3

Charlie’s Secret

It was generally agreed amongst absolutely everybody that Charlie was an extremely handsome dog. He had carriage. He had class. He held his head well and his balance was excellent. There was no haystack he couldn’t climb. His eyes were bright and his hair was sleek, with just the right amount of rough bits around his legs and stomach. Apart from his height, he was a perfect shape for a ratter.

But Charlie had a Terrible Secret. Although he looked like a ratter, he was actually terrified of rats. He always had been. He had what a vet might call a rat phobia. Out on a job, he would take up the highest position in any barn or loft so that he could bark orders to the rest of the gang without getting too close to a rat. Rats squeaked horribly and they could bite. They gave Charlie the creeps, and he shuddered whenever he thought of their pointed little pink noses and long teeth. Sometimes Charlie was afraid that he would faint at the sight of them.

‘You lot need supervising,’ he would say to his gang, ‘and someone has to work out TACTICS. STRATEGY, don’t you know.’ Since he would nip any of them who challenged him, the rest of the gang believed him, and were happy to let him take control.

Just occasionally something terrible would happen and the rats would run towards him instead of in the opposite direction. The memory of the two or three times this had happened gave him nightmares and he would squeak and shiver in his sleep.

‘Don’t worry old boy!’ Mr Trundle would stroke and comfort Charlie as he lay on the rug in front of the fire. ‘You’re just dreaming.’ And Charlie would feel embarrassed as well as relieved that it was just a dream he was having.

But apart from the rat phobia problem, Charlie loved the life of a respected rat catcher. So long as nobody guessed his secret he was a happy dog. He and his gang were admired by other dogs in the locality, and were envied by some. Timba, for instance, was proud to call Charlie his friend, and wished he too could be one of the gang. If any of the village spaniels, or even collie dogs, bumped into Charlie, Snip or Spud, they would stand respectfully aside to let them pass.

And Charlie loved travelling around in Trundle’s old van, looking out of the back window as the lanes and fields stretched away from him. In farms and stables he was greeted by name, and he was proud to be a good gang leader. Clever and firm, but always fair. That’s how he saw himself.

But now he had a new worry. Girlie ratters? Oh please!

Charlie decided to send Spud to investigate.

‘You are the fastest and the bravest of my gang,’ he always said to Spud, ‘after me of course.’ Spud had black markings on his ears and bright brown eyes. He’d come down from Scotland, so he said, and Charlie believed his story that he’d ratted in some of the coldest and toughest corners of that cold tough country. Spud didn’t speak with a Scottish accent, but in case the others should forget his Scottishness he tended to start most of his sentences with ‘Och.’

If Charlie wanted to get a message to the rest of the gang, he had a method that worked every time. He tried it now.

Whining and whimpering pathetically, he pawed at Mr Trundle who was dozing in his chair.

‘What’s the matter Charlie boy?’

‘Whimper, whine, whine, squeak.’

‘Your leg hurting again? Hold on and I’ll ring Mrs Nockerty.’ Reaching for the phone Mr Trundle pressed the favourite button.

‘Mabel? I need your healing hands. Charlie’s hurt his leg again.’

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said. It never failed.

Some time ago Charlie had been gripped by excitement as he’d listened to Mr Trundle’s daughter reading 101 Dalmations to her children. He’d rushed outside to try twilight barking, but couldn’t make it work. Snip, who listened to Radio 4 whenever he could, said it wouldn’t work because of the phone mast on the hill, but Charlie was sure that the Dalmations had made the whole thing up.

Five minutes later Mr Trundle, Charlie and Snip parked in the lane outside Mrs Nockerty’s cottage, and Charlie signalled to Herbie and Spud that he needed to talk.

It was understandable that Mrs Nockerty believed herself to have healing hands, because within five minutes of her careful massaging of Charlie’s leg, he always recovered completely.

