She had her hand on Patrick’s shoulder now. Although he was still all aglow inside, he must have been shivering, because Mrs Brightwell suddenly noticed it. “Goodness gracious,” she said. “We’re standing here nattering away, and this poor boy is half frozen to death. We’ll have three loud cheers for Patrick, children, and then we’ll get him into a hot shower and warm him up. He’ll be needing some dry clothes too – we’ve got plenty in the lost property cupboard. Three cheers then for Patrick and his puppies! Hip, hip!”
Patrick walked out of the assembly hall that morning on Cloud 9, the three cheers and one for luck ringing in his ears. But the best moment of all was when he caught Jimmy Rington’s eye. He was looking somewhere between gutted and gobsmacked, which made Patrick feel he was up there and floating on Cloud 109.
Everything was a bit of blur after that. Patrick had the longest, hottest shower of his life in the teachers’ bathroom. He shivered all the cold out of him, and washed away the slime and stench of the canal. They found some clean, dry clothes, along with a school sweatshirt that was far too big for him, and a pair of trainers that were too small for him. Mr Butterworth found a cardboard box and a blanket for the puppies, and set it down by the radiator in Mrs Brightwell’s room, which was where Patrick spent the next hour or so, kneeling by the box, playing with them, watching them bask in their newfound warmth. He loved them licking his fingers and chewing on them. They had sharp little teeth, but Patrick didn’t mind.
There was one that Patrick loved at once more than the others, the fawn one. To Patrick he wasn’t fawn at all. He was golden, and his eyes were hazel brown and shining. But it wasn’t what he looked like that mattered most to Patrick. He loved him because every time he put his hand into the box, the fawn puppy was right there looking up at him, almost talking to him with his eyes. Patrick understood at once that this was the one who needed him most. So he talked to him, told him where he lived, about his mum and dad, about Swimsy, about how he’d always wanted a dog of his own, and now that he’d found one he was going to take him home, and they’d go up on the park where he could run as far as he wanted to, for as long as he wanted to, that he’d look after him for ever and ever. And Patrick knew the puppy was listening to every word, believing and trusting everything he said. That was when Patrick picked him up for the first time and took him on to his lap.
Patrick promised him then and there that he’d never ever let any harm come to him again, that he was his friend for life, his best mate for ever. He gave him a name too. He thought and he thought, but he just couldn’t come up with a name that seemed to suit him – Lucky, Jack, Bob, Rex, Henry, nothing worked – which was why, in the end, he didn’t give him a proper name at all. Instead he called him the only name that kept coming into his head, again and again, Best Mate. Best Mate seemed pleased enough with it, and Patrick was sure the puppy was already beginning to recognise his name every time he repeated it. And the more he said it, the more Patrick knew this was just the right name for him, that it suited him perfectly, because this dog was his dog, his best friend, nobody else’s.
Patrick didn’t know it, because no one had told him, but they’d phoned his dad at work. In fact, as it turned out, they’d called a whole lot of people. His dad and the police, the school nurse and a reporter from a local newspaper arrived all together. Everyone said how wonderful he’d been, which Patrick liked a lot, and everyone wanted to ask him questions, which he liked less. The policewoman was full of questions: about where exactly he’d jumped in, whether he’d seen the person who’d thrown the sack into the canal, or noticed anyone running away. The school nurse felt his head and took his pulse, and asked him whether he’d swallowed any canal water. She kept on asking him how he was feeling. Lots of them asked how he was feeling. So he told them. He said he felt fine, but that he wanted to keep Best Mate and take him home after school, that he knew he didn’t have room at home for all five. The others could go to the rescue centre, couldn’t they? He only wanted one, he was happy with one, just so long as it was Best Mate.
