by Ross Welford
He’s right, of course.
There’s nothing we can do but wait. And by then it might be too late.
It’s a strange feeling being there, in Dr. Pretorius’s control room, without Dr. Pretorius. I’ve always kind of been on my best behavior. You know: not poking around too much in case I’m on the receiving end of a sharp word or a slapped hand for touching something I shouldn’t…
And now, well, Clem is wandering around, up and down the old restaurant kitchen, going, “Wow!” and so on, poking at things and staring at the screens, which are showing different MSVR environments. It looks as though Dr. Pretorius was in the middle of working on something when she took her swimming break and left everything running, but there’s still no way I could launch the program properly.
Then Ramzy says, “Look at this!” and beckons me over. On the bench, next to the sink, is a wallet, which he flips open with one finger. There are bank cards inside, and he eases one out, still not picking up the wallet.
The name embossed on the card says:
MS. E. PETTARSSEN
Ramzy and I look at each other. “The missing billionaire,” says Ramzy. “Hiding in plain sight.”
Clem, meanwhile, has left the control room and I can hear his feet clattering on the metal staircase to the storage area. Ramzy and I follow him and reach the top of the stairs to hear him say a drawn-out “Whoooa!” of amazement.
In the middle of the concrete floor is the uncovered copter-drone, with a bucket seat attached, all ten arms bearing a pole with a rotor blade.
“Check this out,” says Clem, walking round it in exactly the way he looks at old cars on the street. He crouches down and places his palm beneath one of the drone’s arms. He lifts the whole thing effortlessly. He gives a low whistle.
“Three-D-printed graphene,” he says. “Super light and ten times stronger than steel.” He sees that I’m impressed by his knowledge and gives a shy half-shrug. “They’re making car parts out of it now. But this…” He shakes his head in admiration; then he points at a series of tiny square panels running down every arm. “Solar-powered too. This could fly forever.” He stands up again, hand on hips. “Forget about your dome. This is the future right here!”
“Do you believe us now?” I ask. “I mean, she’s a genius, right?”
He just smiles and says, “Maybe. But we can’t just hang out here until she gets back from the hospital. If she gets back.”
I sigh. He’s right, of course, but we’re not a happy trio as we let ourselves out of the dome and trudge back along the seafront. Without Dr. Pretorius to operate the FutureDome (which is how I now think of it), there’s no hope of enacting our plan—even if it could work.
The beach is still empty, except for a few kids playing in the sand. Away in the distance, a dog—too far away to make out the type—plays in the shallow waves like Mr. Mash likes to do, and it seems so normal that I smile. Perhaps it’s my scrambled brain, but I have momentarily forgotten that lone dogs will be shot.
And then, moments later, when we’ve turned off the seafront toward Ramzy’s street, there’s the sharp crack of a single gunshot.
We all flinch but none of us says a thing.
The three of us continue past the turnoff to Ramzy’s street, slouching along in silence.
Dad calls Clem to check on the progress of the campervan and Clem has to lie, saying he’s been working hard, and adding words like “fuel tank welding” and “drive shaft” and “split axle,” none of which mean a thing to me.
“I’ve got to get back,” Clem says, picking up his pace. “Dad wants to do a test drive this evening. He’s got a buyer coming next week and the whole thing’s still a death trap.”
He turns off toward the workshop, leaving me and Ramzy to do the quick double-back along the hedge to the barn. I don’t think Clem sees me.
This thing with the Jackpot ticket, and then with Dr. Pretorius and the ambulance and the dome, and finally the gunshot that nobody mentioned…it has all brought Clem and me closer than we’ve been in months, but I’m still not ready to tell him that I’m secretly keeping Mr. Mash in the barn.
The smell hits me even before I open the barn door. An unmistakable reek of dog poo and vomited blood that I smelt before at St. Woof’s, but this is much, much worse. I gag and hold my nose as I rush inside, leaving Ramzy at the door. Mr. Mash is lying on his side in a pool of blood and puke, and I know immediately that my worst fears have been realized.
