by Anh Do
‘Puppy!’ I screamed. ‘Stop! Stop!’
Hearing the commotion, Tiny, Nosey and Zip ran back to us, howling hysterically.
A streak of red appeared on Puppy’s fur. I had to help her!
Looking around, I saw a big stick and, adrenaline rushing to my head, picked it up.
I raised it in the air, waiting for the right moment to swing at the black dog. As angry as I felt at the strange dog, I didn’t want to hit Puppy by mistake!
Then, before I even had a chance, Zip flashed past me and charged headlong into the fight.
Perhaps Zip’s head was hardened from running into things, because there was an almighty thump and the black dog went sprawling.
Zip quickly positioned himself in front of Puppy, like a brother protecting his younger sibling. The black dog staggered to his feet and shook himself, a bit dazed. They faced each other, growling, but neither seemed to want to attack.
‘Are you guys okay?’
Puppy ran back over to me. Her golden fur was stained red, but she seemed alright. I checked her over – there was just a small cut on her shoulder. Despite her size, she had not hesitated to protect me. I wondered what I’d done to earn this?
‘Thank you, Puppy.’
Zip and the black dog, a mastiff, continued to circle each other.
Finally, I took a step forward and the mastiff snarled.
‘Whooa, boy. It’s okay. I won’t look in your truck if you don’t want me to.’
I glanced past him into the cabin of the truck and saw that it was completely empty.
‘C’mon guys, we’ll leave this truck alone.’
As I led the dogs away from the truck the mastiff continued to stare at us menacingly.
We made our way up the line of cars and checked every single one. By late afternoon we’d walked up and down the line several times, collecting what we could, but always making sure we avoided the truck guarded by the mastiff.
There were eighty-one vehicles in total, and not a single person around except for me. Well, me and my dogs.
‘Alright, we’re going back to my car to sleep. It’s getting late.’
As we walked past the mastiff one last time, he whimpered.
‘Have you eaten anything, boy?’ I said, edging very carefully towards him as Puppy stuck hard to my side.
He didn’t look like he had. He could have found food like the other dogs, but for some reason it seemed like he didn’t want to leave the truck.
Without moving any further forward, I reached into the backpack and threw him a sandwich.
He gobbled it up eagerly.
Next, I poured some water into a pot and decided to risk getting a little closer to push it towards him.
After I’d stepped back, the mastiff tentatively approached the pot. Then, in a frenzy, he slopped it all up fast.
When he was done, something changed in his face. His eyes was softer now – not angry, maybe something more like worry? It seemed like the other dogs could sense it too, because they moved aside as he approached, allowing me to gently pat him on the head. He had a collar with a tag on it.
BRUTUS.
‘Hey, Brutus.’
His tail twitched just a little.
‘Okay, Brutus, you can come with us as long as you play fair, or you can stay here. It’s up to you.’
We walked off towards Mum and Dad’s car . . . and a few moments later, I noticed Brutus was following too.
I had adopted another dog.
In the morning, I woke up to the sound of a beeping horn and my first thought was people! People had come!
Then I saw that it was just Nosey leaning on the steering wheel.
What if no one was coming back? I really didn’t want to stay here forever.
I figured I had two options: either head back towards home, or keep following the road onwards.
We had driven for many hours that first night, and there had been nothing but forest along the road so it would take a long time to make the journey back. It might also be dangerous – that’s why we had fled in the first place.
In the end I decided to continue in the direction the cars had been heading. I also wrote a note just in case anyone came back while I was gone.
As I packed food and water into my bag, I realised that some of the sandwiches I’d found were starting to get mouldy. I really hoped we’d find some adults soon. They’d know what to do.
Our biggest challenge would be crossing the destroyed bridge.
Huge chunks of concrete had fallen down into the river and formed a kind of rocky pathway across the churning water. Maybe the dogs and I could clamber down and make our way across.
It was going to be dangerous, though – the river was rushing as fast as ever. One wrong step and any of us could fall into the water and be swept away.
But we didn’t have a choice; we had to try.
A couple of times the leap between the broken concrete was bigger than Tiny could handle, so I had to pick him up. At first Tiny was terrified of me picking him up, pumping his legs faster and faster while I held him, as if he was running on air. But he quickly started to relax. In fact, I got the impression he’d like me to carry him the rest of the way. Eventually we were all across safely.
I began our walk on the other side hopeful that there would be a town or other cars or something up ahead. Please, please, let there be some people, I thought to myself.
We walked for hours and hours, but found nothing.
The road curled around the mountain and just kept going. Forest and more forest on both sides of the road. No homes, no cars, no people . . . just trees as far as the eye could see.
Before I knew it, the sun was low in the sky.
We were all exhausted and hungry.
I sat down on the side of the road under a big oak tree and started feeding the dogs. They didn’t seem to mind eating the mouldy sandwiches.
