The Dog Who Saved the World Read online

  Outbreaks have so far been confined to Jiangsu Province in eastern China. In the city of Nanjing, authorities have already begun a program of mass slaughter of stray dogs in an attempt to control the spread of the virus.

  Dr. Zamtev added, “At present, we do not anticipate a risk to humans, although if the disease were to mutate further, there is a possibility that it will be highly dangerous.”

  IHF virologists and biobotics researchers in China, the USA, and Great Britain are working simultaneously to discover the cure for this frightening new disease.

  I read it again, then closed the laptop.

  Jessica’s voice was shaky. “Things are developing very quickly, Georgina. It’s why I’ve been working so hard. I’m really rather concerned. If this thing spreads as we fear it might, then…”

  Perhaps I looked scared—I don’t really know. I do know that hearing Jessica—cool, quiet Jessica, who never gets flustered—say, “I’m really rather concerned,” was like hearing anyone else say, Oh my God, I’m terrified!

  Anyway, she paused, sighed, and said, “I’m sure it will be fine, Georgina. These things have always worked out in the past.”

  She wasn’t looking at me, so I said, “Do you promise?”

  “I cannot promise. It is not up to me. All we can do is work hard, do our best, and hope.”

  I looked across at her and she was staring out the window while the people on television continued their silent drama. Then her arm came up, the one farthest from me, and she brushed something from her eye that might have been a tear but—knowing Jessica—probably wasn’t.

  Two days after Mum’s memorial, and I’m missing St. Woof’s so badly. Thinking about it distracts me from everything else, even Dr. Pretorius’s upcoming Big Experiment, which until now has kind of dominated my thoughts. Though it’s very close now—it’s been seven days since she said, “Give me a week.”

  I keep looking at the St. Woof’s website, where there’s a webcam, hoping to catch glimpses of my dogs. I saw Mr. Mash being taken out for a walk yesterday by Sass Hennessey. She hasn’t been banned from St. Woof’s, I thought, feeling my dislike of Jessica increasing still further. I was so furious I felt myself starting to cry, so I stopped watching.

  But at least it’s the last day of term.

  My last day at Marine Drive Elementary. I know I should be totally excited, and everyone’s laughing in the playground, but I feel like there’s a heavy weight tied round my feet. If I were a dog, I’d have my tail right between my legs. I haven’t even seen Ramzy for what seems like ages.

  Mr. Springham’s been nice. He got everyone in the class a little present with a personal note attached. Mine was one of those extra-bouncy balls and the note said, Because you’ll always bounce back, which I thought was cool.

  In the afternoon, there’s a big assembly, and Mr. Parker—back in his pants, which is a shame—does this speech:

  “…respect for each other’s differences…”

  The sun is shining directly into my eyes.

  “…hard work always pays off in the end…”

  The kid in front of me has a sweat patch in the middle of his back in the shape of Africa that is spreading.

  “…express your feelings…take responsibility…becoming responsible citizens…”

  Yes, yes, we get it. Ramzy and I are due in the Spanish City dome later, and the secrecy thing is still bugging me.

  It is not helped by Sass Hennessey’s comment in the lunch line.

  * * *

  —

  I was standing with some of the girls in my class who I’m quite friendly with. Sass and Ellie McDonald cut in behind us.

  “It’s OK,” said Sass to the people who objected. “Georgie’s let me in: haven’t you, Georgie?”

  Before I could answer, Sass picked up a tray and edged past me. “Hi, Georgie! Thanks. I was just telling Ellie about our lovely Mr. Mash. I mean, stupid name, but isn’t he gorgeous?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Our Mr. Mash? And I came up with his name, which is not stupid: it fits him perfectly. I swallow hard and continue staring, which must have looked strange, but it didn’t shut her up.

  “And what about you and Ramzy in the Spanish City, eh? What’s your big secret?”

  It all sounded as though she was being nice and friendly, but there’s always something else going on with Sass. I still hadn’t said anything, but I looked between the two of them, furious. Sass continued as she loaded a slice of chicken pie onto a plate. “Yeah, my sister Anna saw you. With that weird old lady—what’s all that about?”

