The Dog Who Saved the World

by Ross Welford

  The chute isn’t long, but there’s a slight bend in the middle, and I have to push hard with my legs to propel myself upward. As I do so, my rubber-clad feet sink deeper into the composting poo, and I realize that I cannot get any farther.

  “Ramzy?” I call as quietly as I can. I can lift my eyes upward and see where I’ll be coming out. My voice travels up, too, and into the church. Ramzy hasn’t heard.

  Louder, I call, “Ramzy! I’m stuck,” and above my head, it echoes round the church interior. A dog barks. “Shhhh!” I say.

  “Ramzy!” I’m scared now, and scrabble some more with my feet.

  The smell is truly overpowering and seems to have taken over my whole nose and throat.

  “Help me!” I hear my words bounce off the stone walls inside the church: “Help me…me…me!” I hear a whine, which I’m sure is Mr. Mash. “I’m coming, Mashie!” I say, but I’m not going anywhere.

  And then I feel Ramzy’s hands on my legs. He has jumped into the poop pit and is shoving as hard as he can. Bit by bit, I find myself inching up the aluminum chute, till my head pops out the top, dislodging the square garbage can lid that covers it, and it clatters to the tiled floor, setting off a volley of barks.

  At least they’re still alive, I tell myself.

  With my legs free of the muck below, I can use my feet to push myself the last bit, and seconds later I’ve heaved myself out and I’m standing in familiar surroundings. I try to take a breath of my favorite smell, but all I can smell is the poo on my clothes, boots…everything.

  I had guessed that my arrival might set off some of the dogs, but I wasn’t ready for just how many of them would wake up and start whining and barking. The noise grows as I tiptoe out of the vestry and up the aisle to Mr. Mash’s pen and, in one swift movement, open his gate and go in.

  “Mashie! I’m here,” I whisper, and his tail starts its familiar full-bottom wag. “No, no, no tickling this time, Mashie. Come on, quickly.”

  I clip on his leash that hangs by the gate and bring him out, closing the gate behind me and heading straight back to the poop chute. I pass the quarantine section, where Dudley and Ben come to the front of their pens and watch us. Poor Sally-Ann’s there as well now.

  By now the barking has become a cacophony: all around me is a wall of yapping and I know I have to be quick; otherwise—

  As I come round the corner into the storage room, the main lights flicker on in the church, flooding everything with a white glow, and I hear a man’s voice—a policeman? I have no idea—shout, “Is anyone there?”

  I can’t wait. I lift up a startled Mr. Mash and hold him above the chute. He gives me an accusing look, but I have no choice. “Sorry!” I whisper as I drop him headfirst down the opening and he gives a startled little yelp as he descends.

  I can hear heavy footsteps coming up the aisle, and I try not to panic. I have to get in there as fast as I can, so I just dive. Headfirst. Straight down the chute, and I land with my whole head and shoulders submerged in the stinking morass, right next to Mr. Mash and Ramzy. I haven’t even got time to think about being disgusted; I just stand up in the half-composted poo and think to myself that I’m glad I kept my mouth shut. There’s dog poo in my hair and in my ears and it is every bit as totally disgusting as you can imagine, but I’m just not thinking about that, as every bit of me is wondering how I’m going to go back and get my other dogs.

  Ramzy stands next to me, fear written across his face; then suddenly he croaks, “Get down,” and pulls me with him. As we crouch in the stinking slime, the beam of a flashlight slices round the corner and comes into the churchyard from the front, sweeping a bright circle of light across the grass.

  “Who’s there?” says a voice. “Identify yourself. This is the police.”

  As I feared.

  We crouch lower, our noses about a millimeter away from the poo.

  The flashlight beam passes slowly over our heads. I’m holding my breath because of the smell, but I haven’t got long left.

  Then the beam comes back, even slower, and stops.

  “Stand up, with your hands in the air.”