‘Dogs have iron stomachs,’ I remembered Dad telling me once, after Molly had eaten my Barbie doll’s space helmet. ‘Just don’t feed them chocolate.’
I didn’t think we were likely to find any chocolate around here.
Where were we?
Then, despite all that had happened in the past few days, I suddenly felt more alone than I’d ever felt in my life.
I put my head down on the backpack and tried to hold back tears. I used to hate how Kate always ordered me around, but now I wished she was here to tell me exactly what to do.
The dogs curled around me. Their fur against my skin was comforting and we quickly drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, I woke beneath the tree with my pack of hungry, thirsty dogs.
I rifled through my bags to see what we had left.
What do we do now? Keep going and hope that we ran into some people? What if we found nothing? What if this road just went on forever? We could all die out here.
I screamed as loud as I could and the dogs looked startled.
The dogs stared at me as if to say . . .
‘No, you don’t count!’ I screamed at them. ‘You’re nothing but a bunch of dogs! I want my family. Now get lost and leave me alone!’
I turned away, trying so hard to hold back tears. I started back the way we had come. The dogs followed.
‘NO! Don’t you guys get it? I can’t look after all of you. GO AWAY!!!’
They just looked at me in confusion.
I screeched.
‘I don’t know how to look after you guys! Don’t you understand?’
But the dogs just kept on following. I remembered then that they had saved my life, and I owed them. I shouldn’t try to shoo them away. I just didn’t know what to do anymore.
Finally, I gave in. Let them come with me if that’s what they want, I thought. At least we won’t be lonely while we starve.
We walked all day, all the way back to the cars.
As the sun set, I rushed to our car to see if anyone had picked up the note.
No. It was exactly as
I’d left it.
The dogs ate what remained of the mouldy sandwiches and I gobbled up the last few slices of dried stale bread. I closed my eyes, praying that help would arrive soon.
It had been four days now, and we had completely run out of food – except for a couple of packets of biscuits that even the dogs wouldn’t eat. Very fussy, I thought. Must have gotten used to the good life!
What was I supposed to do, I wondered, as I munched on a stale biscuit. The dogs depended on me. They were all just regular dogs, used to being looked after and having someone feed them each day. They must have run from the cars too, I figured, and been separated from their families just the same as I had been. We were all in the same mess together.
Suddenly Nosey started barking loudly.
‘What’s up, Nosey?’
He ran towards some bushes.
Zip followed after him, both of them yapping.
I realised they were chasing something.
A brown-grey creature darted along the ground, zig-zagging through the grass. A lizard!
Soon all the dogs were chasing after it. Even Brutus lumbered along, taking his time to build speed until he was bounding powerfully.
Speedy as always, Zip surged to the front of the pack and had very nearly caught the lizard when it suddenly darted up a tree. The poor-sighted greyhound kept running at full pace and whacked his shoulder into the trunk.
The lizard scurried upwards to sit safely on a branch, looking down at the bunch of mad woofing dogs.
Why were they barking at the lizard?
Maybe they want to eat it? I thought. Gross! Then again, any type of meat would probably do for a dog. I’d seen Molly eat flies.
Alright then, if this is the only way I can feed you, so be it. These dogs had saved my life, so now it was my turn to look after them.
‘Don’t worry. I’m going to get you guys some food,’ I told the dogs.
I picked up a rock and threw it at the lizard, but I missed by a long shot. The reptile simply scurried higher up the tree and disappeared out of sight.
I remembered a book I once read about a girl who hunted with a bow and arrow. Suddenly, I also remembered that Dad had a compartment in the boot where he kept hunting gear!
I rushed over to look, but found nothing. Nothing, that is, except for a sling.
Slings are hard to use. Once when I was younger Dad had given me a go, but I was no good at it. I needed to find another weapon.
‘Okay, we’re going to look through all these cars for something to hunt with.’
I spent a couple of hours searching every boot, every glovebox, every truck cabin once more for something resembling a weapon.
But I found nothing. Nothing whatsoever!
So I went back to the sling. My father’s sling. He didn’t use it much, but he said it was worth keeping because you didn’t need to go to a shop to get bullets or arrows for it. All you needed were a few good rocks.
I’d seen him use it plenty of times, and he was really good at it. There was a leather pouch you could put the rock in, attached to two lengths of cord. One ended in a loop which went around your wrist, and the other with a flat tab that you held in your fingers. The idea is, you put a rock in the pouch and then swing the sling around until you are ready to let go of the tab and send the rock flying.
I knew it was a tricky thing to get the hang of, but I had no choice.
I picked a rock off the ground and placed it in the leather pouch. I aimed at a tree stump nearby and started swinging the sling around. When I thought the time was right, I let go of the tab . . .
The rock shot straight down onto the ground in front of me, sending up a puff of dust and barely missing Zip, who tilted his head at me quizzically.
