PUFFIN BOOKS

Livi Michael is the author of four books for adults and the bestselling series of books about Frank the hamster for younger children. Her award-winning book for older children, The Whispering Road, has received much critical acclaim. She has two sons and lives near Manchester.

Contents

Out of the Void

At first there was only swirling mist, then shadows, then shifting lights. Finally her paws struck something solid and gritty and she was clambering upwards, out from the place of no return. Still holding the precious twig in her mouth, she scrabbled at the solid surface, her head and shoulders in one world and her rear end in quite another, and almost dropped back in as something thundered past.

Shaken but undeterred, she scrambled on to the road and cowered in the blaze of lights as there was another thundering roar.

Lights, more lights, and noise such as she had never experienced before. Her paws shifted on the grit and the texture of the road, too, was unfamiliar. She had come to a place of monsters and demons, of channelled fire and lightning and thunder and wind. She flattened herself against the blast as another demon swept past, the heat and stench. Where in the nine worlds was she?

Wherever she was, she couldn’t go back. There behind her, through the mist, lay the void, gently quivering. It made soft sounds she could barely hear. As though it was lapping at the edge of this world. But in front of her were the roaring demons with eyes that flashed along the road like lightning. Suddenly she realized they were chariots – chariots of thunder and flame. The road shook beneath them.

But she had come so far, she could not give up now. Anything was better than Nothing. She would have to try somehow to reach the other side. She could just about see that there was another side, briefly but repeatedly illuminated in the flares of light. That was where she needed to go – away from the void. She put one paw out, then hastily withdrew it as another chariot roared past and then another.

Remember, she told herself as her heart quailed, and it quailed further as she realized she had almost forgotten her purpose. But she held the flowering twig between her teeth, summoned the remaining strength in her muscles and, at the next pause in the traffic, shot like an arrow into the road.

Faster and faster she ran, narrowly avoiding one chariot, then another. In fury they blared their dreadful cries and she was deafened, but running still. She could feel the air whistling past her ears and through her teeth. And she could make out trees and bushes on the other side, she was almost there, when a stunning pain shot from her hip to her spine and she keeled over, hearing only the screech of the chariot, as she sank once more into darkness.

1

The Birthday Party

It was Sam’s worst birthday party ever. He and his mum had just moved house, and now they lived in the middle of a strange city, where they didn’t know anyone.

‘You’ll soon make friends at school,’ his mother said.

She had invited her aunts, Aunty Lilith, Aunty Joan and Aunty Dot (who hadn’t arrived yet), and they sat in the front room, eating cake and discussing their varicose veins.

‘Like bunches of grapes,’ said Aunty Joan. ‘Still, at least I’ve got legs,’ she went on briskly. ‘Poor Edith’s having her other leg off soon.’

Aunty Lilith, who was deaf, said, ‘Eh?’

‘I SAID, EDITH’S HAVING ANOTHER LEG OFF.’

‘That’ll be her third,’ said Aunty Lilith.

‘No, dear, legs. Edith’s having her other leg off.’

‘Why would she do that?’ said Aunty Lilith, very surprised. ‘She’s only just had them put on.’

‘Edith,’ bellowed Aunty Joan. ‘Edith’s legs. You told me about it, remember?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Yes, you did!’

‘No, no, dear, that’s Edith. You can’t go line-dancing without any legs.’

Aunty Joan turned faintly purple, then gave up. ‘Why don’t you open your present?’ she said to Sam. ‘I don’t know where Dot’s got to, but I don’t think she’ll mind.’

Reluctantly, Sam picked up the bulky parcel. He’d had presents from his aunts before. As soon as he started opening it he could tell it was a jumper they had knitted themselves. His aunts knitted all the time, so you’d think they’d have got better at it.

‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ his mother said. ‘Why don’t you try it on?’

Sam just looked at her.

‘Come on,’ she said.

With a vast sigh, Sam pulled off his hoodie and tussled his way into the knitted jumper. It was about the right size for Aunty Lilith, who was a very large lady, yet strangely, the neck was too small. It took the combined efforts of both Sam and his mother to wrestle his head through, then a mass of hairy wool fell to his knees.

‘You’ll grow into it,’ his mother said, in an undertone.

‘How?’ said Sam, and indeed the jumper was rather an odd shape. One arm seemed to be lower than the other, and it pouched out from the neck like a smock.

