The Snow Puppy and Other Christmas Stories Read online

  He put her down and she scurried off again, dancing around in circles as if she was trying to catch her own tail, before dashing off to join her dad and Jake who were hunting around the roots of some bushes near the lake shore.

  The lake was still covered with ice, and on the surface there were marks where people had been sliding and skating.

  Neil was just going to suggest to Max that they should be getting back when the three dogs broke away from the bushes and ran out onto the ice. Prince was in the lead, with Jake close behind and Princess scampering along at the rear.

  “Jake! Hey, Jake!” Neil yelled. Once again he could see in his mind the ice cracking to swallow up his dog in the dark water. “Jake, come here!”

  Jake didn’t come. Max shouted for Prince. The cocker spaniel stopped and then came trotting back, but Jake and Princess stayed out on the ice, gambolling around each other and gradually moving further and further away from the shore.

  As Prince came panting up, Max took out his lead and clipped it on. Neil was psyching himself up to go out there and fetch Jake when Max thrust the loop of Prince’s lead into his hand.

  “I’ll get them,” he said.

  Neil managed a weak smile. “Thanks.”

  He stood watching with Prince beside him as Max walked out onto the ice. Max kept calling the dogs, and eventually they both ran towards him. Neil saw him bend over to pick up Princess. Then, as he straightened up again he seemed to stagger, and yelled something Neil couldn’t catch. Jake started to bark. As Neil stared, transfixed, he saw a dark line open up in the ice, and Max went plunging down into the waters of the lake.

  8

  For a few seconds Neil was panic-stricken. All his instincts told him to dash back to the castle, yelling for help. But then he came to his senses – help from the castle might be too late for Max and the dogs. Neil knew he had to do something now.

  He stooped and unclipped Prince’s lead. “Prince, go! Tell them at the castle!”

  Prince looked up at him, whining softly, his intelligent eyes puzzled. Neil felt frustrated, not knowing exactly what commands Max used for Prince.

  “Find Maggie,” he said. “Go and fetch help! Go, Prince, go!”

  He turned Prince’s head towards the castle and gave the dog a gentle slap on the rump. Somehow Prince must have understood, because he took off down the path, barking furiously as he ran.

  Neil turned back to the lake. In spite of the gathering twilight, he could still see Max’s head and shoulders, and a smaller black shape that he thought must be Jake. There was no sign of Princess at all.

  His throat was dry. He told himself that he would only make things worse if he went out there to help. But he knew he could not just stand there and watch Max and the dogs drown because he was too scared to do anything.

  A faint cry came across the ice from Max. “Help! Neil, get help!”

  Desperately, Neil tugged a dead branch free of the undergrowth. Then, swallowing his fear, he crawled out onto the frozen lake on hands and knees so as not to put too much pressure on the fragile ice, pushing the branch in front of him.

  He could see dark water slopping under the skin of ice. A few metres out from the shore he thought he could hear the ice start to creak, and feeling it shifting under him he lay flat and edged forward slowly on his stomach.

  As he drew closer, he could see Max trying to grab the edge of the ice with one hand, but it kept breaking away. With his other hand he was clutching Princess. The little dog was limp, not moving.

  Max was treading water, trying to keep afloat, but Neil could see that he was already exhausted. His hair was soaking wet, as if his head had gone under at least once.

  Close beside Max, Jake was standing on an ice floe which had broken away from the rest. It floated, but water was washing over it. Jake’s paws were splayed out as he fought for balance, and he was whining miserably.

  “Max!” Neil yelled. “Here!”

  Max saw him there for the first time. “Neil!” he gasped. “Keep back – it’s all breaking up.”

  “Grab this.” Neil pushed the branch out as far as he could so that Max could hang on to it and pull himself up to the edge of the ice. “Give me Princess!”

  With something to grasp, Max managed to drag himself a little way out of the water and pass the pup across to Neil.

  Princess looked unbelievably tiny, with her coat plastered to her body. Her head lolled as Neil took her, and she didn’t move.

  “She’s dead!” Max sobbed. “I know she’s dead!”