‘Sorry, Zip!’
Wow, at least it was powerful.
I picked up another rock and tried to remember how Dad used it. He would swing it around again and again until he felt sure he had lined up the shot . . .
The rock zinged just past the tree stump.
The dogs barked in excitement.
I missed, but not by much. I began to hope that this powerful sling was going to get us some food, with a bit of practice.
I picked up a handful of rocks and tried again and again and again. Miss, miss, hit, miss . . . I moved back further and practised some more.
I also worked out that a certain size of stone was best – too light was hard to aim, but too heavy wouldn’t travel as far.
Then I picked up a bunch of smaller stones as I had seen my father do, and put all of them into the pouch. I swung the pouch and POW! The smaller stones didn’t hit as hard, but they sprayed out and covered a bigger area.
I set about collecting big stones and small stones.
A few hours later, I’d made five hits in a row. The old tree stump was dented all over and had lost several large chunks of bark. I’d not only improved my aim, but also the strength of the shot. I was no expert yet, of course, but I was feeling much more confident.
‘Okay doggies, let’s go!’
We ran back into the forest. Suddenly we all felt energised. There was a crackling in the air as we embarked on our first hunt.
Tiny’s radar ears swivelled suddenly and he took off after a dark shape in the undergrowth. What was that?
Another lizard? No, it wasn’t a lizard . . . it was a snake!
‘Tiny, come back! It’s a snake!’
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a stone. I whizzed the sling around and . . .
I missed as the snake slithered under a rock overhang.
Tiny stood outside it, barking and dancing about.
The snake poked its head out from under the rock and hissed at Tiny.
‘Come back now!’ I called.
There was no time. The snake was backed into a corner and threatening to strike. Tiny continued to growl and yap at the snake, confident he could take it on.
I pulled out another stone and took aim at the snake again.
Arghh! Another miss. My rock pinged off the top of the overhang.
Now the other dogs were running towards the snake, getting all worked up, wagging their tails and not realising the danger.
‘Come back! All of you!’ I ordered, but it was no use. ‘There are no vets out here if one of you gets bitten, you idiots!’
I had one chance left. I grabbed a bunch of smaller stones and loaded up my sling.
C’mon, Gwen, focus, I told myself. The snake reared its head, its fangs glistening with dripping venom . . . just then, Tiny – perhaps beginning to realise he was out of his depth – stepped back, giving me an opening.
I swung the sling around and around until I felt that the moment was right. I released the tab and
The stones flew through the air and one of them cracked the snake right on the head! I couldn’t believe it! The snake dropped to the ground and lay motionless.
My first kill.
I was relieved I’d protected Tiny, but I felt terrible as well. I’d never killed a creature before. This hunting thing was not going to be easy.
The noisy group of dogs barked madly at the snake, although they still kept their distance. I suppose there’s something about snakes – they’re scary even when they’re dead.
Nosey edged closer slowly and picked up the lifeless reptile in his teeth. He dragged it out from underneath the rock and dropped it at my feet.
Now that it was stretched out completely I was surprised by just how big it was.
Nearly five feet long and as thick as a cucumber.
I grabbed it by its cold, scaly tail and dragged it back to the road.
The fire crackled to life. We gathered around, soaking up the warmth.
With matches I’d taken from cars, and firewood collected by the dogs, we built a little fire by the road.
I’d cooked sausages and marshmallows on family camping trips, but never a whole animal before. Where should I even begin?
Sometimes Dad would catch a fish a
nd put it on a stick to hold over the fire. Then, after a while, he’d lift the skin off and we’d eat the white meat.
I tried doing the same with the snake. It had scales, right? So maybe the same method would work.
Weirdly, it looked like one huge long sausage, strung up over the flames. So, like a sausage, I turned it every now and then to get it cooked evenly on all sides.
Finally, I picked off some of the burnt skin and took a bite.
It tasted fishy, but not in a good way.
The dogs watched on with wide, hungry eyes.
I threw them hunks of snake and dropped the head into the fire to make sure no one ate it, just in case it was poisonous.
Looking at the dogs munching away happily at the chunks of cooked snake, I wondered if I’d been too quick to judge? I took another bite to see if I could get used to it. It was still yuck. So, I opened a packet of stale biscuits and ate those instead. They were dry and tasteless, but at least they weren’t snake flavour. I wondered if I would soon have no choice but to eat whatever we could catch. Snakes, lizards, even bugs? I tried not to think about it too much.
The dogs, on the other hand, munched away happily until the snake meat was all gone. Then Puppy came over to sit next to me.
‘Hello Puppy,’ I said, as I gave her a scratch behind the ears.
She looked up at me with the biggest, cutest eyes, as if to say,
I smiled and looked around at the rest of the pack.
Zip was curled up next to Nosey, who always looked out for his poor-sighted friend. They were very sweet together – maybe they had even been lost from the same family?