  I’ve heard it said that, at times of great stress, your thinking becomes clearer. At this moment, I know for certain that if we are caught, and arrested, or whatever it is that police do with kids, then Mr. Mash will be returned to St. Woof’s and he’ll die.

  I am not going to let that happen.

  I’m also very aware that the whole dogs thing is my obsession. Ramzy is coming along for the ride, but it’s me who’s driving the whole thing.

  So it’s not really a choice, is it? Yet it’s Ramzy who makes the decision.

  Out of the side of his mouth, he murmurs, “I’m gonna make a run for it, Georgie. He can’t grab both of us, and that way you’ll get away with Mashie.”

  At this exact moment—knee-deep in dog poo, a flashlight dazzling our eyes—I know that Ramzy is the most loyal friend I could ever have. In the darkness, he reaches toward me and squeezes my hand. It should have been a lovely moment, a real bonding, only something squishes between our palms as he does so.

  The policeman says, “All right, climb out, very slowly. And no funny business.”

  We both stand up and start to clamber out of the pit.

  “Oh my good God,” says the policeman. The light is shining right at us, so I can’t really see him, but he’s standing about three yards away, aiming the flashlight beam first at Ramzy, then at me. Mr. Mash manages to jump out of the pit as well. The policeman’s radio crackles and he talks into it.

  “Two suspects, Sarge. Minors. And a dog. Round the back…and they’re covered in, well…I hate to think, Sarge. Bring gloves.”

  I recognize his voice. It’s the same policeman who told me to clear off from St. Woof’s earlier. I’m scared that he’ll recognize me.

  He takes a couple of steps toward us. “Right,” he says. “Who have we got here?” Without warning, Ramzy darts to the side and makes a run for it across the church lawn.

  “Hey! You little…come back!” But he’s too late, and realizes that if he chases Ramzy, then I’ll run off and he might lose both of us. So instead—and completely against our expectations—he turns back to me and grabs me by both shoulders before I’ve even taken a step.

  “Euch. What the…?”

  I am—as I think I’ve mentioned—absolutely covered in dog mess, and his grip slips at exactly the moment that Mr. Mash growls menacingly and advances toward him, showing his teeth. The policeman backs away.

  “Call your dog off, love. That’s an offense, that is.”

  “Mr. Mash,” I start to say, but Mr. Mash isn’t listening. Instead, he takes another step toward the policeman, his neck straining forward to the full length of the leash, and lets loose a volley of growls and barks.

  I can see what’s going to happen as the policeman backs away farther, and it takes just one final snarl from Mr. Mash for the policeman to stumble backward on the edge of the composting pit.

  “Ah…ahhh…noooo!”

  With flailing arms, he falls backward into the pit, landing awkwardly on his side, one hand plunged into the mire, his other scrabbling at the side of the pit.

  It’s our only chance. I turn and run as the policeman begins to climb out, but he’s sliding around and toppling over. Mr. Mash is way ahead of me. “Stop!” echoes behind me.

  I run and run, Ramzy joining us at the churchyard gate, and we keep running, through the new estate, down back lanes. All thought of the smell and the filth is banished by the single goal in my mind, which is to get as far away as possible.

  And then we go down an alley between two houses and emerge at the top field by Mum’s tree, and we can follow the hedge that runs down the side of the field with the cows. Eventually, I see our barn, and it’s only when we’re down there and have undone the pad
lock with the key that’s hidden under a plant pot and are safely inside, drawing rasping breaths, that we speak our first words since we started running.

  “Georgie…,” wheezes Ramzy.

  “What?”

  “You stink!”

  We both start laughing, and carry on laughing like maniacs, even though it’s two in the morning. I turn on the hose outside the dark barn and start the long process of getting us both, and Mr. Mash, clean.

  I keep thinking of Mr. Mash snarling at the policeman and my bedroom wall poster:

  Don’t bite if a growl is enough.

  Mr. Mash thinks the hosing down is great fun, and bites at the jet of water. I think, sadly, that it’s the last fun he’ll be having for a little while. He’s going to have to stay very well hidden.

