by Jean Ure
It wasn’t till Friday that our minds were set at rest. By then I’d chewed my fingers practically to stumps and Katy had twisted her hair into so many knots she couldn’t get a comb through it. Then on Friday afternoon when we got home Katy’s mum said, ‘Some horse person rang. A Mrs Broom. She wants you to call her.’
We rang immediately! Well, Katy did; I just listened. I didn’t even have to strain my ears. Like lots of horsey people, Mrs Broom had a really LOUD sort of voice.
She said she lived in a place about three kilometres away called Church End.
‘Don’t really have room for another horse,’ she barked. ‘But needs must. Squeeze her in. Good-natured, is she?’
Katy said earnestly that Rosie was the sweetest, gentlest horse there ever was. Mrs Broom said, ‘Great! That case, no problem. Call when you’ve got her. I’ll drive over and pick her up.’
By then, Katy was almost sobbing with relief. She tried to say thank you, but Mrs Broom cut her short.
‘No need for that. All in the same business. Love horses. Can’t stand cruelty. Keep it up! Doing a grand job.’
It is such a comfort when you come across people that think the same way you do.
On Saturday morning I told Mum that Katy and I were going to walk Sidney to save Mrs B wearing her knees out.
‘That’s nice of you,’ said Mum.
I didn’t tell Mum that we were being paid for it. After all, we would quite happily have done it for free.
‘Make sure you keep him on the lead,’ warned Mum. ‘You don’t want him running off.’
‘Mum, he’s too old to go running off,’ I said. ‘He’s nearly thirteen.’ That is well into middle age in doggy years.
‘Even an old dog can surprise you,’ said Mum.
What did she know? She wasn’t an animal person!
‘Hannah, please, just don’t take any chances,’ said Mum. ‘That dog is Mrs B’s only companion. She’d be heartbroken if anything happened to him.’
‘Nothing’s going to happen to him,’ I said. Honestly! Mums do fuss so.
Katy came whizzing out of her garden positively jubilant.
‘Look, look!’ She waved an envelope at me. ‘Dad’s money! He’s sent it!’
She opened the envelope and showed me: two ten-pound notes, all crisp and clean and new.
‘Twenty pounds!’ I did a little jig of excitement. ‘As soon as Mrs B pays us, we can go and rescue Rosie!’
I was a bit nervous about her carrying around so much money, but when I suggested that perhaps she ought to go back indoors and put it away with the rest she just gave a snorty sort of laugh, as if I was being ridiculous.
‘It’s perfectly safe. What d’you think? I’m going to lose it, or something?’
I didn’t like to admit that the thought had crossed my mind.
‘Don’t worry.’ She thrust it into one of the pockets of her jacket and pulled the zip. ‘See? No one can get at it there. Let’s work out a plan of campaign!’
We decided that what we would do, as soon as we had taken Sidney for his walk and got our fifteen pounds from Mrs B we would put all the money that we had collected into Katy’s bumbag and go off to Farley Down to rescue Rosie! We would take her away from that horrible place and give her to lovely Mrs Broom.
It seemed like such a good idea. But oh, it all went disastrously wrong! It was partly my fault and partly Katy’s. But probably more my fault than hers. I should never have let Sidney off the lead! Mum had warned me, and I had taken no notice. I’d thought that being an Animal Samaritan I knew best. Only I didn’t!
It was entirely my decision. Katy, very nobly, said afterwards that she should have stopped me but I expect I would only have argued. It seemed so safe! We were just pootling through the woods, with Sidney ambling along quite happily, stopping every now and then to investigate an interesting smell.
‘I really don’t see why he has to be kept on the lead,’ I said. ‘He’s not going to go anywhere.’
Famous last words … We were just approaching the path leading out of the woods and I was about to put Sidney back on, because of a road coming up, when a big gingery cat suddenly leapt out of the bushes and went streaking off ahead of us – with Sidney streaking after him.
Mum was right! Even an old dog could take you by surprise.
