Dog Gone (4 page)

My dog was gone.

Gone!

I kept looking over at his empty bed.

No. Dog.

My mind went back to the cemetery, seeing the ghost. How I'd felt Grandpa's fishing rod swinging around wildly in my hand, heard the whispering, felt the heat on the back of my neck.

And for the first time, I dared to say something I had been afraid to even think. I said the words out loud, to Lucky's empty bed. ‘The ghost – was it Grandpa?'

I'd only caught a quick glimpse of the ghost, but thinking about it now, there was something familiar about it, something that made me think of Grandpa. We'd never had a chance to say goodbye. Had he waited to see me one last time?

I'd kept the whole
Ghost Incident
a secret. I felt sure no one would believe me. But now, with Lucky missing, one thought kept hammering at me. If the ghost
was
Grandpa, maybe he'd help me find Lucky.

I couldn't sleep. My brain kept re-running everything on a TV screen attached to the inside of my eyelids. Where was Lucky? How could he vanish like that?

I lay in bed trying to piece everything together. I had to try and find the ghost.

That evening, at the dinner table, I had a new problem. My sister wanted to come fishing with me the next morning. She's
never
shown an interest in fishing before, which has suited me just fine. In the summer, we'd often go down to the river together for a swim. That was okay. But fishing was different. It was my special time to sit by the river and listen to the birds waking up. How could I do that with Molly ordering me around and telling me how I should bait my line and where I was allowed to fish? And how would I explain if Grandpa's fishing rod started wobbling around all over the place like it had at the cemetery?

I reluctantly agreed to let her come, because I knew she was trying hard to help take my mind off Lucky.

I hoped Gran wasn't also going to insist on joining us, because she suddenly seemed to be developing a renewed interest in fishing as well. Between mouthfuls of Shepherd's Pie, she was telling us about the days when Grandpa had tried to teach her how to fish. I couldn't imagine them actually catching anything. Gran and Grandpa would have squabbled so much, the fish would have swum away in fright.

‘Maybe I should take up fishing again, hey, Ish?' Gran said, a spot of potato stuck to her chin.

I groaned inwardly and tried to think of something to put her off. ‘You wouldn't cope with all the flies by the river first thing in the morning,' I told her. ‘There's a plague of them. I read about it in the paper. They've come down from New South Wales.'

Gran gave me a doubtful look and said it was strange to have flies in winter. Henry Ironclad hadn't said anything about a fly plague, and he should know.

Henry Ironclad had been Grandpa's fishing mate for about twenty years. Henry's always had a soft spot for Gran, and, since Grandpa died, he has been dropping by almost every day to check on her. Gran calls him a ‘silly old codger'. Some of his excuses for visiting are unreal. And some of the compliments he pays her are hysterical. The other day I heard him say he liked her new hair style and she looked just like Mrs Stevenson's poodle. You should have seen the look on Gran's face! Then he told her she smelt better than a zucchini. I could write a book about them. I'd call it ‘
101 Pick-Up Lines for Old Codgers
'.

Gran kept on about the idea of coming fishing all evening.

Fortunately though, when she came to say goodnight, she told me that I'd find the big nappy bucket, which Mum used to use, by the gumboots on the veranda.

‘Just in case,' she said. ‘And I put the fly repellent in your backpack.'

I hoped this meant she'd dropped the idea of coming.

My brain still whirred. Phew! So many questions about Lucky, the ghost, Grandpa's fishing rod – and I wasn't coming up with any answers. I would have been better off counting sheep.

I looked at the empty bed on the floor next to mine. My dog wasn't called Lucky for nothing. I remembered how Dad and I saved his life when we first got him. Lucky would come back to me. He had to. I decided to write a poem about him every day until he did.

I opened my journal and started writing.

Day 1 - Lucky

Just me and Dad

in the bush

no houses for miles

watching the sunset

by a river

something limps out

from behind a log

it's a puppy

about six months old

same number

as my boy years

I could count his ribs

if I wanted

he's lucky we found him

says Dad

yes

I say

he's Lucky

I laid the journal open on the floor next to Lucky's bed and watched the moonlight shimmer on the wall opposite. I always slept with the curtains open in this room.

Tonight was a full moon and the patterns on the wall were spooky.

‘Ish! Wait for me!
I'm coming, too.'

Darn! I thought I'd managed to sneak out without waking my sister. If I was going to walk through the cemetery and try to make contact with the ghost, how was I going to do that with Molly hanging around? ‘Well if you're coming, you can carry the bucket.' I tossed it over to her as she came out onto the back step wearing Gran's overcoat and beanie.

‘I'm not carrying that! I need to keep my hands in my pockets to keep them warm. They'll freeze off in this frost!'

‘What about mine? If you want to come, you have to help carry the gear.'

‘I might help on the way back, if it's warmed up a bit. Anyway, you're not the boss.'

Molly could be so infuriating sometimes. She stepped over the bucket and jumped down the steps and was out the gate before I had a chance to argue. I picked up the bucket and trailed along behind, cursing under my breath. I wished I was going fishing with Lucky, not my sister. I called after her, ‘Watch out old Arnott doesn't see you.'

