The Ribbajack

Back at the house, Mrs. Glegg wearily collected a blackened towel from the bathroom. She removed Rosie’s two pet spiders (Ivan and Ignatius) from the bath. After replacing the soap (with the initials R.G. carved into it) to the soap holder, she tiptoed wearily downstairs, passing the bedroom door with the purple felt-tipped warning.

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Mrs. Glegg kept out, knowing by some of the noises which emanated from Rosie’s bedroom the presence of crocodiles could not be ruled out. In the living room, she showed Mr. Glegg the latest letter from their eld est son, Dennis. He had gone to work among the headhunters of the Orotwango Basin in darkest Ama zoniga. Her husband sighed wistfully as he scanned his son’s epistle.

“Trust Dennis to choose the soft life and leave us here with Rosie!”

There was no sign of Charlie Lupus at the adventure playground. Rosie sat twirling the high security padlock, which she had opened with her Swiss Army knife. As dusk was starting to fall, she had done what she could with the playground apparatus. All the swing and climbing ropes she had knotted together with secret sailor knots, which were impossible to untie. Rosie had shifted most of the sandpit into the paddling pool, where she constructed a dam. There was not much else to do but wait now.

She chided herself for not making Charlie take the Slimy Green Death Oath that he would turn up.

The night crept on, with a beautiful apricot-hued full moon appearing to illuminate the darkness. Rosie was starting to lose patience. At first she did not see the massive grey dog lurking nearby. It sat watching her from the cover of a heavy-timbered climbing frame, its brown-amber flecked eyes glowing like twin flames.

Then the dog approached. Padding around the back of her, silent as a cloud shadow, it leaned over the nape of her exposed neck. Rosie’s flesh gleamed grimy white in the moonlight. Licking its slavering lips, the dog opened its mouth hungrily, exposing dangerous ivory-hued canine fangs. They drew closer to the girl’s unprotected neck. . . . Closer! Then it gave her a huge, slurping, playful lick.

“Yurrk! Gerroff!”

Rosie was aware of the perils of neck washing, whether by soap, flannel or dog tongue. All could prove fatal in her estimation. As the dog attempted a second lick, she shoved it away. “Gerroff me, y’silly pooch, go ’way an’ play!”

She found a stick and threw it, hoping the beast would leave her in peace. In an instant, the dog was back with the stick. Laying it at her feet, it sat beside Rosie, lolloping and panting. It reminded her of her friend. “I know, I’ll call you Charlie, d’you like that?”

“Woof!”

“D’you know ole Charlie? You look awful like him.”

“Woof woof!”

“Good feller, d’you know where he is?”

The big dog threw back its head and bayed. “Yaaaawwooooohhh!”

Rosie Glegg felt the hair on her head rise up straight, an electric tingle coursing up and down her spine. The howl of the grey dog was more exciting than anything she had ever experienced in her short, but full, life. Visions swirled behind its moonlit eyes, strange sights of snowbound forests, craggy mountains and far-off ruined castles.

Rosie heard the cries of frightened peasants rising above the smoke of flaring torchlights. A wild urgency tugging at her nerve ends, she looped her skipping rope around the huge beast’s thickly furred neck.

“Come on, Charlie, let’s go to the woods!”

Both dog and girl burst from the adventure playground, baying aloud their homage to the watching moon. “Aaaaaaaoooooooowwwwwoooooooh!”

The good villagers of Nether Cum Hopping shuddered as eerie howls echoed about their streets. Children tugged bedsheets over their heads and trembled. Curtains were hastily drawn, doors slammed and tightly bolted. Lights flicked on, setting houses ablaze with illumination for protection against the chilling sounds. Confusion reigned. Telephones jangled, jamming up the switchboards with calls to the police and the Noise Abatement Society (only recorded messages after five P.M.). The R.S.P.C.A. (Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) sent out a two-man patrol, looking for two dogs which somebody had roped together—or was it a child and a dog? The officers were set upon by a large German shepherd dog which lived in the lane alongside the woods. After fending it off, they reported the incident to the police, who took out a warrant against its owner. The police, however, were not convinced that it was any type of animal noise. They closed down a disco, confiscated a boom box from a group of teenagers on a street corner and issued a ticket to a young man driving a sports car (whose horn played four consecutive tunes, starting with “La Cucaracha” and culminating in “Colonel Bogey”). The Noise Abatement Society remained silent throughout the entire operation.