I shrieked, ‘SIDNEY!’ and went tearing after him. A car was parked at the kerb, with a woman pulling shopping bags out of the back. Just as she turned, her hands full of bags, the cat shot across her path and through a garden gate, Sidney panting wildly in pursuit. We watched in horror as he went walloping crash bang into the woman’s legs. Next thing we knew, the woman was sprawled face down on the ground.
While I grabbed Sidney, Katy bravely tried to help the woman to her feet. Bravely, because that woman was really mad! I suppose anyone would have been. One of her hands was bleeding, and lots of shopping had tumbled out of her bags.
‘I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!’ panted Katy, as she snatched up tins and bottles and oh, God! A carton of eggs, all smashed and dripping.
‘You ought to be sorry!’ snapped the woman. ‘Why was that dog not on a lead?’
Katy could have said it was because I had been stupid enough to let him off. Instead, she earnestly explained to the woman that we were walking Sidney for someone else and that we’d thought he was too old to go chasing after cats.
‘Well, perhaps another time you’ll know better!’
‘I am so sorry, I am so sorry …’ Katy was almost weeping. I just kept a tight hold on Sidney and tried to stop shaking. It was terrible, what had happened to the woman, but for a moment I’d been really scared that we’d have to go back and tell Mrs B we’d lost her beloved companion.
‘You know, don’t you,’ said the woman, angrily snatching one of her shopping bags away from Katy, ‘that it’s against the law not to have a dangerous dog under control?’
‘He’s not dangerous!’ sobbed Katy. ‘He wouldn’t hurt a fly!’
‘I’m sure he’d have hurt my cat if he could have got hold of him. If I were to report this to the police—’
‘Oh, please,’ I begged, ‘please don’t! He belongs to an old lady and he’s all she’s got!’
‘Well! Maybe I’ll overlook it just this once,’ said the woman. ‘But on two conditions … one, you never ever take such a chance again. And two, you give me a contribution to my cat fund. It would seem the least you can do.’
I think we would have agreed to give her whatever she demanded. Anything to stop her going to the police!
‘Very well,’ said the woman. ‘Just wait there.’
She went indoors and reappeared with a collecting tin that had the words CRUMBLE DOWN CAT RESCUE on it. She held it out.
Katy fumbled with the zip on her coat pocket. I saw her yank something out and stuff it into the tin. I was still too much in shock to say anything. I just wanted to turn and run!
‘Thank you,’ said the woman. She sounded a bit surprised. ‘That’s very generous of you!’
‘What did you give her?’ I hissed, as soon as we were safely out of reach.
‘I don’t know!’ Katy looked at me, stricken.
‘Count the money,’ I said. ‘Count the money!’
Katy had given the Crumble Down Cat Rescue the whole of the twenty pounds that her dad had sent for Rosie …
It was our darkest hour. We had been so close! We could have rescued our darling Rosie from her hell hole that very afternoon. Poor Katy! She was so distressed. I kept telling her it wasn’t her fault and that if I’d been the one holding the money I would probably have done the same. I didn’t really, honestly think that I would, but it had after all been me who’d let Sidney off the lead so it wouldn’t have been fair to lay all the blame at Katy’s door. She was still riddled with guilt.
‘I got in a panic,’ she wept. ‘All I could think of was having to tell Mrs B that the police had come and taken Sidney away! Or even worse, that he’d got run over!’ She
scrubbed fiercely at her eyes. ‘If Rosie dies it will be all because of me!’
‘Well, it won’t,’ I said, ‘because we’re not going to let it happen! We’re going to go and rescue her just like we said!’
‘But how?’ sobbed Katy. ‘We’re twenty pounds short! It’ll take ages to make it up!’
‘Wanna bet?’ I said. ‘We’ll have it by this afternoon! And then we can ring Mrs Broom and tell her to come and get Rosie.’
Katy sniffed miserably. ‘Where are we going to get it from?’
‘I’ll find a way!’
‘But h—’
‘Be quiet,’ I said. ‘I’m thinking!’
Ideas were fizzing through my head. I would take all my old clothes and all Benjy’s old clothes and I would go back to the market and sell them, and never mind if Mum did find out and go raving mad. Rosie would be safe! That was all that mattered.
