Dog Boy (22 page)

He liked to see a cat at the start of a hunt, and, whenever he did, was convinced the hunt went well. He screamed, bashed and bit the dogs into leaving them alone. When Golden Bitch and Black Dog carried a cat into the lair, he infuriated everyone by snatching its mauled stringy carcass and climbing the ruined cupola to hide it where they couldn’t reach it.

Romochka knew, as soon as he entered, that Puppy had done something wrong. Puppy didn’t race to greet him but stared at him from the family nest, big eyed. Romochka stiffened and stared at his little brother with menace. He let the others jump all over him. He threw his bags of scraps to the side for them to smell over, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on Puppy’s face. He waited. Puppy crept on his belly to Romochka’s hands, licked them, then crept back to the nest. Romochka swung away from him and headed to his bower. He could feel Puppy’s eyes following him.

Puppy had been in his bower. Romochka could smell him and could sense each tiny displacement of his space. Puppy had been many times in his bower: they all had, but only by invitation. His eye caught the loose brick in the wall, subtly dislodged. Puppy had been into his secret place. Filled with a cold rage, Romochka slid the brick out and felt over his things, all fouled by Puppy’s touch. His fingers missed it first. He felt over everything again with care, then scraped the collection of beaks and claws into his other palm. There was no doubt: the crown was gone. He turned with a savage snarl and towered over Puppy, who was lying on the ground right behind him, face averted. Romochka roared and reached for his club. Puppy fled to the nest just as Mamochka entered the lair, leapt forward and snarled at Romochka full in the face. He nearly clubbed her. She saw it in his eyes and blazed at him in full attack readiness. He crept away ashamed and shocked. He refused to eat and refused to sleep with any of them afterwards. He froze until midnight, then headed out miserably to roam the mountain with Black Dog.

The crown was not to be found. Puppy had eaten it for its beauty.

A day later Puppy was scampering about, barking happily. Romochka was surly; however, as he had clearly lost his aloofness, Puppy was ridiculously elated. Romochka started trying to catch Puppy in order to thrash and maul him, but his attempts to catch his little brother only increased Puppy’s playfulness, and soon Romochka was running around the cellar too, with Grey Brother and White Sister joining in, until he tired of the game and flopped down in the nest. Puppy sat in front of them, eyes wide, grinning, poised to duck and race off as soon as any of them made a move in his direction.

Romochka really wanted Puppy to fall asleep so he and the others could go out. Eventually Puppy flopped down on his belly, sighed and rested his chin on his hands. Romochka got up slowly. Puppy blinked at him and closed his eyes. The dogs watched from the floor above as Romochka built a barrier out of slats that should have kept a dog inside the cellar. With a spring in his step, he jumped up the rubble pile to the entrance, ready to get a little bit of fresh air, soak up some sun and to smell and see the mountain before dark. They all stood at the street door and tested the air.

Romochka glanced back and roared in fury. Puppy had scrabbled over and was landing on all fours; then he too jumped up the rubble pile and sat, wagging his tail-less rump, begging, bright eyed. Romochka knew that if he raced over and savaged his little brother, Puppy would just roll over and squint at him.

Romochka’s envy bubbled up within his rage. Well, why not? If Puppy wanted to come. Puppy was going to be too big to be stopped
forever
from coming out of the lair. There had to be a first time. So what if people saw him? Puppy was quite fast; and as a pack they were invincible when they were together. Another little voice deep inside said: he is a human boy, after all, and can’t live with us forever. He’ll grow up, for a start. Humans will want him back.

He flicked his nose sweetly, deviously, towards the outside world and Puppy raced, quivering in delight, to his side.

He was still cross when they reached the allotment but then Puppy’s crazy joy infected him too, and they both scampered in wide circles, yipping and barking. Puppy had startling blue eyes and long, pale yellow hair. Romochka almost stopped playing to let his eyes take Puppy in. He was a much bigger boy than he had been. The straight golden hair flicked and sparkled in the sun, the pale face was flushed, red lips parted over those funny flat white teeth. Puppy was the prettiest child Romochka had ever seen. His easy gait and speed over the ground were amazing. Romochka was filled with pride that Puppy was theirs. He spent some time catching grasshoppers for this new Puppy, and feeling a strange solicitude as he watched the beautiful little boy crunch them up.

A dry golden haze hung over the warming world. They chased each other around the allotment, racing each other to eat the white and yellow flowers that spangled the undergrowth in the field.

After that no one could stop Puppy from going out. He was uncontrollable. He ran up to people; he followed them and dashed into houses. He barked at prams and then tried to jump into them. He accepted sweets, in fact anything people gave him. He leapt on the world as if greeting a returning mother. He wouldn’t shut up. He listened to no warning barks and dodged all bites, chased butterflies rather than melt away; and he rolled over on his back when he saw a militzioner.

Within a week he disappeared.

For three weeks Romochka hunted for Puppy, but all trails faded. In the lair, he played with their toys, miserable and lonely and snapping at everyone. At the end of the three weeks, he woke up from a nap and needed more than anything a taut belly full of pasta.

Laurentia beamed when she saw them.

‘My darlings!’ she chirruped, bustling in to get them something to eat. Then she stood and watched, singing. Romochka bent his face over the lovely food, shovelling it in with both hands. It was safe at the Roma, safe enough to drop his guard and concentrate on eating.

