Dogsbody. Diana Wynne Jones
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knew the situation was too serious for fighting. They both crouched, trembling, packed side by side into the slimy space, listening to the dreadful noises from the shop.
In the heat of the moment, Sirius and Romulus found they were communicating with one another.
“What happened? What went wrong?”
“It was her fault. She jumped on a shelf. Everything fell off it.”
“She’s being killed. Do something!”
“You do something.”
It certainly sounded as if Tibbles was being killed. There was more heavy crashing, and cold high yelling from Duffie. After that came a dreadful screech, half cat, half human. Remus shot into the kitchen, a fat stripy streak of panic, and made for the waste-pail too. When he saw Sirius and Romulus already there, he stopped, looped into a frenzy, glaring.
“Help! Let me hide! She’s killing us!”
Duffie was now raving round the living-room. “Where’s that flaming CAT?”
At the sound, Remus somehow packed himself in beside Romulus, quivering as if there was a motor inside him. Sirius found himself being oozed out on the other side. “Hey!”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” shivered Remus. “Oh, ye gods!”
There was a scream like a steam-siren from the next room. Something crashed, probably a new rose-holder. “Damn!” yelled Duffie. “Got you, you fiend!” It was clear Tibbles had been caught. A heavy, sharp thumping began. It was as strong and regular as the noise Kathleen had made when she hung the carpets on the clothesline and beat them with a beater. Duffie yelled in time with the thumps, “I’ll – teach – you – to – break – my – pottery!”
Sirius found he could not have this. Whatever Tibbles deserved, it was not being beaten to death. His dog’s hatred of strife in his family fetched him out from under the sink. That, and a strong green sense of justice, sent him scampering to the living-room, followed by a gust of amazement from Remus and Romulus.
Duffie had her sandals planted wide apart on the hearthrug. She had Tibbles dangling wretchedly from one hand, curled as stiff and small as possible, while the other hand clouted away at Tibbles, hard and rhythmically. At the sight, Sirius’s green sense of justice became mixed with anger. He would dearly have liked to plant his jawful of white teeth in the bulging muscle of Duffie’s calf. He had to tell himself she would taste nasty, he wanted to bite her so much. He launched himself at Duffie instead, and managed to land hard against her stomach before he fell on the floor. Duffie staggered.
“Drat you, animal! Get away!”
Sirius got up and began to leap about Duffie, reaching for Tibbles and barking excitedly.
“Will you stop interfering!” Duffie shouted, lashing out with a sandal.
Sirius knew he was not big enough to reach Tibbles. Duffie was holding her dangling high out of reach. But he ran in a swift figure of eight around her feet as she kicked out, and made her overbalance. Duffie loosened her hold on Tibbles in order to catch at the mantelpiece. Tibbles dropped with a thump on all four feet and was off like a white flash upstairs.
“Damn!” shrieked Duffie, and lunged at Sirius. He ran away round the sofa, expecting to be beaten with a broom again.
Luckily, they had only been twice round the sofa when the side door opened and Robin, Basil and Kathleen trooped in.
“What’s going on?” said Basil.
To the surprise and relief of Sirius, Duffie forgot about him and began to rage long and shrilly about the damage those wretched cats had done in the shop. While the side-door was open, Romulus and Remus seized their chance and fled through it. Neither of them reappeared again that day. Sirius supposed it would have been prudent of him to do the same, but he was not really tempted. He was too glad to see Kathleen again. He jumped up against her and squeaked with pleasure.
While Duffie was busy dramatically throwing open the shop door and pointing to the heap of smithereens inside, Kathleen wrapped her arms round Sirius. “I’m glad it wasn’t you for once,” she whispered.
It seemed unfair to Sirius that it should be Kathleen who cleared up the broken pottery. But he had noticed that Kathleen always did do an unfair amount of work. He lay and whined in protest outside the shop door, until she had finished and was able to take him to the meadow.
Duffie, meanwhile, stumped away upstairs to find Tibbles. But Tibbles had hidden herself cunningly in the very back of the airing-cupboard and Duffie did not find her.
After supper that evening, Duffie angrily shut herself in the shop and worked away at her potter’s wheel to replace some of the breakages. When she heard the wheel whirring, Tibbles dared at last to emerge. Very sore and ruffled and hungry, she limped downstairs and into the living-room. Only Sirius saw her. Robin, Kathleen, Basil and the thunderous voice were all crowded round the table over some kind of game. Sirius was on the hearthrug with a tough raw bone propped between his paws and his head laid sideways, grating deliciously with his back teeth. He looked at Tibbles across his nose. Tibbles stopped short in the doorway, seeing him looking.
“It’s all right. It’s quite safe,” Sirius told her. “She’s in the shop. And there’s a whole lot of scraps still down in the kitchen.”
Tibbles did not reply. She stepped off delicately to the kitchen, shaking each front paw with a ladylike shudder before she put it down. Sirius, in a dog’s equivalent of a shrug, went back to his bone.
Quite a while later, when Sirius had done with the bone and was snoozing, Tibbles limped out of the kitchen and came slowly over to the hearthrug. Though she looked rather less wretched, she was still very ruffled. She sat down, wrapped her tail across her front feet, and stared fixedly at Sirius.
“I still hurt. It’s all your fault.”
Sirius raised an eyebrow and rolled one green eye up at her. “It was your fault, too. But I’m sorry. I was afraid she was going to kill you.”
“She was,” said Tibbles. “She loves those silly mud pots. Thank you for stopping her.” She raised a front paw and licked it half-heartedly. “I feel awful,” she said miserably. “What can I do?”
“Come over here and I’ll lick you,” Sirius suggested, greatly daring.
He expected Tibbles to treat the suggestion with contempt, but, instead, she got up and, casually, as if she did not care particularly, she settled down between his front paws. Most astonished and very flattered, Sirius gingerly licked her back. She tasted clean and fluffy.
“Further up and over to the right,” Tibbles said, tucking her paws under her gracefully.
Half an hour later, Kathleen looked up from the cards. “Goodness gracious!” she exclaimed. “Just look at that now!”
Everybody looked, and exclaimed to see Tibbles tucked up like a tuffet between the forepaws of the dog with the dog’s head resting against her. Tibbles had flat wet patches all over the tabby part of her back from being licked.
When she saw them looking, she raised her head and stared at them defiantly. “And why shouldn’t I sit here?” Then she turned her pink nose gently to Sirius’s black one and settled down to purring again.
Sirius’s heavy tail flapped on the carpet. He felt warm and proud to have this lovely white cat purring against him. He looked down at her small humped shape and wondered. It was familiar. So, in a dim back-to-front way, was everything that had happened that afternoon. Some time, in a misty green past, there had been a time with three other beings when he had flown into a rage, only then, as far as he could remember, the disaster had been his and not his Companion’s.
Then he remembered, and with great sadness. Once, somewhere else, he had had a Companion, as small and white and nearly as elegant as Tibbles. He had loved this Companion