Brilliant (10 page)

“Where is he?”

They could still hear his paws slapping the ground, but they couldn't see him.

“Where is he, Rayzer?”

Raymond didn't know.

It was a shock—and frightening.

They all slowed down. They couldn't see anything, just the road and the traffic. There was nothing to follow. Running had stopped making sense.

“I don't like this,” said Gloria.

Raymond agreed. “Yeah.”

They'd been in control, following the Dog, trying to catch him. But they weren't in control anymore.

The Dog was.

They were near town now, on the stretch of road that led
down to Heuston Station and the River Liffey. They all stood there looking at one another. It was hard to tell how many kids there were. Gloria was counting them. There were more than twenty, and she thought there were more behind the ones she could see.

Gloria whispered to Raymond again.

“Do they all know Uncle Ben?” she asked.

“No,” said Raymond. “No way. We'd know them if they did.”

He looked worried.

“Wouldn't we?”

“I know!” said Gloria. “They all have uncles of their own.”

“Yeah,” said Raymond. “That makes sense.”

Then they felt it—the cold. It was the cold they'd felt earlier, just after they'd left their house and recruited Ernie. It was the same sliding cold, the freezing, invisible animal. But it was even colder now, and harder. Gloria could feel it pushing against her legs. Everyone felt it. The cold was telling them which way to look, which way to go—pushing them.

They all started to run, as if they were obeying an order. They turned left, off the main road, and went over a bridge. They were crossing the Liffey, but they didn't stop to look. Phoenix Park was right in front of them, like a cliff of huge trees rising out of the ground as they got nearer. There was another road running beside the park, and a junction. They could go left or right.

They all slowed down. They hesitated.

“Which way now?”

“Where's the Dog gone?”

Gloria heard a voice: “Left.”

They started to run again. They all turned left, all obeying the voice. Gloria had definitely heard it. She was sure it had been a woman's voice, the kind of voice a nice teacher would have had.

But there was no woman there. She looked back as she ran, but all she saw was a cat, a black one. It was sitting on a pillar, and it was looking at Gloria.

But it was only a cat.

She kept going.

They were running through the gate, into Phoenix Park. Their parents would have gone mad if they'd seen Raymond and Gloria going into the park in the middle of the night. They'd have been grounded for weeks, or for months, forever. And again Gloria wondered.

“Why is the Dog letting us chase him?”

No one answered.

They kept running, up a steep path. It was darker now because there were trees on both sides of them, blocking the moon, and they were running away from the streetlights.

Raymond hated it. He hated the fact that he was running straight into darkness, with even more darkness behind it, miles of darkness—Phoenix Park was one of the biggest parks in Europe. He was running away from the lights and traffic sounds and the other sounds of the city. He didn't want to shout “Brilliant.” He didn't want to be the first to do it.
He was one of the oldest kids there. He'd had a quick look around and nearly all of the others looked smaller than him. He didn't want them to know he was afraid of the dark. They'd laugh at him, and run past him, leave him alone at the edge of the darkness. He couldn't let them know. But he knew why he was there. He recited it quietly as he breathed in and out. “Uncle Ben . . . Uncle Ben . . . Uncle Ben.” He ran into the dark.

They had to be careful because the ground was rough and it was hard to see it clearly.

“Why are you chasing the Black Dog?” Gloria asked the girl who was running beside her.

“My mam,” said the girl.

“Oh,” said Gloria. “Is she depressed?”

“Yeah,” said the girl. “She's down in the dumps, like. My auntie said something about getting the Black Dog off her back. And then I seen him.”

“Me too,” said a boy. “My da stays in bed all day since his job got shut down.”

The boy was panting. They were still running along the path, up a hill.

“The Black Dog blocks the bedroom door,” said the boy.

“Have you seen him?” Gloria asked.

“My da?”

“The Black Dog.”

“No,” said the boy. “But my da has.”

“I'm Gloria, by the way,” said Gloria.

“Paddy,” said the boy.

“I'm Suzie,” said the girl.

They kept puffing up the hill.

“Where's the Dog now, but?” Gloria asked.

There was still no sign of him. They couldn't hear him, either. All they could hear was the wind in the trees and their own breath.

They all stopped running. They listened.

Then they felt it again, the rush of cold wind. It went right past them, up close. Then it came back, on the other side. It pushed them—it seemed to—off the path, onto the high grass.