  I had to say something. I had been completely silent and I realized I was being weird. In the end, I settled for a long “Ermmmm…” Pathetic, I know, but Sass didn’t seem to care.

  “All the staff at the Spanish City know her. Is she a doctor? I heard she bought the whole dome, and she’s got some movie or games studio or something up there. My mum’s boyfriend knows a guy who worked on it. Have you seen it?”

  “Erm…no. No. I, erm…Ooh, look! Tuna macaroni again. Yum—my favorite.” It isn’t, but I needed something to say.

  “So what were you doing there with her?” Sass wasn’t being aggressive: she was chatty, but she wanted answers, and wasn’t going to be distracted by me pointing at a tray of pasta bake.

  Ellie, however, had picked up on my discomfort. “Yeah, apparently, you were seen coming out of the door marked ‘private’—what are you hiding, Georgie?”

  “Oh! Ha ha! Hiding? There’s nothing to hide! She’s just, erm…” I’m hopeless when caught out like this. My brain just sort of melts. I was actually on the point of saying, “Ooh, look—salad!”

  “We just got lost, didn’t we? ’Scuse me, Saskia,” said Ramzy, who squeezed in between us and sounded as relaxed as anything. “It’s a flippin’ maze, eh? We went to the toilets at the back and took a wrong turning and ended up in this big loading bay. The door slammed behind us, didn’t it, Georgie?”

  “What? Oh yeah. Yeah. Slammed shut. Bang! Just like that. Shut. Behind us. Ha ha!” I was overdoing it, I could tell, but Ramzy stayed cool.

  “So, yeah. Then this old lady turned up—what did she say her name was, Georgie?”

  “Oh, erm…Doctor something-or-other.” I was improving.

  “And anyway, she had a key to the other door and she let us back in.” It was a brilliant display of calm, convincing lying. It would have fooled anyone.

  “You’re lying,” said Sass, her eyes narrowing. “There are no public toilets there. They’re round the side. I know because I used them just last week. And besides, why would you go to the toilets together and both get lost?”

  We had finished collecting our food, and, trays laden, we were looking for somewhere to sit. All it took was for Ramzy to say, “Erm…,” just like I had, and I knew he wasn’t going to think up a convincing get-out this time.

  So I dropped my tray. I sort of pretended to trip, then overbalanced and dropped the whole thing: food, plate, glass of water, everything, which fell to the floor with a mighty crash and tinkle, followed by a loud “WHHHAAAAAYYYY!” from everyone in the dining hall, which was the usual reaction. And the distraction worked. Unwilling to help clear it up, Ellie and Sass scuttled to the far end of the dining hall, while Ramzy and I got the mop and bucket.

  “Good work, fellow adventurer,” murmured Ramzy as we loaded the bucket with broken china and macaroni. “See you at four o’clock!”

  I had almost forgotten the Big Experiment and suddenly felt a churning in my stomach.

  * * *

  —

  “…a big Marine Drive Elementary cheer for our departing students. Hip hip…”

  “HOORAY!”

  Well, that wakes me up from my daydreaming.

  As usual, the sound system starts playing that old rock song “Sc
hool’s Out.”

  And then I’m outside, surrounded by my classmates, who are signing each other’s shirts with Sharpies, and I’m grinning and hoping that someone will ask me to do theirs, but no one does, and my smile is becoming a bit fixed. This must be what Dad feels like with the mums at the school gates.

  (He stopped coming to pick me up from school when I got to fourth grade. I didn’t mind: I used to feel sorry for him, standing slightly apart from all the chatting mums, either looking at his phone or staring into space.)

  It’s a silly thing anyway, I tell myself. Who’s going to wear a shirt with names scrawled all over it?

  “Hey! Wanna sign my shirt?”

  It’s Ramzy and he’s waving a marker at me. “How was it? Usual speech?”

  “You weren’t there?”

  “You gotta be kidding. I figured I wouldn’t be missed. Instead, I had some quality time on the roof with my girlfriend.”

