Summer at World's End Page 13

  A week had gone by. Then two weeks. Almost three. Soon school would start and they would have only evenings and weekends to search. Soon they would have to admit that if Charlie was trapped somewhere, caught by the neck, fallen down an old well, he would have starved by now. Soon… eventually, they would have to give up.

  ‘But I knew a dog once,’ Mr Mismo said (he always knew something to go one better - or worse), ‘that was lost for seven and one-quarter months. Woman lost it out shopping in a crowd, and she was so frenzied, she went to the Hebrides Islands, casting off the world. Her hair was already grey with sorrow, when blow me if she didn’t look out of the window of her wee croftie one morning and see something in the water, and there was that dog swimming out to the island, carrying the woman’s shopping basket which she’d left behind in her frenzy.’

  No one could raise a smile.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘We’ll take a drive to cheeryou up.’

  Mr Mismo’s driving was bad enough even when you were happy. Usually his wife would not let him near the wheel, but she was off visiting her sister in the Isle of Wight. ‘I’ve got to fetch some churns at the station. Come on, I’ll take you all into town.’

  They made excuses, but he wanted their company. You could see why, as they got to the busier roads. Crammed into the front of his dusty farm truck, because the back was full of chicken crates, Carrie, Lester, Em, Michael and Hubert (trembling like a jelly) clung to each other and tried not to scream, as Mr Mismo crawled nervously along in the outside lane, with other drivers hooting and flashing their lights and taking hairsbreadth chances to get past him.

  He sat like a rock behind the wheel, his tweed hat tipped over his eyes and a piece of hay between his teeth to remind him of home.

  ‘Look at that fellow!’ he said, as a lorry roared past him on the wrong side, with the driver and his mate glaring and shaking their fists. ‘Makes you wonder how some people passed their driving tests.’

  ‘How did you?’ Em asked faintly.

  ‘Years ago when I got mine, we didn’t need all these fancy tests.’

  Carrie’s head throbbed. Hubert moaned softly, too far gone to complain that he was hot or cold or sick or bored, as he usually did in a car.

  They came through the suburbs and into the depressing outskirts of the town. Factories and warehouses, junkyards, coalyards, a grey brick prison and rows and rows of poor mean houses and narrow streets, laid like a dirty blanket over what had once been rolling countryside.

  ‘There you are.’ Mr Mismo waved his hand as if he had invented the scene. ‘Bit of city life to cheer you up.’

  Steering with one hand, he swerved, went up on the pavement, swerved again as a lamp post loomed, and just scraped through between the lamp post and the wall of the warehouse.

  He stopped and mopped his face with a Union Jack handkerchief. ‘That was a close one.’

  His passengers opened their eyes again. ‘We’re on the pavement,’ someone said helpfully.

  ‘Tell you what.’ Mr Mismo was steaming and bothered. ‘Let’s go home and not trouble with the station. They won’t have my churns anyway, if I know them.’ He got into gear with a crunch, and drove slowly along between the lamp posts and the wall.

  ‘Hadn’t we better get back on the road?’ someone else suggested.

  ‘To tell the truth, old chumps,’ he stopped again, ‘I’m a wee bit nervous today. Shouldn’t have had those raw onions for lunch, in this heat.’ His red face was dripping. The ribbon round his hat with the blue jay’s feather in it was dark with sweat. ‘And Mrs Mossman always drives in traffic’

  ‘I can drive,’ Lester said.

  ‘You’ve not passed a driving test’

  ‘Nor have you.’

  ‘You’ll get us all pinched.’

  ‘Better than getting killed.’

  ‘You may have a point there, son.’ Mr Mismo was always reasonable.

  Lester sat on a pile of sacks from the back so that he would look tall enough, and put on Mr Mismo’s hat to age him and partly hide his face. Mr Mismo instructed him how to drive (‘Left hand down, sound your hooter, change down now’), as Lester drove skilfully and safely back through the mean streets to the broader suburbs.

  They passed a sign they had not seen on the way in, since they had been on the other side of the road and shielding their eyes and clutching each other and jamming their feet on the floorboards, as if they could brake by remote control. The sign pointed down a tree-lined avenue of new buildings. It pointed to the University Medical School. Lester stopped.

  ‘You must learn to use the brakes like you use the reins,’ Mr Mismo said, back in his old bossy form now that he was in the passenger seat. ‘Ve-ry gende, as if the rein was a piece of cotton thread.’