  “No she’s not,” said Neil, though he couldn’t tell.

  Sprawled out on the ice, he couldn’t do anything to help Princess or to get her warm. He yelled to Jake, but the collie couldn’t get across to the main sheet of ice, and Neil couldn’t reach him. He made one effort to grab Max’s shoulders and haul him out, but when he tried, more of the surface near him cracked and water surged over it, soaking him through. The ice felt increasingly unsteady under him. He knew he couldn’t go back now. All he could do was hang on.

  “Prince went for help,” he said to Max. “It won’t be long.”

  He tried not to show how scared he was, for himself and Max, and especially for the dogs. Princess needed help quickly; even if she was still alive, she wouldn’t survive the cold for much longer.

  Then, to his relief, Neil heard movement and voices from the lakeside. Someone shouted, “Don’t move, Neil. We’re coming!” and Neil tried to look over his shoulder, but his movement made the ice tilt alarmingly.

  From then on, he kept as still as he could for what seemed like an age. Then, he heard a voice much closer behind him. “Neil, move backwards. There’s a ladder here.”

  It was Adrian Bartlett. Neil felt almost too scared to move, but he edged back and felt hands guiding him until his feet made contact with the top rung of a ladder. He moved backwards until he was lying on it. Now he risked another glance over his shoulder and saw that a system of ladders and planks had been laid out for support across the ice.

  Adrian moved forward on another ladder. He gripped Max under the arms, helping him through the splintering ice to the end of the ladder.

  “Adrian!” Neil called. “What about Jake?”

  “I’ll get Jake.” Adrian didn’t turn to look at him. “Go back to shore.”

  There was nothing Neil could do except obey. Clutching Princess to him, he managed to crawl backwards until he reached the firmer ice at the edge of the lake. Lord Ainsworth, Maggie Brown and Emily were waiting to help him back onto the shore.

  “Maggie!” he gasped, shaking from cold as he held out the little pup’s limp body. “Look . . . we’ve got to do something.”

  Maggie took Princess in firm, capable hands. “

  Is she dead?” Emily asked, agonized.

  Maggie pinched Princess’s toes, and to Neil’s delight he saw her eyelids twitch. A grin spread over Maggie’s face. “No, she’s not dead.”

  Quickly Maggie checked Princess’s heartbeat, then held her upside down by her back legs. Neil almost protested when he saw her dangling like that, until he realized that water was trickling out of her mouth.

  Then Maggie laid Princess on her side, and opened her mouth to pull her tongue forward and make sure nothing was blocking her airway. “Got to get her breathing,” she muttered.

  Holding Princess’s muzzle to keep her mouth closed, Maggie placed her own mouth around Princess’s nose, and blew. Princess’s chest rose and fell. Maggie took a breath and said, “Neil, check her heartbeat.”

  Neil laid his hand against Princess’s side and nodded as he felt the faint fluttering. Maggie blew into her nostrils again. Again. And again.

  “Princess!” Max appeared and collapsed to his knees beside the pup. He was soaked through and shivering convulsively, but he never took his eyes off her.

  Neil kept his hand in place to monitor the heartbeat, and gave a cry of relief as he felt it strengthen and the rise and fall of Princess’s chest become automa
tic as the little pup started breathing again.

  He realized for the first time that Emily was crouched beside him, clutching painfully at his arm. She had tears on her face. “Will she be all right?” she asked Maggie.

  “She’ll be fine,” Maggie promised. “But she needs warming up right now. I’ll take her.”

  Carrying Princess, she set off to the castle at a run. Neil turned back to the lake. Relief flooded over him as he saw Adrian pulling Jake back onto dry land. When the steward carried him over, Neil thanked him and then squatted down beside the Border collie to put his arms round him.

  “Jake, you dimbo!” he said, but his voice was shaking and he had to make an effort not to cry. He couldn’t face the thought of losing Jake as well as Sam. “Don’t you dare do that again!”

  When he was sure that Jake had come to no real harm, Neil also headed for the castle, the Border collie running alongside him. He and Max caught up with Maggie in the small drawing room. She was towelling Princess gently in front of the fire. Princess’s eyes were still closed, but she was breathing normally and her coat was already dry.