Then his mum came running in all of a fluster. They’d called her at work too. So by now there was quite a gathering in Mrs Brightwell’s office, and Bossy Boots was telling anyone who would listen about what had happened, about how lucky it was for Patrick that he’d been there to help him out of the canal. Patrick thought of telling everyone that actually he’d helped himself out of the canal, but he couldn’t be bothered – it just didn’t seem that important to him. All that really mattered now was taking Best Mate home with him and looking after him. His mum kept hugging and kissing him. Patrick wasn’t so keen on that, not with everyone else there. So in the end he turned and walked away. He was tired of all the talk, all the chatter going on around him. He wanted to be alone with Best Mate.
But they wouldn’t leave him alone. Within a couple of minutes he found there was someone else crouching down beside him. He had on a blue uniform and a peaked cap. He explained he was from the RSPCA. He spoke with a very soft understanding voice, the kind people use when they know you’re not going to like what they’re about to say – a bad news voice. He had come to take the puppies away, he told Patrick, and look after them for him. “We’ll find good homes for them all, Patrick. OK?” he said.
“I’ve got a good home,” Patrick replied. “So I can keep one of them, can’t I?” He looked up at his dad, “We can, can’t we, Dad?” But his dad wasn’t saying yes and he wasn’t saying no. He was looking down at the floor and saying nothing. His mum was biting her lip. She wouldn’t look at him either. That was the moment Patrick realised for the first time that they might not let him take Best Mate home with him.
His dad was crouching down beside him now, his arm around him. “Patrick,” he said, “we’ve talked about this before, about having a dog, haven’t we? Remember what we said? We can’t keep a dog in the flat. Mum’s out at work most of the day. You know she is, and so am I. It wouldn’t be fair on him. That’s why we got Swimsy instead, remember? You did such a brave and good thing, Patrick. Mum and me, we’re so proud of you. But keeping one of these pups just isn’t on. You know that. He needs space to play, room to run in.”
“We’ve got the park, Dad,” Patrick pleaded, his eyes filling with tears now. “Please, Dad. Please.” He knew it was hopeless, but he still wouldn’t give up.
In the end it was Mrs Brightwell who persuaded him, and that was only because he couldn’t argue with her. No one argued with Mrs Brightwell. “Tell me something, Patrick,” she said, and she was talking to him very gently, very quietly, not in her usual voice at all. “You didn’t save those puppies just so you could have one, did you?”
“No,” he replied.
“No, of course you didn’t,” she went on. “You’re not like that. You saved them because they were crying out for help. You gave them their lives back, and that was a truly wonderful thing to do. But now you have to let them go. They’ll be well looked after, I promise you.”
Patrick ran out then, unable to stop himself sobbing. He went to the toilet, where he always went when he needed to cry in private. When he got back, the box and the puppies had gone, and so had the man in the peaked cap from the RSPCA.
Mrs Brightwell told Patrick he could have the rest of the day off school, so that was something. His mum and dad took him home in the car. No one spoke a word all the way. He tried to hate them, but he couldn’t. He didn’t feel angry, he didn’t even feel sad. It was as if all his feelings had drained out of him. He didn’t cry again. He lay there all day long on his bed, face to the wall. He didn’t eat because he wasn’t hungry. His mum came in and tried to cheer him up. “One day,” she told him, “one day, we’ll live in a house with a proper garden. Then we can have a dog. Promise.”
“But it won’t be Best Mate, will it?” he said.
A little later his dad came in and sat on his bed. He tried something different. “After what you did,” he said, “I reckon you deserve a proper treat. We’ll go to the football t
omorrow. Local Derby. We’ll have a pizza first, margherita, your favourite. What d’you say?”
Patrick said nothing. “A good night’s sleep is what you need,” his dad went on. “You’ll feel a lot better tomorrow. Promise.” Everyone, Patrick thought, was doing an awful lot of promising, and that was always a bad sign.
From up in his room Patrick heard them all evening whispering urgently in the kitchen below – it was loud enough for him to hear almost every word they said. His mum was going on about how she wished they didn’t have to live in a flat. “Never mind a dog,” she was saying, “Patrick needs a place where he can play out. All kids do. We’ve been cooped up in this flat all his life.”
“It’s a nice flat,” said his dad. “I like it here.”
“Oh, well then, that’s fine, I suppose. Let’s stay here for ever, shall we?”