‘Such an unusual colour,’ his mother said brightly.

Sam was just thinking that it looked as though someone had been sick down the front.

‘Scrambled Egg,’ said Aunty Joan. ‘It was on offer at the shop. Sixteen balls for the price of one.’

‘I saw it first,’ said Aunty Lilith.

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘Yes, I did!’

‘No, you didn’t – you wanted to buy that Purple Meringue. Just because Edith had bought some.’

‘Can’t hear you,’ said Aunty Lilith.

Aunty Dot picked it up in the end,’ said Aunty Joan to Sam and his mum. ‘We had to ask her three times, because she kept forgetting.’

‘It’s a brilliant jumper,’ said Sam. ‘But – maybe I should take it off now – it’s – er – getting a bit warm.’

In fact it was freezing, since the temperature had recently dropped and the boiler wasn’t working.

‘Well, you can always wear it for school,’ said Aunty Joan.

His mother caught the look on Sam’s face. ‘Perhaps we should play a game,’ she said hurriedly, and Aunty Joan suggested they could play Pass the Kidney Stone, since Aunty Lilith had brought hers with her in a jar.

But before things could get really exciting, the doorbell rang.

‘I’ll go,’ said everyone except Aunty Lilith, who hadn’t heard.

Aunty Dot appeared, carrying a bundle wrapped in a blanket.

‘It’s only me, dears – oh, I’ve had the most terrible shock – just wait till you see what I’ve got here.’

‘What is it?’ said Sam’s mum, hurrying forward to help.

Just then the blanket barked. Sam’s mum jumped back in alarm as a small white head with brown ears poked out of it.

‘It’s a dog!’ cried Sam in great excitement.

‘Yes, yes, my darling, don’t you fret,’ said Aunty Dot, in the voice she usually reserved for policemen and babies in prams. ‘Everything’s all right now. Aunty Dot didn’t mean to hit you with that nasty car.’

Everyone made way for Aunty Dot as she carried the small bundle through to the kitchen, explaining breathlessly what had happened.

‘Just travelling here on the ring road – came out of nowhere – didn’t see a thing – felt it, though – must have clipped her – I don’t know if I should take her to the vet’s -’

The little dog was only aware of a cacophony of light and noise. She had come from the darkness into a glaring yellow light that was quite unlike anything she was used to – burning torches or candlelight flickering on the walls of the great hall, or the natural light of sun and moon. There was a harsh quality to this light that hurt her eyes and made her vision blur. And there was a background noise beneath the babble of voices – a whirring and ticking and clicking, and the distant roar from outside – that made no sense to her at all. She had come to one of the realms of Chaos, she thought, and began to tremble all over.

Meanwhile, Aunty Dot was examining her, feeling all the way along her spine.

‘I think she’s hurt her hip,’ she said.

The small white dog submitted to this examination because she could tell from Aunty Dot’s touch that she knew what she was doing. But when she tried to remove the twig, the dog clamped her mouth firmly shut, bracing herself, and Aunty Dot succeeded only in pulling her nose forward.

‘Looks like – mistletoe,’ she said wonderingly, and the aunts exchanged significant glances.

The dog stared at them all. Through her blurred eyes they looked huge and impressive. There was an unusual quality to them that she couldn’t place, yet something about it tugged at the threads of her memory. Everything in the room was vibrating with an energy of its own, but it was almost as though these three women had a different vibration from everything else. She didn’t know whether or not to be afraid, or more afraid than she already was. Then her blurred glance fell on the little boy, who was leaning over her eagerly. He had bright hair and a brightly coloured tunic. A halo of light fell all around him from the lamp above. In her confused eyes he looked like the master she had left – the Shining Boy.

‘Can we keep her, Mum, can we?’ he asked. Then he too tried to take the twig from her mouth.

Very gently, he reached for the mistletoe, looking into her eyes the whole time. The dog tensed all over, but she didn’t growl. She could see herself reflected in each of his eyes, and she could see what he was thinking in the same way as she had always been able to read her master’s thoughts. You won’t bite me, he was thinking, and carefully he prised the twig away from her, and she let it go.

‘Well, look at that!’ said Aunty Dot, as Sam turned the sprig of mistletoe over, examining it. Someone had cut and shaped it. It looked like a dart. ‘She knows it’s your birthday. Maybe she’ll grant you three wishes.’

‘Like a genie,’ said Aunty Joan.

