Wanted
THAT REALM, WHEREIN WE HUME DO DWELL: Chapter Eleven
When Rietta got up in the morning, Scrufty was not sat at the back door waiting. It was mid-morning when Carla called round. She could not believe Scrufty had gone, convinced that they loved him too much, and he loved them the same. He would never have just left them! So, mainly because it made them feel less helpless, the girls went out searching for Scrufty.
They decided to walk everywhere they could remember going with the dog, just in case he had gone for a big walk without them. They started at the great oak and walked the woodland path to the patch of bramble where they had found him. Rietta remembered flashes of what she had seen the night before, as they walked she recounted her experience to Carla. How she had run out into the night after Scrufty, and then seen the strange squat creature in the moonlit woodland, how it had pointed at her and whispered to her, asking her to follow. Carla was surprised Rietta had run away.
“You’ve seen that face, haven’t you! No way was I going into the woods on my own – at night – to say, ‘Hi,’ to that creepy thing!”
“But it wanted to talk to you – it may still be the guide we need…” Carla paused to frown.
“What?” asked Rietta with concern, “What is it?”
“You don’t think that thing wanted to talk to you so much it tried to come into your house?”
“You mean – it opened the back door?”
“And you know how Scrufty reacted, when he saw it before.”
Rietta felt a little sick at the thought, “That dwarf-tramp-child-thing tried to break into my house? In the middle of the night? And Scrufty chased it off?” her face had paled, “You don’t think it did anything to Scrufty, do you?”
Carla shrugged, “Bren and Maral wouldn’t send something dangerous as our guide, would they?”
“Well, if it is the guide, why does it always run away?”
“Last night,” Carla pointed out, “it was you who ran away, wasn’t it?”
Rietta cocked her head, conceding the point, then asked, “Have you had any more fairy dreams?”
“Uh-huh,” Carla nodded, “But not like before – I’ve just dreamt of the village as if I was seeing it on telly, or through the eyes of someone else living there. Like I used to. Nothing important happened, no more clues. I think they’ve been…” she shrugged, “just dreams… How’bout you?”
“Same here – I’ve had dreams with fairies in them, but that’s nothing new. I think Bren and Maral were in one or two, but after I’ve been awake a few minutes, I can’t remember them clearly… just dreams.”
They walked over the bridge, through the neat little park, past the library, across the churchyard, past the shops. They called into ask Rietta’s Nan if she had seen Scrufty. She had not. As it was nearly lunch time she offered the girls, “Sandwiches, or something on toast?” Rietta used her Nan’s telephone to let her mother know where she and Carla were and to check if Scrufty had turned up at home.
He had not.
* * *
As they ate beans on cheese on toast, Nan suggested that they put a missing dog notice up at the library, and perhaps make some flyers for local shop windows, too. So, after a hurried lunch they thanked Nanna Ivy and went back to Rietta’s to make posters.
Frustratingly, all the photos they could find of Scrufty, mainly on Sally’s mobile phone, were so blurred it was not even clear they were of a dog, more like a brown, fuzzy cloud. Luckily, Rietta had sketched him several times and there was one particularly good drawing, in the dog-log, that she had spent time on getting right. So, they decided to use that. Carla thought the result looked like a wild-west ‘Wanted’ poster for an outlaw hound. Sad as they were, both girls managed a brief smile at what their efforts had produced.
They took their poster to the library where the head librarian greeted them both by name. This time she was wearing yellow drop earrings to match an ostentatious pair of spectacles. When the girls explained about Scrufty, she was very sympathetic and helpfully showed them how to use the photocopier to enlarge their design to a big poster, for the library and community centre notice board, and then reduced it to run off smaller copies as flyers. She did not even charge them for the copies.
They remembered how they had taken Scrufty to the library and looped his lead around the bicycle stand outside. He had not tried to make friends with other visitors as they came and went. He had not sulked or whined. He had simply sat there, with one ear up and one ear down, staring through the big windows, watching every move the girls made. He was a good dog.
* * *
By the time they had done the rounds of little shops, the supermarket, Post Office, and clinic, they had managed to get all the missing dog flyers pinned up on public notice boards or taped up in windows. Making the posters had helped to keep the girls from worrying. Doing something pro-active made them feel a little less helpless, but Rietta noticed how quiet Carla was as they walked up the street towards her aunty’s maisonette.
“You OK?” asked Rietta.
Carla sort of nodded and shook her head at the same time. She slowed her pace and said, “I’m going to miss Scrufty so much…” She sniffed, obviously holding back the tears.
“Me too,” agreed Rietta, “But let’s not give up on him just yet, eh?”
“If it hadn’t been for Scrufty, we might not have become such good friends so quick, don’tcha think?”
Rietta reached out and took hold of her friend’s hands, “Y’want to know what I think?”
Carla nodded very seriously.
“I think we were already friends, before we even met…”
Carla gave a brief smile and her eyes sparkled as she said, “I used to spend many-a-day just waiting in anticipation of my dreams… they seemed like another life. I didn’t realise how lonely I had become when I had no one to share my dreams with… Now, with you, my days have been good too.”
“Didn’t you have friends before you came here?”
“Oh, yes. I had some good friends, ones I grew up with…”
“Well, then?”
“But as we got older, they were more into boy-bands and socks, and I started to feel silly talking to them about – about my dreams and fairies, and things like that… so I stopped.”
“Well, if that’s silly, then I’m just as silly as you are!”
“No!” Carla made a pretend offended face, “I’m by far the silliest!”
“You’re too grown-up to be silly – It’s me! I’m the silly one!” They both giggled and then hugged each other. They walked on quietly for a short distance, until Rietta said with a smirk, “Really? Socks?”
NEXT: Chapter Twelve: Deep in the Dark Woods
publishing 16th April 2026
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