The Snow Puppy and Other Christmas Stories Read online

  “That sounds like Prince!” Neil said. “I wonder what’s wrong. Em, keep an eye on Princess.”

  He left the path and plunged into the snow under the trees. “Prince! Prince, here, boy!”

  The cocker spaniel came dashing out from behind a bramble thicket, snow spraying from his paws as he hurtled along. When he saw Neil he stopped barking, ran to meet him, and stood panting and trembling by his side.

  Neil reached down and ruffled his fur. “What’s the matter, boy?”

  Emily dropped the sledge rope and came to look. “Maybe he’s cut one of his paws, or picked up a thorn,” she suggested.

  “He wasn’t limping,” Neil replied. He ran a hand down Prince’s flank. The spaniel was standing quietly now, and seemed to be settling down. Neil was mystified. “I’ll take a look.” He began to retrace Prince’s tracks through the snow.

  He had started to worry about where Jake was, but as he skirted the bramble thicket he heard the young collie barking playfully. When Jake came into sight he was bounding around a figure in medieval costume who was holding a branch up for Jake to leap and snap at. Neil recognized the extra who had helped Prince when the village inn collapsed.

  “Hi!” he called. “Did you see what—”

  The extra turned, saw him, threw the branch down, and ran off through the trees. Jake gave a bark of protest that his game had ended so abruptly, then pounced on the branch and held it up for Neil. Neil squatted down to rub his head. “OK, boy?” he said. “Weird, or what?”

  The extra couldn’t have done anything to hurt Prince or Jake wouldn’t have played so happily with him. But something had upset the cocker spaniel. Neil wished the man had stayed so he could have asked what it was.

  He straightened up, and went back to where Prince and the others were waiting for him. Jake trotted along beside him. “I wish you could talk, boy,” Neil said. “Maybe you could make some sense out of what’s going on around here.”

  By the following morning the repairs to the damaged building were finished, so filming could start again in the village. Jeff Calton sent Neil and Emily to the wardrobe mistress to be fitted out with peasant costumes.

  “The wardrobe is in a room off the Long Gallery,” Max explained, as he led the way up the spiral staircase. Prince was with him, and he was carrying Princess tucked into the crook of his arm. The cocker spaniel pup was too small to keep up with them on the stairs, but Neil thought Max was secretly pleased to have an excuse for giving her a cuddle.

  Prince had completely recovered from whatever had spooked him in the woods, and was his usual cheerful self, bounding ahead of Max up the stairs. Neil had left Jake with Maggie Brown – he didn’t feel confident that the excitable young dog would behave himself amongst all the costumes.

  As they reached the top of the stairs, they almost cannoned into Adrian Bartlett, who was hurrying along in the other direction.

  “Adrian,” said Max, “would you mind keeping an eye on Princess again? I’ve got to go down to the village set.”

  “What?” Adrian was looking hot and bothered, as if he had something else on his mind. “Oh – Princess. Yes, of course, Max. Shall I take her now?”

  “Please.” Max handed Princess over, and the little dog put her paws on Adrian’s chest and licked his face enthusiastically, dislodging his glasses. “She likes you,” said Max.

  “Er . . . yes.” Adrian gave Max a distracted smile, and darted off down the stairs, carrying Princess.

  “What’s bugging him?” said Neil.

  Nobody answered.

  The Long Gallery was a wide corridor on the first floor of Ainsworth Castle. On one side, windows looked out over the lake. Rooms led off the other side and through one open door, Neil saw props and coats of armour for the film – helmets and swords and shields and a whole rack of chainmail tunics.

  Hanging on the gallery walls were huge paintings in heavy gold frames. Neil lagged behind to look at them. Most were portraits of men and women in old-fashioned dress, and featured dogs which looked just like King. Neil remembered that for hundreds of years King’s line of Great Danes had been the special companions of the Ainsworth family.

  Just then he heard Emily calling to him from further down the gallery. “Come on, Neil, we’re waiting for you!”

  Neil hurried along to join her at the door of a larger room at the far end. One wall was lined with costumes, and at the other side there was a sewing machine and ironing board, and screens for the cast to change behind. Max was just disappearing with his Zeno costume, and Prince sat quietly down to wait for him as people rushed in and out of the changing area.