“Mr. Mash! Mashie! No, no, no!” I cry, and—without thinking—I rush forward and kneel down in the mess to cradle his head. He wags his tail weakly but cannot get to his feet.
Then behind me I hear, “Georgie! What are you doing? Get away from him now!” Clem is yelling at me, horrified, with Ramzy beside him, both of their faces creased with fear.
The stupidity of what I have done strikes me instantly. Handling a dog with a deadly infection? I leap up as though electrocuted and back away from Mr. Mash, who struggles up from the floor. “NO! No, Mashie—stay away,” I sob. “I’m sorry, stay away. Stay!”
I’m not thinking straight and move my hand to my mouth to stifle a sob, only to have it whacked away, hard, with a broom handle, wielded by my brother.
“Owww!”
Clem is beside me, speaking so quietly and calmly that it terrifies me. “Go to the tap outside, Georgie. Go now. Do not touch anything. Do not touch your mouth or your eyes or anything, do you understand? Take off all your clothes and rinse everything off. What are you waiting for?”
My face crumples and—I’m sorry—I start crying. “Don’t wipe your eyes!” shouts Clem. “Move!”
He is furious and scared, and I’m rooted to the spot with fear, both for myself and for Mr. Mash. I start to take my top off, but Clem yells, “Stop! There’s blood on your top that could get in your eyes. Stay still.”
He pulls on a thick pair of rubber mechanic’s gloves and, grabbing a pair of garden shears from the wall, comes toward me. He sees me looking at Ramzy, who is still in the doorway. He pauses for a second. I think he realizes that—even in a life-or-death situation—I’m hesitating about getting undressed in front of my friend.
“Ramzy—go up to the house. The back door’s open. Grab some towels from the bathroom and some clothes from Georgie’s room. Quick!” Ramzy runs off, while Clem cuts me out of my clothes. I turn my back to him, but somehow being naked in front of my brother is OK—probably because I have bigger things to worry about.
“Have you any cuts on your hands?” asks Clem. I examine my hands under the running water from the hose. There are none. “Your knees, where you knelt down?”
There are none there either. I begin to feel my panic receding a little. There’s a five-liter container of disinfectant behind the barn door, and I slosh half of it over me, pouring it on top of my head and making sure it covers every bit of me.
“Does it sting anywhere?” asks Clem. I shake my head.
“Good—that means you’ve got no cuts or anywhere the virus could get in. That stuff hurts like heck if you get it on a cut. I think, Georgie, you’re OK.”
I start to sob with relief, and just let Clem hold me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ramzy coming back down the lane, his eyes furiously studying the ground so as not to embarrass me, which is nice of him.
“I’m sorry, Georgie. It’s all I could find. It was hanging on the back of your door.”
I’m cowering behind the barn door, and from the other side he hands me my fluffy spaniel onesie with the floppy ears and a tail.
I zip myself into the spaniel suit (matching slippers too—thanks, Ramz), while Ramzy and Clem use a brush and the rest of the disinfectant to clear up the bloody mess that Mr. Mash has produced. He watches them work, his head resting on his front paws.
He seems to say, I’m sorry about the mess, boys. I didn’t mean it. I
don’t feel very well, you see.
Then the three of us sit on the grass verge outside the barn. Clem has made a bonfire with my clothes (including my favorite jeans) doused in gas and they flame and smolder in a rusty iron firepit.
We don’t speak for ages, until at last I say: “He’s going to die, isn’t he? Mashie? It’s Dog Plague, isn’t it?”
Clem sighs. He puts his arm round me and squeezes. He says nothing: a nothing that means yes. I knew it was coming, but—strangely—it doesn’t make me cry again.
Instead, I swallow hard and look up the lane and beyond our house to the evening-blue sky and Mum’s tree bent over the horizon.
