Paw Prints in the Snow (6 page)

‘Don’t be so rude about the poor thing,’ Peter joshed.

‘It looks healthy enough, doesn’t it?’ said Iona. ‘And very interested to know if the camera is edible.’

There were a few more blank frames and then a roe deer was caught in a sequence of shots, seemingly posing at first, before nibbling at the leaves on a bush. Finally, a foot appeared at the top of one of the frames. It was black with very long claws.

‘What’s that?’ squealed Joe excitedly.

‘Wait and see,’ said Iona.

The next two frames were completely black. The third was crossed by a black furry arm and a fourth revealed an ear. At last, a fifth frame showed the animal in its entirety as it dropped to the ground. It was an Asiatic black bear.

Joe couldn’t believe his eyes. There were five more frames, all of them starring the bear, which was standing in the clearing in front of the camera, eating a nut from the tree.

‘It’s so cute!’ said Joe.

‘It looks like a right monkey to me,’ said Peter.

‘Funny, ha, ha, Dad,’ said Aesha.

‘They’re not really very cute at all,’ said Iona. ‘There are quite a few bears in the reserve, and although they’re herbivores, they can be pretty aggressive to humans. But they love acorns and they love climbing, so they climb up and try to grab them before they all fall to the ground and before other animals get to them.’

‘The white stripe across its chest makes it look as if it’s wearing a T-shirt.’ Joe giggled.

‘Or a bra,’ said Aesha.

There was nothing else on the film, but seeing the bear made up for any disappointment Joe might have felt about the absence of a tiger.

Chapter 14

Joe and Aesha were left to their own devices the next day as Binti went to work with the vets and Peter decided to accompany her. Iona assured their parents that the village was perfectly safe for them to explore, and that the Museum of Nature was well worth a visit.

‘We’ll be back some time in the afternoon,’ Binti said. ‘Don’t stray beyond the village, will you?’

‘Don’t fuss, Mum,’ scoffed Aesha. ‘We’re used to looking after ourselves and I’m perfectly happy to chill for a day.’

Joe was keen to have a look at the exhibition of tiger paintings and the butterfly collection Iona had mentioned. He didn’t want to go on his own, though. After some persuasion, Aesha agreed to accompany him, but as soon as they had seen all the exhibits she declared that she was tired and was going back to their room for a nap.

Joe decided it was a good opportunity to take some photographs since there would be nobody to hurry him on and he could spend time creating arty shots.
I’ll surprise Dad with them
, he thought as he collected his camera and set off along the village streets.

Iona had told them that most of the villagers were farmers or hunters. Local children stared at him curiously or waved at him as he walked by, which made him feel very self-conscious, as though there were something different about the way he looked. He would have liked to take their photographs, but didn’t dare in case he upset them. Instead, he took photographs of the park headquarters, the ferry, the old bus, the houses, the shops, the café and the museum.

As Joe was walking along one of the streets leading away from the village centre, he thought he saw a raccoon dog a little way ahead of him
.

Wow!
he said to himself.
Dad will definitely be impressed if I come back with a photo of a raccoon dog!

He hurried after it. The animal began to run and Joe found it difficult to keep up on the slippery pavement. When he lost sight of it, he followed the tracks it had left in the snow. There were fewer and fewer houses now and the tracks were heading towards the forest.

That’s so frustrating
, Joe thought
. I was so close!

He stopped and prepared to turn back.

It was probably only an ordinary dog anyway
, he told himself.

Its legs had seemed a little too long for a raccoon dog, if he was honest. And snow was beginning to fall again, the sky thick and darkening.

Joe packed his camera into its case. At that  very moment he heard an almost imperceptible, low growling noise coming from a dilapidated building set back from the road and apart from the nearest house.

Has the animal somehow found its way there?
Joe wondered.

He decided to have one last attempt at photographing it
.

If I were Dad
, he said to himself,
I wouldn’t let an opportunity like this go
.

He crept slowly over to the building, straining his ears for any noise that would give away the animal’s position. The building looked unoccupied. With no further sounds to guide him, Joe approached the front, then stood and listened. There was silence apart from the rumble of a passing truck. He began to edge his way around to the back and was convinced he heard a slight scuffling. The ground to the rear sloped away quite steeply and Joe saw that there was a sort of basement to the building. Its entrance was marked by a crooked wooden door at the bottom of a steep flight of steps. Joe shivered in the gathering gloom, a wave of anxiety passing through him.

It’s getting late. I really should return to the park headquarters.

He made up his mind to leave, but another, rather pathetic growl stopped him. It was coming from inside the basement, and whatever was making it seemed to be in trouble.

Joe went to the top of the steps, his heart beating fast. A small dog, even a raccoon dog, was nothing to be scared of, he reasoned. As the son of a vet, he would never be able to forgive himself for abandoning an injured animal. He would check that it was all right, then go home.

He put his foot on the first step, slipped on the ice and fell.

To his own ears, the scream Joe let out was loud enough to alert everyone in the village. He landed with a sickening thud in the courtyard in front of the basement door, his right leg twisted underneath him. He attempted to stand up, but couldn’t. It was impossible – the pain was excruciating. As he tried to shift into a more comfortable position, it dawned on him that his leg might be broken.

Nobody knows where I am!
The thought struck him like a hammer blow.

He called out for help, but his voice seemed thin and muffled by the falling snow. He pulled his coat tighter round him, glad that Binti had insisted they buy the thickest quilting on the market, whether or not Aesha complained about resembling a beluga whale in it.

Aesha will come and look for me, won’t she?
he thought.
She’ll worry that I’ve been away for so long. Or is she fast asleep? Mum and Dad will finish work and be worried when they find I’m not back.