‘Jenny’ said Sam, fondling the little dog’s ears.

‘There’s no point giving her a name,’ said his mother at once. ‘We’re not keeping her.’

But the little dog, who understood little of anything else, understood that she had been named. Naming was powerful magic. Once you were named you were part of the world you had come to, and it was the strongest indication that you would stay. Maybe her mission was here now, she thought suddenly. Maybe she was needed here. She wagged her tail feebly. Jen-ny, she thought. Jen-ny.

‘Look at her,’ Sam said.

They all looked at the small white dog with velvety brown markings, who gazed back at them with soft, doe eyes. She was painfully thin, but her eyes and her coat seemed to glow with a deep, mysterious light.

‘She looks a bit like a Jack Russell,’ Aunty Dot said, and indeed she did look almost, but not quite, like a Jack Russell terrier.

‘I wonder where she came from,’ said Sam’s mum.

Sam reached out for her again. ‘She’s my birthday present!’ he said.

‘Don’t be silly, Sam,’ said his mum automatically. ‘We can’t keep her – she must belong to someone.’

But Aunty Dot said she was clearly a stray as she had no collar.

Sam felt that he deserved one good present. And the little dog gazed up at him with dark eyes that seemed to speak of distance and mystery. He could see his face in each of them. It was almost as though she was trying to tell him something.

‘Can I hold her?’ said Sam, and he picked her up.

‘Careful!’ said Aunty Dot and Sam’s mum together, but the little dog offered no resistance at all. She nestled into the crook of Sam’s arm. Safe, she thought.

‘Put her down, Sam,’ said his mother. ‘You don’t know where she’s been.’

‘I mean it,’ she said when Sam didn’t move. ‘There’s no way I want another pet.’

‘Well – I was hoping she could stay here, just for tonight,’ said Aunty Dot.

‘Oh, yes!’ said Sam, as his mother started to protest.

Aunty Dot looked at the little dog with eyes made huge and luminous by the extremely powerful lenses in her glasses.

‘She’s a nice little thing,’ she said. ‘I wish I could keep her myself – I do miss having a dog. Life’s not been the same without – ever since -’

She stopped and blew her nose. Aunty Dot had never recovered from losing her own dog. She said she didn’t really want another one, not since her darling Berry had gone away. This had happened years ago, but it still brought tears to her eyes. Since then she had become a kind of unofficial dog walker, regularly taking out several dogs whose owners were too busy to walk their own pets, but she couldn’t face getting so attached to another one of her own. Besides, the aunts all lived together, and Aunty Lilith had her own dog, a tiny and rather bad-tempered Chihuahua called Pico.

‘We can’t just throw her out,’ Sam said. ‘Look at her.’

‘Sam,’ said his mum, ‘we can’t keep a dog. I’m at work all day and you’ll be at school. It wouldn’t be fair.’

‘It’s my birthday,’ Sam said.

‘But we don’t have a garden,’ his mother said.

‘I’ll take her out,’ Sam said. ‘Every day.’

‘You said you’d clean the rabbit’s hutch,’ his mother said. ‘And who ended up with that job?’

Sam shuffled uncomfortably. ‘I’m older now,’ he said.

It was true that Sam’s record with pets had not been great. He had forgotten all about the rabbit. His mother had fed it and cleaned out the hutch, but Sam had forgotten to take it out and play with it, and eventually the rabbit just got more and more snappy and unmanageable, and one day it had learned to open the hutch all by itself. The first they had known about it was when the rabbit had chased the postman up a tree. Then for three days Sam and his mother had been trapped inside the house while the savage rabbit prowled outside, snarling and making other un-rabbit-like noises so that no one could come near. Eventually, to everyone’s relief, it had bounded over the garden gate and left, leaving a trail of mangled well-wishers in its wake.

But a dog was different. Sam had always wanted a dog. Reluctantly, he put her back down on the table and placed the mistletoe twig between her paws. She picked it up immediately and stood quivering, her big eyes fixed hopefully on Sam’s mum.

‘Dogs cost money,’ she said. ‘Suppose she needs the vet?’

‘I’ll pay,’ said Sam, ‘with my pocket money,’ and his mother rolled her eyes.

‘Have you any idea how much pocket money you’d need for that?’ she said.

‘Please!’ said Sam.