We’re all in it now. Me, Ramzy, Clem.
I have a dying dog in the barn. And once again—guess what?—it’s all my fault.
For the next three days, it’s all I can think about. I can’t tell Dad because that would involve the whole breaking-into-St.-Woof’s story, and who knows where that would end? And I’m certainly not going to suddenly open up to Jessica.
Nope. This is another secret I’m going to have to hold in.
And all the time the clock is ticking down to the day the government will start culling all dogs. We want to stop listening to the news on the radio or the television. I’ve turned off any notifications on my phone that would tell me what is happening. Because if it’s good news I’ll hear straightaway. If it’s bad news, I don’t want to know.
I spend most of the time in the warm barn, watching poor Mr. Mash shivering, stroking his ears with my thick gloves on. He doesn’t understand why he can’t lick me like he used to. He doesn’t understand why I have to keep him in the barn and hold on to his collar tightly when I come near him to stop him jumping up.
He doesn’t understand that he’s dying, and perhaps that’s a good thing.
He drinks a lot of water, and he pees a lot, but he’s been getting weaker and unable to get up to have a pee, so in the mornings when I come to see him he’s lying where the pee has soaked into the barn floor, and it stinks, and I start to cry again as I clean him up. I can’t remember the last time he wagged his tail.
He doesn’t even fart anymore. I never thought I’d miss his smelly gas, but I do.
I’ve hardly seen Dad. Jessica is still working crazy hours; Dad’s spending most of his time out in his pickup truck, visiting other campervan owners, buying spare parts. They’re piling up in the workshop, and I’m terrified he’s soon going to try to store some of them in the barn. I have taken the precaution of keeping the padlock key in my pocket instead of leaving it under the pot.
And as for Clem? He thinks I should just confess everything and get the vet to come and give Mr. Mash “the injection.”
We’re standing in the workshop when Clem says that, for perhaps the hundredth time, and I flip.
“You mean kill him, don’t you?” I shout. “Don’t you get it? That’s why I rescued him in the first place!”
Clem doesn’t really do shouting. He puts down his wrench and leans back against the workbench, shaking his head.
“It didn’t do any good, though, did it, Georgie? All the other dogs at St. Woof’s—they’re all asleep now in dog heaven, while poor Mr. Mash is puking and peeing and pooing where he lies, while we have to watch him. It’s cruel, Georgie.”
There’s nothing I can say. He’s right, of course. I know what I have to do. We stand in silence while the news plays on the radio.
“…experts say that a cure for the devastating Dog Plague currently sweeping the world remains elusive, and fears are mounting that any discovery will come too late to save millions of pet dogs.
“Meanwhile, more human cases of the disease have been confirmed…”
I can’t stop myself. It’s as if I’ve been taken over by another Georgie, as I snatch the little speaker unit from the workbench and smash it on the floor.
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” I scream, and stamp on the little box with my rain boot. Clem knows better than to intervene. He just turns away, back to the campervan, while I run out of the workshop and down the field to the barn and I burst open the door to Mr. Mash’s enclosure.
He’s lying there, and he wags his tail weakly as I run to him, forgetting all the rules, and I gather him in my arms, burying my nose in the back of his ears, desperately trying to locate his unique doggy smell but getting only disinfectant. I hold him, sobbing into his fur and saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over.
I don’t know how long I’m there. Eventually, I move away and sit with my back against the barn’s wooden wall and take out my phone. I swallow hard and scroll down my contacts to: REV. MAURICE CLEGHORN.
I rehearse in my head what I will say to the vicar.
I’m sorry, Vicar…
I know that you already know it was me and Ramzy that night…
I need the vet to come out to our barn…
She needs to…
I just can’t say it, even in my head. My thumb hovers over the vicar’s name. Perhaps if I just click and start the conversation, then it’ll figure itself out?
I rest my head against the wooden wall to think it through. I have been sleeping so badly lately that I find my eyelids drooping closed.
