatched the branch and swallowed it up in a second.

  My hand slipped a little on the vine, and I jolted downwards. My backpack was sodden and heavy and I knew I could not hold on much longer.

  I was so happy when the labrador returned with a bigger branch in his teeth.

  Smart dog!

  He held it out to me and this time I grabbed it with one hand. Would the dog be able to take my weight if I completely let go of the vine? I didn’t have much choice. I released my grip and fell downwards with a splash, but managed to grab the branch with both hands.

  The labrador and another dog, a greyhound, started pulling and tugging. Their feet dug into the mud of the bank as they backed up, and I tried to help by kicking along with all my remaining strength. It took a mighty effort from all of us, but finally I reached the shore.

  I crawled onto the bank and collapsed, exhausted.

  From the dirt, I looked up in amazement at four dogs staring down at me.

  There was Puppy, a labrador, a greyhound and a funny-looking chihuahua, with a tiny body and a huge head.

  I’d just been saved by four dogs. Was I dreaming? Had I gone mad? It all seemed very real.

  Perhaps I was just like my poor old Molly, lost and alone, and these dogs had sensed my need and come to my rescue?

  ‘You guys saved me!’ I said, as I sat up in my dripping clothes. ‘I owe you.’

  The chihuahua wagged his tail frantically and began sniffing at my backpack.

  ‘Oh, you can smell what’s inside, can you?’ I unzipped my pack, and his oversized ears spun around like two radar dishes on his head. I pulled out some dried beef and gave them each a bit.

  ‘You’ve certainly earned this.’

  I noticed the greyhound was wearing a collar with a tag hanging off it.

  ‘Zip, is that your name?’

  He wagged his tail so hard that the whole of his body started wagging too.

  ‘Well, hi Zip. Thank you everyone.’

  The dogs stared at me like I was supposed to know what to do next.

  ‘Where are your owners?’ I asked them, wondering if they had been left behind just like me. ‘I suppose we all want to find our families.’

  I still had no idea where we were. Even less so, now that the current had taken me downriver. I had been holding onto a small hope that Dad would be able to follow my tracks – being a hunter, he was pretty good at that kind of thing – but after my plunge into the water, it seemed much less likely.

  ‘Do you guys know how to get back to the road?’

  The labrador barked once and sniffed the ground, then ran off into the forest. A few moments later he was back and barking more eagerly.

  ‘What is it, doggie? What are you trying to tell me?’

  He made off in the same direction, then paused and barked again.

  ‘Do you want us to follow you? Is that it?’

  The dog put his nose close to the ground as he made his way into the forest.

  ‘Okay, I hope you’re right! I’m going to trust that nose of yours
.’

  I slung my pack over my shoulder.

  ‘C’mon, guys! Let’s follow Nosey.’

  I had to jog pretty fast to keep up with the dogs, who bounded easily after Nosey.

  Even the tiny chihuahua sped through the forest with ease, bouncing up rocks and tree roots, then looking back with his radar dish ears swivelling towards me to make sure I was following.

  Once or twice when I fell behind, Tiny would bark, but it didn’t seem like he was telling me to hurry up. It seemed like he was saying slow down, you lot to the other dogs, to stop them racing ahead so eagerly. Despite being the smallest of the pack, I soon learnt that Tiny was pretty bossy and barked his high-pitched bark with pride.

  Zip was especially fast. That must have been where his name came from. But Zip was also very clumsy. A few times he accidentally overtook Nosey and veered off on his own, which caused Nosey to stop and bark until Zip doubled back. Nosey’s barks were slow and patient, reminding me of a dad calling out to his kids.

  One time, Zip ran right past all of us smack-bang into a tree.

  I sprinted up to him to make sure he was okay.

  ‘Are you alright, Zip?’

  But he just stared back at me, panting happily. I looked closely at him for the first time and saw that he had cloudy eyes.

  ‘Hmm, you can run fast, but maybe you can’t see so well?’

  As a test, I put my hand into my pack and pretended to throw out some meat.

  ‘Here boy, fetch!’

  The other three dogs watched my hand closely and must have realised I hadn’t thrown anything because they stood still. Zip, on the other hand, bolted after the imaginary meat, running full pelt into a bush.

  ‘Oh Zip, sorry! You really can’t see!’

  Zip continued sniffing around the bushes trying to find the non-existent meat.

  ‘Come back, Zip, I’ve got some food for you over here.’

  I really pulled out the dried beef this time and tossed it to the dogs. They gobbled it all up and then looked at me expectantly.

  ‘That’s all I’ve got,’ I admitted. ‘Let’s keep going.’

  Nosey turned and led the way once more.

  ‘We want to get back to the road, Nosey!’ I said, hoping he might understand what I was saying. ‘Make sure that’s where you’re taking us.’

  It made me think of the time when I was little when my family went to a country fair and Kate got lost. We eventually found her crying at an ice-cream stand. Mum explained to us that if we ever got lost again, we were to meet back at the start of it all, the entrance gate where we’d come in.

  That must be where they’d be waiting for me now! If I could just get back to the road and find our car, my family would be waiting for me. The car was my entrance gate.

  After about half an hour of jogging, a lot of which was uphill, I was so tired. I made it to the top of a rocky rise, feeling like my chest was going to explode.

  ‘Wait, guys . . . slow down,’ I called, but they kept on running.

  ‘STOP!’ I yelled at them, but even Tiny didn’t seem to hear me, his little chihuahua legs scuttling as fast as they could carry him.

  I plonked down on a rock, puffing madly.

  That’s when I noticed that, from this high point, I could see for a long way over the treetops. Way out over the surrounding forest and some fields.