  Lester looked over his shoulder at Carrie, in the back seat between Em and Michael, with Hubert stuffed down on the floor to stop him telling Lester he was dizzy.

  The R.S.P.C.A. Man had said that the University only bought dogs through dealers. The dealers had said they knew nothing about Charlie. But…

  Neither she nor Lester nodded. They just looked at each other, and without a word, Lester backed a few yards and turned up the avenue.

  ‘Wrong way,’ Mr Mismo said. ‘For’ard boy, for’ard.’

  ‘Just got to deliver a message,’ Lester said. ‘Won’t be a moment.’

  They stopped behind a wall outside the car park, so that no one could see Lester driving. They left Mr Mismo in the car while they went along a path betwen buildings, following a sign that said ‘ANIMAL RESEARCH CENTRE’. They took Hubert with them, because he was the cleanest (he used all the hot water), and also the only one who was not barefooted and wearing a torn shirt and shorts that were blue jeans cut off ragged above the knee.

  ‘But I ain’t going in there,’ he said.

  Through the glass doors at the entrance, they could see a woman at the reception desk who looked as if she had come from the hairdresser five minutes ago and would not be able to type with those nails.

  ‘If you don’t, I’ll put spiders in your bed.’

  ‘No, Lester, please!’

  ‘Worms in your cocoa.’

  ‘Carrie!’

  ‘Earwigs in your shoes.’ ‘Don’t, Em!’

  ‘Maggots in your — ‘ Michael began, and with a gulp, Hubert pushed through the doors and rolled awkwardly over the thick carpet.

  The woman looked up and moved the lipstick shape of her mouth. Hubert stood in front of her, wriggling and scratching his bottom. They were talking. As soon as they saw that she was not throwing him out, the others slid through the glass doors and came in behind him silently, like a file of Indians.

  ‘About a dog?’ The woman would be frowning, if she was not afraid to crack her make up. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Hubert was stammering, his ears on fire, so Carrie said, ‘What he means is —’

  ‘Go away, urchins,’ the woman said, ‘and play somewhere else.’

  ‘We’re with him.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Her look was like picking up something disgusting between thumb and finger.

  ‘We lost a dog. We thought he might be here.’

  ‘There are a lot of dogs here,’ the woman said coldly.

  ‘Where do they come from?’

  ‘These days, we have to get them where we can.’

  ‘Any shaggy ones?’ Michael stepped forward, shirt tail hanging out, smudge on his nose, doughnut crumbs from the last meal but one in the corners of his mouth. ‘Like those sort of rugs you have beside the bed to put your feet out on to when it’s cold?’

  ‘I have a fitted carpet Go away, little boy, or I’ll have to call one of the doctors.’

  ‘We’d like to see a doctor.’ They edged towards the corridor behind the desk.

  ‘You go one step farther and I’ll call the police!’ The woman put her hand on the telephone.

  ‘We’ll tell them what you do!’ Suddenly Carrie heard herself shouting, exploding wit
h anger. ‘You take animals that trust people, you spray hairspray into their eyes to see if it makes them go blind, you make them run and run till they have a heart attack, you bleed them white, you —’

  ‘Calm yourself.’ The woman patted her stiff hair, or wig, or whatever it was. ‘Experiments with animals save people’s lives.’

  ‘Why don’t they experiment on people to save animals’ lives?’

  ‘Would you rather it was that way?’ She was deeply shocked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Now listen, you gang of hoodlums, I’m going to have to tell you a few truths.’

  ‘Tell him.’ They pushed Hubert into a chair by the desk. ‘He’s the cleverest. He can understand.’

  ‘All right, now listen to me. Suppose you were trying to find a cure for - let’s say hiccups.’

  ‘That’s easy,’ Hubert said. ‘You drink beer out of the wrong side of the glass.’

  ‘No, no, suppose you were looking for some particular medicine —’

  ‘I’d go to that drawer where my mum keeps the stomach powders.’ He was so stupid, it was a gift While the woman was leaning forward, patiently trying to explain, the four others tiptoed away behind her back, dashed down the corridor, round a corner, through a door and into another corridor that smelled faintly of dog.

  ‘Follow your nose!’ Lester cried, and they burst through another door and into a concrete passage lined with barred runs. As soon as they came through the door, a great hullabaloo started up as dogs of all sizes and breeds and no breed at all hurled themselves at the gates, barking and yelping and howling and wagging their tails as if their masters had come at last.