‘You’re a marvel Mabel,’ Mr Trundle said today, and, with an unusual burst of energy, he danced his friend across the room, singing, ‘Mabel you’re a marvel,’ in his croaky voice, until she laughed and told him to sit down while she fetched him some cake.

‘Go to Scooby’s Hollow, ‘Charlie whispered quickly to Spud, ‘and bring me news of this gang of terriers.’ He knew Spud could easily do this, as Mrs Nockerty never worried about the whereabouts of her dogs.

‘Och, OK.’ said Spud. ‘I’ll go and find out what’s what.’

After their cake Mr Trundle and Mrs Nockerty decided to pop down to the pub for a beer each, and they left the dogs behind. Spud raced away, and the others hoped he might get back whilst they were still there so they could hear the news.

‘Where is he?’ asked Charlie crossly, after only fifteen minutes had passed. He was an impatient dog.

‘He’ll be here soon,’ said Snip calmly, and indeed in another ten minutes Spud came slipping through the open window and jumped down onto the carpet.

‘Well?’ they all stared at him.

‘Och,’ said Spud, ‘they are indeed a girl gang, but there are only three of them. They look to be a mother and two daughters.’

Charlie made a funny noise in his throat - it sounded like laughter.

‘Nothing to worry about then,’ he said.

‘Well,’ said Spud, ‘not quite so simple.’

‘What do you mean?’ growled Charlie.

‘I mean they look fit,’ said Spud, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the mother was a member of the SSJRT. She’s small with the right kind of legs. A neat shape for a ratter.’

‘Small? Small? A neat shape for a ratter?’ Charlie was shocked. ‘What’s neat got to do with rats?’

Spud was about to say that small neat ratters were more agile and faster than taller ones, when he remembered Charlie’s height. Luckily for him, at that moment the front door flew open and Mrs Nockerty, red faced and cheery, came back from the pub, followed by a similarly colourful Mr Trundle.

‘Come on dogs!’ he shouted, ‘let’s get home. Goodbye Mabel,’ he said, giving Mrs Nockerty a peck on the cheek.

Spud sighed. He could tell that Charlie wasn’t going to take the news about the new terriers seriously. But he’d watched Dora and her daughters through a gap in the hedge for at least four minutes, and had immediately wanted to introduce himself. One of the girls, rough haired like him and pale coloured but with a fetching patch of brown over one eye, had specially caught his attention. He thought he’d heard her called Allie. Spud knew a fine shapely ratter when he saw one, and she’d looked near to perfection. He’d been struck, and he longed to see her again.

Spud was only half Scottish. His father had come from Birmingham and Spud loved to tell the story of how his parents had met.

‘My mother had noble Scottish blood you know, and a smooth coat that looked uncannily like the Mactavish family tartan. She was admired all over Scotland for her skill and strength, and my father, handsome too and an expert ratter in his own right, fell for her at once.’

By this point in Spud’s story, Charlie, Herbie and Snip usually dropped to sleep with boredom.

Even the soppy bit at the end where the two terriers fell in love across the frozen heather, couldn’t keep them awake.

Herbie was the youngest gang member. He’d been brought up well by a breeder from the Midlands and was polite and well turned out. Happy enough with Mrs Nockerty, he had been even happier with her son Stanley, the bank robber. Herbie had been Stanley’s look out dog, and very good he’d been at it too. Indeed he took most of the credit for Stanley’s final getaway, and was only sorry that he hadn’t been allowed to go to the hot uncomfortable place with him, where he was sure the two of them could have had a great life together.

Herbie was adored by Snip. Brainy Snip. Snip tried hard to educate Herbie, who had picked up some funny ideas from having spent so much time with bank robbers, and he certainly didn’t care whether the earth was round or flat, or about telephone masts or Ipads. He liked to hear about local crimes, how many banks had been robbed and so on, but Snip didn’t say much about interesting things like that.

All three dogs admired and respected Charlie, and never dreamt that he was frightened of rats.