‘I’ll take her to the vet’s tomorrow, if she’s still having trouble with her hip,’ said Aunty Dot. ‘I just thought we could see how she went on tonight.’

Sam’s mother sighed. ‘I suppose we could hang on to her for one night,’ she said, and Sam flung his arms round her. ‘But tomorrow we’re putting cards in the shops. Someone must know something about this dog.’

Sam was delighted. He took an old pillow from the bedding chest and put it near the kitchen door so that she could guard it. When he got back to the table Aunty Dot was feeding the little dog a sausage roll. She was obviously hungry, yet she hesitated, then put the mistletoe twig down between her paws and took the pieces delicately.

Sam picked her up again and put her on the kitchen floor, very gently. ‘Come on, Jenny,’ he said, and she limped over to the pillow right away and sat on it. She understood that there had been some kind of discussion and that she could stay. She didn’t understand fully where she was, or what she was supposed to do, or what all these people would do with her, but for now at least she was safe. She suddenly felt unutterably tired. She turned herself round on the pillow once and sank down, her eyes already closing. Sam slipped the mistletoe dart back on to her pillow.

The aunts all left, Aunty Dot promising to call by the next day to help Sam take Jenny for a walk, and Sam was finally persuaded to go to bed after a brief, tense argument with his mother about whether or not Jenny could sleep on his bed. His mother won the argument and Sam went upstairs alone. He pulled the jumper off at last, feeling relieved to get rid of the itchy wool, and stuffed it right at the back of his cupboard. So far back, in fact, that he didn’t notice when it glowed, fiercely and brightly for a moment, before settling down. He got into bed and lay awake for a long time, thinking about having a dog of his own, and when he fell asleep he dreamed strange, wonderful dreams, about a boy with a face like the sun and a white dog gleaming like a small star through the early-morning mist.

2

New Day, New World

When Jenny woke up the next morning, she had no idea where she was. It was still dark in the kitchen, and rather cold, and the whirring and humming and clicking noises were still there. They seemed to be coming from tall, metallic slabs that stood against the wall.

She had been dreaming that she was with her master, playing in meadows thick with flowers, and the early-morning sun shone down on them through the mist. But now here she was, stranded in a cold, dark, alien world. The only warm place was the pillow on which she lay and the only reminder of her former life was the small, chewed twig between her paws. She tried and tried, but she couldn’t remember why she had come here in the first place. It was as though the accident had driven the memories from her mind. She felt lonely and afraid, and she jumped when she heard footsteps clattering down the stairs.

‘Jenny!’ Sam called. ‘Jenny?’

The little dog lifted her nose and sniffed. That was her name now, she remembered. Jen-ny.

Sam bounded into the kitchen.

‘There you are, Jenny,’ he said, hugging her straight away. ‘Are you cold? Did you sleep well? I bet you’re hungry!’

He went on talking to her in words Jenny didn’t understand. But fortunately all dogs speak human to some extent. They respond to the tone of voice, the rise and fall and rhythm of the words, and Jenny knew that Sam was being kind. And she recognized the smell of him right away, though he wasn’t quite as shiny as the night before. In fact, now that she could see him clearly, he didn’t remind her of her master at all.

He stood up and pressed a switch and immediately the room was filled with the same yellow glare as before, and Jenny couldn’t see a thing. She cowered in the blinding light.

‘It’s only a light bulb, Jenny,’ Sam said, laughing, and he opened one of the whirring metal slabs and brought out the sausage rolls from the party. He ate one himself and offered one to Jenny. She sniffed it, but she was too confused and wary to eat.

‘I bet you need the toilet,’ Sam said, and he opened the back door, letting in a blast of cold air.

The door led into a yard that was full of junk: planks of wood, buckets and ladders, an old brush and mop, a window, still in its frame, and Sam’s bike, draped in a plastic sheet. Jenny hung back warily. The yard was full of strange smells. She didn’t dare venture out.

‘Go on, then,’ Sam said, but Jenny didn’t move. He went into the yard and called her, patting his knees, but still she wouldn’t stir.

Then Sam had an idea. He walked back into the kitchen, quickly picked up the little dart on Jenny’s pillow and threw it into the yard.

Jenny leapt. She flew through the air like a bird, or a very bouncy kangaroo, catching the mistletoe twig before it landed.

‘Go, Jenny!’ shouted Sam, and in the middle of all the confusion of the yard, Jenny squatted and made her mark. It felt strange, but she couldn’t help herself. Making your mark was very powerful magic, and another sign that she belonged in this world now.