  ‘Shut up, pack, it’s not feeding time!’ A little man like a jockey with a nut-brown face and a dirty overall came out of a room at the end. ‘Oy-oy!’ He grabbed at the children, who were dashing from gate to gate, although if Charlie was here, they would know his voice. He caught Michael by the back of the collar. ‘How did you lot get in here?’

  ‘Past the reception desk,’ Lester said, which was true.

  ‘In the normal way.’ Carrie never could help adding some detail that made it not quite true.

  ‘What do you want?’ He tried to look fierce, but his face was made for smiling, although he had no teeth to do it with, just a wide grinning gap.

  ‘We’re looking for our dog.’ They could not look at the dogs in the barred runs. They could not meet their eyes.

  ‘What breed of dog? Pedigree? Mongrel?’

  ‘A sort of pedigree mongrel.’ They told him all the good breeds that might have gone into Charlie. Michael, half choked, added the bit about the bedside rug.

  ‘Don’t tell me!’ The man let him go so suddenly that he fell on his hands and scarred knees. ‘Did he have a torn ear and some nasty cuts on his head?’

  ‘He might have.’

  ‘And sort of round eyes like toffee balls —’ ‘With a lot of white showing.’

  ‘Oh Gawd,’ said the little nut-brown man, ‘that sounds like Trumpeter.’

  ‘Our dog is Charlie.’

  ‘Trumpeter, Joyful, Nimrod - I call ‘em all that, to remind me of my days at the foxhound kennels.’

  ‘Does he -’ Carrie could hardly ask it. ‘Does he sort of lift the side of his mouth, and - sort of - grin at you?’

  ‘My Gawd,’ he said, ‘that’s him. Went up today.’

  ‘Went where?’

  ‘Surgical unit. Artery transplant. Oh no you don’t.’ He stepped in front of them as they headed for the far end of the passage. ‘No one goes through that door. Cost me my job, that would.’

  ‘How can you do such a job?’ Carrie raged, raising her hands as if she would hit him.

  ‘Someone has to take care of ‘em, missie, till they —’

  ‘Look at that dog!’ Lester yelled suddenly. The man stepped aside to look down the line of runs, and before he knew it, Carrie, Lester, Em and Michael were through the door and running down a corridor, up a flight of stairs, down another, across a hall lined with doors that had glass peepholes. There were cages of animals in most of the rooms. Monkeys, guinea-pigs, hamsters, rabbits, rats, mice.

  A young woman in a white coat came out of one of the rooms, carrying two large cases of white mice. ‘What on earth—?’

  ‘Urgent message for the doctor,’ Lester said quickly.

  ‘Which doctor?’

  ‘In the surgical unit.’ Lester tried to sound calm, but Carrie could see that his breath was coming very fast, and his heart pounding under his thin shirt.

  ‘You’re going the wrong - hi, wait!’ as they doubled back, but she could not catch up with them, because of the mice.

  Back up the stairs, across a bridge to another building, through swing doors - ‘I smell ether!’ Lester stopped, his nose twitching like - Oh, Charlie. Would they be too late?

  ‘You are ze pupils from ze zgool?’ They turned and saw a bent, wild-haired old gent in a flapping coat and thick spectacles, like the mad doctors in monster films. ‘Come to hear ze legture about ze life zycle of the giant ztag beedle, eh? Gum, my dears.’

  As he shooed them along the corridors, they passed a big door with a thick glass window. Standing on tiptoe, they saw people in white, moving expertly, stainless steel sinks, tables, cabinets full of shining instruments, gas cylinders, a huge arc light like the eye of God.

  On a high table under the light, a rough-haired dog was lying calmly and trustfully. A man with a white surgical mask over his mouth and nose, holding a syringe, was stroking the dog’s head and talking to him.

  ‘Gum along, gum along,’ the mad doctor fussed. The door said NO ENTRY. Carrie, Lester, Em and Michael entered. Charlie jerked up his head, the man dropped the syringe and the whole room fell apart, equipment and people scattering, bottles breaking, stools overturning, as the dog and the children leaped at each other, shrieking and barking with joy.

  ‘What’s going on?’ The man in the mask bent to pick up his broken syringe.

  ‘We found our dog!’

  Charlie pushed against the door with his paws and was off, and the mad doctor jumped aside just in time, as Carrie, Lester, Em and Michael raced after him to freedom.

  This electronic edition published in July 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  Copyright © Monica Dickens 1971

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  ISBN: 9781448203130

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