A Girl Called Dog by Nicola Davies

Author:Nicola Davies
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781446453308
Publisher: RHCP

Chapter 16

THE MAN WAS huge. Much taller than Uncle, and wider too, though not at all soft and wobbly like Uncle was. In fact, where the light fell on him through the holes in the crate, he looked hard as marble. His eyes were wide, with so much white showing that the dark circle in the middle looked like a little hole. He stood with his feet apart and the knife held blade up in front of him.

“One word,” breathed the man. “One single sound …” His voice was quiet and dry, like the scuttle of scorpion or a snake’s slither. “One single sound, one little move, and …” He turned the knife slowly to show its sharp, sharp edge and let it speak his threat for him.

“I didn’t give all those policemen out there the slip just for you to give me away. Don’t move. Don’t even breathe. Maybe I’ll mince you anyway, to be sure,” he whispered.

Dog thought she could see right through his hard shiny face to the meaning of his words. She imagined herself and her friends as a neatly minced pile of flesh and fur and feathers. So was this man who the sirens had been sounding for? Not for her and Esme and Carlos? She couldn’t be sure. One step outside the crate could still mean they would be sent straight back to Uncle. It was better to take their chances where they were.

Outside in the hold, voices shouted instructions and the little trucks zoomed about as the last of the cargo was loaded. Inside the crate the seconds crawled by. The man went on staring, holding up his blade like a horrible promise, and the three friends went on being rooted to the spot in double fear: of being discovered and of being minced to bits.

Just as Dog was deciding that she couldn’t stand another slow second of thinking of herself and her friends being shredded, the noise in the hold died down. The men and their trucks were gone, and the heavy door above them creaked and scraped as it slid shut. Everything was suddenly quiet and, even more suddenly, totally dark.

In half the time it takes for a heart to beat, time went from crawl to sprint, so that several things seemed to happen all at once. The man made a kind of snarling noise and lurched forward, his heavy tread making the boards underfoot creak and grumble. Dog threw herself back, away from the whoosh of the knife slicing through the space where she had just stood. She fell against the wall behind her and scrabbled with her arms spread wide to try and feel for the touch of fur or feather.

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