‘She can't hurt me! She'd have to catch me first,' Molly shouted back at me.

‘Don't bank on it! She might be old, but she's fast.'

I was always careful to sneak down the side of Nelly Arnott's house, without her noticing. On most occasions I succeeded. Molly, on the other hand, was just as likely to ring her doorbell or tap on the window to lure her out.

This morning we seemed to be in luck. Molly headed straight down the side, to the back fence. No problem.

It wasn't until I was halfway down the path that my luck suddenly dived. I heard Nelly Arnott's front door open, then slam shut. Footsteps behind me. I froze. It was getting light, so there was nowhere to hide.

As soon as she rounded the corner, she saw me and started yelling. ‘You get off my property! Get off my property you little trespassing piece of slime! No respect for the law, you and your delinquent sister! Wait till I tell your grandmother about this. I'll prosecute the lot of you!'

Arnott was running down the path towards me and I only just made it over the fence. For an eighty-year-old, she
could
run pretty fast.

Molly was sitting on a log, grinning, when I jumped down beside her. ‘Bit close for comfort, eh?' she smirked. ‘Come on, let's go before she climbs over the fence.'

Arnott was squawking, ‘I can hear you, you no good little brats! You little criminals! Your dog killed my lemon tree!'

Molly grabbed my arm and started running through the cemetery. She yelled over her shoulder, ‘Shut up, biscuit-face!'

Sometimes I wished I had the guts to be as rude as my sister. But I did feel a bit sorry for old Arnott. Lots of kids used her place as a short cut, knowing it upset her.

Molly and I were both puffing by the time we made it to the river. So much for my plan. If I was going to have any chance of meeting up with the ghost, I'd have to work out a way to come here on my own.

When we got back, Mr Ironclad's voice was booming from the kitchen.

Molly disappeared to her room.

‘Hello there, Ish,' Mr Ironclad said. ‘I came to see if there was any news of Lucky. I'm sure he'll turn up. Probably still tucking into that enormous fish he got away with. He'll be home when he gets hungry.'

‘Yes.' I said the word, but I wasn't sure I believed it.

‘No fish today, lad?'

‘Nah. They weren't biting.' They didn't get a chance to. My stupid sister took over and kept reeling the line in every two seconds. ‘Maybe I'll try later.'

‘So it's cereal and toast for you two, is it?' Gran put a piece of bread in the toaster. ‘Where's Molly?'

‘Reading, probably.'

Hearing Mr Ironclad mention Lucky made his disappearance seem even more real. While I'd been out fishing, I'd half expected him to appear from behind a log, like he had the day Dad and I found him when he was a puppy. I thought about his name and the reason we'd given it to him. Lots of times my dog really had been lucky.

When Lucky was a puppy, he got into Gran's chook yard and killed five chooks. It was lucky Gran didn't kill
him
. He also chased Gran's cat, Splat, who had a big white patch on her back that looked like a paint spot, out onto the road just as a car was coming.

Lucky lived up to his name. So did Gran's cat.

Things were a bit strained between Gran and us for a while after that. She nearly banned Lucky forever. But Mum convinced her to let him come. I was like a lost soul without that dog, Mum had said. Thankfully, Gran had given in.

As if Mr Ironclad had read my thoughts, he let out a huge sigh. ‘All the same, I couldn't sleep last night for thinkin' about that old pooch.'

‘I keep telling you, Henry. He'll be back. I know you love that dog almost as much as Ish.' Gran buttered the toast and put it in front of me, next to my cereal.

‘I do, Maggie. I hope you're right about him comin' back.'

When I'd finished breakfast, I went to my room. I had to think of a way to find Lucky. I sat next to his bed and picked up his teddy. It was pretty mangled from all the tugs-of-war. I closed my eyes and let my mind go back to the time me and Lucky and Dad went camping …

Day 2 - A Bad Bite

Lucky lies on the vet's table

he's breathing

like a steam train

puff puff puff puff

I pat his damp brown fur

with long slow strokes

an hour ago

we were building a campfire

the tiger snake was still

in its hiding place

I closed Grandpa's poetry journal and hoped with all my heart that Lucky would live up to his name this time.

‘
Run to starboard
,' growled the voice.

I was trying to, but I could only run in slow motion. This was particularly frustrating, because I was trying to find Lucky and I was in a lot of danger. I was in the middle of a wild storm, out at sea. Any minute I was going to be washed overboard, and Lucky was being kept prisoner on the boat.

Panic was eating into my chest. Starboard. Which way was starboard? It was times like this I wish I'd paid more attention to interesting facts. Why didn't I store them away in a labelled file in my brain like my sister did? Mine were chucked in a box labelled ‘
Sort Later'
. Port and starboard – which was which? Why didn't the voice call out ‘
left
' or ‘
right
'?

Another voice was calling now. It sounded like Gran's. ‘Beware of the cyclone! Are you alone?'

And that bell – I wish it would stop ringing –