I can’t tell you everything that’s been going on in the last few days. There’s been just too much. We haven’t heard any more “cars backfiring,” though, which is a good thing.
Mainly, Ramzy and I have been living our days in fear of a police car approaching either of our houses. What we did was pretty serious, especially the running away from an officer bit. We both know that we’ll be in big trouble. But we both also know that the police and practically everyone else who works in a uniform have got bigger things to worry about than a couple of kids in a pit of poo.
The day after our St. Woof’s raid Ramzy messaged me.
I replied:
Mr. Mash is staying in the barn, completely undetected, so I take him food in my backpack. It’s fairly easy to go down our lane toward the main road, and then double back just before the gate (I’m obscured by a big hedge), and so that’s what I do.
I stay for about an hour, throwing a ball around the big barn, hiding in a pile of cardboard boxes till Mashie finds me, wagging his whole bottom with delight, and then I just sit there, scratching his tummy and trying not to think of the other dogs I had to leave behind.
I wonder if he misses his friends. I wonder whether the awful thing that I cannot even write about has happened at St. Woof’s yet. I wonder what the poor vicar makes of everything. It all seems so unnecessary, putting them down. Mr. Mash seems fine.
Sitting there, in the dusty barn, among the old rusty car doors, and a long exhaust pipe and other car junk, I jump a little when my phone buzzes with an incoming message. It’s the vicar: he says he’ll be coming round tonight.
I leave the little window in the barn open to let in some fresh air because Mr. Mash has just let one go; then I close the door, promising to come and see him again soon. It’s not much of a life for him, but it is at least a life.
Dad has the radio on in the workshop, and for the first time I can remember it’s tuned to a news station. No classic rock, which is Dad’s usual favorite, just Bad News: endless updates on the spread of CBE.
“A’right, dear?” he says when I walk in. I think he’s lost weight. He’s pretty big, my dad, but his face looks thinner. “What you been up to?”
I shrug in response. “Oh, you know—this ’n’ that.” He doesn’t appear to mind. Everyone’s in a strange mood, it seems. Dad sits on the side ledge of the campervan. He bites into a sandwich and offers me one. He shakes his head at the radio.
“It’s getting worse,” he says with his mouth full, although I already know because I’ve heard the latest update, which announced that two people have now died in the UK, and other cases are suspected. This makes me nervous, in case Mr. Mash is sick. But if he is, he isn’t showing any signs of it. There are also now countless dogs dead from the virus, and several more have been shot overnight.
“They were all strays,” says Dad, trying to comfort me. This at least means that the dogs’ owners are not upset, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling sad for the dogs.
Later that evening, Clem and I are on the sofa, watching the television. It is like we’re in some sort of a daze.
Round and around it goes: the same pictures from China, from France, from Canada, from everywhere. The same reporters cropping up, standing in front of hospitals or government buildings, or landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, and saying pretty much the same thing.
I nearly jump off the sofa when I hear the doorbell. It’s the vicar from St. Woof’s, and I don’t think I have ever seen a grown-up so changed in appearance.
Where once there was a pink-faced, healthy-looking man with a sparkle in his eyes and a friendly—even goofy—smile, there is now a shell. His shoulders sag, his face is an odd grayish color, and he looks as though he hasn’t slept in days.
I’m terrified he’s going to say something about Mr. Mash. Ramzy and I might be feeling very pleased with ourselves for having dodged the police—but there’s still a dog missing from St. Woof’s, and the police will have told the vicar all about the previous night.
“H-hello, Vicar,” I say, and he gives me a tight smile. Oh no, he knows, I think. He’s going to tell Dad.
Dad is coming up the path behind him.
“Maurice!” he calls. “I saw you go past. Come on in. Mind, it’s a bad business this, eh? I’m so sorry about your dogs.”
“I can’t stay, Rob,” he says, his voice cracking with fatigue, or emotion, or both. “I wanted to give something to Georgie.”
He fumbles in his pocket and pulls out a dog’s collar, which he dumps in my hands. “It’s OK,” he says. “It’s been sterilized.”
I hold it up. The little round disc attached to the collar says DUDLEY and I grip it in my palm.
“Poor old Dudley,” says the vicar.
“Was…was he…?” I can’t even say it but the vicar knows.
“He didn’t suffer one bit,” he says, shaking his head. “And you can take comfort that the last weeks of his life were made better by you and your wee friend.”
I nodded. “Have they all…?”
The vicar swallowed. “Yes, Georgie. It was the vet’s instructions. The risk was too great. They have all been put down.”
I hear Dad gasp. “What about Mr. Mash?” he asks.
That, I think, should have been my reaction. Isn’t it suspicious that I’m not more upset about Mr. Mash?
“Yes—what about Mr. Mash?” I say quickly. It sounds unbelievable but Dad hasn’t noticed.
“Well,” says the vicar. He’s taking his time, choosing his words carefully. “As I think Georgie already knows…”
He’s looking at me steadily. “Mr. Mash was, ah…rehomed very recently. Two young people arrived with the intention of giving him a good home.”
All I can do is nod. Dad nods too and says, “That’s good.”
“I just hope they know what they’re doing,” he concludes. “And that they don’t put Mr. Mash at any further risk. Or themselves,” he adds with extra weight. “It has been a devilish few days. The health authorities seem convinced that the British outbreak began with us at St. Woof’s. A breach of the sanitary regulations would be all that was needed to set it off.”
I turn away and run upstairs.
I collapse on my bed, letting Dudley’s collar fall from my hand onto the bedroom floor, and I just stare at the ceiling, unable to feel anything.
Still, nobody knows that the whole thing is my fault.