The Secret Dog (2 page)

If she lived
 . . . 
She had to live!

From his experience with other animals he’d rescued, Josh knew the next couple of days were critical. The puppy’s heart might have been too stressed by the freezing water, or her body might have used up too much energy fighting the cold. An infection might get hold of her weakened immune system
 . . . 
But with his help, surely none of those things would happen. She’d recover fully.

He heard the back door close downstairs. He had to go to help with dinner. And to convince Calum to let him keep her.

Josh sat across from his uncle, at the small dark wooden table that served as their dining room. Dinner was a mutton stew, which had been cooking on the Aga all day. Mutton stew could be kept going for days with the addition of carrots, potatoes and whatever other vegetables came into season from their garden. It wasn’t usual summer fare, but summer didn’t guarantee warmth this far north. And Josh was used to it.

It was still light outside but the kitchen didn’t have very big windows. The old cabinets, new when his uncle was a child, didn’t lend much cheer. They ate in a kind of low-level gloom. The maroon Aga in the corner was the only thing that added some colour. It was one of Josh’s jobs to keep it fed with wood, and to bank it down at night.

They ate in silence, as usual. Calum was a
middle-aged man, bald on top with dark brown hair around the sides. Very fit, like most crofters, he was roughly the same height as Josh, but thicker around the chest and waist. He was a man of few words. There were some topics he got animated about: the animals on the farm, subsidies for cattle and Josh’s school reports. But none of these seemed to be on his mind that evening. He hadn’t even noticed the cuts on Josh’s face.

Usually Josh didn’t mind the quiet. But today he had to bring something up. And the silence made it more difficult for him to make it seem casual. His mind dashed in one direction and then another. What could he say to persuade his uncle to let him keep the puppy?

Calum had almost finished his stew. In a moment, he’d push his chair away from the table and go into the living room to read the local paper. It was now or never.

‘If someone gave me a dog,’ Josh started. Then he realised his uncle, who was slightly deaf, hadn’t heard him. He started again, speaking louder. ‘If someone gave me a dog, could I keep it?’

Was that it? That was the best he could do?
If someone gave me a dog could I keep it?
Josh was furious with himself. ‘I mean we could call it a birthday present. A birthday present and a Christmas present,’ he added quickly.

It was a while before his uncle responded. Josh desperately cast around for something to make his request more compelling. Nothing came to him.

‘Animals cost money,’ Calum spoke softly. ‘And we’re already struggling. Maybe when we have a good year.’

That was no help! The list of things that would arrive when they had ‘a good year’ was already long. It included a skateboard, a mobile phone, a computer and a bigger window for the loft.

‘I’ll earn the money to feed it!’ Josh pleaded.

‘Your priority is improving your school grades,’ Calum said firmly. ‘And there’s little enough work around here for grown-ups, let alone twelve-year-old boys.’

‘You just don’t think I’d take good care of it,’ Josh said, sullenly.

His uncle frowned. ‘Don’t ever think that, lad. I’ve seen how you are with the animals on the farm. And the wee ones you bring home. It’s just that it’s hard enough for me to provide you with the necessaries. A pet would be a luxury for us.’

Josh was sure that if he’d been cleverer, he could have come up with an argument that would have persuaded his uncle. But now it was too late. Once his uncle had decided something, he’d stubbornly refuse to change his mind.

‘All right,’ Josh said. He stood to clear the table.

‘All right’ just meant that he wasn’t going to argue further. Not that he wasn’t going to keep the puppy. He was determined to do that, whatever it took.

Chapter 3

Josh had been looking forward to seeing the puppy all day. By the time school finished, he’d decided he couldn’t wait another moment. Running the two miles home wasn’t a problem. But it did mean he’d have to pass Yvonne and Kearney, two classmates who followed the same path as him, at least most of the way home. He was a bit scared of them, but for different reasons. He was frightened of Yvonne, a brown-haired, intense girl, because she was so smart, and of Kearney because he was big and mean and the school bully.

‘If it isn’t our “blow-in”! What’s the hurry, city boy?’ Kearney shouted as he approached them. ‘Catching a bus back to town?’

As usual, Josh was stuck for something to say in reply. Why hadn’t he thought of anything in advance? He’d known he’d run into them. He searched his mind. Nothing. He just wasn’t sharp like that. As he stepped off the path to pass them, he consoled himself. Perhaps it was for the best. If he said something silly, Kearney would repeat it to everyone in the class. And if he said something clever, Kearney would probably hit him.

The encounter dented his good spirits, though, reminding him that, even after five years on the island, people regarded him as a ‘blow-in’. And that
he
didn’t have anyone to walk home with
 . . .

Uncle Calum’s small bungalow was halfway up a hill, about twenty metres south of the main road. Most of the houses around here were north of the road, higher up on the hill. They might be able to see further, but the view from his uncle’s house was still pretty special. Below the house were a couple of fields, dotted with his uncle’s Highland cattle and sheep. Beyond them was the old river bed, lined with trees. And beyond that, the beach to the loch, a large, dark body of water that ran all the way out to the Atlantic. Sometimes, they could see dolphins from their front window. Josh loved spotting them playing together.

* * *

Josh warmed a pan of milk. His puppy would be hungry. But as soon as he got to the top of the ladder, Josh knew something was wrong. He could hear the puppy’s breathing. It was fast and irregular. He raced over to her. She was stretched out awkwardly on his pillow. Her nose was hot to the touch and her temperature was way too high. He couldn’t wake her to take any of the warm milk he’d brought.

From his experience with other rescued animals, he knew she’d caught an infection. And that her small, weakened body would find it difficult to fight it. It was as if a heavy stone had rolled on top of his heart. His knees felt like buckling.