Joe heard a growl, louder and more persistent than before. He hoped that whatever it was couldn’t get out of the basement. He didn’t want to be licked or slobbered over by a strange animal. And what if it bit him? What if the animal behind the door wasn’t the small animal he had been following, but something bigger, perhaps one of the larger dogs he had seen wandering the village streets?

The pain became so intense that Joe started to feel light-headed. He knew he needed to stay awake, though, so he concentrated on calling out over and over again. He could hear cars passing once in a while, but no other sounds of human life.

He began to be scared that he might not be found for hours. What then? Even in his thick coat he would surely begin to suffer from the cold. He forced himself to think of everything they had done since they had been in Russia, every tiny detail, just to keep from falling asleep. He thought about the tiger tracks in the snow, the bear in the tree, the picnic by the waterfall, the day with the sniffer dogs and the way he had mistaken Artem Klopov for a smuggler. So much had happened in such a short space of time, and now his adventure had come to a disastrous end.

Chapter 15

Joe had no idea how long he lay there, the darkness closing in, the snow falling steadily. He was terrified that his tracks would be wiped out completely and that there would be no trace left of his last movements. He drifted in and out of consciousness, the pain eating away at his resolve to stay awake and the cold beginning to gnaw at both legs.

There had been no further sound from the animal in the basement. Joe wondered if it was still there, or whether it had managed to find a way out. When he heard a dog barking not too far away, he was convinced that the animal had made its escape from somewhere at the front of the building.

Joe thought about Foggy and wondered if he was still safely tucked up at Waggy Tails. He wanted to be with him now, lying alongside him, Foggy keeping him warm, licking his hand to keep him awake, protecting him from danger, barking frantically to alert his owners to their son’s whereabouts.

The dog’s barking grew louder and more insistent. It couldn’t have been more than a few metres away. Joe was petrified. He curled into a ball and held his breath.

When the dog fell silent briefly, he heard the crunch of footsteps.
Footsteps!
A voice was issuing orders in Russian. Joe’s heart beat faster. This might be his only chance of rescue.

‘Help!’ he cried as loudly as he could. ‘HELP ME!’

The barking calmed down briefly, only to resume more loudly than ever. Joe wished it would stop so that whoever was with the dog would hear his cries.

‘I’m here, behind the building,’ he shouted. ‘HELP ME!’

At last, he saw a beam of light moving around above him. Before he could call again, a large black dog hurtled down the steps, stopped briefly to sniff at him, then stood at the basement door, barking frantically and trying to find a way underneath it. The beam of light reached the top of the steps and fell on Joe.

‘Help me, please,’ he cried weakly. ‘I think I’ve broken my leg.’

There was a gruff exclamation of surprise and someone came towards him.

‘Joe?’ asked a voice. ‘Hurt?’

It was Artem Klopov. Joe had never been so relieved in all his life. He bit his lip hard, trying not to burst into tears, and nodded, pointing at his leg.

Artem bent down beside him. ‘Look bad,’ he said. ‘Much pain?’

Joe nodded again. ‘Were you looking for me?’ he asked.

‘I have my dinner and I take Boris for a walk,’ Artem replied. ‘Lucky I find you.’

Joe felt tearful again. ‘Mum and Dad will be worried. They don’t know where I am.’

‘I think so,’ said Artem. ‘I tell them.’

Boris was still barking and scratching at the basement door. From inside came an aggressive roar, followed by a smaller growl of warning. Artem quickly stood up, listening.

‘Tiger!’ Artem said. ‘You find tiger!’

‘Tiger?’ Joe couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

‘You find tiger. Boris find scent. Boris find you.’

‘Tiger?’ Joe said again. He still couldn’t take it in.

‘Good dog, Boris,’ said Artem. ‘He learn.’

‘Do you mean there’s a tiger behind that door?’ Joe asked, incredulous.

Artem stood on tiptoe and shone his torch through the glass panel at the top of the door.

‘Young male cub, I think,’ he said. ‘Not well. I find help, for you, for him. I tell your mother and father so they not worry.’

Joe didn’t want Artem to leave. He didn’t want to be left on his own again, especially now he knew that the animal behind the door was a tiger. He had spent so many hours obsessed with the idea of seeing a wild tiger, but now that he was so close to one, he was scared it might get out, even if it was just a cub.

‘I am quick,’ Artem promised.

He clambered back up the steps, taking Boris with him.

Chapter 16

There’s a tiger behind that door
, Joe said to himself repeatedly.
I’ve been lying next to a tiger and I didn’t even know
.

He knew he should have realised. There was the same acrid smell of spray that Iona had made him sniff in the reserve. He would have to sharpen up his act if he wanted to become a wildlife expert, or even a wildlife photographer. He shouldn’t have missed such a big clue, broken leg or no broken leg.

To Joe’s intense relief, Artem returned in no time with two men from the village, who brought with them blankets and a home-made stretcher. They gathered him up as gently as they could.

‘Mother, Father, they come,’ Artem assured him. ‘You go hospital. Tiger too.’

Joe smiled weakly at the idea of the tiger going with him to hospital and lying in a bed alongside. Now that he was safe, he wanted to see the animal before they carried it away.

‘Can I see him?’ he asked. ‘Can I see the tiger?’

Artem shook his head. ‘Dangerous,’ he said. ‘Make him sleep first.’

The pain grew unbearable again, heightened by Joe’s anxiety that the tiger might be taken away before he could even glimpse it. When his parents arrived at last, with Iona and a team of tiger experts, he couldn’t help but sob at the feared loss of his last opportunity to see a tiger in the wild. He begged to be allowed to watch while the tiger was sedated before being moved from the basement.