Then, just as she would have done with her old master, she returned the dart to Sam.

‘Good girl!’ he said, patting her on the head. ‘Looks like your hip’s better, Jenny!’ He threw the twig back into the kitchen and Jenny leapt after it, flying gracefully over a chair.

‘Ace!’ said Sam.

He found a bowl in the cupboard and filled it with water, and Jenny lapped at it gratefully, then ate the sausage roll. She had eaten and drunk twice now in this strange world and maybe that was the third sign.

Afterwards they went on playing. Sam threw the dart and Jenny caught it, no matter where he threw it, how high or how far.

‘Jenny – you’re amazing!’ he said, and just then the doorbell rang, and Jenny shot backwards, barking, under a chair.

It was Aunty Dot, who had pedalled all the way across the city on her bike to see them.

‘I thought we’d take her out, first thing, before it’s too busy,’ she said, and she propped the bike up in the hallway and followed Sam into the front room.

‘Watch this, Aunty Dot!’ he said, and he threw the mistletoe dart high into the air.

‘Look out!’ said Aunty Dot, but before it could strike anything, Jenny leapt. She flew straight over the back of the settee, caught the dart in her jaws and descended again gracefully to the carpet.

‘Goodness!’ said Aunty Dot, and then ‘My word!’ as she did it again. ‘Well, there can’t be much wrong with her hip,’ she added, as Jenny bounded over the high-backed chair.

‘It doesn’t matter where I throw it,’ Sam said, ‘she always catches it!’

‘Impressive,’ said Aunty Dot, and she patted Jenny’s head vigorously.

Jenny put up with this politely, but then Sam said, ‘You have a go,’ and as soon as he handed the dart to Aunty Dot, Jenny put back her ears and growled.

It was an astonishing growl. It rattled all the ornaments on the mantelpiece, and the books and videos on the shelves. The shelves themselves started shaking, the coffee table rattled and the high-backed chair juddered towards the centre of the room.

Aunty Dot clutched her hat, which she could feel was about to fly off. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Oh, my word,’ for she had a sudden, fleeting vision of volcanoes erupting and continents shifting deep within their oceanic beds.

But Sam was beaming up at her proudly.

‘She does that an’ all,’ he said.

‘Well!’ said Aunty Dot, once she had got her breath back. ‘I don’t think she wants me to have it.’ She gave the dart back to Sam, and instantly the thunderous growling stopped and Jenny wagged her tail.

‘Well,’ said Aunty Dot again, ‘I think we’d better take her out for a walk,’ and from her shoulder bag she produced a collar and lead.

‘Cool!’ said Sam. ‘Can I hold them?’

‘You’d better get dressed first,’ said Aunty Dot. ‘And tell your mum where you’re going.’

Sam ran upstairs, where his mother was still in bed. Aunty Dot eyed the little dog intently and Jenny eyed her back.

‘You’re not quite what you seem, are you?’ Aunty Dot murmured, bending forward and removing her spectacles. ‘I wonder what your real name is and where you’ve come from. And what that dart is for.’

Jenny stared at Aunty Dot as though she had never seen her before. Without her glasses she was transformed. White light streamed from her face, which suddenly seemed not elderly and kindly, but magnificent and ageless. Her eyes radiated darkness, while pale fire streamed from her lips. It was obvious to Jenny that Aunty Dot too was not what she seemed.

Sam came thundering down the stairs again.

‘Can I put the collar on her?’ he said.

‘Yes, I think you’d better,’ Aunty Dot replied, replacing her glasses.

There followed a short interlude during which both Sam and Aunty Dot tried to get the collar on Jenny, and Jenny responded by running round in circles, twisting out of reach, rolling over and finally backing into a corner under the chair.

It was as if she didn’t know what a collar was.

‘Right,’ said Aunty Dot, out of both patience and breath. ‘I think I know what’s going on. She’s nervous of traffic, since I clipped her last night. It’s quite understandable, poor thing. But she’ll have to get used to it. See if she’ll let you pick her up.’

As before, Jenny seemed quite happy to be picked up by Sam. He tucked her under his arm and followed Aunty Dot to the hallway, standing to one side of the bike as she opened the front door.

‘Now, you’ll have to be really careful,’ Aunty Dot warned. ‘We don’t want her jumping down and running into the road.’

