It was kind of bright, you know one of those summer days when the heat and the glare from the sun make it look like the air has turned to milk, and everything you see is whiter than it should be. School finished at the usual time, in the usual way. A loud bell, and the teacher would stand and tell us that it was a signal for her and not for us but we still started putting our books away. I think I was nine, and you might wonder why I was allowed to cycle home when I was so young, but it was a long time ago, and the world was much smaller then. I liked junior school; it was nice and compared to all the schools I went to after, a lot of fun. No one tells you at that age that its only for a couple of years when you’re young that you get to read a book all morning and then play games – cricket, football, whatever – all afternoon. Pretty soon you realise once you’ve left that it’s all a trick, it doesn’t get any better than that.
Anyway that afternoon we hadn’t been playing any games because we’d done all that in the morning. Instead we were supposed to be making up stories or something, writing them in little notebooks that the teacher pulled out of a cupboard a few days before, and that we’d decorated. Mine had a picture of a submarine on the front, because I wanted to write about a submarine that sank to the very deepest part of the deepest ocean. They don’t let you do that kind of thing when you get older, there are people telling you about water pressure, and maximum depths – no imagination allowed. By the end of the lesson, a giant squid had attacked the Submarine, which I’d called Peril because it was a good sounding word, and it had started to sink. Then the bell rang deep, like it was inside my ear, and Miss Teller tried to stop us packing up before sending us away home.
I pulled my bike out of the rack around the back of the school, and steadied myself on the saddle, making sure my bag was strapped on to the platform over the rear wheel. A few other kids did the same, and we all wheeled out towards the school gate, some went left, some right, speeding off really quickly, because we all had things we wanted to be doing. Some wanted to go home and eat, some to get out of their school clothes as soon as possible, some just wanted to watch TV. I never shot off like the rest because I lived further away, and there were a couple of big hills between the school and home, and I knew from bad experience that I’d have to walk over the top if I went too fast because I got tired quickly.
So there I was, free-wheeling when I’d built up enough speed, and only pumping my legs when I noticed I was slowing down. Pretty quickly I was out of the village, and onto the road that eventually led to my house. It was a long road, with a few houses here and there that had big bricks, bigger than anything in the village, like the big Lego they give to babies. I was just rolling along listening to the crunch of my tyres on the road, and the flack-flack noise of the card I had stuck in my back wheel. It was bright, but the sun was behind me and I could just enjoy how much noise I was making, and how quiet everything else was.
Suddenly behind me I heard a tiny little noise, a kind of growl. I was pretty good on the bike, so I turned my head and looked round without losing balance, and there was this little snow-white dog following me, running really fast so its legs looked like someone was pushing fast-forward on a video, and it was snapping the air with its mouth, making these funny little barking noises. It didn’t seem angry, more like it was playful, so I pushed the brakes with my hands, and slowed down. I got off the bike, and the dog stopped running, and just walked up to me, plain friendly and like it knew me. We didn’t have a dog anymore, ours had died a few years back and my mum was so upset we never got another, but still I liked them. His fluffy white ears were really hot when I scratched him round the back of his head, probably because he’d been chasing after me so hard. He was puffing a little bit, and his tongue was just sticking out from between his teeth like a bit of wet ham.
He was really cute, and really clean, and I knew someone must have owned him. Nowadays whenever you see kids on TV finding dogs they always seem to get to keep them, but even then I knew that wasn’t how it worked. Someone else loved this dog, and probably wanted it back home. He had on a thick brown collar, and a little silver circle hung from it. I rubbed under his neck, and he stuck out his head as far as he could, and I kept stroking him while I read what it said on the little disk. REX it said.
If I escape from the garden, please return to 112 Shepherd St.
That was the road I lived on, it was the road I’d found him on, and although it was a little way past my house, I thought I’d take him home. I took off my tie, which was making me hot anyway, and I tied it with a knot very firmly around his collar, so I could pull him along while I rode. He got pretty excited when I stood up holding his new lead, and he danced around my feet biting the warm air and barking loudly. I got back up on my bike, and started to pedal slowly, turning now and again to make sure I wasn’t going too fast for him, but he was doing ok. I started to go a little quicker and when I turned he was moving so fast he seemed to be floating over the road, and he was making so much noise! He was so noisy I started laughing, thinking what a great little dog he was, so happy wagging his tail and following me because I was taking him home and his owner would be so pleased. We just flew over the ground, I was pedalling even though I didn’t have to, and the little dog was tearing after me, and we were both making noise, him yapping and me laughing. Then we came to the biggest hill, and I had to slow down, but didn’t get off the bike. He slowed down too and sort of caught up with me, so he was just walking quickly by my side, looking up at me all the time, and still barking though not as loud as when we were going fast. My house was at the bottom of the hill on the other side, I lived at number 80 Shepherd Street, and I was looking forward to speeding down the hill and not having to stop at the bottom, carrying on for another few minutes with the dog like a little snow ball rolling after me.