* * *
—
When I wake a bit later, the shadows in the barn are longer and my neck is stiff from my odd position propped up against the wall.
It’s my phone that has woken me. It buzzes on the dusty floor.
Coming over to see Mr. M.
I start to type a reply, but before I’ve finished it, I hear the wooden door rattle open and Ramzy is crouching next to me.
“Hello. You look awful.”
“Thanks, Ramz. I needed that.”
“Even Mashie looks better than you.”
“Hey, that’s a bit much.”
I look across at Mr. Mash who, for the first time in days, has sat up.
I get to my feet slowly. “Mashie?”
His tail thumps on the ground; then he’s on all four legs, straining at the string that holds him back. It’s more movement than he has made in days.
It’s not a recovery. It can’t be a recovery. I remind myself that he has a fatal illness.
But…can I dare to hope?
I message Clem and he comes straight over and stands, arms folded across his chest. He scratches his patchy beard, staring at Mr. Mash the way I’ve seen him staring at an engine as it ticks over. Clem never fell in love with Mr. Mash the way I did, but that’s not to say he doesn’t care.
Eventually, he says, “I’m no vet, but he definitely looks better.”
It’s not just my imagination, then. “How?” I say. “I mean—CBE: it’s incurable.”
He shrugs. “No idea. Don’t get your hopes up, Georgie. He’s probably not going to recover. But you never know. Perhaps Mr. Mash here…”
“What?”
Clem stares at Mr. Mash, who is still standing, his tail wagging.
“Well…,” says Clem. “Maybe he’s resistant to the virus for some reason. I mean, he’s probably not. But I dunno…his immune system or something might…” He trails off and shrugs.
“Is that even possible?” Ramzy says.
Clem is still looking thoughtful, and he shakes his head. “I doubt it. But I mean…what if he does hold the key? Deep in his blood or his cells or his DNA or whatever. Maybe our Mashie could…I dunno…?”
Another voice adds: “Save the world? Even if it’s true, it’s too late.”
All three of us swing round to see Jessica outlined in the doorway. I can tell she’s been watching us for a while.
“Kitchen,” she says. “Now.”
Everyone knows now. We sit around the kitchen table: me, Jessica, Dad, Clem, and Ramzy. In the middle of the table is yet another chunk o
f engine—Dad’s pickup truck this time, which has been acting up. On top of that is a long, narrow test tube, like a pencil, filled with Mr. Mash’s blood that Jessica has just extracted with a syringe.
We’ve told Dad everything about stealing Mr. Mash.
If I was expecting a huge telling-off, and grounding, and allowance-canceling, and calls to Ramzy’s dad, and the vicar, and the police, and all of that, well…it just didn’t happen.
(In fact, I could swear that Dad was smirking when I told him about the policeman falling into the poo pit. He was trying not to, and was turning pink with the effort till Jessica kicked him under the table. I think. Jessica certainly wasn’t smiling, but then that isn’t new.)
I point at the glass tube of blood on the table. “Now it can all end. Can’t it?”
Jessica sighs. She’s got her patient and slow voice on, like a teacher. “Listen, Georgina. This is all new—all new to everyone. Even if it turns out that Mr. Mash has recovered from CBE—which is very unlikely, impossible even—then…”
“We know he has!” I say. “You saw him!”
“It’s far too early to say. He may be having a period of remission, when the symptoms diminish temporarily.” She looks pensive. “Though I haven’t heard of that happening.” She shakes her head. “Anyway. It does not mean he’s cured. We don’t even know for certain that he had CBE. He was never tested. It could be…I don’t know, something similar.”
“Something similar?” I get up from the table so quickly that I knock the chair backward. “It was exactly the same! Everything!”
“Well, it’s a shame I didn’t see it,” Jessica says drily. “It’s a shame there are no witnesses. But…” She trails off and then picks up the test tube, holding it to the light.
“But what?”