Then they could see it, the darker shape in the darkness, going into the trees. They heard paws going through the grass—and panting. The panting that only dogs make. And they could see the Dog. He barked—he yapped—just before he
disappeared into the extra darkness of the trees. He barked like a normal dog, like a dog that liked to play and loved being chased.

“Come on!” Raymond shouted.

They started to run at the trees. Then they heard a voice.

“Be careful!”

“Oh my God! Who said that?”

“None of us,” said Raymond. “It was an old man's voice. Come on!”

He noticed the owl as it flew over their heads. He'd never seen one before, except on TV. But he didn't stop to look. He kept running. He made sure he was at the front.

The owl landed on a branch high above the children. He settled beside another owl.

“They wouldn't listen to me,” he said.

“That's young people for you,” said the other owl. “You were like that yourself once.”

“Ah, lay off,” said the first owl.

“Anyway,” said the second owl. “They have to work this out for themselves.”

“You're right,” said the first. “But I'm worried.”

“So am I,” said the second. “But we have to trust them.”

“I know,” said the first.

He sighed.

“I know.”

The kids were in among the trees. And lost. They were stepping among tangled things, trying not to trip. They weren't really a group anymore, and, one by one, they began to realize
it. They looked left and right but saw no one. They could hear panting and grunts in front and behind them. But in the pitch dark, being grabbed at by twigs and tripped by things on the ground they didn't want to see and sometimes seemed to scurry, they all felt very alone.

Every careful step she took, Gloria expected to be tripped by a tree stump or brambles or—the word popped into her head—
undergrowth
. She was starting to feel trapped. She looked around but she couldn't see anyone.

“Hello?”

Raymond thought he was being grabbed by branches. They held onto his clothes and wouldn't let go. He wanted to shout, to answer Gloria, but he couldn't.

Paddy knew there were no snakes in Ireland. He'd always known that, since even before he'd started going to school. He'd even been named after the saint who'd got rid of all the snakes.

Saint Patrick had rounded up the snakes and he'd kind of bullied them, his da had told Paddy, right into the sea. But then his teacher, Mad Miss Delaney, had told them about people who'd bought snakes—“during the boom,” she'd said. They'd got them as pets and then they'd released them into the “wild” because they couldn't afford to feed them anymore. Only, there was no real “wild” in Ireland, Mad Miss Delaney had said, no desert or jungle for a snake to get lost in. “And that's the problem,” she'd said. “There are snakes in Ireland. There are lots of snakes in Ireland. Whole families of them. Even in the Phoenix Park.”

Paddy was terrified. But he kept going. He was doing this, walking over the snakes, for his da. He wanted his da back—the happy man Paddy had known all his life. Until a year ago, when his da came home from work and told them all—Paddy and his little brothers, and his ma—that there was no more work, that the building site was closed, the gate was chained and locked, and his tools were locked inside. He'd been okay at first—his da. It had actually been good, because his da was at home more of the time. He was a better cook than his ma; even she admitted it. And he'd sometimes meet Paddy and his brothers outside the school, with a ball under his arm, and they'd play football in the park for an hour before they'd walk home. But then the Black Dog arrived. Paddy didn't see him, but he knew something was wrong. His da was staying in bed in the mornings, and he was getting skinny and old looking. His ma looked sad and worried. He heard the woman next door, Mrs. Brennan, say something about a black dog bringing depression into the house, and his ma said it was like the Black Dog was stretched out in front of the bedroom door, blocking it, and stopping his da from getting out and living again. Then Paddy saw the Dog—last night.

He was stuck. He couldn't move. There was something strong pulling the back of his jacket, and his feet were up against something big that he couldn't see. Paddy could feel it push against his knees, like it was trying to trip him. He was afraid it would move and become one of those huge snakes, a python—a boa constrictor. They ate things whole. They choked them first, then swallowed them—animals, even big ones, birds. People. Paddy couldn't move. He couldn't shout—his throat was too dry and tight.

Suzie was lost. Really lost. She could see nothing now. Absolutely nothing. It was like being locked in a cupboard. But cupboards were warm and always stayed the same shape. This was different. This was frightening.

But she kept going. She took another step. She felt a breath at her face. It stank. But she didn't scream. She stayed calm—she tried to. She thought of her mam, before the Dog had got into the house. That was what had happened, her Auntie Nuala had told her. “Depression,” her auntie had said, “is like a big heavy black dog on your back.” Her auntie showed her. “Right across your shoulders and neck, even your head.” But Suzie couldn't see the Dog. It annoyed her and upset her. She wanted to push the Dog out of the house. But it was invisible; she couldn't see it near her mam. Until last night.