Dogsbody (20 page)

“Not bad, eh?” he said.

“Perfect,” said Sirius.

They settled down and curled up, with their warm, heavy backs pressed against one another, wheezing little grunts because it was so good to have company. Then, dog fashion, they fell straight into a deep sleep.

A couple of hours later, they both jerked awake, pricked their ears, and had almost pushed their way out through the trees before Bruce became rational.

“We can’t,” he said. “It’s not meant for us.”

The sound which had wakened them came again—haunting, imperious, and very loud and near. Though they knew it was not calling to them, they both surged forward through the whippy trees. The Moon was low, almost behind the houses, and yellowish. On the other side of the sky, Sol’s coming was marked by a white stain. And in front of the mound, across the cleared space, dogs were streaming. They came in a helter-skelter confusion of glittering white coats and cat-like yellow eyes. The only sound they made was the frosty patter of paws. Like cats, they ran silent. The loud blasts of that imperious horn were soundless ones. Yet, in spite of their silence, that madly running crowd of dogs was utter wildness—wilder than the vixen snarling in her earth—something so wild it was wrong and strange and confused.

Sirius took one look and dashed to join the racing dogs.

They were running at an angle to him. As he bounded across the rubbly ground, the foremost dogs were already disappearing. With every step Sirius took, the number of dogs he was trying to catch got fewer and fewer. And, just as he caught up with the last dog, it was gone too. It was as if it had run behind an invisible wall. Sirius overran the spot, and there was nothing beyond. After that point there was not even the frosty scent of the dog.

Furiously disappointed, he ran around in a circle. The scent simply stopped where the dog had vanished. The weeds and rubble were exactly the same on both sides of the place. But the dogs were simply not there. “Earth,” he said. “Please, Earth, where have they gone?”

“I’m sorry,” Earth answered. “It’s not my secret.”

Sirius flung up his head and looked at the Moon. “Moon, how often do they run? Please tell me.”

The Moon was almost behind the houses, and the answer was a little muffled. “Yesterday, today and tomorrow when I’m full. Then not for a month.”

“Thank you,” said Sirius. “Thank you for all your help.”

“It was nothing,” said the Moon. “Sol told me to help you.”

“And I told you to keep your mouth shut as you usually do!” Earth said.

“You said to give him all the help I could, tonight,” the Moon said, injured but smug, and sank out of sight behind the roofs. Not that this stopped the argument. Sirius could hear Earth’s voice pursuing the Moon, right to the horizon. But he was busy sniffing the ground, now blue-gray with the signs of Sol’s coming. Here was
another strange thing. Every trace of the frosty scent of those dogs had vanished the moment the Moon went.

Bruce joined him, looking nervous and puzzled. “They didn’t leave a scent. Why is that? What are they?”

“Something very peculiar,” said Sirius. “And I
have
to run with them tomorrow, if it kills me!”

“That might be rather fun,” said Bruce. “You could get away with it easily. Apart from your collar, you look exactly like them by moonlight.”

“So do you,” said Sirius. “Didn’t you know?”

“Then I’ll come too!” Bruce said gleefully.

“Really? That will make two nights you’ll be away from home,” Sirius said. “What about your people?”

Bruce became rather thoughtful. “Oh well—I’ll go back first thing the next morning,” he said. “But I must do this first. I’ve never had such an adventure. The only thing is—my master works near here during the day and I don’t want to be tempted. Can you think of anywhere else we could go?”

Sirius thought. After the day and the night he had had, he longed to spend the next twelve hours safely curled up in a nice warm sofa. Who—? “I wonder,” he said. “If we went to Miss Smith and looked really pleading, she might let us stay in her house for today. She’s the old lady who knew you weren’t me.”

“Oh, I liked her!” said Bruce. “Let’s go!”

They set off at a swift busy trot. The streetlights looked pale. Some houses already had lights on inside, and there were a number of cars about. Several times Sirius had to implore Bruce to be careful. Bruce was not good at roads.

When they were more than halfway to Miss Smith’s house, Sol came up behind them with a shout. “What’s this Earth tells me?”

He sounded so annoyed that Sirius ran rather faster, not at all sure he wanted to face him. “I—er—I talked to Earth. I’m sorry if you don’t like it.”

“Not that!” blazed Sol. “Your Companion and her Consort. Did they really dare?”

“Yes,” said Sirius. “But I’m all right, thanks to Earth.” He glanced back at Sol and grinned.

