Young Fredle - Louise Yates [34]
For just a few seconds, Fredle was undecided. He had been taught to freeze, but then he had also been advised to run, here outside. Moreover, Sadie had saved him from Patches. Taking care of the baby was Sadie’s responsibility and Fredle wanted to help her, even if she was a dog.
It wasn’t even a few seconds, it was only two or three, that Fredle hesitated. The cat was crouched, ready to spring, and Fredle moved. He dashed out from cover and ran toward the sleeping dog, as quick as any squirrel and not even looking to see if the cat had noticed him.
No clawed cat paw landed on top of him. No victorious screech sounded. He made it safely to his destination, which was the soft part right under Sadie’s shoulder. He stuck his nose in there and gave her a quick nip.
With a yowl, Sadie jumped up, fully awake. Fredle had to get himself quickly into the shelter of the baby’s basket or she might have knocked him around.
He knew she hadn’t seen him. He also knew—by the sound of her furious barking—that she did see the cat, right away.
“Get out of here, Fox! You get away from Baby or—”
“Or what?” came a mocking voice.
Anxious, Fredle crept along until he could see what was happening. He saw that the cat had abandoned its hunter’s crouch and was once again standing, back arched, tail fat, hissing at the brown-and-white dog.
“Out!” barked Sadie. Then she bared her teeth and snarled. “Get out!”
“As if I’d ever be afraid of you,” said Fox, but he stalked off, head held high.
The baby was howling now.
“And stay away. You better!” barked Sadie.
Missus came running up to the fence, still holding the bucket of chicken feed. She looked at Sadie. “What’s wrong, girl? What is it?” She bent down and took the cloth off the baby’s basket. “Hello, Baby, don’t cry, it’s just Sadie barking and that’s what dogs do. Everything’s all right.”
“I saved the baby!”
“Quiet, Sadie, there’s nothing. Baby doesn’t like all that barking.”
“Fox was going to—”
“Quiet, Sadie,” said Missus firmly.
Sadie stopped barking. She lay down again, beside the basket, and rested her head on her paws, looking up at Missus.
“Good dog. I won’t be much longer,” said Missus, and she walked away.
Sadie had started sniffing. She lifted her head. “Fredle?”
“I bit you,” said Fredle. “I’m sorry if it hurt, but that cat—”
“I saved the baby!”
“I saw.”
“That was Fox and he’s a bad one.”
“I could tell.”
“Don’t bite me again,” Sadie said.
“I needed to wake you up.”
“Friends don’t bite,” Sadie told him. “Angus never bites me, not even when we’re wrestling and quarreling. And I don’t bite him, or any other friend.”
“All right,” said Fredle. “I understand, it’s a rule.”
“I’d bite that Fox,” Sadie said, growling at the memory. “I’m glad you woke me up, but I’d never bite Patches. Patches is my friend.”
Fredle went back to the protection of the post and waited there until Missus had come to pick up the baby and gone off, back to the house, with Sadie at her heels. Then he returned to his nest, to curl up for a short sleep. He wanted to be well rested when he went out looking for a way into the house, on the fourth and final side, where nobody had ever searched before, at least as far as he knew.
10
The Way In
It was night when Fredle found a way back into the house. Just as he had suspected, and hoped, one of the wooden window frames on the fourth side of the house had pulled away from the mortar, leaving a crack large enough for a mouse. He pushed his nose into the opening and sniffed the air.
Only a mouse could squeeze through that narrow opening, Fredle knew; or ants and spiders, which didn’t worry him; or a snake, he guessed, if snakes ever wanted to go inside. But he’d never heard anything about any snake living down in the cellar. He was just scaring