Grk Undercover (18 page)

Every few minutes, an airplane roared overhead, taking off or landing at the airport. The whole building shook with the noise. Glass trembled in the windows and the walls wobbled.

That night, Grk didn’t get much sleep.

Tim was right. The wedding was boring. In fact, that Saturday afternoon was one of the most boring afternoons of his entire life.

The ceremony went on for hours. The dinner lasted even longer. Tim had to sit at a long table with the other children. Most of them were Italian, so he couldn’t understand what they were saying. Some spoke English, but they didn’t bother saying much more than “Hello!” or “Good morning!” or “My name is Fabio!” He wished he’d been allowed to bring a book. Or, even better, stay at home with Grk.

Max and Natascha were lucky to miss it.

As you probably know, Tim lived in London with Max and Natascha Raffifi. They were Grk’s original owners and their parents were dead. If you want to find out how they all came to be living together, you should read
A Dog Called Grk
.

Anyway, Max and Natascha had been invited to the wedding in Italy too, but they couldn’t come. They had a good
excuse: they were in Stanislavia, a small country in Eastern Europe, not far from Russia. They were staying with their cousins, who lived in the country’s capital, Vilnetto.

Stanislavia had changed. Colonel Zinfandel, a cruel dictator, was dead, and the country had been freed from his rule. (If you want to discover exactly how he died, you should read
Grk Takes Revenge
.) Now Max and Natascha had gone back there for a quiet holiday, enjoying some good Stanislavian weather and some ordinary Stanislavian food and some pleasant Stanislavian conversation.

They would have taken Grk too, but one of their cousins was violently allergic to dogs. Put her in the same room as a dog and her skin immediately erupted in a bright purple rash. If she had to spend a night in a house with a dog—even a dog as small and polite as Grk—she’d almost certainly end up in the hospital, breathing oxygen through a tube. So Max and Natascha left Grk in London with Tim and the Malts.

Natascha didn’t like the thought of Grk spending even a single night in a kennel, but Max told her that he’d be fine.

“Grk can look after himself,” said Max. “He won’t let the other dogs bully him. You know what he’s like. He’ll just have a nice quiet weekend on his own, eating lots of biscuits and dreaming about rabbits.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Natascha.

“Of course I’m right,” said Max. “I’m always right.” But this time, he wasn’t.

Grk was ready.

It was breakfast time. He could hear footsteps.

Grk lay down on the floor and placed his head on his paws.

Twice a day, Trevor Cuddle came down the corridor with a pair of buckets. He stopped at every cell, delivering food and water to the dogs. Once a day, Marjorie Cuddle, Trevor’s wife, or their daughter, Jean, took the dogs for a walk.

Grk could hear shrieks and howls of anticipation. Up and down the corridor, other dogs were scratching the bars of their cages, wild with excitement, desperate to get their teeth clamped around some biscuits.

He listened to the footsteps and the yowls and the barking and the jangling keys and the rattling biscuits. These sounds were repeated again and again. Then he saw Trevor Cuddle stopping outside his cell.

As always, Trevor was wearing big black boots, dirty jeans, an old blue shirt and thick rubber gloves. He was carrying a
bucket of water in his left hand and a bucket of dog biscuits in his right hand.

“Morning, Groooook,” said Trevor. “How are you today?”

Without waiting for an answer, Trevor put the buckets on the floor, reached down to his leather belt and unclipped a large ring of keys, one for each cage in the kennel. He sorted through the ring, searching for number 73.

Trevor turned the key in the lock, clipped the ring back on his belt, picked up his buckets and stepped into the cage.

“Breakfast time,” he said. “I hope you’re hun—”

A white flash sped between his big black boots.

“Wha—?” cried Trevor Cuddle.

He was talking to himself. Grk was already sprinting down the corridor, past barred doors and locked cages, ignoring the shouts and barks and squeals that pursued him.

Trevor shouted at the top of his voice: “Hey! Grroook! Come back here, right now, this minute!”

Grk took no notice. He turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

Trevor Cuddle reached down to his belt and grabbed his walkie-talkie. He switched it on and brought it to his mouth.