Sol was white with wrath. “If they harm a hair of your coat, I’ll ruin them!” he said. “I warned her! I can’t lawfully stop them prowling about, but you are
de facto
one of my creatures, and they mustn’t touch you. I’m glad you got away. It was a clever idea to have one of your brothers with you. That should confuse her.”

“It wasn’t meant like that,” Sirius answered, rather alarmed. “I don’t want Bruce hurt.”

“You should have the other three, too,” said Sol. “They wouldn’t dare hurt any of you until they knew which was you.” He did not say anything more for a second. Sirius thought he had turned his attention elsewhere. He was surprised when Sol said suddenly, “What do you think of Earth?”

“What a question!” said Sirius. “You know Earth’s a masterpiece.”

He could feel Sol beaming on his back, as pleased as Earth had been the day before. “Mars isn’t bad,” Sol said, defensively.

Sirius laughed. He was so taken up with his amusement that he did not notice a police car gliding to the curb beside him. Its doors opened and policemen leaped out.

“Run!” woofed Bruce, and was off up the pavement like the wild hunt.

Sirius was taken by surprise. He started after Bruce, and was brought up short by a policeman’s hand in his collar. He ducked and wriggled and almost slipped out of the collar. The policeman seized him by the scruff of his neck instead.

“Come on, my lad. In that car.”

Sirius struggled, but the policeman won. Sirius was bundled onto a sort of leather plowed field, which seemed to be the back seat of the car, while, at the end of the street, the other two policemen gave up chasing Bruce and came panting back.

“There
were
two!” one of them puffed. “I couldn’t believe it when those descriptions came in. Which one have we got?”

The policeman holding Sirius looked at the disk on his collar. “I thought so! My old friend Leo! Cheer up, Leo. You’re a hero today. Makes a change from last time.”

13

F
eeling rather sick from the swift, swirling ride, Sirius was delivered at the Duffields’ house. Kathleen ran at him and hugged him. “Oh, Leo!” Robin pounced on him from the other side. “Shamus, you
are
brave!” Basil tweaked his tail. “You silly old Rat! What did you get lost for?” Even Mr. Duffield patted his head and called him a good horse. Duffie sniffed. “Sentimental idiots! What are dogs for, if not to keep off burglars?”

Sirius discovered, to his acute embarrassment, that he was supposed to have saved the house from burglars. The burglars were supposed to have been armed. New-Sirius had not been careful. Perhaps he could not be. Sirius knew that it was not easy for a high effulgent to use force without heat. At any rate, all the Duffields had seen the yard full of vivid green flashes as he struck at Sirius. Some of them had burned grooves in the gate. Indoors, the broken chair had been smoldering. And there was the queer wound on Tibbles.

Tibbles was sitting in a basket lined with a blanket, and the
electric heater was on specially for her. Sirius ran to her delightedly. Tibbles put a rather shaky nose up to greet him. She looked ill. “Hallo,” she said. “I thought you were dead.”

“I thought you were, too. What happened?”

“I think I
would
have been dead if you hadn’t shouted at me,” Tibbles said. “I was in the middle of jumping down off the sofa when he hit me, and the sofa got most of it.”

Sirius looked at the sofa. There were large lumps out of its back, from which greenish fluff and horsehair were oozing. He looked at Tibbles’s back. There was a raw, slanting weal on her. The fur around it was singed green. “Shall I lick it better?” he asked.

“It hurts when it’s touched,” she said. “It’s a wrong kind of hurt. I don’t think those were real people.”

“They weren’t,” he said. “That’s why I may be able to lick it better for you.”

“Try,” she said.

Sirius waited for a moment, while he tried to draw on any virtue there might be left in his green nature. He was not sure he had any. But he knew he now had as much of his green nature as could be crammed into a dog, and he was sure that only that could heal Tibbles. Then he bent and licked the weal.

Kathleen hurried to stop him. “No, Leo. Leave!”

“Let him,” said Mr. Duffield. “Animals know what they’re doing.”

“Romulus and Remus wouldn’t touch it, though,” Basil objected.

Tibbles winced at the first lick, but, after the third, she began to purr. “Oh that’s better! It’s gone cool. Go on.”