  King and Fred were both sitting beside the fire, looking down at Princess almost as if they were guarding her.

  Neil took one of the towels and rubbed Jake dry. The young Border collie seemed quieter than usual, but Neil didn’t think there was much wrong with him. He’d been lucky to have escaped the worst of the freezing water.

  Max stooped over Princess and stroked her. “Thanks, Maggie,” he said unsteadily. “And you, Neil. I really thought she was dead.”

  “The vet’s on his way,” said Maggie. “But you’re really not helping, standing there dripping over her. Go and get into some dry clothes.”

  Max struggled to smile, but he was still shivering and his teeth were chattering with cold. Neil grabbed him and propelled him out of the room. “Come on. Or they’ll be holding up the filming for you this time.”

  When Neil and Max had changed, they went back to the drawing room where Penny was serving out hot drinks to the rescuers. Neil wrapped his hands round a mug of hot chocolate and took a gulp; the scalding liquid brought tears to his eyes.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Er . . . Penny, I’m really sorry about what I said before. I know now it wasn’t Adrian.”

  Penny gave him a hard look, and then she smiled. “I know – Emily told me. It’s OK, Neil. It did look a bit odd.” She glanced across the room to where Adrian was slumped in an armchair near the fire. “Now, go and thank him for pulling you out of the lake.”

  A wave of embarrassment flooded over Neil, almost as if Adrian knew what suspicions he’d had. “Yes, I will . . .” he said.

  He was relieved to be able to put it off for a while, because he’d noticed the local vet, David Blackburn, bending over Princess by the fire. He was a fair-haired young man with big, gentle hands. Max was with him, and Neil went over to hear what the vet was saying.

  “She’ll sleep for a while now, and the best thing you can do is leave her to it. Keep her quiet for a day or two. And if there are any problems, phone me right away. I’ll be at home over the Christmas break.”

  He ran a hand over Princess’s coat. The little spaniel stirred, opened her soft brown eyes to look at Max, and settled down again.

  “She will be OK, won’t she?” Max asked anxiously.

  David smiled. “She’ll be fine.”

  While the vet was busy giving Jake a checkup, Max’s chaperone Suzie came in. “Max, the doctor’s here to check you over.”

  Max looked up from Princess. “I’m OK, really.”

  “You’re OK when the doctor says you are. You too, Neil. Or what will I tell your mum and dad?”

  Neil and Max looked at each other and shrugged.

  “All right.” Max got up and went to the door, and then stopped. “Just a minute,” he said. “Where’s Prince?”

  Neil gazed around him as if he expected Prince to pop out from behind the nearest piece of furniture. In all the confusion, and the worry about Princess, he hadn’t realized that the cocker spaniel wasn’t around.

  “I sent him up here for help,” he said. “Somebody must have seen him.”

  “I was in the estate office when I heard him barking,” Adrian said.

  “But where did Prince go after that?” Max asked.

  Maggie Brown remembered following Prince down to the lake with the other rescuers. Nobody had seen him since.

  “He wasn’t at the lake when I arrived,” Adrian said. “I kept an eye open for him because I was afraid he would go out on the ice.”

  “He must be around here somewhere,” Lord Ainsworth said. “We’d better look.”

  Efficiently he divided everybody up into search teams to cover all of the castle. Suzie hauled Max off to the doctor, but Neil managed to slip away to join Penny and Emily who were assigned to the Long Gallery and the rooms just off it. Though they searched everywhere carefully they found no clues, and Prince did not answer when they called.

  Suddenly, Neil noticed that there was a folded sheet of paper lying on the Round Table in the Great Hall.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  Emily shrugged. “More production notes?”

  Neil went over and picked up the paper, unfolded it, and stood staring. “Come and look at this!”

  The others crowded round. The paper carried a message, written in black capital letters. It read:

  I WANT £5000. PUT IT IN THE HOLLOW TREE

  AT THE TOP OF THE LANE BY TOMORROW NIGHT.