In fact, Jenny did seem to be extraordinarily nervous. She flinched at all the brightness and quivered at the noise. Sam held on to her tightly, then he saw Aunty Dot’s bicycle basket.

‘I know! She can have a ride in your basket,’ he said, and before Aunty Dot could say, No, don’t! he lifted the lid and lowered Jenny inside.

‘WOOOFF!!’ said the bicycle basket, and there followed what sounded like a small tornado. Aunty Dot hastily scooped Jenny out again.

‘Pico!’ she said.

It has already been mentioned that Pico was very small, even for a Chihuahua. He was so small that he could fit in the palm of Aunty Dot’s hand. He was also very loud. In fact the one attribute had evolved out of the other, since Pico lived with Aunty Lilith, who was short-sighted and very deaf. And she weighed a lot. It wasn’t easy to coax her on to scales, or to find any that would take the full brunt of her weight, but Aunty Dot had bought an industrial-sized set especially for the purpose and had bullied Aunty Lilith on to it one day.

‘Good heavens, Lilith!’ she had said. ‘You weigh 340 pounds!’

‘Too much money for a set of scales,’ Aunty Lilith said.

‘No, dear – you’ll have to go on a diet!’

‘Dye it? There’s nothing wrong with it!’

‘Nothing wrong with what?’ said Aunty Dot, getting confused.

‘That’s what I said!’ said Aunty Lilith triumphantly.

Most conversations with Aunty Lilith went like this, and in the end most people gave up and left her to sit in her specially designed armchair, which could be manoeuvred into different positions at the touch of a button, and to eat her favourite treacle toffee, which exercised her jaw at least. Other than this, Aunty Lilith was quite happy in her chair and rarely saw the need to move out of it, but when she did Pico had to be very careful, because her size-nine feet might descend in any direction. And so this was how he had come to develop his tremendous bark.

‘WOOF!’

Because Pico was too small to go for walks in the usual way, Aunty Dot carried him around in the basket of her bicycle. When anyone approached it, Pico produced a bark like a Great Dane.

‘WOOF!!’

‘No one’ll ever steal this bike,’ Aunty Dot said, with satisfaction, and Sam, out of politeness, refrained from saying that no one would ever want to. It was a vast, unwieldy thing that clanked and groaned, and looked as if it had been cobbled together from the remains of other bikes. Aunty Dot had ridden it around the city for many years. She rode on the pavements, since the roads were so busy, and whenever pedestrians got in the way, she just jiggled the basket so that Pico barked again – ‘WOOF!!’ – and they scattered to left and right, sometimes diving into the road for safety.

‘Better than a car horn,’ Aunty Dot always said.

Now she handed Jenny back to Sam and lifted Pico from the basket.

‘Jenny dear, it’s all right – everything’s fine,’ she said, holding the Chihuahua out towards her. Jenny this is Pico.’

For a moment the two dogs tensed and bristled at one another, then Jenny moved her nose, quivering and whiffly, towards Pico, and after a moment he lifted his tiny nose to her. And, moved by an impulse she didn’t fully understand, she said, ‘Little friend, I see that your body is small, but your heart is great. You have within you distant horizons and marvellous deeds. You will leave the place where you are now and travel to faraway lands. The stars shall be your compass and your journey shall know no boundaries.’

Now, in the main, Pico was contented with his life. He had known nothing else, having been bought by Aunty Lilith when he was a puppy and hardly bigger than a mouse. But sometimes he did wonder if there was more to the world than Aunty Lilith’s sleeve and Aunty Dot’s bicycle basket. When he rode in the bicycle basket he had a sense of immensity and noise, but Aunty Dot and Aunty Lilith were agreed that the pavements were too dangerous for him. Once, when he had been taken out, he had barked at a large, mean-looking dog called Rex, and Rex had looked down in surprise to find where all the noise was coming from, then opened his great jaws and scooped him up in a single bite. Pico had to be pulled out of his mouth by the tail. Since then he had been carried about from one confined space to another, which was all he knew of the world. But he did dream about huge mountain ranges and deserts and forests and plains so vast that, run though you might, there was no end to them. He didn’t know where these dreams came from, but each time he had them he felt restless and a little more discontented with his lot. He would bark at Aunty Lilith until she put him on the window ledge, where he would peer out as well as he could at the bush that obscured his view, and get terribly excited if anyone came, such as the postman or the window cleaner. He would trot all the way from one end of the ledge to the other and wish he was bigger and that he could see more.