“I didn’t mean it like that, you know I didn’t.”
It wasn’t a proper row, not even a heated argument. There were no raised voices, but they talked of nothing else all evening.
In the end Patrick bored of it, and anyway he was tired. He kept closing his eyes, and whenever he did he found himself living the day through again, the best of it and the worst of it. It was so easy to let his mind roam, simply to drift away of its own accord. He liked where it was taking him. He could see Best Mate, now a fully grown greyhound, streaking across the park, and he could see himself haring after him, then both of them lying there in the grass, the sun blazing down, with Best Mate stretched out beside him, his paw on his arm and gazing lovingly at him out of his wide brown eyes. Patrick fell asleep dreaming of that moment, of Best Mate looking up at him, and even when he woke up he found himself dreaming exactly the same thing. And that was strange, Patrick thought, very strange indeed.
Best Mate was still lying there beside him, only somehow he looked much smaller than he had before, and they weren’t outside in the park in the sunshine, and his nose was cold and wet. Patrick knew that because Best Mate was suddenly snuffling at Patrick’s ear, licking it, then crawling on top of him and licking his nose as well. That was when he first dared to hope that this was all just too life-like to be a dream, that it might be real, really real. He looked up. His mum and dad were standing there grinning down at him like a couple of cats that had got the cream. The radio was on down in the kitchen, the kettle was whistling and the toast was burning. He was awake. This was happening! It was a true and actual happening!
“Mum rang up the rescue centre last night,” his dad was telling him, “and I went and fetched him home first thing this morning. Are you happy now?”
“Happy,” said Patrick.
“A lot, or a little?” his dad asked.
“A lot,” Patrick said.
“And by the way, Patrick,” his mum was saying as they went to the door, “your dad and me, we’ve been talking. We thought having a dog might make us get on and really do it.”
“Do what?”
“Get a proper house with a little bit of a garden. We should have done it a long time ago.”
And that was when the giggling started, partly because Best Mate was sitting down on Patrick’s chest now, snuffling in his ear, but mostly because he had never been so happy in all his life.
That same morning – it was a Saturday – they went out and bought a basket for Best Mate, a basket big enough for him to grow into, a bright red lead, a dog bowl and some dog food, and a little collar too with a brass disc hanging from it, engraved with his name and their phone number, just in case Best Mate ever got himself lost. In the afternoon they all walked up the hill through the iron gate and into the park, with Best Mate all tippy-toed and pulling on his lead. Once by the bench at the top of the hill Patrick and Best Mate ran off on their own, down to the pond where they scared the ducks silly, and then back up through the trees to the bench where his mum and dad were waiting. It was better than footie, bike riding, skate-boarding, kite-flying, better than all of them put together. And afterwards they lay down on the crisp autumn leaves exhausted, and Best Mate gazed up into Patrick’s eyes just as he had in the dream, so that Patrick had to squeeze his eyes tight shut and then open them again just to be quite sure that the whole day had really happened.
Best Mate grew up fast, no longer a cute and clumsy puppy, but a creature of astonishing beauty and grace and power, known and loved all over the park. Within the year they had found the small house they were looking for, with a walled garden at the back. It was nearer the park, but a little further away from school. That didn’t matter. Patrick’s dad dropped him off at the canal bridge as he always had done, and he’d walk along the tow-path past the sweet and sour smelling brown sauce factory and up the tow-path steps to the road, where Bossy Boots would be waiting with his lollipop stick.
Ever since Mr Boots had told his fib about helping him out of the canal that day, Patrick had always done his best to avoid him. But he had to cross the road every day, and when he did Mr Boots was always waiting, ready with some feeble joke or other about what had happened. “No dogs in the canal today, Patrick?” or “No early morning swim. Patrick?” And every time he’d laugh like a drain as he ushered him across the road.
