The Dog Who Saved the World Read online

  She breathes in through her nose and puts the test tube down. “There is something. It’s only a theory at the moment, but it’s something I’ve been working on. You see—until now, there has simply been no way that you can extract the relevant T-cell anti-pathogen from blood with immunity and re-create it to make a cure, but if Mr. Mash has recovered, then…”

  And she’s off, her face becoming more animated than I’ve ever seen it as she tells us what might—possibly—be the route to a cure. To be honest, I don’t understand a word and am relieved when, after about half a minute, she ends with: “It’s a theory. We’ve never been able to test it until now, and it’ll take months anyway, but, well…we’re desperate.”

  “Months?” says Ramzy, who till now has been pretty quiet.

  Jessica nods sadly. “It’s possible that Mr. Mash’s mixed-breed DNA holds the secret. So many dogs these days are highly bred to be perfect examples of their type. But we have no idea what dogs there are in Mashie’s DNA makeup. If it’s not exactly unique, it could at least be very unusual. But without proof that he definitely had CBE, I’m going to have to do this on my own. It’s going to take time, and I’m going to have to pull in some favors from the nanotech people, and—”

  “How long?”

  Jessica sucks her teeth. “Three months? Four? You have to first grow a culture of pathogens, and apply the…”

  She’s off again. I feel as though my stomach has dropped to the floor. “Too late then. Like you said.”

  She looks out the kitchen window for a long time before answering.

  “Too late for the dogs. And too late for lots of people. But it will save some of us. I mean, if my theory is correct. Four months, max, and there’ll be a cure. I hope.”

  “How many will die before that?” says Ramzy.

  She doesn’t answer.

  Dad gets up from the table and switches on the kettle for another cup of tea. “If only, Georgie!” he says in a fake, jolly tone. “If only that mad old lady with her future thingamajig had been real, eh? We could see how this would all pan out, eh?”

  Yeah. If only…

  It’s ten to eight, and Ramzy, Clem, and I are walking quickly up the top field, with Ramzy checking the time every thirty seconds so that he’s back by the stroke of eight, avoiding the wrath of Aunty Nush.

  We’ve reached Mum’s tree, and we’re about to split up: Ramzy to face whatever ghastly fate Aunty Nush might have awaiting him, me to check on Mr. Mash, and Clem to do yet more work on his stupid campervan.

  Clem says, “Have you two forgotten what day it is today?” and I shrug as Ramzy checks his phone yet again.

  “Yep. It’s the day I meet my certain death at the hands of Aunty Nush. I was meant to be home hours ago.”

  From his pocket, a smirking Clem pulls a yellow piece of folded paper, and Ramzy and I gasp in unison. I can’t believe I forgot about it. Only…there have been a few other things to distract us.

  “The Geordie Jackpot draw is at eight,” Clem says, taking out his phone. “We may as well find out if we’re going to be millionaires or not.”

  Ramzy’s already on his phone, speaking to his aunty. I’ve no idea what he’s saying. Well, I do actually: you can tell just from the tone.

  “I know, Aunty, I know. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m with Georgie and we lost track of time. I’ll put her dad on…”

  Ramzy hands the phone to Clem, whispering, “Be your dad. Say you’ll bring me home soon. She won’t understand anyway.”

  Clem is startled, but rises to the challenge and puts on his deep voice again. “Ah, hello, Mrs. Rahman, Rob Santos here. Ramzy is quite safe and I’ll certainly bring him home soon. My deepest apologies for the inconvenience. Good evening.”

  It sounds nothing like Dad, but Ramzy has the phone back now, and whether or not it’s saved him a punishment, at least it’s bought him some extra time. Clem, meanwhile, has already connected to the Geordie Jackpot site.

  It’s an odd place, I guess, to discover if you’re going to become a millionaire or not: we sit on a raised grass mound beneath the tree in the sticky evening heat, peering at Clem’s phone screen. A huge, circular spinning basket is tossing around fifty numbered balls.

  There’s tense music playing underneath the announcer, who is off-screen. He has a warm, Geordie voice.