Duffie threw herself on the battered sofa and announced that she was worn out. “I suppose we’d better have breakfast,” she said. Kathleen, who looked quite as tired, hurried away to the kitchen. It seemed that the whole family had been up ever since Sirius woke them by barking. They had spent the rest of the night explaining things to the police, describing their dog, trying to describe two burglars no one had clearly seen, hunting around the house to see what had been stolen, wondering about the peculiar damage and nursing Tibbles.

When Kathleen had breakfast ready, Mr. Duffield switched the radio on for the early news and remarked that the horse should have some cornflakes, too, as a reward. So Kathleen put down a snickering golden plateful. Sirius loved cornflakes. He left Tibbles purring sleepily, with her back the proper color again, and attacked the plateful in sloshy gollops. Through the noise he was making, he suddenly gathered that something strange had happened. The whole family was leaning toward the radio, looking tense and surprised.

“Isn’t that the prison where your father is?” Robin said.

“I think one of them’s him,” Kathleen answered in a queer, subdued voice. Sirius could not tell if she was very sad or very happy. He did his best to follow for once the flat monotonous voice from the radio.

“Two of the escaped men,” he heard, “were recaptured by the army in the early hours of this morning. O’Brien, the third man, is still at large.” The radio went on to talk of other things, leaving Kathleen looking so excited, joyful, and frightened that Sirius wished he had heard more. He went pensively back to his cornflakes,
remembering that letter Kathleen’s father had sent her a month before. Perhaps Kathleen’s father had not meant he was going to be released. Perhaps the letter was so crumpled and dirty because it had been smuggled out to warn Kathleen he was going to escape. He could see Kathleen thought so.

She was not the only one. As soon as Mr. Duffield had gone upstairs to shave, Duffie rounded on Kathleen. “I warn you, Kathleen, I don’t intend to help that father of yours to break the law. I never wanted to get mixed up with convicts. I told Harry I wasn’t having you. I knew how it would be. And I was right. If that man tries to come here, I shall have him back in jail again before he can say knife. You can tell him I said so.”

It was doubtful if Kathleen heard her. She was in a daze of happiness and anxiety. “I
know
it’s my daddy they haven’t caught!” she whispered as she was tying Sirius up in the yard as usual. “I do hope he gets away. He’s awfully clever, so maybe he will.”

Sirius sat half inside his shelter and pondered about it. He decided he was glad. Kathleen’s father could not have escaped at a better time. That night, Sirius himself would have to leave. Whether he found the Zoi or not, he would not dare to go on living here now. But, now he came to think about it, he was sad and uneasy at the thought of leaving Kathleen alone. It was not kind. So it made a great deal of difference that her father had escaped. He could look after Kathleen in the future. Sirius was quite aware that Ireland was some way away, over some water, and that the police did not allow people to remain escaped from prison. But he comforted his slightly uneasy conscience by telling himself that Kathleen
had said her father was very clever. No doubt he would manage to come and fetch Kathleen somehow. Then Kathleen would be happy again.

“Don’t think you’re going to jump that gate again while I’m here!” Duffie said, stumping out into the yard to make sure Sirius was there. Lack of sleep had made her restless, and more than usually bad-tempered. She stumped into the yard six times that morning.

Each time, Sirius gave her that sarcastic look from under one eyebrow. He knew it annoyed her. He had no intention of leaving yet. The time to go was when everyone would least expect it, just before Kathleen was due home from school. But it was a pity, Sirius thought, settling down to sleep, that he would not be able to say good-by to Kathleen properly.

About midday, Sol flicked a beam of light over his muzzle and woke him up. “Were you intending to go somewhere else tonight?” Sol asked.

Sirius opened one eye. “Yes. To find the Zoi if possible.”

“Then I’d better warn you,” said Sol, “that you may want to change your mind. I wish I knew how to advise you. Things are going to be very difficult now.”

“What are you talking about?” said Sirius, opening both eyes.

Sol did not answer. He simply spilled a bright golden wedge of light on the back door. Kathleen came out into it. Sirius sprang to his feet in amazement. He had never known Kathleen to come home at this hour before. His tail wagged madly. He was delighted. Now he could say good-by as he should.

Kathleen crossed the yard in an odd blundering way, as if she could not see where she was going very well. A strange lady came out after her and watched Kathleen anxiously. She seemed worried about her. Sirius saw Kathleen’s face was a yellowish white, almost the color of his coat. Something was the matter with her. Kathleen put out her hands in a vague fumbling way to untie the rope, and Sirius stood on his hind legs with his paws on her arm and tried to see what was wrong.