In school they still talked about “The Great Puppy Rescue”. They’d all written stories about it and painted pictures too. These were still up on the wall in the front hall with all the sports cups and the school photographs, along with a cutting from the front page of the local newspaper, laminated and in big print so that everyone could easily read it. “Patrick’s Puppy Plunge” was the banner headline, and above it there was a photo of Patrick with Best Mate in his arms, with Mr Boots and Mrs Brightwell on either side of him, and a dozen other children around them, all grinning into the camera – except for Jimmy Rington, who wasn’t exactly glowering, but wasn’t smiling much either.
So the hero-glow hung around Patrick all that year, which of course he quite liked. No one called him “loser” any more. No one laughed at him any more. So sometimes he even looked forward to school these days. The little greyhound had changed his whole life around, at school and at home. Best Mate was always there with his mum to meet him when he came out of school every afternoon. So everyone got to cuddle and pet him. Maybe this was why the legend of The Great Puppy Rescue was not forgotten – after all Best Mate was there to remind them of it every day. All the teachers seemed to love him too. Mrs Brightwell in particular made a great fuss of him and Patrick loved that – it made him feel very special.
What he didn’t like so much was that Bossy Boots was now making out that he’d jumped into the canal himself to help rescue Best Mate. Worse still he was always trying to persuade Patrick’s mum to race him, that he was too good a greyhound to be kept at home just as a pet. He told everyone that Best Mate had champion written all over him. This of course only added to the sparkle of the legend, and it was a legend that was changing. The star of the legend had been Patrick at first, but it was Best Mate who was the star now. Patrick didn’t mind this in the least. On the contrary, as far as he was concerned Best Mate had always been the star. Every time Patrick came out of the school gates and saw him waiting there for him he felt so proud.
Stories went around the school – spread mostly by Mr Boots – of how Best Mate had been seen running up on the park at full stretch, how no one had ever seen a dog run that fast. Everyone knew that Patrick and Best Mate had become completely inseparable, how Patrick never needed to put him on a lead any more, nor muzzle him; how he’d walk close beside Patrick down the street, his cheek touching Patrick’s leg. As faithful and fond as a guide dog, Best Mate was instantly protective, and even fearsome if he ever felt that anyone, dog or human, might be a threat to Patrick. The gentle eyes would flash, the hackles go up along his neck and back, and every muscle in his body would be suddenly tense and taut, ready to spring. But it took only a word or a glance from Patrick to calm him down at once. They spent so much time together that each seemed to understand the other instinctively by now,
so much so that up in the park it was hardly ever necessary for Patrick to whistle for Best Mate, or call him back. He just came of his own accord.
At home and at school everyone could see how happy Patrick had become since the day of The Great Puppy Rescue. “Less anxious, less isolated, more outgoing, more confident,” Mrs Brightwell had written in her school report. And it was true. Patrick laughed more these days, joined in more. Every story he wrote in his literacy class somehow managed to involve a dog, usually a greyhound. But Mr Butterworth didn’t mind. Patrick was writing pages and pages these days, instead of just a scrappy paragraph or two. In most of the pictures he painted, you could find a greyhound somewhere. And his bedroom wall was covered with pictures and photographs of Best Mate.
Patrick spent every hour of his spare time and all his pocket money on him. He’d bring home chews or biscuits for him, whenever he went to the shops. He polished his name disc so that it gleamed, groomed him every evening, and even cleaned his teeth for him sometimes, so his breath wouldn’t smell. He’d make sure his food was just how Best Mate wanted it, but he would never stay to watch him eat it, because he knew Best Mate liked to do this in private. So he’d give him a pat and leave him to it. No one minded at all that Patrick had become one-track minded, because he was so obviously happy.
Settled now in the new house, Best Mate had long since outgrown his basket – they had completely miscalculated how big and tall he was going to grow. But they didn’t need to get another one, because he now occupied the sofa. A “giraffe-dog” Patrick’s dad called him. His mum didn’t mind too much because he was a clean-living dog. He left no hairs behind him, and brought very little dirt in from the garden or back from the park. He did bury his bones sometimes under the cushions on the sofa, but Patrick usually found those and got rid of them before his mum discovered them.
The Classic Morpurgo Collection (six novels) Page 13