A Tale of Time City (41 page)

The river passed hawthorn trees growing on its banks. The current carried Sirius through the shadow of one. He found himself suddenly in deep brown cold. The heat was gone. They had taken his one comfort away now. He was so indignant about it that he opened his eyes and tried to cheep a protest.

He could not manage a noise. But a second later, the river carried him out into sunlight again. Sun struck him full in the eyes and broke into a thousand dazzles on the ripples. Sirius snapped his eyes shut again. The brightness was such a shock that he became a limper wisp than ever and hardly knew that the warmth was back again.

It grew warmer—a golden, searching warmth. “It
is
you, Efful-gency!” someone said. “I thought it was!”

This was quite a different order of voice from those Sirius had heard so far. It puzzled him. It was not a voice he knew, though he had a feeling he had heard its kind before. He was not sure he trusted it. All the voices he had heard so far had done him nothing but harm—and he had a notion he had known voices before that, which had done him no good either.

“You aren’t dead, are you?” the voice asked. It seemed anxious. It was a warm, golden voice, and, though it sounded anxious, there was a hint of ferocity about it, as if the speaker could be far more dangerous than Mrs. Partridge and her friends if he chose.

Sirius was not sure if he was dead or not. He felt too weak to cope with this strong, fierce voice, so he floated on in silence.

“Can’t you answer?” The warmth playing on Sirius’s scrap of body grew stronger and hotter, as if the speaker was losing patience. Sirius was too far gone even to be frightened. He simply floated. “I suppose you can’t,” said the voice. “I think this is just too bad of them! Well, I’ll do what I can for you. Just let them try to stop me!”

The warmth stayed, lapping around Sirius, though he sensed that the speaker had gone. He floated a little way farther, until he came up against some things that were long, green and yielding. Here the warmth caught and pinned him, gently rocking. It was almost pleasant. Meanwhile, the other four half-drowned puppies floated on in midstream, around bends, to where the river became wider and dirtier, with houses on its banks.

A shrill voice spoke strange words near Sirius, “Oh, eughky! There’s a dead puppy in the rushes!”

“Don’t touch it!” said a voice rather older and rougher. And a third voice, gentle and lilting, said, “Let me see!”

“Don’t touch it, Kathleen!” said the second voice.

However, there were splashings and rustlings. A pair of hands, a great deal smaller and much more shaky and nervous than Sirius was used to, picked him out of the water and held him high in the air. He did not feel safe. The shakiness of those hands and the cold air frightened him. He wriggled and managed to utter a faint squeak of fear. The hands all but dropped him.

“It isn’t dead! It’s
alive
! Poor thing, it’s
frozen
!”

“Someone tried to drown it,” said the shrillest voice.

“Throw it back in,” said the second voice. “It’s too small to lap. It’ll die anyway.”

“No it won’t.” The hands holding Sirius became defiantly steady. “It can have that old baby bottle. I’m not going to let it die.”

“Mum won’t let you keep it,” the rough voice said nastily.

“She won’t. And the cats’ll kill it,” said the youngest voice. “Honest, Kathleen.”

The girl holding Sirius hugged him defensively to her chest and began to walk—bump, jerk, bump—away from the river across the meadow. “Poor little thing,” she said. The two boys followed, arguing with her. Their clamor hurt Sirius’s ears, and the girl kept jerking him by turning around to argue back. But he realized she was defending him from the other two and was grateful. Her convulsive hugging was making him feel safer and a great deal warmer. “Oh!” Kathleen exclaimed, bending over him. “Its tail’s wagging!”

Robin, the younger boy, demanded to see. “It’s a queer little tail,” he said doubtfully. “You don’t think it’s really a rat, do you?”

“No,” said Kathleen. “It’s a dog.”

“It’s a rat,” said Basil, the elder boy. “An Irish rat. Shamus O’Rat!”

“Shut up,” Kathleen said wearily.