‘Where have you come from?’ he would bark at them, or ‘Where are you going?’, and in his mind he had the sense of far horizons and of horses galloping into the sun.

But all that came out of him was the same sound – ‘WOOF!’ – and the postman and the window cleaner would laugh, and say that he was a great little guard dog, and leave him alone again on the ledge.

One day, Pico, he would tell himself, one day you will see the world! And each time he told himself this, he had the sense that the day was coming nearer. Now for the first time he could see those dreams realized in Jenny’s eyes. When he spoke finally it was in a voice that was hushed and awed.

‘You are right,’ he told her. ‘But no one has ever seen that before.’ And right there and then, Pico gave Jenny his heart.

Aunty Dot could sense that something had shifted between the two dogs.

‘Perhaps we could try her in the basket after all,’ she murmured, thinking aloud.

So, very carefully, Sam lowered Jenny into the basket and, even more carefully, Aunty Dot lowered Pico in after her.

It worked! The two dogs nestled in without protest, and as Aunty Dot wheeled her ancient bicycle along the street, Pico rode between Jenny’s forepaws and both of them looked out.

The most obvious thing about the city where Sam and his mother had come to live was that there was hardly anywhere to walk a dog. There were overpasses and bypasses and subways, and concrete buildings and apartment buildings so tall you could hardly see the sky, but there was very little grass or trees. And wherever there was grass, there were notices up saying: DOGS NOT ALLOWED. More notices on lampposts read: DOG OWNERS BEWARE! £1,000 FINE IF YOUR DOG FOULS THE PAVEMENTS.

They didn’t say what the fine would be if the owners fouled the pavements, Aunty Dot pointed out, as she showed Sam the notices. ‘And humans are a lot dirtier than dogs,’ she said.

It was true that the city was dirty. A kind of smog hung over it at all times, so that only on the brightest, hottest days could you actually see the sun, like a flat disc without rays, through the smoke. Petrol fumes clogged up the air and roadworks clogged up the roads. So many different companies were drilling and digging, you could see right into the underbelly of the roads, as though they were being gutted. Wheelie bins overflowed from alleys, wastepaper bins spilled their contents into the streets, people scattered their litter behind them as they went.

And there were so many people! Fat and thin, tall and short, drab and colourful, decorated with paint or metal studs. Jenny had never imagined there could be so many people. They didn’t look anything like the people in her own world. For one thing, hardly any of them wore small, horned helmets. Or carried axes and shields. Some of them carried bags, and they bumped and jostled one another along the pavements, yet even then they didn’t look at each other, but down and away, and they didn’t look happy either, but frustrated and sad, bad-tempered, or just as though they were millions of miles away in their thoughts.

Jenny saw all this and wondered. It seemed to her, as Aunty Dot wheeled her bike slowly along the pavements, that she could hear the distant murmur of grass still struggling to grow far beneath the concrete, or the soft protest of roots forced to turn inwards and grow back down into the earth. The only spare bit of land that had not been developed yet was towards the outskirts of the city, near where Aunty Dot lived, which was where she was taking Jenny now.

It was a desolate wasteland, known as the croft, with patches of black earth and stubble, and tufts of grass that contained the scents of every dog in the city. Here at last Aunty Dot let Pico and Jenny out of the basket. Pico disappeared instantly behind a tuft of grass, while Jenny was assaulted by a stunning range of scents she had never encountered before. Dogs, of course, and litter – old beer cans and bags of chips or takeaway curries. There was a can of oil, an old sock and a carrier bag. But beyond this there were all the ancient scents, telling the story of that particular patch of earth since it began, nearly five billion years ago. There was the scent of marching feet drumming in her nostrils, scorched earth and fire, and before that, long before, the scent of swamp, then ocean. She took her time investigating the earth, sniffing along the length of each blade of grass she came to, parting the tufts with her nose and examining them from the roots to the tip. Even here she could smell the petrol, and the residues of people, and the scent of a greater variety of dogs than she had ever known.

‘This is where I bring my other dogs,’ Aunty Dot told Sam, clipping the lead on while Jenny was too distracted to notice. ‘She’ll soon get used to it.’

