Dogsbody. Diana Wynne Jones

jeering too and offering to help. It was one of many times when Sirius felt he would be doing Kathleen a kindness if he ran away.

      He did not run away because, as he had told Tibbles, he knew it would make Kathleen unhappy. Besides, there were times when Duffie was safely in her shop when he had great fun. Robin, Kathleen – and Basil too, if he was in the mood – would do a romp-thing in the living-room, of which the aim seemed to be to stuff Sirius under the sofa – only they usually lost sight of the aim and ended simply rolling in a heap.

      Or they would all go out to the meadow and throw sticks for Sirius to fetch out of the river. Sirius fetched the stick, but the rule was that he would not bring it to be thrown again. They had to catch him first. He was an expert at dodging. He would wait, with the fringed elbows of his forelegs almost on the ground and the stick temptingly in his mouth, until all three children were almost upon him and putting out their hands to seize the stick. Then he would bounce between them and be away to the other end of the meadow before they could move.

      The very best times were when Kathleen and Sirius, not to speak of Tibbles, had gone to bed in Kathleen’s room. Nobody went to sleep for at least an hour. First Kathleen and Sirius had a silly game which went very quickly round and round Kathleen’s bed. Kathleen tried to crawl and keep her face hidden at the same time, laughing and laughing, while Sirius ploughed rapidly after her, trying to lick her face and giving out panting grunts, which were his way of laughing. They played this most nights until Tibbles had had enough and boxed Sirius’s ears. Then Kathleen would settle down with a book and talk. She liked reading aloud, so she read to Sirius. Sometimes she explained the book as she read it. Sometimes she just talked.

      As Sirius understood more and more human talk, he learnt a great deal from this – more than he learnt from watching television. Tibbles would sit, placid and queenly, washing herself, until she sensed something was interesting Sirius particularly. Then she would ask for an explanation. The odd thing was that, in her own way, Tibbles often knew more than Kathleen.

      One night, Kathleen was reading a book of fairy stories. “They’re fine stories,” she explained to Sirius, “but they’re not true. Mind you don’t go believing them now.”

      Sirius liked the stories too, but he was not sure Kathleen was right. He had a notion some of them had more truth in them than Kathleen thought. Kathleen said suddenly, “Oh, listen to this, Leo!” and she read, “Of all the hounds he had seen in the world, he had seen no dogs the colour of these. The colour that was on them was a brilliant shining white, and their ears red; and as the exceeding whiteness of the dogs glittered, so glittered the exceeding redness of their ears. Fancy that, Leo!” Kathleen said. “They must have looked almost like you. Your coat is sort of shining sometimes, and your ears are nearly red. They were magic dogs, Leo. They belonged to Arawn – he was king in the Underworld. I wonder if you’re some relation. It doesn’t say anything about the colour of their eyes, though.” Kathleen leafed on through the story to see if there was any more about the dogs.

      “What was that about?” Tibbles asked. Sirius told her. He was excited and puzzled. As far as he knew, his green thoughts came from nothing like an Underworld. And yet Kathleen was right. The description did fit him. “Yes,” Tibbles said thoughtfully. “They are a bit like you, I suppose. But they’re whiter and their eyes are yellow.”

      “You mean – these stories are true?” Sirius asked her.

      “I don’t know,” Tibbles said. “I’m talking about nowadays. I’ve no idea what it was like when the place was full of kings and princesses and magicians and things. Maybe some of the things she reads you could have happened then.”

      “Don’t they happen nowadays?” said Sirius.

      “I didn’t say that.” Tibbles got up irritably and stretched. Stretching, with Tibbles, was an elegant and lengthy business. It began with a long arching of the back, followed by the lowering of her front legs to stretch her shoulders, and finished with a slow further lowering of the back to get the kinks out of each back leg separately. Sirius had to wait till she had finished and curled up again. Then she said, “The trouble with humans is that it’s all or nothing with them. They seem to think anything impossible could happen in the old days. And just because these are new days, they tell you none of it is true. Now I’m going to sleep.”

       CHAPTER FIVE

      Soon after this, Kathleen had to spend most of every day at school. School, Sirius discovered, was a place where she learnt things. He thought this was absurd. Kathleen did not need to learn anything. She was the wisest person he knew. Basil and Robin had to go to school too, which was not so absurd, but they had to dress up in special grey clothes with red stripes round the edges in order to go. Kathleen went in her usual, shabby clothes. Sirius learnt that this was because she went to the ordinary school nearby, whereas Basil and Robin went to a school on the other side of the town which charged money for taking them. Duffie earned the money by making and selling those mud pots, but of course she would not spare any money to send Kathleen too. Because Kathleen’s school was nearby, she was usually home first, which suited Sirius very well. And he remembered dimly that this had been the way of things before, when he was very tiny and still being fed from a bottle.