From the fridge we took three raw rissoles, added to it a chunk of
bread and five lumps of sugar for the dog and then unrolled the carpet on
the roof.
"Perhaps we should tie on the tail?" I suggested. "After all, we'll
be flying in daylight..."
"We haven't time," said Vitalka. "Let's just fly low over the
vegetable plots and then dive under the steep bank..."
And so we sped along the lanes, keeping close to the fences, flew
over the vegetable plots and wattlefences, dived into the shadow of the
steep riverbank, then under the bridge and then, skimming the tops of the
grass, headed for the edge of the wood.
It's quite likely someone spotted us and gazed in bewilderment after
us, but this no longer worried us.
Once we reached the wood, we soared over the tops of the trees and
headed towards the geodesic tower.
We flew very fast and the oncoming air literally howled about us. In
order to fly at top speed, we lay flat against the carpet and the wind
pressed Vitalka's beret against his head and tried to rip my school cap
off mine but I had its strap under my chin.
It was really weird: the oncoming wind was blowing cold air over us
while the sun was warming our backs through our shirts, and on the whole
we felt hot rather than cold.
The flight did not seem as long as the first time. It took us about
one and a half hours to reach the dark lake where we caught sight of the
old house's roof.
We landed by the porch. The door was ajar just as it had been before.
We went in. I no longer felt scared, but still slightly nervous. The
sun-light was lying in squares on the dusty creaking floor. We paused and
listened but could hear nothing except for our own breathing.
Then all of a sudden Vitalka said, "The clock's stopped."
We tore into the small room.
The clock really had stopped. The chain with the weight and key on it
had sunk all the way down to the floor. And lying on the floor beneath
the clock with its face buried in its outstretched paws was the ginger
dog. A yellow caterpillar was crawling along the back of its neck.
"It's asleep," Vitalka whispered and then smacked his lips and
called, "Hey, dog! Get up! Come here!"
But the dog did not even stir, so we went up ourselves and at once
realised that it was not asleep for its eyes were open and still.
"Poor thing," said Vitalka, squatting down and quite fearlessly
stroking the dead dog.
I also ran my palm over its ginger coat and flicked the caterpillar
off it. The dog was very thin and you could feel its hard ribs through
its skin.
And yet it could not have died of hunger for it had lived so long on
its own. No, it had died either of loneliness or old age or perhaps both.
It probably knew it was dying but could not leave as it was waiting for
someone and did not want to abandon the clock.
I stood up and took hold of the chain in order to puff the weight up
for I wanted the clock to tick in memory of the dog.
"Don't," said Vitalka.
"Why not?"
"Well... it's not our clock, you know. It's the dog's..."
Yes, he was right. We shouldn't touch it and, in fact, had no right
to. On the other hand, our clock over the town should not be allowed to
stop.
As I squatted down again and unhitched the heavy key off the weight,
it occurred to me that the key was hanging there as an extra weight, and
the clock could not work without it.
I told Vitalka as much but he pooh-pooh it saying, "So what! They
could have hung a stone on it and, anyway, it makes no difference now...
But what shall we do with the dog? We can't leave it like this."
"We need a spade," I said.
We found one behind the stove in the kitchen. It was rusty and blunt
but there was nothing to sharpen it with.
Then we started digging a grave under a rose briar at the back of the
house. Its roots got in our way and the ground was quite hard but we
silently took turns to toss up the black earth and clay without ever once
grumbling.
When the edge of the hole came up above our knees Vitalka said
hoarsely, "That'll do, I think..."
We picked some burdocks near the house, lined the inside of the grave
with them and then carried the dog out and laid it in it.
We then had to fill in the grave, but I could not stand the idea of
clods of clay falling into the dog's open eyes and getting entangled in
its ginger fur. So, as there were no burdocks left, I pulled my shirt
over my head. It was the one I had been wearing that day two years ago
when I decided to run away to the woods, so it was quite old and did not
matter.
"Grab hold of the collar and pull," I ordered Vitalka.