‘They caught another one like you, caro,’ Laurentia said suddenly, breaking mid-song. Romochka looked up. His jaw stopped moving and the gnocchi fell back into his bowl.

‘But this one a real real dogaboy.’ She wriggled her fingers in the air, making her big hand lope like a dog. ‘It was in all the papers. Funny, eh? I wonder how many bambini…’

‘Where did they take him?’ Romochka asked intently.

‘Oh, some special internat, some name, in N. district,’ Laurentia said.

‘What
name
?’ Romochka almost screamed.

‘I’ll remember in a minute. Hold on! Eat. I’ll remember… Makarenko, Romochka. Calm down! Eat!’

Romochka was shaking, eager to be gone. He bolted his food, yipped at the dogs and ran off into the darkness. He stopped at the end of the alley and turned to wave his thanks to Laurentia. She was standing under the streetlight, waiting. As always, she raised her huge paw in return.

 

Romochka found the centre easily enough. He and the three cornered a gang of young bomzh kids in the carved stone metro station and scared the information out of them, including which metro to catch and from where. They told him that kids got taken there never to be seen again, and that experiments were done on them. Romochka didn’t understand what this might mean, so he snarled at them to shut up.

The stations had changed over the last two seasons. He had to keep moving or militzia would materialise, and then he would have to run. He was so afraid now of militzia that he felt a disabling weakness at the sight of them. These days it was as if, in the stations at least, the militzia had developed as good a sense of smell as dogs. They were uncanny trackers. And the trains themselves still made him jumpy. He preferred to trot from station to familiar station as the giant worm was screaming through its hole far beneath his feet.

But he could catch one if he had to. He had found out long ago that if he made himself small in a corner of a train and then snarled, slavered and rolled his eyes when anyone approached, people left him alone, including the uniformed ones who weren’t militzia. And this time he had no choice. He would have to take the metro, at least the first time, in order to follow the instructions the children had given him. It would be the furthest he had travelled since he got lost on the wrong side of the river.

He took White Sister. Since she lost her ear her old charm was diminished and her manner more aloof. Her bond with Romochka was unbreakable now and her city hunting so seasoned that he still relied more on her than on the others. She gave him her total attention and could not be drawn from him even by the proximity of a spitting cat.

His trip to the centre was uneventful but his fear rose as each station passed. He could feel the train rushing towards the river, that outermost boundary, and his scalp crawled. Then the station the kids named was called out. He breathed again. This couldn’t be the other side of the river, not yet. It was too few stations, too fast.

The station was unfamiliar, beautiful and completely without bomzhi. He didn’t wait and look around. Bomzhi-free was not good. At best there had just been a purge, at worst they were driven out or arrested the moment they showed up.

He found himself at the head of the metro stairs in a leafy, unwholesomely clean city. He guessed he was not all that far from the area in which he and White Sister had been lost, although he knew he was upriver and on the right side this time. He also told his hammering heart that he knew his station, knew his home in human words and could scare information out of kids any time he needed it. He couldn’t get lost again.

The cars shone. The pavements, although crumbling, were swept. They had nothing for a dog to eat. Cats sunned themselves on walls without even looking at him. He broke into a panicked trot and was relieved to see the white building of the centre exactly as the kids had described it. It was an old building, newly painted. It reminded him of a bomzh man emerging from the welfare centre—shaven, washed, disinfected and dressed in fresh clothes. He and White Sister jumped the flaking street wall so as to be out of sight from the city and then they settled in to watch.

The building had many windows winking in the sun but getting in would be hard. Although it was old enough to have external drainpipes, each window had metal bars in front, made to look like fingers spread in front of a face. Pretty, but very hard to wriggle over or through. He could see that these windows had an inner grid too, and that would make it impossible.

The building was a low four-storey, much longer than it was high. The gardens had many recently established shrubs near the wall and a few large alder and chestnut trees that must have been the same age as the building. He could see a new-looking playground to the side, and in it four children dressed in bright T-shirts: red, blue, green and purple. Red and blue were playing and shrieking without caution, and Romochka’s lip curled. House children.

Once he felt he had scowled for long enough at Puppy’s new home, he headed back to the metro to brave the journey home and make sure he could repeat it without getting lost.

He visited the centre three days in a row to stare, frowning deeply, from behind the street wall. He explored the lane behind, prowled through the car park and scaled the locked gate into the gardens after dark. The car park was open and temporary—there were no bifold tin boxes for the cars. This meant no one lived here, except for the kids. The staff all had homes somewhere else, although they came and went at different times and there were always some cars here, even at night.

The guard dog was a loud but timorous fellow who by the second night adored Romochka and eagerly showed him around. During the day Romochka watched the people coming and going. If Puppy was in there, he wasn’t coming out with any of those people.

On the fourth day he dressed in an assortment of his least ragged clothes. The cleanliness and beauty of Puppy’s new territory troubled him; perhaps he should hunt for a good jacket and trousers that he would keep just for going there. He looked down at himself, standing in the rain outside the ruin. Well, he looked good in these old things for now. He brushed off a little caked-on mud. Very human. This time he would be the boy, not the dog, and if they called the militzia; well, they would get a surprise at what he was hiding. He squared his shoulders.