  “Good luck, everyone! This is the draw for the Geordie Jackpot for July the twenty-seventh. Stand by for the first number.”

  Clem holds the ticket next to his phone so we can check the numbers, although I realize at that point that I’ve memorized them: 5–22–23–40–44–49.

  The music continues: dum-dum-dum-dum-dum—a relentless, tense beat.

  And then the machine spits out a numbered ball, which falls down a chute and is tumbling too fast to make out the number till it comes to a standstill, at which point the announcer says, “And the first number tonight is…number forty!”

  I can’t bear to hear the rest. I just know that they’ll match. Breathing quickly, I get up and walk round Mum’s tree a few times. I can still hear the announcer. Clem is clenching his fist and going, “Yesss!” Ramzy is silent and open-mouthed.

  “Number twenty-two!”

  “Number forty-nine!”

  I actually feel sick. Not at the prospect of winning so much money. Well, not just at the prospect of winning so much money. But because of the promise I’ve made to myself if it turns out that Dr. Pretorius was telling the truth.

  I’ve been putting it out of my mind (without much success, I should add) but now it’s becoming real.

  “Number five!”

  “Oh my God,” moans Clem.

  “Number forty-four!”

  That is when I sink to my knees. My legs simply won’t hold me up as I wait for the number that I know will be next.

  “And finally…number twenty-three! And that concludes…”

  I don’t hear the rest. There’s a ringing in my ears, and I am dimly aware that Ramzy and Clem are on their feet, clutching each other and spinning around, cheering and whooping, and then I’m joining in, although my mind is miles away.

  Because I have to do this. I just have to.

  “Stop!” I shout. But they don’t. The whooping continues till I scream again: “Stop it!”

  “Jeez, Georgie, what’s up? Why are you crying?” says Clem as he lets go of Ramzy.

  I take a deep, shaky breath, and eventually I say, “Do you know how to drive, Clem?”

  “Eh? What? Erm…yeah. Sort of.”

  “Will that campervan of yours work?”

  “No. I mean, yes: he’ll, well…he’ll start. He’ll go. But he’s not legally roadworthy. Why? What’s this about? We’re rich, Georgie! Why are you…We’ve got hardly any gas, and the catalytic converter’s not properly insulated, so the whole thing’s a fire hazard, but…but…why? We’ve got a million pounds to claim!”

  I am aware, on some deep, inexplicable level, that I’m making a decision that will change my life. That will change everything.

  “I know. I know. But what’s the point of money if everyone ends up dying? Hang on.” I lean my back against the knobbly bark of the tree, trying to calm my breathing, trying—unsuccessfully—to stop my heart from thumping. I look up through the leaves at the patches of blue sky peeking through. I can hear little bits of the song from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that always makes me think of Mum:

  Someone to tend to, be a friend to.

  I have you two!

  It’s not spooky or anything—I know it’s just in my imagination—and it makes me smile. My hammering heart has quieted down.

  I think of what Jessica said.

  Four months, max, and there’ll be a cure.

  Four months is too long to wait—too many people will die. But if we can go four months into the future? Or lon
ger? A year, to be on the safe side?

  I look round the tree, where Clem and Ramzy have been waiting for me, and my mind is made up.

  “Hey, you two,” I say, echoing the words of the song. “The million pounds is going to have to wait. Because, Clement Santos and Ramzy Rahman, we’re going to bust Dr. Pretorius out of the hospital!”

  Ramzy knows there’s more to it. He has a little puzzled smile when he says, “And…?”

  “And what do you think? We’re going to save the world!”

  In the workshop, we lower the campervan down off its mechanical lift and push it, back end first, out of the workshop.

  “Dad’s gonna kill me,” Clem keeps muttering, and checking his watch because Dad said he’d join him in the workshop in half an hour. “Where’s the keys, the keys?” he whines, emptying the contents of his overalls onto the dashboard of the camper till he finds the keys at the bottom of his pocket and tries to start the engine.

  The engine goes click-click-click, and even I know that means the battery is dead.