  Brett Benson was also there, wearing a blue velvet tunic with long scalloped sleeves, and smirking at himself in a mirror.

  “This belt’s wrong,” he said. “Find me another, Verity.”

  The wardrobe mistress stopped sorting among the costumes on the rack. She was a slender young woman with short, dark curls. She had a friendly smile for Neil and Emily, but she sounded exasperated as she said, “OK, Brett. Just as soon as I’ve kitted out these peasants.”

  Brett swung round, looking bad-tempered. “Why do I have to wait for these kids?”

  “Because they’re due on set,” Verity said patiently. “You’re not.” She ignored Brett’s snort of annoyance as she held up a mud-coloured dress in front of Emily. “That looks about right. Sorry it’s not very exciting. Now you,” she went on, sizing up Neil with a practised eye. “I reckon I’ve got—”

  “Verity,” a voice from the doorway interrupted her, “is my costume ready?”

  Verity ran her hands through her curls. The woman who had spoken was tall and striking, with long, dark hair and a pale, haughty-looking face.

  “That’s Morgan le Fay,” Emily murmured to Neil. “The evil enchantress.”

  Neil nodded.

  “You were going to take the seam in,” Morgan reminded Verity. “Did you have time to do it? Jeff wants to shoot that scene today.”

  “Yes, I did it.” Verity had begin to hunt along the rack, rattling the hangers along the rails as she searched. “That’s funny. I’m sure I put it here.”

  Neil glanced at Emily, remembering how Max had told them that part of his costume had disappeared. Brett Benson said nastily, “Lost something again, Verity dear?”

  Neil saw Verity turn pink and start sorting through the costumes even faster. Then she stooped over a pile of black material on the floor. “Here it is. It must have slipped off the hanger.”

  She stood up with the dress in her hands and shook it out. Morgan gasped. Emily exclaimed, “Oh, no!”

  The dress was long and flowing, made of a lot of separate layers of filmy fabric. The top layer was sewn with hundreds of tiny sequins. Neil could imagine it would make a stunning costume for a witch queen, except that all down the front of it were splashes of silver paint.

  Verity was staring at the dress; she looked as if she was going to start crying. “I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it!” she gasped.

  Morgan went up to the dress and dabbed cautiously at the paint marks. “It’s not dry yet,” she said. “It can’t be long since it was done. Verity, is there anything in here that could have got spilt?”

  “No,” said Verity. “What would I want with paint? It looks like the stuff the props people are using for the armour.”

  Neil spotted some splashes of paint on the floor where the dress had been, and then got down on hands and knees to look under the costume rack. Catching sight of something in the shadows by the wall, he burrowed underneath and came out with a paint tin in one hand. It was nearly empty, and it had sticky silver dribbles on the outside.

  “Is this it?”

  Both the women looked at it, and Verity said, “It must be. But how did it get under there?”

  “Have you been in here all morning?” Neil asked.

  Verity looked flustered, as if she was trying to remember. “I came up after breakfast, and then I went back to my bedroom to fet
ch some sewing things . . . It could have happened then, I suppose.”

  “What could have happened?” It was Jeff Calton’s voice; the producer was standing in the doorway. “Where are my peasants? We need to—Oh, good grief, just look at that!”

  He had caught sight of the dress, which Verity was still holding up. Striding into the room, he examined the paint marks, and let out a long sigh, as if he could barely keep control of his temper. “OK, Verity,” he said quietly, “see if it can be cleaned. I’ll reschedule the scene. Neil, Emily, get changed and down to the village set right away. Max . . . Where’s Max?”

  “Here,” said Max, emerging from behind the screens in his Zeno costume. As if he couldn’t help himself, he added, “At least nobody can blame this on Prince or Princess.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure,” Brett Benson said. He had been lounging against the wall beside the mirror, watching everything with a spiteful smile on his face. Now he came forward and bent over Prince.