  It’s only then that I realize that he might, in fact, be sick. I was so focused on saving him from being put down, I didn’t think about it. I say nothing to Ramzy, but just because Mashie wasn’t in the quarantine section doesn’t mean he hasn’t already got the disease.

  Well.

  I’ll just have to hope, won’t I?

  I can’t tell you everything that’s been going on in the last few days. There’s been just too much. We haven’t heard any more “cars backfiring,” though, which is a good thing.

  Mainly, Ramzy and I have been living our days in fear of a police car approaching either of our houses. What we did was pretty serious, especially the running away from an officer bit. We both know that we’ll be in big trouble. But we both also know that the police and practically everyone else who works in a uniform have got bigger things to worry about than a couple of kids in a pit of poo.

  The day after our St. Woof’s raid Ramzy messaged me.

  Pants and shoes drying out nicely under my bed though still a bit stinky. Aunty Nush & Dad suspect nothing. You? How’s Mr. M?

  I replied:

  Managed to machine-wash everything. Spent about a day in the shower. Mr. M doesn’t smell any worse than usual.

  Mr. Mash is staying in the barn, completely undetected, so I take him food in my backpack. It’s fairly easy to go down our lane toward the main road, and then double back just before the gate (I’m obscured by a big hedge), and so that’s what I do.

  I stay for about an hour, throwing a ball around the big barn, hiding in a pile of cardboard boxes till Mashie finds me, wagging his whole bottom with delight, and then I just sit there, scratching his tummy and trying not to think of the other dogs I had to leave behind.

  I wonder if he misses his friends. I wonder whether the awful thing that I cannot even write about has happened at St. Woof’s yet. I wonder what the poor vicar makes of everything. It all seems so unnecessary, putting them down. Mr. Mash seems fine.

  Sitting there, in the dusty barn, among the old rusty car doors, and a long exhaust pipe and other car junk, I jump a little when my phone buzzes with an incoming message. It’s the vicar: he says he’ll be coming round tonight.

  I leave the little window in the barn open to let in some fresh air because Mr. Mash has just let one go; then I close the door, promising to come and see him again soon. It’s not much of a life for him, but it is at least a life.

  Dad has the radio on in the workshop, and for the first time I can remember it’s tuned to a news station. No classic rock, which is Dad’s usual favorite, just Bad News: endless updates on the spread of CBE.

  “A’right, dear?” he says when I walk in. I think he’s lost weight. He’s pretty big, my dad, but his face looks thinner. “What you been up to?”

  I shrug in response. “Oh, you know—this ’n’ that.” He doesn’t appear to mind. Everyone’s in a strange mood, it seems. Dad sits on the side ledge of the campervan. He bites into a sandwich and offers me one. He shakes his head at the radio.

  “It’s getting worse,” he says with his mouth full, although I already know because I’ve heard the latest update, which announced that two people have now died in the UK, and other cases are suspected. This makes me nervous, in case Mr. Mash is sick. But if he is, he isn’t showing any signs of it. There are also now countless dogs dead from the virus, and several more have been shot overnight.

  “They were all strays,” says Dad, trying to comfort me. This at least means that the dogs’ owners are not upset, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling sad for the dogs.

  * * *

  —

  Later that evening, Clem and I are on the sofa, watching the television. It is like we’re in some sort of a daze.

  Round and around it goes: the same pictures from China, from France, from Canada, from everywhere. The same reporters cropping up, standing in front of hospitals or government buildings, or landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, and saying pretty much the same thing.

  “…the United States government has announced that the country’s reserve military force, the National Guard, has been put on full alert…”

  “…further cases of people falling victim to the deadly CBE virus have been reported in Mexico City, the Mexican government said today…”

  “…President Batushansky reacted aggressively to the massing of troops on his country’s border, and expressed his wish that the CBE crisis would not damage the ongoing peace process between the two nations…”

  I nearly jump off the sofa when I hear the doorbell. It’s the vicar from St. Woof’s, and I don’t think I have ever seen a grown-up so changed in appearance.

