‘Rex just back up a bit,’ Albert tried. He was only about four feet from the window; if they could get hold of him, they could probably get him back. It was the probably bit that had him worried.
‘What does he weigh?’ asked Gary, wondering if he could go out onto the branch and pick Rex up.
Albert snorted. ‘A lot.’ It wasn’t an accurate description, but it painted the picture correctly. ‘Nearly as much as me, I reckon.’ Sighing, he reached for his phone.
Gary squinted at his dad. ‘Who are you calling? International Rescue?’
Albert doubted even the Thunderbirds would be much help with this problem. And so it was that ten minutes later, wearing a coat over his pyjamas and a pair of shoes on his bare feet, he came to be standing outside Mrs Morton’s bed and breakfast waiting for the fire brigade to arrive.
Gary had taken the precaution of wrestling the mattress from his bed to place on the ground beneath Rex just in case. The landlady would most likely pitch a fit when she saw it, but he could afford to buy a new mattress. It was better than dealing with the dog falling and hurting himself and would be cheaper too.
With Gary at the rear of the building with the mattress watching Rex, Albert was left to stand in the street to welcome the firefighters. Wouldn’t you know it? It was the same team again, Station Officer Hamilton gawping through the window of the fire truck as he recognised the old man.
Albert scratched his head and stared at the fallen leaves blowing about on the breeze, idly waiting until the fire truck came to a stop. Station Officer Hamilton didn’t wait though, he wound down his window to shout a, ‘Good morning, sir. When dispatch said there was a dog stuck in a tree, I thought it was a wind up.’
Albert met his eyes. ‘I wish it were.’
Looking panicked, Mrs Morton ran out of her front door. ‘Am I on fire,’ she gasped, dashing into the street to look back at her building.
Albert said, ‘No, Mrs Morton. My dog had a minor … error of judgement this morning. He’s in the oak tree around the back.’
The landlady gawped open-mouthed as if waiting for Albert to deliver his punchline, but as the firefighters began taking long ladders from the top of their truck, she accepted that it wasn’t a joke.
‘This I’ve got to see,’ she said, pulling her cardigan tight around her body against the cold to follow the procession heading for the rear of her building. They skirted the bed and breakfast, making their way along the side to the rear where they found Gary, still in his sweaty sports gear, but now looking rather chilly. Above his head, a large German Shepherd dog balanced on a branch.
‘The squirrels are trying to make him fall, I think,’ Gary told them with a look of disbelief on his face. ‘They’ve been throwing acorns at him. They’re not bad shots either.’
Everyone cast their eyes into the tree just in time to see an acorn bounce off Rex’s skull. The dog looked utterly miserable and his legs were visibly shaking with fear.
Station Officer Hamilton clapped Albert on the shoulder. ‘This is a first for me, sir. Well done.’
Albert knew he was being ribbed, but all he felt was relief that there was someone here to deal with it.
It took six firefighters, three ladders, a block and tackle and a jury-rigged safety harness to get the giant dog out of the tree and back to land.
Rex felt like licking the grass just to make sure it was real when his paws finally touched it. All the while he’d been in the tree, he’d been pondering his purpose in life and questioning whether perhaps he ought to let squirrels have their way and call it even. Now he was back on land, and out of the tree, his determination to get the fluffy horrors quadrupled.
The firefighters began to pack their gear away, Station Officer Hamilton still smiling jovially at the way his shift had started. For Gary, Albert, and Rex, it was time to get inside. Albert wanted to use the bathroom and get some breakfast. They were supposed to be at the venue already, though he knew not what might await them this morning. Had the bakers worked through the night? Were they being successful? Or had they encountered fresh problems?
Just as they started back toward the front of the building and the warmth it offered, Mrs Morton said, ‘Here, is that my mattress?’
Miraculous Recovery
Albert felt it necessary to hurry breakfast, which was disappointing because he considered it the most important meal of the day and also, quite often, his favourite. To be fair, the part he hurried was getting dressed and feeding Rex. Rex wasn’t getting a chunk of sausage off the side of his plate this morning, that was for sure.
His full-English platter of thick bacon chops, sausages, black pudding, fried bread, mushrooms, eggs, and grilled tomato got the savouring it deserved, but he skipped his second cup of tea in favour of getting to the museum for the competition. He had money invested in the outcome of the world record attempt now, after all.
Of course, the giant Yorkshire pudding was nothing but background noise against the bigger picture of the two deaths yesterday. Last night, he had wanted to find out about Alan Crystal’s condition, but Brian Pumphrey’s death and then the stabbing, and subsequent death of a definite murder victim had eaten up too much of their evening to make any