“Escape in progress!” he yelled. “Culprit is proceeding along Corridor Three and heading for the north door. Escape! Escape! I repeat: we have an escape!”

Grk sped down the corridor.

On either side of him, dogs darted forward, hurling themselves at the bars of their cages. Bloodhounds, beagles, borzois, schnauzers, spaniels, salukis, collies, corgis and chihuahuas—they all wanted to join him. Their yelps and cries urged him onward, willing him to outwit the Cuddles.

Grk would have liked to stop and say hello to every dog he passed. But there wasn’t time for chitchat. He just had to run.

He didn’t know where to go, of course.

Nor did he know what he would do when he got there.

He didn’t have a car. He couldn’t catch a bus or a train. Maps meant nothing to him. The route from Cuddles Kennel to his own comfy basket was long and complicated. Even if he managed to get out of kennel, there was very little chance that he would ever be able to find his way back home.

Grk didn’t worry about any of that.

He just ran.

Five people worked at Cuddles Kennel: Trevor Cuddle; his wife, Marjorie; his father, Arthur; his daughter, Jean and Jean’s boyfriend, Ibrahim.

On an ordinary Sunday morning, the five of them would work for a few hours, sweeping cages, filling bowls with biscuits and walking dogs around the yard, then have a big lunch together.

But there was nothing ordinary about this particular Sunday morning. A message came through the walkie-talkie saying, “Escape! Escape! I repeat: we have an escape!”

Marjorie was peeling potatoes in the kitchen. She threw down her peeler, dropped a potato in the sink and ran into the yard, leaving the half-prepared lunch on the kitchen table. It would have to wait till she came back again. An escaped dog was much more important than their stomachs.

Ibrahim was sweeping the basement storeroom. Dropping his broom, he grabbed a couple of leather leashes and a muzzle from their hooks by the door, then sprinted up the stairs.

Jean was crouching in a cage, tickling the ears of a melancholy spaniel named Percy. Hearing the message on her walkie-talkie, she whispered, “Don’t worry, Percy. I’ll be back in a flash.” Then she stood up, let herself out of the cage, locked the door and hurried into the yard.

Percy pressed his nose mournfully against the bars of his cage, wondering when he might get his ears tickled again.

Arthur was enjoying a quiet doze on the sofa. He sat up with a jolt and stared at the walkie-talkie on the floor, wondering if he’d been dreaming. Or was he going mad? Was that walkie-talkie
really talking to him? Then he recognized the voice coming from the speaker. He rubbed his eyes, rolled off the sofa and went to see what all the fuss was about.

Trevor was waiting for them in the yard.

“I’ve lost him,” he cried. “I’ve lost that darn dog!”

“Which dog?” asked Marjorie.

“Grook. Or Gruk. You know who I mean. The one with the silly name.”

“Half of them have silly names,” said Arthur. “I don’t know why people can’t just call their dogs Rover or Blackie, like they did in the old days. I remember when—”

“Not now, Dad,” said Trevor. “We’ve got to move fast. In the history of Cuddles Kennel, we have never lost a single dog. I want to keep that one hundred percent record one hundred percent intact. Let’s split up. We’ll search the whole place. Marjorie, you take the north corridor. The south corridor is yours, Ibrahim. I’ll take the east corridor and Jean can do the west. Dad, secure the house and check the storeroom. You never
know where this mutt might be hiding. If you see him, report your location immediately on the walkie-talkie. If not, we’ll meet back here in fifteen minutes. Any questions?”

There were none. They hurried in different directions.

The yard was empty. The kennel was quiet. Nothing moved.

Nothing, that is, except a single sparrow fluttering through the air and darting across the gravel, searching for crumbs.

And the nostrils of a dog.

The nostrils belonged to Grk. He was hiding in the shadows. He had been lurking there, watching Trevor, Marjorie, Jean, Ibrahim and Arthur. Now that they had gone, he was wondering how to get out.

Cuddles Kennel was surrounded by a high brick wall. The only exit was a tall steel gate, and it was shut.

Grk was trapped.

He might have escaped from his cage, but how was he ever going to get out of the kennel?

Then his nostrils twitched.

And twitched again.