We ripped the shirt's front in half so that it was like an open
jacket, and covered the dog with it. Its tail and paws still stuck out
but there was nothing we could do about that. Then we filled the grave
in.
"I saw a piece of plywood lying about somewhere..." Vitalka said.
He went off to the house and came back carrying an oblong strip of
plywood. Then he got out a pencil stub for, like all artists, he always
carried a pencil around just in case.
He scratched the bridge of his nose with the stub, stared through me
and then bent over the strip of plywood and wrote: "Here lies a dog."
After a moment's thought, he crossed out "a" and changed the small
"d" into a big one.
"As it hasn't got a name, let's call it that. Agreed?"
I nodded.
He wrote the following in large straight letters:
Here lies Dog. It lived in this house.
After everyone else had gone away,
it stayed on and wound the clock.
Then he put a full-stop, glanced very gravely at me, and asked, "What
else shall I write?"
"There's no need for anything else," I replied.
Then we pulled two nails out of the rickety door (which were half
out, anyway), found half a brick under the porch and used it to fix the
plywood board to the spade handle. It took us a long time because the
plywood was hard and the rusty nails kept bending. We both banged our
fingers with the brick and scraped the skin off our knuckles, which was
enough to make anybody cry. But we fixed it in the end and then drove the
spade deep into the mound and pounded the earth all over with our fists.
Chapter Fifteen
On the day back I felt rather low and did not notice at first that we
were flying slowly. And when I did and tried to urge the carpet on, it
seemed reluctant to obey and I realised Vitalka was keeping it firmly
under control.
"Do buck up," I said. "Why waste time?.."
"But you haven't got much on and you'll catch cold in the wind."
"No, I won't. The air's warm. Get a move on..."
"Buck up! Get a move on!" he mimicked angrily. "You've already got a
snuffle as it is."
But it was not because of a cold that I was speaking huskily: it was
because I was choking back my tears. I wasn't shy of Vitalka and told him
the truth: "It's just that I feel like crying."
"Well, go ahead then," he said understandingly.
My eyes were brimming but I held back my tears and even managed to
smile. "No, I'm not going to. The carpet'll get wet."
I knew he was also smiling although I could not see his face. He was
sitting in front with his legs over the side and I was lying with my head
against his back. He had a thin back and I could feel his sharp spinal
cord even through his thick sweater. The heady woodland air was flowing
over me like a river and its motion was the only indication of speed.
The white July clouds were perfectly still overhead. The sun was lighting
up iridescent rings on my wet lashes and I had to blink very often to be
able to see the clouds. But the wind soon dried my lashes.
"I feel sorry for the dog, don't you?" said Vitalka without turning
round.
"Yes," I whispered.
But if you really thought about it, was it such a great loss? An old
dog we had hardly known had died. What was there to be so sad about? You
cry when something really terrible happens like when I was told in
hospital about my Dad...
I shook my head to drive away all these gloomy thoughts.
"Stop fidgeting!" said Vitalka. "You'll bash my spine to bits."
"You poor spine!" I sighed and sat up cross-legged and put the key
which I had been gripping, down in front of me. About twenty centimetres
long and hexagonal like a thick pencil, it had a voluted ring, an
intricately patterned end and freckle-like spots of rust all over it.
"What's more, it was heavy. No wonder it had been hung on the weight!
But towards the end the weight and the key had probably proved too
heavy for the ailing dog and so it had lain down under the clock never to
rise again. Then the clock had stopped, and it was now standing silently
in the completely empty and totally unwanted house.
It's a bad thing when a house is totally unwanted. While the dog
lived in it, it was still a house but heaven know what would happen to it
now...
And it's also a bad thing when a clock isn't working when it could
be.
Here I go again! I hit my leg with the key to chase away these
depressing thoughts, and Vitalka glanced round again.
"Here, let me shove it in my pocket, or else you'll lose it."
"Your pockets are full of holes, and always will be!" I said glumly,
opened my buckle and hung the key on my belt. "It'll be safer here."
"Oh, aren't we dim!" exclaimed Vitalka. "We haven't checked it!"
He pulled the silver wrapping with the keyhole rubbing out of his
pocket and we put the end of the key against it.