  Ramzy’s “girlfriend” is his favorite author, Enid Blyton; he had a book shoved in his back pocket. At breaktimes and after lunch, he often sneaks off to a little alcove in the library, which is probably why I haven’t seen him lately. The roof, though, is strictly out of bounds, and when I point this out to Ramzy, he just laughs.

  “What are they gonna do on the last day, Georgie? Give me detention? Expel me? Now are you signin’ me shirt or what? Aunty Nush might kill me, but it’s worth the risk.” I look at his shirt: it’s faded and worn and way too small for him. It’s stretched so tight that it’ll be easy to write on. He turns his back and I scrawl: Good luck from Georgie and then add X.

  He feels the two strokes of the X and says, “Hey! Was that a kiss? I don’t mind, G, but you gotta remember: my heart is for Enid only!” which makes me smile. Most kids our age have stopped reading Enid Blyton, but Ramzy doesn’t care.

  We walk back in silence toward the seafront; then Ramzy says, “Blimey, Georgie—why the long face?” and he starts singing, “Scho-o-o-l’s out for summer!”

  The whole summer stretches ahead of me like a hot, empty road. Even a week in Spain without Jessica doesn’t make up for a whole summer without St. Woof’s.

  When I say this to Ramzy, he says, “Man, that sucks,” and I immediately feel bad complaining. Ramzy never gets to go abroad: his dad can’t afford it. He can’t go “home” either because his home country doesn’t even exist anymore, thanks to the war that brought him here in the first place. (“Nowhere-istan,” he calls it, which is kind of funny in a dark way.)

  We carry on in silence for a bit longer, and then I see her. Dr. Pretorius is waiting for us by the big back doors of the Spanish City.

  The Big Experiment is about to begin, and it is too late to back out.

  Dr. Pretorius grins wolfishly, like her door knocker, which sends a shiver through me. I don’t mind admitting I am nervous. It is not only the whole “keeping a secret” thing, plus the fact that Sass’s sister spotted us. It’s also because this visit to Dr. Pretorius has been growing in my head so that I now think of it as:

  THE BIG EXPERIMENT!

  I don’t dare admit it to Ramzy, but I really didn’t want to come. I list the reasons in my head:

  Dangerous.

  Risky.

  Unsafe.

  And so on.

  I know: all variations of dangerous, really, although I have no idea why. To be honest, I think I’m just scared.

  I am on the brink of telling him, but his “fellow adventurer” comment earlier made him look so excited that I tell myself I’m being unnecessarily cautious, though I don’t use those words. Stop being a wimp, Georgie is what I say in my head.

  And why is Dr. Pretorius grinning? She practically skips like a girl up the metal steps to the studio and opens the double doors without looking back at us. She shrugs on a white lab coat and shouts, “Studio lights!” They flicker on as we follow her to the control room. On the desk is a large bottle of Fanta with three glasses and a plate of foil-wrapped chocolate cookies: definitely an improvement on the cheap cookies and supermarket cola we’ve had before.

  “Hey, wow!” says Ramzy appreciatively, and he reaches out for a cookie. Like a frog catching a fly, Dr. Pretorius’s hand slaps his and shoots back again.

  “Manners! They’re for afterward. To celebrate! I think we oughta sit down, and you had better listen.” Then she stops and her brow wrinkles in confusion. “Why have you got writing all over your clothes?”

  “It’s the end of the semester today,” I explain. “It’s a tradition.”

  Dr. Pretorius’s eyebrows shoot up above her spectacles. She shakes her head slightly and says a flat “Ha.” I can’t tell whether she’s amused or if she disapproves.

  We sit on the stools, and Dr. Pretorius sits in her wheeled desk chair and takes from a drawer the familiar bicycle helmet. Her voice goes very quiet: she is almost whispering.

  “I reckon you should know: you two are the first people ever to see this! Apart from me, of course.”

  Ramzy’s eyes flick to meet mine. This is getting weird. The three of us sit there, gazing at the helmet. Seconds tick by until eventually I break the silence.

  “B-but we have seen it. Haven’t we?”

  Her voice is still hushed and husky. “This is different. So very, very different.”

