A Hole In The Head

by Nicholas Fisk

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; YA Science Fiction

Synopsis

The dog gasped, mouthed, swung its head. It gaped and showed sharp white teeth. Then, as if it were being sick, it brought up words. The dog spoke . . . Madi and her brother Jonjo live on the OzBase, a research center near the North Pole. Their mother is one of an international team of scientists investigating a hole in the ozone layer over the Arctic. Others, however, are involved in less honourable experiments - as the children soon discover . . .

Release date: December 31, 2019

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 320

Sample

In that grey-white wilderness, featureless and blank, there was nothing to see. Not even a horizon.

And, other than the hiss of wind-driven powder snow, nothing to hear. Nothing except –

The barking of a dog! Impossible! But listen… Somewhere, a dog was barking, barking, barking.

“Where is it?” Madi said, jerking her head from side to side. “I can only hear it, I can’t see anything!”

Jonjo wiped powder snow from his sister’s vizor and said, “Over there! It’s got to be there! The MetrePak!”

Now she could just make it out: a MetrePak. A standard-issue metal cube exactly one metre square, standing all alone. The dull yellow of its walls was almost bleached white by clinging snow. The MetrePak seemed to come and go, vanish and reappear in the icy swirl.

And the dog kept barking, barking, barking.

“We’ve got to do something!” Madi said. “Poor thing, it’s tearing its throat to pieces!”

Jonjo stood still and said nothing. He was twelve, old enough to be cautious. Madi was two years younger, young enough to be reckless. She tugged at his arm.

“Please, Jonjo!” she said. “Please!”

Jonjo thought, Might as well do what she says. Can’t just stand here. Stay still, and your face aches and your fingers stiffen. The cold cuts right into you…

“Come on!” she said, and trotted towards the MetrePak. She couldn’t run properly, of course: not in all those layers of auto-heated clothes. He shambled after her. With each step, snow hissed and whispered beneath their boots.

They reached the MetrePak. A curved wedge of snow sealed the lid, but it was not locked. Jonjo pushed his thickly-gloved fingers into the recessed handle and pulled. The lid came away. The MetrePak was open.

And there was the dog. Chained to a metal upright. It stopped barking – pulled at its chain, trying to reach them – and stood on its hind legs, scrabbling desperately.

“Good dog,” Madi said, moving forward. “Nice dog.”

Jonjo held her back. “Careful!” he said.

The dog frantically lunged at them. It twisted its head and gaped its mouth as if it were having a fit. Its collar strangled its throat. Its eyes rolled.

“Good boy,” Jonjo said. He kept his voice low and steady. “What’s your name, eh? Have you got a name?” Very slowly, he stretched out a hand protected by four thicknesses of fabric.

The dog seemed to have something stuck in its throat. It gasped, mouthed, swung its head. It gaped and showed sharp white teeth. Then, as if it were being sick, it brought up words.

The dog spoke.

“Good dog!” it said. “Good dog good!”

“A talking dog!” Jonjo said. “It’s impossible! We’re dreaming!”

“He’s having the same dream,” Madi said. “Just listen to him!”

Its name was Bob. It told Jonjo and Madi so.

It was a good dog: it kept saying so, rolling humble eyes. They fed it all the food their suits carried. The dog wolfed everything, even bits of wrapping.

“Back to OzBase, right?” Jonjo said to Madi. She nodded. After all, there was nowhere else to go. But she, like Jonjo, was uneasy. Who had locked the dog in the MetrePak? Who had deliberately left it out there to die?

They followed their own footsteps in the snow. The dog walked with them – or rather pranced, danced, ran in circles. It was mad with joy. It licked their gloved hands. “Bob good dog!” it said, twisting and choking with the effort.

When they were nearly home, Madi stopped. She was frowning. She knelt by the dog, tousled its head, looked up at Jonjo and said, “We’ve got to know more, we can’t just walk in with him…” Jonjo nodded. “Ask him what it’s all about,” he said.

Madi took the dog’s paw, shook it gently and said, “Why were you left out there, Bob?”

The dog took time to think out this question. It looked from face to face, panting white puffs of breath, its body tense.

At last it said, “Left lone box.”

“Yes, that’s right, you were left alone out there. Why, Bob? Why?”

“Bob lone,” said the dog. Then, effortfully, “Man bad.”

“So a bad man put you there? Did you do something wrong, Bob? Did you bite someone? Were you bad?”

“Bob good dog! Good dog!” – almost barking.

“Then why, Bob?”

“Cos,” the dog replied, twisting its neck with the effort to make words, “cos … Bob talk. Talk-dog bad.”

It looked sadly from Jonjo’s eyes to Madi’s, from Madi’s to Jonjo’s; then it asked, “Is Bob … bad?”

Madi answered by flinging her arms round Bob’s neck. The dog trembled with pleasure, wagged its tail and tried to lick her face. It made whimpering, puppy noises. Jonjo looked on. “Don’t you start howling, Madi!” he warned his sister. “You know what happens to tears!”

“I’m not crying,” she lied; and quickly rubbed at her eyes. Tears froze. Removing them could be painful.

“Better get on,” Jonjo said, nodding his head at the one distant light in the endless, colourless blankness surrounding them.

The light came from OzBase – Ozone-layer Research Base – where an international team of scientists investigated the hole in the Arctic’s Ozone Layer. OzBase was a low scatter of big and small hutments, a little colony so isolated that it needed to show a beacon in that frozen immensity. When the Arctic winds blew, and snow swirled like ghosts, you could blink your frozen eyelids and OzBase was gone…

“Let’s move,” Jonjo said. “I’m beginning to seize up.” He flailed his arms. They moved closer to OzBase. At first, Bob enjoyed himself, pulling at his chain, dragging Madi along. But once or twice he lifted his head, sniffed in the direction of the Base, and grumbled uneasily. “He’s saying ‘Man bad’,” Madi murmured to Jonjo. “He’s remembering where his troubles started. He’s afraid of a bad man in OzBase.”

“Why OzBase?” said Jonjo.

“Well, it must be. I mean, Bob’s here, so I suppose —”

Jonjo shrugged. “In any case, the Base is our only place to go,” he said. “And Mum’s there, she’ll sort it out.”

“No, she’s not,” Madi said. “She left yesterday.”

“So she did,” Jonjo said. “She’s in OzTech Centre. Back in civilization. Norway…” He rubbed his nose to prevent icicles forming. “And the chopper that took her away brought in five new people, right? I’ll bet one of them was responsible for…” He nodded at the dog.

Bob was too intelligent to miss Jonjo’s meaning. “Man bad,” he said. “Man put Bob BOX.” His tail drooped.

Jonjo and Madi gazed at the dog. He was a handsome animal. Mostly border collie, but with a thicker coat patched with brown and black on white fur. Without that thicker coat he would not have survived his captivity. His chestnut-coloured eyes were bright with intelligent emotions – affection, anxiety, willingness to please, questioning.

“I just can’t imagine how anyone could want to … you know…” Madi said; and yet again caressed the dog’s head.

“Me neither,” said Jonjo. He tried to puzzle it out. Five new arrivals: had one come alone, separately? Yes, definitely. Because whoever had ditched Bob would have had to arrive complete with the MetrePak and Bob. The Pak must have been let down from the chopper, with Bob inside.

But wouldn’t Bob have barked? Wouldn’t the pilot have asked questions?

And why not simply shoot Bob, or poison him? Why go to all the trouble of transporting him here, and marooning him in a MetrePak?

No answer.

Next question: how would he and Madi identify the person responsib. . .