  Prince backed away, but Brett Benson grabbed him and rubbed some of the feathery hairs on Prince’s legs between his finger and thumb. When he showed his hand to Jeff Calton, there were silver marks on it.

  “If Prince had nothing to do with it,” he said, “then why is there paint on him?”

  6

  Max pushed himself between Brett Benson and his dog. “Leave Prince alone!”

  He squatted down and put an arm around Prince’s neck. Neil stooped beside him and examined the cocker spaniel’s coat. Brett Benson was right – there were flecks of silver paint around Prince’s front paws.

  Jeff Calton ran a hand through his hair. “Honestly, Max, it’s just one thing after another. Can’t you keep your dogs under control?”

  “Obviously not,” said Brett Benson. “But if you will have kids and dogs larking around on set, what can you expect?”

  He cast another glance at himself in the mirror, and strolled out into the gallery, still smirking.

  “Prince is under control!” Max said hotly. “He didn’t spill the paint. I know he didn’t!”

  “Then how did it get on him?” Jeff asked.

  “I don’t know!”

  “Listen, Mr Calton,” Neil said. He was finding it easier than Max to keep calm. After all, it wasn’t his dog in trouble. “Just think about it. Verity says the props people are using this paint. Do you think Prince went into the props room, found the paint and carried it along here, just so he could spill it on a costume? And then hid the paint pot under the rack? It’s just not possible. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I don’t know what makes sense any more,” Jeff said, exasperated. “I just know that this film will be ruined if there’s any more trouble. Anyway, Max, and you two – village set in fifteen minutes, OK?”

  He strode out. Morgan gave Verity a quick hug and said, “Don’t worry,” before following him. Emily went behind the screens to change, while Verity put the ruined dress to one side and went back to looking for Neil’s costume.

  “Max,” Neil said while he waited, “where was Prince this morning? Has he got an alibi for this?”

  Max frowned, thinking. “I’m not sure. I fed him in the kitchen first thing, and then I left him there while I went into breakfast. I suppose he could have wandered up here.”

  “But he didn’t fetch the paint from the props room,” Neil said. “Somebody else did. Then they spilt the paint on the dress and dabbed some on Prince so that he would get the blame.”

  Max was looking even more upset now. He was still kneeling beside Prince, an arm around him. “I’m not taking my eyes off Prince after this,” he said. “Whoever it is, they’d better not try anything else!”

  He straightened up. “Neil, I’m going down to make-up. I’ll see you on set. Come on, Prince.” He slapped his leg, and Prince trotted obediently after him.

  Neil watched him go, and then realized that Verity was holding out his costume: a pair of loose brown trousers and a shirt, with a sheepskin jerkin to go on top.

  “Thanks,” he said absent-mindedly. As he went off to change he was still thinking about the attempts to sabotage the film, and whether there was anything he could do to put a stop to them.

  The collapsed inn had been repaired, and the village looked very realistic under its coating of snow. Brian Mason wanted to film one of the most important scenes of the film, when the villagers, who had been forced to work for the wicked Morgan le Fay, rebelled, joining King Arthur and his knights in an attack on her castle.

  “You can’t have found another castle for Morgan?” Neil said to Max.

  “No, it’s just a different bit of this one,” Max explained. He still sounded tense, and he kept Prince very close beside him while they waited for filming to begin. “But it’ll look fine on the film.”

  Nearby, King Arthur and his knights were mounting their horses, getting ready for the moment when they were to come trotting into the village. The villagers had to cheer them and then listen while Arthur rallied them to fight against the wicked Morgan.

  The director called the extras together and explained how the scene would work. While he was talking, Neil noticed the mysterious extra standing at the back of the crowd, head down, as if he didn’t want to be seen. Neil edged his way towards him.

  “Hi,” he said. “Thanks for getting Prince out the other day.”

  The man gave him a sideways glance, and just grunted. Neil tried not to let the gruff manner put him off. This was the first real chance he’d had to talk to him, and he wanted to find out what had frightened Prince in the woods and why the man had run away.

  “I saw you playing with my dog Jake in the woods,” he said chattily. “Do you like dogs?”

  Another grunt.

