Lost Christmas by David Logan Read Free Book Online Page B

cold made Goose’s skin feel as if it was being stretched tight across his face. He wrapped his arms around himself and looked down, expecting to see Mutt. He wasn’t there. Goose looked along the straight walkway. First one way and then the other.
    â€˜Mutt!’ he called. ‘Where are you, you dumb dog?’ He whistled and waited. Mutt didn’t come running. That was odd. Mutt always came running. ‘Come on, Mutt!’ He waited some more, and as he did panic was just starting to rise inside him. Mutt never wandered away. Not very far at least. The logical part of Goose’s brain was telling him that there was a very simple explanation for where Mutt hadgot to, but that part of his brain was being shouted down by the other part. The part that was all passion and no logic. He and Mutt had not been apart for a single full day in the year since he’d got him. Goose always knew where he was. Even when Goose went to school he would run home and Mutt would be waiting for him. Goose couldn’t count on his nan. Her Alzheimer’s made her unpredictable. Mutt wasn’t unpredictable. He was the only constant left in Goose’s life. His reaction wasn’t logical, but it was inevitable. ‘MUTT!’ he called, louder this time.
    Goose started towards the stairs, thinking maybe Mutt had ducked in there to get out of the wind and he couldn’t hear him calling. But when he reached the steps there was no sign of him.
    Goose stepped back to the walkway and looked over. He had a bird’s eye view, but there was no sign of Mutt anywhere.
    â€˜MUTT!’
    He looked straight down and caught sight of footprints in the snow, or at least what he thought were footprints, or paw prints rather. He turned and ran. He hit the stairs and bounded down the eight flights as quickly as he could, jumping the last three or four steps each time.
    Soon he reached the ground floor and raced out into the snow. The paw prints he had seen from up above werea mishmash of a hundred sets of footprints, paw prints and bike tracks.
    Goose started running, but he had no idea in which direction to go. He headed off the estate into the road. As he came out he could see for a good half-mile east and west. No sign of Mutt.
    Goose stood in the middle of the road, turning in a circle.
    â€˜Mutt!’ he cried. ‘Where are ya? Come ’ere, boy! Come ’ere, Mutt!
Please!
’
    Still nothing. Choosing a direction at random, he started running again.

7
LEONARDO DA VINCI INVENTED SCISSORS

    Lal Premji had taken her cobra bangle off, but where? She remembered her wrist had been aching the night before. Sometimes her bangle seemed heavy. She had taken it off. Yes, she distinctly remembered taking it off. It was a tight squeeze to remove it. Didn’t used to be. Not in her youth, when Meher had given it to her. She was a slim, lithe young thing back then. Over the years she had plumped up a little; she blamed her love of custard creams.
    She was seventy-six years old. A tall woman, though a little stooped with age. She had short hair, silver peppered with some black, and wore a pair of browline glasses.She had come to this country from the Gujerati region of north-western India in her twenties. She had been here, in the north of England, for fifty-four years and, after living through fifty-four freezing, wet winters and summers not much better, she still loved the cold. Growing up in India she had always been too hot. Back there, she felt sluggish and tired. Here it was like a million freezing needles pricking her. She felt alert.
    Today, though, she wasn’t enjoying the cold. It rarely snowed in Manchester, and the few times she had experienced snow she had loved it. Felt like a kid. Today, however, was different. Today she was padding through the white streets in her slippered feet, wearing a thick green cardigan she had knitted for her husband some fifteen years ago, searching the pavements and