  DON’T TELL THE POLICE, OR YOU WON’T SEE PRINCE AGAIN.

  9

  All the other searchers had returned to the drawing room when Neil and the others went back with the ransom note. Max was there, too, with Princess sleeping on his lap, bundled up in a blanket; the tiny pup was twitching in her sleep. Max stroked her head. His mouth was tight, as if he was trying to hold in his worry.

  “Look at this,” said Neil. As they read the note, passing it from hand to hand, Neil explained what he suspected about Harry Jenkins.

  “Jenkins!” Jeff Calton exclaimed. “I’d no idea . . . I never even noticed that he was on set.”

  “That’s because he was always in costume and make-up,” Neil said. “He didn’t want to risk being recognized. He must be out to wreck the film because he thinks it was Prince’s fault that he lost his job as a dog trainer.”

  “That’s rubbish,” Jeff said. “He lost his job because he couldn’t cope and then tried to lie about it.”

  “So what do we do now?” Maggie asked.

  Max had gone white. “I’ll have to pay it. Or he’ll kill Prince.”

  “But have you got five thousand pounds?” Penny asked. “It’s an awful lot of money.”

  “I’m not sure . . . I think so. At least – what I earn from The Time Travellers goes into a fund for me, for later. There must be a way to get at it. I’m going to phone Dad.”

  He got up, gently set Princess down on the rug in front of the fire beside King and Fred, and went out.

  Neil read the note again, as if it could tell him something else. As well as being anxious about Prince, he was starting to feel guilty. If he hadn’t confronted Harry Jenkins, maybe he would have just gone on trying to find ways to disrupt the filming. That had been bad enough, but nothing like the disaster they were faced with now. Neil was afraid that he’d pushed Jenkins into one last effort to get revenge on the dog he thought had ruined his career.

  And unless they could come up with an idea quickly, he was going to get away with it.

  “We’ve got to get Prince back,” Jeff Calton said, rubbing his hands through his hair until it stuck up in a crest. “We can’t carry on filming until we do. I’ll have a word with our security people.”

  “I’d call the police,” said Lord Ainsworth. “They’ll soon find—”

  “No.” The interruption came from Max, who had reappeared in the doorway. He looked tense and his voice was shaking. “If you do, he’ll kill Prince.
He says so.”

  He came into the room, sat on the hearthrug beside Princess, and started to stroke the sleeping pup’s silky head. “I talked to Mum,” he said. “She and Dad will come down tomorrow, and see what they can do about the money.”

  Emily went to sit beside him. “We’ll get Prince back,” she said. “He’ll be OK.”

  “Sure he will,” said Jeff.

  “Listen, Max,” said Neil. “I don’t think Harry Jenkins wants to hurt Prince. Remember, he helped to get him out when the village inn collapsed. He must have loved dogs once, or he wouldn’t have been a trainer.”

  “He even played with Jake in the woods,” Emily added.

  Max said nothing, still intent on stroking Princess. Neil felt helpless. He didn’t know what else they could do.

  Beside the fire stood the Christmas tree; somebody had finished decorating it, and the glass ornaments and tinsel glittered in the firelight. Neil could hardly believe it would be Christmas in a couple of days. He had too much on his mind to look forward to it properly.

  The silence was broken by Jeff Calton. “I’d better tell Brian. He’s not going to like this.”

  “He’s not to call the police,” Max said sharply.

  “No, don’t worry,” Adrian said. “Nobody will do anything without talking to you first. Anyway, we could do without this kind of publicity.”

  When Jeff had gone, Neil flung himself into a chair and scratched Jake’s ears as his dog padded up beside him. “I hate letting Harry Jenkins get away with it,” he said. “It really bugs me, just thinking that he’s got Prince somewhere—” He broke off. “Hey, that’s it! Where is he keeping Prince?”

  “Is he staying in the castle?” Emily asked.

  Penny stared at her. “No, the extras aren’t—” She stopped suddenly, as if she had just understood.

  Adrian started to pace the room. “The principal actors and the film crew are all staying in the West Wing. We took on some more staff to look after them. The extras are local people, so they live at home and come in for the filming.”