  “Jake really enjoyed—” Neil was beginning, when a shout from Brian Mason interrupted him. “Shut up at the back there, will you? We haven’t got all day!”

  Neil had to give up and start paying attention to the scene.

  King Arthur and his knights rode in, with bright surcoats and shining armour. Brett Benson as Sir Lancelot carried a scarlet and gold banner. Neil and Emily and all the other villagers cheered, and Zeno came forward to offer their support to Arthur.

  The run-through went perfectly, and Brian decided to go for a take. The horsemen regrouped and rode into the village again, but when the time came for Max to talk to the king, Prince suddenly broke out into frantic barking, and tore off down the path towards the castle.

  “Cut! Cut!” Brian yelled. “Somebody catch that dog!”

  Max and Maggie Brown ran off together after Prince. Neil followed, fishing in his pocket under his costume for a dog treat to help coax the cocker spaniel back. By the time he caught up, Maggie already had a hand on Prince’s collar, and Max was patting his dog to soothe him.

  He looked up as Neil approached. “Something bothered him. He’s not usually like this.”

  Neil squatted down and offered the titbit to Prince, who wolfed it down and looked for more. He had recovered from his shock, whatever it was, and trotted happily back towards the set at Max’s heel.

  Neil wondered whether to say something to Max about the extra. He didn’t suppose that anyone else had noticed, but the man had been right next to Prince just before the dog took off. Prince had behaved just as he had in the wood the day before when they had met the man. It looked as if Prince didn’t like him, but Neil didn’t understand why.

  The next take went well, but Brian Mason insisted on filming the scene a second time anyway. When he was satisfied, Neil and Emily went back to the castle to wash off their makeup and change into ordinary clothes. Then they headed for the kitchen to find Jake. The young Border collie threw himself at Neil to welcome him, leaping up with his tongue lolling out in a doggy grin.

  “Hey, get down, you daft dog!” Neil rumpled Jake’s ears. “I’ve been away two hours, not two months!”

  The kitchen at Ainsworth Castle was a huge room, with oak beams holding up a whitewashed ceiling. Copper pans hung
on the walls, decorated with sprigs of holly from the greenery Neil and the others had collected the day before.

  Along one side was an old-fashioned kitchen range, where Adrian Bartlett was making himself a cup of coffee. Princess was balancing on his shoe and trying to climb up his leg.

  Adrian looked a bit harassed. “Is Max back?” he asked.

  “No, he stayed to do another scene,” said Neil. “Is Princess a problem?”

  “I have to finish off the estate Christmas cards,” Adrian explained. “And I shudder to think what she could get up to in the office! I daren’t leave her, though, especially after what happened yesterday.”

  “I’ll look after her,” Emily said, scooping up Princess and cuddling the little pup close to her face. “Come on, gorgeous.”

  Adrian gave her a relieved smile. “Thanks, that’s a big help.” He took his coffee and went out, pausing in the doorway to say, “Penny’s putting up decorations in the small drawing room, if you want to give her a hand.”

  The small drawing room was about the size of a tennis court. When Neil and Emily arrived, Penny was sorting shiny baubles from a large cardboard box. An enormous Christmas tree, without any decorations, stood in a tub on one side of the fireplace with a stepladder next to it. A bright fire was burning, and the room smelt of pine branches.

  “Hello,” Penny said, smiling. “I could do with some help. Better keep the dogs away, though. If they break these they could get hurt.”

  “Jake should be OK,” Neil said, as the Border collie went to touch noses with King who was sprawled on the hearthrug. “Em, you’d better hang on to Princess.”

  Emily gave him a blissful smile. “No problem!”

  Neil went up the ladder while Penny handed him the baubles.

  “How did the filming go?” she asked.

  “OK,” said Neil. “But it was freezing cold down there. You’re lucky your scenes are indoors!”

  Penny laughed. “I have to do embroidery, though!” Pausing with a glittering ball in one hand, she added, “Was there any trouble?”

  Emily was sitting cross-legged on the rug, while Princess scrambled all over her and covered her face with sloppy licks. She said, “Not really. We think that extra – the one Neil saw in the woods – might have spooked Prince a bit.”