Except, unfortunately, our old clothes probably wouldn’t fetch anywhere near twenty pounds. Not considering what they’d given us for my lovely china ornaments. We’d be lucky to get 20p.
Quick, quick, think of something else!
We could … go and sing in the shopping centre and have a cap for people to put money in!
We didn’t have a cap. And we couldn’t sing. They would most probably stone us.
Right! Well. We could …
‘We could collect it!’ I said.
‘C-collect it? How?’
‘Like the cat lady! She had a tin! That’s what we’ll do. We’ll get a tin and we’ll go into the shopping centre and we’ll stand there and shake it and people will give us money. Quick!’
We raced home as fast as we could, which actually wasn’t very fast at all. Sidney, safely back on the lead, simply dug in his heels and refused to be hurried. Without any cats to chase he just liked to amble and sniff and inspect every lamp post. We got there in the end and handed him over to Mrs B, who said that her knees were truly grateful for the rest.
‘I can’t tell you how lovely it is to have young people who are so reliable!’
We cringed a bit at that. We cringed even more when she beamingly pressed £15 into our hands.
‘There! Now you can go and rescue your poor horse!’
‘Do you think we should have told her?’ said Katy, as we walked back up the lane. ‘She might have given us some more money!’ She clutched, suddenly, at my arm. ‘We ought to go and tell her!’
‘No.’ I was horrified at the idea. Tell Mrs B that we had nearly lost her beloved dog? She would never trust us again! ‘We’ve made a plan, let’s just stick to it.’
I put my head round the back door and yelled at Mum that I was going round to Katy’s. I didn’t tell her that we were going into the shopping centre to ask people for money. I had a feeling it wasn’t the sort of activity a mum would approve of. You mind you don’t get arrested! Just take care you don’t get mugged! et cetera and so forth.
Fortunately Katy’s mum was out so we were able to ransack the cupboard for a suitable collecting pot without anyone asking awkward questions, such as, What are you doing with that tin of peaches?
‘She’s got loads of peaches,’ said Katy ‘She’ll never miss just one.’
We took the top off with a special posh tin opener that Katy’s mum has that doesn’t leave jagged edges. Then we ate the peaches (it seemed silly to waste them) and washed the tin out. Then we found one of those plastic lids they sell for putting on tins that have been opened and cut a slit in it with a thing called a Stanley knife that Katy said her mum used for cutting carpet. Wow! Was it ever sharp. It sliced through the plastic like it was paper. A lethal weapon, if you ask me.
‘Now we need some stickers,’ I said. ‘Two for us and one for the tin, so’s people know what we’re collecting for.’
This is the sticker we made for the tin:
HONEYPOT
HORSE RESCUE
Honeypot is the name of the lane where we live. It went really well with Horse Rescue!
For our own stickers Katy had a sudden burst of inspiration. On two large sheets of paper, in big, bold, felt-tip pen, she wrote:
PLEASE HELP US RESCUE ROSIE
A POOR SICK HORSE
Then she took two black bin liners, folded them in half, stuck the paper on them and fixed the bin liners to the front of our sweaters with safety pins. We were ready!
‘I’m going to take all our money with us,’ she said, ‘so as soon as we’ve made up the twelve pounds we can go straight over to Farley Down and rescue Rosie!’
I was a bit nervous in case we might get mugged, but Katy said she would not only put the money in her bumbag but would hide the bumbag under a woolly sweater that her gran had made for her and that she’d never worn on account of it being about three sizes too big.
‘See? Look! Nobody would ever know it was there.’
While we were waiting for the bus into town an elderly man came to join us. He was what Mum would call a whiskery colonel type. He peered at our tin and barked, ‘So what’s all this in aid of?’ I shrank back, treading rather heavily on Katy’s foot, and quavered that we were collecting money to save a sick horse.
‘Are you, indeed?’
He glared at us from beneath huge bushy eyebrows. I honestly thought he was going to start telling us off. I don’t know what I would have done if he’d barked at us again. I just suddenly felt like all the fight had gone out of me.