He could smell something that interested him. He wasn’t quite sure what it might be, but he was absolutely convinced that he wanted to find out. Keeping himself hidden in the deepest, darkest shadows, Grk went to investigate.

Tim sighed.

He was ready to leave. He had been ready for a long time. Early that morning, he sprang out of bed, got dressed and packed his suitcase.

Then he waited for his parents.

And waited some more.

They slept for two hours longer than he did.

When they finally emerged from their room, they spent ages eating breakfast.

Mr. and Mrs. Malt sat on the terrace, savoring their cappuccinos and their croissants and their glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice, leaning back in their chairs and enjoying the sunshine.

Tim sat with them, but he didn’t enjoy the sunshine. Or the croissants. Or the orange juice. Or anything else. He just wanted to grab his bags and get out of there.

“We could go to the airport early,” he suggested. “They might be able to put us on a different flight.”

Mrs. Malt said, “Would you like another croissant?”

“No,” said Tim. “I’d like to go home.”

Mrs. Malt turned to her husband. “How about you, Terence? Another croissant?”

“Why not?” said Mr. Malt. “When in Rome …”

Mrs. Malt laughed.

Mr. Malt chuckled too and gestured for the waiter.

Tim couldn’t see what was so funny. Didn’t they know that a dog was in prison? Didn’t they understand that every minute wasted here was another minute of agony for Grk?

He tapped his feet impatiently on the paving stones, wishing they would hurry up, and wondered what Grk was doing right now.

Eating? Sleeping? Or whimpering softly to himself and wondering why he had been abandoned?

Tim reached into his pocket and pulled out a brochure. It was a promotional leaflet advertising the benefits of leaving your pet at Cuddles Kennel. On the front of the brochure, big yellow letters said:

There was a photograph of a dachshund, a Labrador and a beagle trotting cheerfully across a patch of sunlit grass. Tim must have read the brochure a hundred times, but he read it again anyway.

CUDDLES KENNEL—

A
HAPPY HOTEL FOR YOUR PET
!

While you’re lying on a beach or eating a romantic dinner in a delicious foreign restaurant, your dog or cat will be having a holiday of his own!

For the past fifteen years, Trevor Cuddle and his family have been caring for animals, providing pets with a home from home. We guarantee their happiness!

Clean cages! Good food! Long walks! Reasonable rates!

T
HAT
’
S WHY PETS LOVE
C
UDDLES
!

On the back of the brochure there was a small map showing that Cuddles Kennel was located just outside the boundary of the airport. If you were catching a plane, you could drop your dog at the kennel and drive to the airport’s entrance in a couple of minutes.

The Malts had left Grk at the kennel on Friday afternoon. They would be back from Rome on Sunday afternoon. Grk would have to stay in the kennel for only two nights and less than three days.

Tim folded up the brochure, tucked it in his pocket and told himself to stop worrying.

His parents were right.

Grk would be fine.

What could go wrong in two nights and three days?

The Cuddles combed the kennel for clues.

Trevor, Marjorie, Ibrahim and Jean hurried along the north, south, east and west corridors, inspecting every cage.

Meanwhile, Arthur Cuddle hauled his weary old bones down the stairs and into the storeroom in the basement. Huffing and puffing, he pulled aside the tins of dog food and peered behind the sacks of dog biscuits. Finding nothing unexpected, he locked the storeroom, climbed the stairs and searched the house.

The bedrooms were empty. The bathrooms too. So was the sitting room. If the dog had been here, he’d gone by now.

Arthur stood in the hallway, wondering what to do next. He could go and join the others, of course. He could help them in their search. Or he could sneak into the sitting room, lie down on the sofa and have a quick nap.

Hmm, that was a tempting thought. It had been a busy morning. He could use a little rest before lunchtime.

Arthur tiptoed into the sitting room, hoping his son wouldn’t catch him, and lay down on the sofa. He was just pulling a blanket over his legs and arranging the cushions when he heard a peculiar noise.

What was that? And where was it coming from?

He could hear snuffling and growling and scraping and ripping.

As if a pair of dogs were fighting. And one of them was tearing the other apart.

It seemed to be coming from the kitchen.