  There’s a long pause, while Ramzy and I wait for her to tell us. We both jump when she barks at us: “Well? Aren’t you gonna ask me how? Jeez, you kids today! So incurious! I spend my whole life making this thing that’s gonna—”

  “How?” says Ramzy to shut her up, I think. “How is it different?”

  Dr. Pretorius stops midsentence. “You wanna know?”

  “Of course we do. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it, Georgie?”

  I nod vigorously. Evidently satisfied with our enthusiasm, Dr. Pretorius takes a deep breath.

  “This,” she murmurs, “is going to change the world.” She strokes the curved top of the helmet as though it were a cat and seems to be gazing at her reflection in the shiny surface. We wait, and eventually she begins talking again. She looks up at me, and it’s as if a light has gone on behind her ice-blue eyes. Her skin seems to glow and she talks urgently as she stares at me.

  “You! Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see the future? To know what’s going to happen tomorrow? Or next week? Or next year?”

  The truthful answer would be a half-shrug, but I guess that would upset her, so instead I say, “Yes. All the time,” which isn’t strictly true, but it satisfies her. She grins and gets to her feet, waving the bicycle helmet at us.

  “Well, now you can.”

  Ramzy—as always—is bolder than me. When Dr. Pretorius asks him if he ever tries to imagine the future, he says: “Not really.”

  “Nonsense!” she snaps. “Everybody does! What’s the weather gonna be tomorrow, hmm?”

  Ramzy looks a bit scared, and I begin to feel sorry for him. It’s as though he’s being picked on. “I’m not sure, but apparently it’s going to get even warmer after the weekend.”

  “Exactly! Weather forecasts! We’ve been predicting the future for years! But tell me this, young man: is it definitely going to be warmer?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think weather forecasts are definite, are they?”

  “No! They’re just guesses. Educated guesses—but guesses all the same. Hundreds of people gather the data from around the country. Air temperatures, sea temperatures, wind speed, atmospheric pressure, heck—from around the world—and they punch it into computers, and the computers do their thing and—hey presto!—we can tell you exactly what the weather will be at the weekend. Is that right?”

  Ramzy says, “Yeah. Sounds right to m—”

  “Wrong!” She says it so loudly that we both jump. “All they can tell us is what the weather will probably be at the
weekend. So the woman on the television or the guy on the radio—they’re not predicting the actual future, just the probable future.”

  (Probable. Remember that word. It’s going to be important.)

  “So imagine if a computer could gather all of the information about everything around us: not just the weather, but the movements of people, of vehicles, how plants grow, how a leaf blows in the wind, how somebody speaks…everything! And then process it all. Every last bit of information. Then what?”

  I’m still trying to take in this idea, and don’t realize at first that Dr. Pretorius is pointing at me.

  “Georgie!” she yaps impatiently. “What can the computer do with all this information?”

  Slowly, I ease an answer out. It’s just like being in school but scarier. Her eyes are wide, and I really think she might explode if I get it wrong.

  “Erm…does the computer process it, and predict…the future? A probable future?”

  “Yes!” she yells, grinning. (I think it’s my use of the word probable that delights her.) “Exactly, kiddo! And then, using multisensory virtual reality, we re-create that probable future, allowing us to experience it as if it’s really happening! Forget about weather forecasts—this is a world forecast!”

  Dr. Pretorius is breathing hard as she paces the control room, delivering this speech with waving arms and wobbling white hair. A light sweat has appeared on her forehead. After a moment, Ramzy speaks up.

  “Is this…you know…real? Does it work?”

  Dr. Pretorius nods vigorously. Her hair follows. “Oh yes, it sure works. In theory. It just needs to be tested.”

  “And this…processing. Doesn’t it require, like, an incredibly powerful computer?”

  Good question. I’ve got to hand it to Ramzy: he’s not afraid to ask.

  “Indeed it does, my boy, indeed it does. Good thing I have one, huh? Follow me.”

  She leads us out of the control room, round the studio floor, and pulls aside a thick black-green curtain. Behind it is a circular window painted black. She pushes it open and the light floods the dark space, making us squint, and casts an elongated circle onto the floor. On a flat roof, just below us, is a large satellite receiver, about two yards across and more or less invisible from street level.