  “Right,” says Clem. “Jump-start it is.”

  A “jump-start” is different from using a key and involves Ramzy and me pushing the van to get it going, then running alongside the vehicle as it trundles downhill, steered by Clem, till the motor starts. When it chugs to life, Ramzy shouts, “Yay!” and we both vault into the open side of the van as it kangaroos down the lane and onto the road.

  I look back and my heart melts. Framed by the open window of the barn, poor Mr. Mash is straining on the end of his string, desperate to join our adventure. I give him a little wave and blow him a kiss. Ramzy sees me and I’m embarrassed for a second, but he just smiles.

  “We’re doing it for him, and all the dogs,” he says—and he’s right.

  “This is ridiculous!” shouts Clem over the noise of the campervan’s engine, which is rattling and spluttering, like an old man clearing his throat right in your ear. “Whoa!” He swerves to avoid a cyclist, who swears at him.

  We stand out on the road, that’s for certain. Pretty much the only other vehicles are a handful of cars. Ours is the only one making such a noise. I’m sure you can hear us as far as Blyth. As well as the ancient engine, there’s a whole bunch of Clem’s tools rolling around the metal floor: screwdrivers, wrenches, and a hacksaw. It’s a din.

  “So!” yells Clem. “Tell me again your idea, Georgie. I’m not sure I quite grasped its sheer insanity the first time you dazzled me with it— Whooaa, you idiot!”

  (Hard swerve again.)

  The idea—crazy or not—is the only one we have. The original plan was to wait till the results of the Geordie Jackpot either confirmed that:

  a) Dr. Pretorius’s FutureDome was for real, or

  b) it was just a mad scientist’s loopy fantasy.

  If it turned out to be real, we would then use the dome to go to the future and bring back the cure. Assuming Jessica has found one—which I’m trying not to think about too much. Where will we get it from? Not sure. A test tube? I don’t know. I figure I’ll work that one out when I get there.

  And now—thanks to the Geordie Jackpot result—we know that the FutureDome works.

  As my Wisdom of the Dogs poster says:

  If what you want is buried, dig and dig until you find it.

  There’s just one problem: we don’t know how to operate the FutureDome on our own. But if we can get to the hospital and persuade Dr. Pretorius to come back with us to her studio, we can get the programs up and running. If she can’t leave the hospital, at least she could give us instructions.

  Maybe.

  There’s another problem, but I’m trying not to think about it. My brain, the headaches, my memory. It was bad enough last time…

  “Can’t we just take a taxi?” shouts Ramzy, interrupting my scattered thoughts. Clem shakes his head. He’s totally on board with this now. It’s as if the Jackpot win has triggered something inside him, and he’s completely enthusiastic—even a bit crazed.

  “Taxis won’t take a patient from the hospital without authorization. And we definitely won’t have authorization. Oops, look natural—police car ahead!”

  The police car, painted red and marked ARMED POLICE, is parked on the Links, and my stomach flips over, thinking of the dog I saw before. They don’t even glance in our direction. Even if they did, I tell myself, they’d just see a campervan with a young man at the wheel. On any other day, the smoke and exhaust fumes billowing out of the back end—breaking probably every single “clean air” law—might have attracted their attention, but not today.

  “How do you know which hospital she’s at?” Ramzy asks. He seems to be trying to find fault with the revised plan, but I can hardly blame him: risky doesn’t even begin to cover it.

  “I don’t. But the ambulance went north from the Spanish City. If it was going to Cramlington or to the Royal Victoria or any of the others, it would have gone south to join the coast road.” I sound more confident than I feel.

  “Are you sure?”

  “No, Ramzy! I’m very far from sure. But what’s your suggestion?”

  “This is our only hope, anyway, Ramzy!” shouts Clem from the front seat. “There’s not enough gas to go anywhere else. I threw it all on the bonfire when we burned Georgie’s clothes.”

  This is new information to me. “How far can we go?” I ask as I look over Clem’s shoulder. The fuel gauge needle is stuck on the red warning section.