Once they were ready to return, Aunty Dot put Pico back in the basket, while Jenny practised walking through the streets of the city, dodging and weaving through what felt like millions of pairs of feet. When they finally got back to Sam’s house, his mother had copied out a notice on several cards:

FOUND
One Jack Russell terrier, white with brown markings.
Please contact –

And she had put their phone number on the bottom. She gave them to Sam, along with some money for dog food. He was to go to the post office, the newsagent’s, the corner shop and the Co-op, the vet’s and anywhere else he could think of that might put the cards in their window. Sam looked at Aunty Dot for support, but she only smiled at him ruefully, shook her head slightly and said she would have to be going.

Reluctantly, Sam set off. He bought some tins of dog food at the corner shop and paid the man ten pence to put the card in the window. He was about to tuck it behind an advert for washing-machine repairs and another one for second-hand bikes, so that it could hardly be seen, when he changed his mind, left the shop and dropped all the cards into the bin outside. He used the rest of the money to buy another tin of dog food and a lollipop for himself, so when, over the next few days, no one contacted them about the advert and his mum was surprised, and a little disappointed, Sam wasn’t surprised at all.

And while Sam’s mum waited hopefully, Aunty Dot came every day and introduced Jenny, one by one, to the other dogs she walked.

3

Gentleman Jim

Gentleman Jim was an enormous dog. His owner, Gordon, was fond of saying that his mother was a cross between an Irish wolfhound and a Great Dane but his father was a horse. And indeed Gentleman Jim was almost as tall as his owner, who was not a short man. He was very old – over sixteen – and was getting a bit stiff in his legs. In fact, getting up at all was becoming more and more of a problem. He would try various approaches, such as raising his huge head off his paws and pushing his front end to a standing position, but then if his rear end refused to shift, he could only push himself backwards across the floor. Or if he got his rear end up first, sometimes his front would follow, only to sag forward again unexpectedly. And then sometimes he would actually manage to get both ends up at once, but his middle would buckle.

It was sometimes said, by uncharitable people, that Gentleman Jim was not the prettiest sight. His hair was falling out in patches and his wrinkled skin was scabbed all over. He had the ears and eyes of a bloodhound, and a long muzzle like a horse, and terribly bad teeth, which from time to time would fall out, clattering despondently to the floor. As a result of these terrible teeth his breath was so bad that he could kill small mammals just by breathing on them.

Despite these natural disadvantages, Gentleman Jim was cheerful enough, partly because his owner was so well trained. After years of trying to get Jimbo, as he was affectionately known, to fetch the paper or his slippers, Gordon had finally learned to fetch them himself. Similarly he would run after any ball that he threw for his dog, retrieve it and lay it at Jimbo’s feet. And Gentleman Jim would raise his expressive eyebrows until Gordon finally picked up the ball, threw it and ran after it again. In a similar manner he had trained Gordon to jump, roll over and beg. He had also trained his owner to get up when he didn’t want to, simply by climbing slowly and painfully on top of him, then squeezing all the breath out of him as he slept. On the occasions when this didn’t work and Gordon simply seemed to be lapsing into a coma, Gentleman Jim would unroll his massive tongue and drool into Gordon’s ear until he eventually awoke, spluttering, sneezing and coughing all at once, and shaking his head so vigorously that droplets of drool flew around the room.

Once his owner was thoroughly awake and had attended to all his needs, putting the fire on, cooking substantial quantities of pet mince and taking him round the corner for a constitutional, Gentleman Jim was free to go back to sleep in his favourite position in front of the fire, while Gordon banged around the house in a rather bad-tempered way, wondering what on earth he should do until the sun rose and he could set off for work.

So, on the whole, Gentleman Jim was entirely happy with his situation. His needs were few. He would sit in front of the patio doors, doing his eyebrow exercises, twitching his nose if a fly landed on it and greeting Aunty Dot, when she came by to walk him, with a slow but enthusiastic thump of his tail on the floor that sounded like applause, and generally living in peace with his world. That is, until Gordon found a new girlfriend.

At first Gentleman Jim was untroubled by this development. He had got rid of no fewer than five of Gordon’s previous girlfriends, mainly by sitting on them.

‘Down, boy, down!’ Gordon would say, struggling to extract them, and ‘Bad dog!’ when Gentleman Jim refused to move, and Gentleman Jim would wag his tail in a good-humoured kind of way, while Gordon strained and pulled, and his girlfriends squeaked out terrible language with what little breath they had left.