We got to the top of the hill, and I stopped for a minute, because it was so clear I could see for miles. The dog sat down next to me, wiggling his bottom against the road like he knew how great it was going to be when we went down the other side of the hill and he wanted to get started right away. I didn’t stop for long, because even though it was nice, and I could almost see the other village way down the other end of the long road, that wasn’t as much fun as going fast with the little dog chasing me. I got ready, preparing myself to go faster than I’d ever gone before. My stomach felt funny, like it did when a new teacher took our class, or when I tried to jump down eight steps instead of my record six on the staircase at home. I had both feet on the pedals, balancing myself so I wobbled but wouldn’t fall. I started moving forward, over the top of the hill and suddenly it was like going over the top in a rollercoaster, the ground looks so far away, and you feel like you’re definitely going to fall and hurt yourself but you don’t. The wind was like fingers going through my hair, messing it up and making bits fall in front of my eyes, but it didn’t matter because I could still see. I couldn’t even turn around to see if the dog was still there, but I could hear him barking like mad, and feel him tugging at the tie which sometimes felt like it was being pulled and sometimes felt loose. Half way down, and I knew I’d never gone this fast before, I didn’t think anyone had. I thought if there were any cars ahead of me, I’d probably catch them and go past them, and the drivers would think who was that kid who could go so fast on his bike, and boy could that little dog run!
We reached the bottom of the hill, and I stopped pedalling and just started to let myself slow down, because I was out of breath and it wasn’t so exciting riding when the road was flat. I saw my mum in the front garden of my house, and she looked up at me and waved as I reached the bottom of the hill, probably expecting me to stop. I yelled out at her ‘Back in a minute mum’ and she looked puzzled, but waved at me all the same when I turned to look back at her. Already she was pretty far away, as I hadn’t slowed down all that much, but I waved back. It was then that I noticed that the dog had gone. I wasn’t even holding the tie anymore.
I squeezed the brakes hard, and stopped so fast I almost fell over the handle-bars. The bike clattered to the ground as I jumped off it, and without even looking to see if a car was coming, I ran into the middle of the road to see if the little dog was following me. Luckily there weren’t any cars, but I wasn’t even thinking about that. I was so worried, I thought I’d gone too fast for the dog, I thought that he’d been hurt and it was all my fault. I should have noticed that he wasn’t barking, that his legs were too little to run that fast. There was no sign of him, he wasn’t running down the hill to meet me. He was just gone.
I knew I’d done something bad, I’d hurt the dog. I’d only been playing with him, but I’d gone too fast and something bad had happened to him. I thought about running away, going straight home and not telling anyone, but somehow I’d already reached number 112, I’d been too fast, I hadn’t realised. In front of me was a little house, much smaller than mine with green trees in the garden that weren’t very tall and didn’t have many branches. A small old woman, wearing a long dress with coloured splotches that looked like flowers was bent over, pulling weeds up by the front gate. Without having to say anything, she looked up at me and smiled and said “Hello”. I wondered what I could say, and without a story to tell, the only thing that would come out was the truth.
“Uh, I found your dog. I was bringing him home but I lost him when I came down the hill over there.” I pointed at the hill, even though it was the only one you could see anywhere near. She looked at me and seemed confused.
“My dog? My husband and I don’t own a dog, are you sure you haven’t made a mistake?”
“Oh, maybe.” I replied, feeling stupid because I might have got the wrong house. “He was called Rex, and his collar said he lived at number 112. What number are you?” Her face changed again, and now she looked shocked, her hand came up to cover her mouth, because it wouldn’t close.
“This is number 112, and we did own a dog called Rex, but that was ten years ago if it was a day. He was run over when he got out of the garden, we haven’t owned a dog since, it was so upsetting.” She came over to me, and suddenly when she stood up straight she seemed enormous, her long dress catching in the breeze so it stretched out like a sail and she swept across the garden towards me.
“I found him down the road there. He followed my bike, so I bent down to check if he had an owner and when I saw he did I put my tie around his collar and tried to take him back here.” I knew I’d have to tell her what I’d done, and I started to cry, hot tears welling up even though I was trying to make them go away. “I went too fast over the hill, we were enjoying it so much and he was barking and jumping, but I must’ve let go and now he’s gone.”
“Well I don’t know whose dog it was, but it can’t have been our Rex. He’s buried here in our garden. Look I’ll show you.” She opened the gate, and beckoned me through. I was nervous, she was big and old and I stayed away from her, just edging inside the garden to have a peek. “Well that’s funny,” she said, though it took me a second to realise what she’d seen.
Set into a flower bed along the far side of the garden was a little stone cross, with the word ‘REX’ written across it in big letters, and curled around it like a little red and black striped snake was my knotted school tie.
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