‘Mum, Dad!’ She shoved open the front door, tripping on the doormat and falling to her knees. The tears stung, pooling at the crack between her lips. ‘Dad!’
Victor appeared at the kitchen door.
‘Pickle?’ he said. And then he saw her. ‘Pippa, what is it? What happened?’ He hurried forward as she picked herself up from the floor.
‘Barney’s gone,’ she said. ‘He didn’t come when I called. I went around the whole woods, calling him. He’s gone. I don’t know what to do. I’ve lost him, Dad.’
Her mum and Josh were in the hallway now too, watching her silently.
Victor squeezed her arm. ‘It’s OK, pickle,’ he said in his bright and warm voice. ‘We’ll find him; don’t you worry.’
Her dad grabbed his thick padded coat from the understairs cupboard and two torches. He made Pip put on a pair of gloves before he handed one of them to her.
The night was dark and heavy by the time they were back in the woods.
Pip walked her dad round the path she’d taken. The two white torch beams cut through the darkness.
‘Barney!’ her dad called in his booming voice, thrown forward and sideways as echoes through the trees.
It was two hours later and two hours colder that Victor said it was time to go home.
‘We can’t go home until we find him!’ she sniffed.
‘Listen.’ He turned to her, the torch lighting them from below. ‘It’s too dark now. We will find him in the morning. He’s wandered off somewhere and he’ll be OK for one night.’
Pip went straight up to bed after their late and silent dinner. Her parents both came up to her room and sat on her bedspread. Her mum stroked her hair as she tried not to cry.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault, sweetie,’ Leanne said. ‘Don’t worry. He’ll find his way home. Now try to get some sleep.’
She didn’t. Not much at least. One thought crept into her head and burrowed there: what if this really was her fault? What if this was because she’d ignored her final warning? What if Barney wasn’t just lost, what if he’d been taken? Why had she not been paying attention?
They sat in the kitchen, eating an early breakfast none of them were hungry for. Victor, who looked like he hadn’t slept much either, had already called in to work to take the day off. He listed their plan of action between cereal bites: he and Pip would go back to the woods. Then they would widen the search and start knocking on doors, asking after Barney. Mum and Josh would stay back and make some missing posters. They would go and put them up in the high street and pass them out. When they were done, they would all meet up and search the other woodland areas near town.
They heard barking in the woods and Pip’s heart picked up, but it was just a family walking with two beagles and a labradoodle. They said they hadn’t
seen a golden retriever lone and wandering but they would look out for one now.
Pip’s voice was hoarse by the time they’d circled the woods for the second time. They knocked on their neighbours’ houses up Martinsend Way; no one had seen a lost dog.
Early afternoon, and Pip’s train whistle text tone blared in the quiet forest. ‘Is that Mum?’ her dad said.
‘No,’ Pip said, reading the message. It was from Ravi. Hey, it said, I’ve just seen missing posters for Barney up in town. Are you OK? Do you need help?
Her fingers were too numb from the cold to type a response.
They stopped briefly for sandwiches and then carried on, her mum and
Josh joining them now, traipsing through trees and across private farmland, choral shouts of ‘Barney’ carrying on the wind.
But the world turned on them and darkness fell again.
Back home, drained and quiet, Pip picked through the Thai takeaway Victor had collected from town. Her mum had put a Disney film on in the background to lighten the mood, but Pip was just staring down at the noodles, wrapped like tightening worms round her fork.
She dropped the fork when a train whistle sounded, vibrating in her pocket.
She placed her plate on the coffee table and pulled out her phone. The screen glared up at her.
Pip tried her hardest to blink the terror from her eyes, to force her jaw closed. She fought a blank look on to her face and put the phone face down on the sofa.
‘Who’s that?’ her mum asked.
‘Just Cara.’
It wasn’t. It was Unknown: Want to see your dog again?