"It seems to fit all right, doesn't it?" Vitalka said in a surprised
whisper.
"Well, it certainly fits on the outside but do you reckon it'll turn
inside?"
Well, it did.
And most amazingly, it turned smoothly and effortlessly and without
making a sound, as if the lock had been greased only yesterday.
Vitalka and I glanced at each other, more in fright than in joy, and
then took hold of the brass door ring and pulled. The door also opened
easily and soundlessly.
It was as if we were standing in front on a giant who had just woken
up and started breathing deeply again: dusky humid air came gushing
towards us out of the door as if it were a dark cavernous mouth...
After standing in the doorway for a few moments, I asked in a
whisper, "Well, shall we go in?"
Vitalka nodded and glancing round, shook his fist at Vetka, and
stepped into the shadows, with me close behind.
Vetka stayed behind in hiding among the burdocks and thistles by the
monastery wall.
We needed someone, you see, to keep a look-out for us because many
inexplicable things were going on and the situation was beginning to look
dangerous. And this is why...
The day before we arrived home early without any mishaps and Auntie
Valya had not even begun to worry. It would seem we should be feeling as
pleased as Punch but Vitalka was in a gloomy mood, and eventually said,
"I don't like it..."
"What?"
"Oh, those fellows from the museum. Why did Fedya keep going pale and
stammering? And he doesn't look like a mountain-climber."
I thought how true that was - he really did not look like one.
"Have you got a coin to make a phone call?" asked Vitalka.
I found one in my breast pocket. It was the change from our
ice-lollies at the circus.
Without explaining anything, Vitalka took me to a call-box at a
crossroads, dialled Enquiries and calmly said, "Could I have the number
of the town museum, please... Thank you."
I always envied the confident way he spoke on the phone, while I
became shy when speaking to strangers and began stammering.
Vitalka put the coin in the slot and began dialling.
"Do you reckon they're still at work? It's already eight o'clock," I
said, catching on.
"It's a museum, not an office," said Vitalka. And he turned out to be
right because someone answered.
"Good evening," said Vitalka in an eager, top-of-the-form voice.
"I'm a member of a regional studies' group. Would it be possible, please,
to connect me with your junior research worker... I'm sorry, I don't know
his surname but he's called Edik."
Vitalka moved the receiver away from his ear so that I could hear the
reply. A distant voice was crackling down the receiver, and I at once
pictured a little grey-haired old man in a black scull-cap.
"I'm sorry, young man, but you've obviously made a mistake. There's
no research worker of that name here..."
"I'm sorry but he's dark-haired," Vitalka prattled on. "And his nose
is sort of... beaky..."
"No, no," crackled the phone. "You're mistaken. What school are you
from?"
"Number 10," Vitalka replied at random, hung up and turn to me.
"And you used to envy me for lying well," I cracked. "You're just as
good."
"Got a good teacher, haven't I?!" he promptly replied and then asked,
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"They're not from the museum, those... bloodhounds."
"You mean, they are cops, after all," I said glumly.
Vitalka shrugged his shoulders.
"Don't know... Don't look like it. I don't think we should give them
the key. We must first see for ourselves if it fits. And if it does, have
a look at what's inside..."
"Now?" I asked.
We glanced guiltily at one another: we were very tired after our
flight and it was almost evening and right now the shadowy old belfry did
not seem at all inviting. What's more, Uncle Seva and Mum were expecting
me at home because I had not seen them for two whole days!
"Tomorrow morning," Vitalka decided. "First thing, before Edik and
Fedya show up."
Early next morning I whistled up to Vitalka from the street and he
climbed over the roof and jumped down to me. Jingling some coins in my
pocket, I said, "Let's go by bus! It'll be quicker!"
Vitalka scratched his nose and said, "Let's get Vetka first."
"Why?"
"She can keep a look-out for us."
"Well, then Breezy would be better."
"He won't go without asking permission, and his mother won't let him
out until she's made him eat breakfast. And then she'll start feeding us,
too. And we'll waste a lot of time..."
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