  “I had a liter and a bit. This old thing, in this state, does about thirty-five miles to the gallon. But I’ve no idea how that converts.”

  We’re silent for a bit; then Ramzy pipes up. “About nine miles.”

  Clem swings round to look at him, then back at the road. “How’d you do that?”

  Ramzy shrugs. “I’m good at math.”

  Nine miles. That will get us to the hospital and back. Just. Already I can see the signs for North Tyneside General Hospital, and a few minutes later the large sandy-brown building set off the main road.

  “How long will it take to get her?” asks Clem as he draws to a shuddering halt by the open entrance to the parking lot. He keeps the engine running.

  “It could be ages. I don’t even know where in the hospital she is.”

  “That’s a problem, then. You see, I can’t stop the engine. The battery charges from the motion of the engine, but it was totally dead. There’s not enough charge in it yet, so if I turn the engine off, we won’t get it started again. I’ll need to wait here with my engine ticking over. People don’t like that—especially not in hospitals. You know—pollution and all that.”

  “Can you drive round the roads?”

  “Yeah, but it’s using up gas and we don’t have much.”

  “We’ll have to risk it,” says Ramzy. “Drive up and down the road outside. We’ll message you when we’re one minute from the entrance. Come by and get us.”

  “Is it gonna work?” says Clem. We all look at one another, none of us wanting to say, “No, it’s a ridiculous idea.”

  Perhaps it’s the tension, I don’t know, but we all end up laughing as Ramzy and I get out.

  “Good luck!” says Clem, pulling away.

  We’re going to need it.

  Just by the entrance to the parking lot is a flower bed crammed with large, tall flowers that I don’t know the name of but that I can snap off pretty easily. Ramzy picks some too till we have a bunch: the sort of bunch you’d take when you visit a sick person in the hospital.

  It’s nine p.m. and eerily quiet. Above the swishing of cars on the road, the only other sound is the noisy spluttering of the campervan as Clem accelerates away up the street. Ramzy and I both take a deep breath.

  “Stealing an old lady from hospital, Ramzy? Is that adventure enough for you?” I ask.

  He seems to conside
r it, biting his bottom lip, eventually saying, “Yeah. We mustn’t mess up, though.”

  “Good advice, thanks,” I say, but I don’t think he gets my sarcasm.

  I lead the way up the long driveway toward the large glass doors of the hospital entrance.

  “Remember, Georgie. Cool heads. No one suspects kids. We just behave as if we’re meant to be here. Think about the Famous Five. What would they do?”

  “Well, I don’t think the kids in an Enid Blyton story would be sneaking into a hospital with stolen flowers to rescue a mad scientist, for one thing. BUT if they did, I think they would be cool and super polite.”

  Ramzy lifts his chin and pulls back his shoulders. “Then that’s how we are! So…after you, Sergeant Santos.”

  “Why, thank you, Private Rahman.”

  Our jokiness is an act: in fact, my heart is pounding even harder than it was by the tree earlier. The glass doors hiss open as we approach. Inside, the reception area is smaller than I’d expected, and therefore we could be spotted much more easily. A small group of four or five people are clustered round the front desk, which is good. The receptionist may not notice us.

  A large sign on the wall gives a guide to all the different departments, like this:

  X-rays and Radiology—Wright Annex (straight ahead)

  Natal and Neonatal—Renwick Wing (G)

  Oncology—Stables Wing (1st floor)

  It’s a long list. Ramzy and I stand to the side, trying not to look obvious, searching for the one we want.

  Geriatric Services and Ward—(G)

  There’s an arrow pointing through the double doors ahead of us. Ramzy rearranges the flowers he’s clutching to make them look a bit tidier, and I can see that his hands are trembling, making the leaves on the stolen bouquet shake. The receptionist is still busy with the group of people surrounding her desk.

  “Ready?” I say, and Ramzy takes a deep breath and nods at exactly the moment I hear the other set of doors open behind us and a deep voice say, “Well, what a surprise! It’s Miss Georgina Santos, as I live and breathe!”