  Where once there was a pink-faced, healthy-looking man with a sparkle in his eyes and a friendly—even goofy—smile, there is now a shell. His shoulders sag, his face is an odd grayish color, and he looks as though he hasn’t slept in days.

  I’m terrified he’s going to say something about Mr. Mash. Ramzy and I might be feeling very pleased with ourselves for having dodged the police—but there’s still a dog missing from St. Woof’s, and the police will have told the vicar all about the previous night.

  “H-hello, Vicar,” I say, and he gives me a tight smile. Oh no, he knows, I think. He’s going to tell Dad.

  Dad is coming up the path behind him.

  “Maurice!” he calls. “I saw you go past. Come on in. Mind, it’s a bad business this, eh? I’m so sorry about your dogs.”

  “I can’t stay, Rob,” he says, his voice cracking with fatigue, or emotion, or both. “I wanted to give something to Georgie.”

  He fumbles in his pocket and pulls out a dog’s collar, which he dumps in my hands. “It’s OK,” he says. “It’s been sterilized.”

  I hold it up. The little round disc attached to the collar says DUDLEY and I grip it in my palm.

  “Poor old Dudley,” says the vicar.

  “Was…was he…?” I can’t even say it but the vicar knows.

  “He didn’t suffer one bit,” he says, shaking his head. “And you can take comfort that the last weeks of his life were made better by you and your wee friend.”

  I nodded. “Have they all…?”

  The vicar swallowed. “Yes, Georgie. It was the vet’s instructions. The risk was too great. They have all been put down.”

  I hear Dad gasp. “What about Mr. Mash?” he asks.

  That, I think, should have been my reaction. Isn’t it suspicious that I’m not more upset about Mr. Mash?

  “Yes—what about Mr. Mash?” I say quickly. It sounds unbelievable but Dad hasn’t noticed.

  “Well,” says the vicar. He’s taking his time, choosing his words carefully. “As I think Georgie already knows…”

  He’s looking at me steadily. “Mr. Mash was, ah…rehomed very recently. Two young people arrived with the intention of giving him a good home.”

  All I can do is nod. Dad nods too and says, “That’s good.”

  “I just hope they know what they’re doing,” he concludes. “And that they
don’t put Mr. Mash at any further risk. Or themselves,” he adds with extra weight. “It has been a devilish few days. The health authorities seem convinced that the British outbreak began with us at St. Woof’s. A breach of the sanitary regulations would be all that was needed to set it off.”

  I turn away and run upstairs.

  I collapse on my bed, letting Dudley’s collar fall from my hand onto the bedroom floor, and I just stare at the ceiling, unable to feel anything.

  Still, nobody knows that the whole thing is my fault.

  I wake up a little later to feel someone running their fingers through my tousled hair, which is very strange. I can smell the strong soap that Jessica uses at work on her hands, and when I open my eyes, she’s staring out my window. She’s never done anything like this before.

  Perhaps she thinks I’m still asleep. I hear her say, “I’m sorry, Georgie. I’m so sorry,” over and over again.

  Georgie. Jessica never calls me Georgie.

  I open my eyes and murmur, “Why? Why are you sorry?”

  She stiffens a little in surprise and pulls her hand away from my head. There’s a long silence. And I mean a loooong silence. I lie on my side and stare at the moon through my window. I hadn’t even closed the curtains, and it splashes my bedroom with shadows. A gray-blue light falls on the dogs on my duvet cover, and the puppy calendar that I get in my stocking every Christmas. “Jessica?” I say eventually. I hear her take a deep breath.

  I don’t turn round to look at her; I don’t want to make eye contact. She says the quietest, “Sorry.” I’m not even sure what she’s sorry for, but I say nothing.

  We stay like that for a moment; then she says, “It’s going to be tough. The next few weeks, months, years even. It’s going to be tougher than any of us have ever known, and I’m sorry I’ve not been able to do the one thing that I’m supposed to do.”