He fought to stay upright. ‘I’ve been here before.’
He said it aloud, as if to remind himself that he would survive. But then hot anger surged through him. Why didn’t anything go right for him? But there was no time to think about that now.

He had to act. He almost slid down the ladder in his haste to get to the kitchen. He returned immediately with a bag of frozen chips, tenderly lifted the unconscious puppy, and settled her onto his lap. Then he sat there, as the afternoon lengthened, cooling her down every few minutes with the slowly defrosting chips. But mostly, he talked to her.

He told her how he’d saved loads of animals, but that she was special. He was going to keep her forever.

‘I’ve come up with a plan,’ Josh told her softly. ‘I’m going to train you to work with sheep! Once you’re a
working
dog, everything will be different. Calum will accept you. And we’ll roam the commons having adventures and searching for other animals to rescue. That’s why you’ve
got
to get better!’

Then Josh started to tell her about himself. How when he was a toddler, his mother had always pointed to a photograph of a handsome soldier when he’d asked about his father
 . . . 
and that it was only when he was four that he’d come to understand that his dad had been killed in a far-away war before he’d been born. And that he would never meet or know him. All he had were his mother’s stories about him and an album of pictures of his parents’ wedding and honeymoon.

He checked the puppy’s temperature. Still way too hot. He tucked the bag of frozen chips in next to her.

Then he told the puppy about his mother. How they had lived together in a tiny flat and how she was small and funny and warm and how she’d raised him all by herself and how they were just fine, the two of them
 . . . 
until she’d decided to be a good Samaritan and drive a neighbour who was having a baby to the hospital. She must have been going way too fast – they were both killed instantly.

He was just seven at the time, and though he still had some photos of her, he just didn’t seem to be able to remember her properly. Not
feel
inside him what she was like. Not since he’d come to the island
 . . .

That had happened two days after the crash. His mother’s brother, who he’d only met once when he was so small he couldn’t remember it, had taken him in. But Calum wasn’t at all like his mother. Not warm, not funny. He wasn’t cruel or anything like that, he assured the sleeping puppy. It was just that he wasn’t
 . . . 
her.

Still – Josh remembered to check the puppy’s temperature and remove the bag of chips – the one good thing about living here was that he’d discovered the commons, the wild and varied land near his uncle’s croft. And it was there he’d discovered his passion: saving animals, like her.

It wasn’t until the early evening that the puppy opened one of her eyes and with a huge effort, turned her little head to look up at him. She just gazed at
him and Josh felt a huge joy well up inside him. He
knew
then that she’d pull through.

And a name for her popped into his head – almost as if
she’d
put it there. Reggae. The music his mum had loved.

Chapter 4

It was the first class after lunch and the air in the Portakabin classroom was stale. Josh’s desk was near the window, in the sun, and his head was muzzy. Reggae was still waking him in the night, even though she’d fully recovered from her infection.

She wasn’t noisy, but she loved to climb all over his face. Just when he’d finally fallen deeply asleep. Josh guessed she needed attention. She was alone way too much, even though he usually ran home at lunch time and spent as much time as he could with her before and after school.

She was growing fast. Too fast. Josh knew he couldn’t keep her secret in his room much longer. His uncle’s hearing might not be the best, but his sense of smell was fine. And Reggae’s pee plus the hot sun in the loft were a potent combination.

Mr Eldon, his geography teacher, was droning on. He insisted on talking about places on the other side of the world – when Josh wanted to understand the geography of the island where they lived. He knew it was fifty miles long, and that the loch his uncle lived on was roughly in the middle. But he didn’t get how it had come to have so many different types of landscape in such a small area. It had mountains in one place and moors and lochs and cliffs in others.

Once, when he’d been bored – or brave – enough to ask about this, Mr Eldon had made fun of him, saying that Josh might have very limited horizons, but that other students were interested in the wider world. Looking at the blank faces around him, Josh didn’t think this was true.

Josh stared out at the empty school grounds. A distinctive van was making its way along the road towards the village. It was the vet. His mind drifted back in time to the day, not long after he’d arrived on the island, when he’d first met him.

He had been wandering through the fields one afternoon when he’d heard a worrying sound. On the other side of a hillock he’d found Morag, one of his uncle’s Highland cattle, lying on the ground, groaning in pain. She’d looked terrible. Her calf was lowing plaintively not far away. Josh had run to his uncle.

‘Uncle Calum! Uncle Calum! Morag’s not well!’

Josh led his uncle to the sick cow. Calum took one look and ran back home to phone the vet.

Josh knew even then that this meant it was serious. One of his uncle’s favourite topics at the dinner table was how much the vet cost.

But there were only twenty cattle on the croft and losing one would be a major blow, especially Morag, who reliably produced a healthy calf every year.

The vet’s distinctive van had arrived ten minutes later. The sides were brightly painted with scenes from the American old west: canyons, covered wagons, horses, Indians and an Indian village. A gruff-looking
man with a trimmed white beard emerged wearing a cowboy hat. He greeted Calum with a warm hand-shake and then turned to Josh.

‘Calum’s nephew! I’ve heard a lot about you.’

Josh had just stared, quite unable to speak. The vet seemed like a larger-than-life hero out of a movie.

After waiting a moment for a response, the vet had simply tipped his hat to Josh, and then followed Calum to the field where Morag was still lying on the ground. Josh had trailed along behind the two men, not close enough to get in anybody’s way and get told off, but not far enough to miss anything.

To Josh’s surprise, the vet stopped some distance from Morag, who was twitching on the ground. He took in the situation.