But then – oh, joy! He put a hand in his pocket, produced a bunch of 10p pieces and gestured at me to hold out our tin. Gruffly he told us that we were ‘Doing a good job! Hope this will help.’
‘Oh, it will,’ I said, ‘it will! Thank you so much!’
We both felt incredibly encouraged by this. Even Katy began to cheer up and talk about being able to rescue Rosie that same afternoon. I thought that if everyone was like the whiskery colonel we would make up the money in no time!
But then we hit the shopping centre and our hearts quickly plummeted. First we stood in one place and then we stood in another, rattling our tin with its 10p pieces. Nobody put any money in it. Nobody even seemed to notice us.
‘We should have brought two tins,’ I said. ‘Then we could have stood in different places.’
But Katy said she would be too scared to stand by herself and that it was more likely people would see us if we were together.
‘I think this is the best spot,’ she said. ‘Near the fountain.’
Well! If that was the best spot, I can’t imagine what the worst would have been like. A whole hour went by and all we’d collected was about 50p! I started rattling the tin really hard and calling out to people as they passed.
‘Help a sick horse! Please help a sick horse!’
A tiny child came wobbling over and made a simply huge display of giving us a 2p piece and then started whinging that we didn’t have a ‘sticky thing’ for it to wear. The nerve of it!
‘Honestly,’ grumbled Katy, ‘you’d think it had given us a fortune, the way it was carrying on.’
‘Spoilt little brat,’ I said.
Next thing we knew we had a rival. Another person with a tin came and stood right opposite us at the other side of the fountain.
‘Cheek!’ I said. ‘We were here first! Go and see what they’re collecting for.’
‘You,’ said Katy.
‘I’m shaking the tin! Do you want to shake the tin?’
‘No!’ Katy backed away, horrified.
‘So go and ask them what they’re doing here. Tell them to move somewhere else. This is our spot!’
Very reluctantly, Katy set off. She reached the girl with the tin and I saw her saying something and then I saw the girl with the tin give me this cold, haughty stare as if I were a horrible icky fur ball sicked up by a cat. Katy turned, and started back. On the way, she suddenly stopped and peered at the fountain. I mean, really peered. It was like she’d never seen one before. I waved at her impatiently.
‘Well! Did you tell her?’ I said.
‘Yes, but she said she was official and had every right to be there.’
‘So have we! It’s a free country, last I heard. What’s she collecting for, anyway?’
‘I don’t know, I forgot to look. Something boring. People, or something. Listen, you know the fountain?’ said Katy.
‘What about it?’
‘It’s got loads of money in it.’
‘Money?’
‘In the water. All coins. Just lying there.’
We exchanged glances. We didn’t have to say anything. We both knew what the other was thinking: it might SEEM like stealing, but if it was for Rosie …
Slowly, we moved forward.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘She seems to be going.’
‘Quick, quick!’ squeaked Katy. ‘Before she turns round!’
It wasn’t stealing. Whoever had put the coins in the water must have known they would be taken out again. They had probably meant for them to go to a good cause. And if rescuing a poor sick horse wasn’t a good cause, I didn’t know what was.
All the same, it seemed best not to take any chances. We’d already had one disaster. We didn’t want another!
We kind of sauntered over to the fountain, trying to make like we just needed a bit of a rest. The fountain is in the shape of an enormous basin, with a rim that you can sit on. In the middle is a big stone fish, gushing water out of its mouth. And Katy was right: in the water, there was money! Lots of it. Coins of all kinds, just lying there.
‘Try for the pounds and the fifties.’ I said it out of the side of my mouth, just in case anyone was watching and could lip-read.
Katy nodded. All casual, she reached behind her with one hand and dipped it in the water. I did the same. My fingers had just closed on something that felt like a 50p when I saw our rival coming back. She was with a man. He was wearing a uniform …
My heart almost seized up. Now what?
‘We’re not stealing,’ squeaked Katy. ‘Hannah, tell them! We’re not stealing!’
But the man didn’t seem to have noticed that we were fishing for coins in the fountain. He seemed more interested in our collecting tin.