  Were these the same fields I’d run through after the crash? They looked so different, marked with streaks of burnt, angry black.

  Then I saw it. Just a tiny bend of it – the road!

  Nosey came walking back from the same direction, leading the other dogs.

  Clever Nosey! I’d never know how he knew which way to go, but I didn’t care. He had led us back to the road.

  ‘Let’s go find our families!’ I told my doggie friends, then grabbed my bag and headed for the road. It was late afternoon and the sun would be going down soon.

  We had to hurry.

  As my four doggie friends and I all sprinted down the hill I had a sudden surge of energy, excited at the possibility of seeing Mum and Dad and Kate again.

  Then, as we neared the bottom of the hill, I saw why all the cars had stopped on the road the day before.

  The raging river I’d fallen into curled under what clearly used to be a big bridge . . . only now it was completely collapsed in the middle, burnt and blackened by some sort of explosion.

  It seemed like hundreds of cars were banked up at the bridge. I tried to spot our car.

  ‘Let’s keep going, guys, before it gets dark.’

  Stepping out of the forest we came upon a familiar-looking grassy field covered in clover.

  The clover! This was the spot!

  No matter how close we got to the distant line of cars, however, I still couldn’t see anyone around. The cars seemed empty. Abandoned. I started to worry that I wasn’t going to find my mum and dad here after all . . .

  By the time we reached the cars it was dark.

  ‘MUUUMMM!’ I called at the top of my lungs. ‘DAAAAD! KAAATE!’

  I was so tired but I didn’t want to stop.

  ‘DAAAAD!’

  As I walked along in the moonlight, I passed car after car with its doors flung open, luggage scattered all over the ground. It looked as though everyone had rushed out of the cars, like we had.

  Walking along with the dogs, I stepped over discarded clothes, books, photos and toys.

  There was food lying about, too. And as the dogs followed along, they’d stop every once in a while to eat something they found on the ground. Half a sandwich here, a squashed sausage there . . . it must have seemed like doggie Christmas had come early. I collected a few cans of drink and empty bottles along the way and put them in my bag.

  After a while I started counting the cars. There were so many. 72, 73, 74 . . . Still, I couldn’t see our car anywhere.

  Then I saw something that made me freeze in my tracks: a truck with a big blue moon painted on its front and sides. As I stared at it, my skin started to feel too tight on my body. I held my breath as I walked around it.

  There it was. Our car. Crumpled behind the truck.

  I could see straight away that there was no one inside, but I opened the doors just to make sure.

  No one.

  I slid into the spot on the back seat where I always sit, looking at my dirty footprints on the back of the driver’s seat from last week’s muddy shoes. Dad and I had been out in a field when a downpour had started. He’d put me under his coat as we walked back to the car. I had felt safe and protected.

  I found a half-full bottle of water on the floor and drank it all, then lay down across the back seat.

  The car smelt like Kate’s raincoat after a week in her schoolbag. Usually I’d have been gasping for air. But now, the smell was strangely comforting.

  I shoved my face into the seat and closed my eyes. It was dark and cold.

  My family was gone. I was all alone.

  And as I lay there, I felt Puppy’s soft fur rubbing up against my feet. The other dogs clambered into the car with me too.

  We were all exhausted.

  ‘Kate, you smell!’

  I half opened my eyes to find a drooling pink tongue hanging a few inches from my face.

  It was not my sister’s.

  I sat up in a hurry and looked around me. Four dogs looked back. Nosey was curled up at my feet. Zip perched on a bag above me. Puppy was cuddled against my side. Tiny was standing on top of me panting and smiling.

  ‘It’s a little crowded in here,’ I said. ‘And you guys seriously stink!’ I opened the door and clambered out. The dogs followed, stretching happily in the morning sun.

  As I walked around to the back of our car, I stopped abruptly and gasped.

  There was no more road.

  Instead there was a huge hole in the ground where the road used to be. It must have been a bomb blast . . . and it had been too dark last night for me to see it.

  The dogs crouched at t
he edge of the crater, barking into the pit. I quickly grabbed Zip to make sure he didn’t fall in.

  Looking at their faces, I realised they were just as spooked as me.

  After the shock had worn off, we turned and walked away from that big, empty hole of nothingness.

  We had more important things to worry about, like finding food, so I grabbed two empty bags lying on the ground and headed off down the line of cars.

  ‘Okay you lot, who’s hungry?’

  In no time, we found old sandwiches, bottles of water, a few tins of ham, stale bread and some dried meat. Lucky for the dogs.

  ‘Hey you lot, settle down!’

  The dogs were running about everywhere, eating whatever they could find. Only Puppy stayed by my side.

  ‘Slow down, guys! We have to save as much food as we can until my mum and dad come back . . .’

  But I had no idea when that would be. There wasn’t a sign of anyone anywhere. Not a single person.

  Where had they all gone?

  I knew that other people had run into the forest, so why hadn’t I seen anyone? And why was no one back here at the cars? The stillness was spooky. I was grateful to have the dogs, or I would have felt really alone.

  I forced myself to continue on, opening up cars, trucks, wagons, one at a time, to check for food or water.

  As I pushed on the door handle of a small truck, the door suddenly exploded outwards, knocking me to the ground. A black shape launched out of the cabin and landed on top of me with a snarl.

  I was staring up at a mouth full of bared fangs, terrified.

  Without a pause, Puppy sprang at the black dog, and – although she was small in comparison – her courage was enormous. She knocked him off me and the two dogs transformed into a snarling, barking, black and golden mess of legs and fur and teeth.