Rex could see the human had stopped moving, and he knew the ladder was going down. He felt good about that, but if he didn’t get the job done soon, the ladder would be low enough for the human to swing underneath it and jump. Rex didn’t think the target would get far, the other humans would tackle him, but he wanted to win the chase and bite game and he was so close now.
The target had the knife in his right hand, Rex could see it, and understood the danger it represented. Pushing fear to one side, he lunged.
The human kicked out, and Rex caught the kick with his teeth.
Lee Oliver took the pain of his foot being crushed inside his boot with a scream, but as he swung his body forward, scything his knife toward the dog with cries of horror from the audience below, he felt his whole leg yank forward. The dog had just walked himself backward off the side of the ladder!
Rex smiled at the human. ‘Got you.’ Then he closed his eyes and let gravity take him.
The Big Reveal
They say time can stand still in a moment of terror, and for Albert that proved to be true. The ladder had been slewed around so it was hanging over the other side of the fire truck. Many in the crowd had chosen to follow the ladder as it swung around and got to see the dog fall. The man on the ladder had let go with both hands to swing his knife so when the dog went, biting tightly to the human’s foot, the man went too.
Albert didn’t see them hit the ground, a mercy he was grateful for, but when the screams of horror turned to guffaws of laughter, his breath caught, and his heart started beating again. Holding onto Gary to keep himself upright when Rex fell, he pushed off now and tottered toward the fire truck and beyond as fast as he could go.
‘What the heck are they laughing at?’ he asked aloud, hoping that some miracle had befallen his dog.
When he got around the obstacles and Chief Inspector Doyle and his officers cleared a path through, he stood and laughed as well. He laughed so much he thought he might wet himself.
Rex was standing chest deep in the world’s largest Yorkshire pudding and attempting to eat his way out. He couldn’t have looked happier if he had two tails to wag. The fluffy moist pudding beneath the crispy top had cushioned his fall, apparently saving him from injury while providing a nourishing reward for his efforts.
Quite how the dog had known the pudding would break his fall or if he even did, would remain a mystery forever, but as the laughter continued, a confused, pudding covered form erupted from the surface a few feet from Rex. His knife had been lost in the fall, but Lee Oliver was still madder than a hornet in a jam jar.
‘In you go then,’ said Chief Inspector Doyle, nodding his head at his officers.
An amused chorus of, ‘Yes, sirs,’ came back as the four plain clothes officers jumped over the side of the giant, still-warm pan and began to wade across. In seconds Lee Oliver was cuffed and being dragged away.
Albert continued to coax Rex to the edge of the pan, but the dog was refusing to budge.
From the crowd of onlookers, someone shouted, ‘It must taste pretty good.’
To which someone else shouted, ‘I’m going to try it.’
In seconds, hands were grabbing chunks of the swimming pool sized Yorkshire pudding and stuffing their faces with it.
Then the food fight broke out.
Afterwards, when a lucky photographer caught picture after picture of ordinary folks engaged in a slapstick movie event, no one would agree who had started it. So far as Albert was concerned, Rex was the guilty party, but he wasn’t holding it against the dog. Rex had been a real champion.
The fire fighters, also guilty of joining in, had to use the hose, at CI Doyle’s request, to stop the fun before someone got hurt. In the aftermath, when the pudding looked like tons of muck and little else, Albert found himself surrounded by people wanting an explanation.
The chief inspector was among them. ‘Mr Smith, I now have to sort all this mess out. I have two men in custody, both arrested in connection with the murders of Brian Pumphrey and Jordan Banks. I have three bodies, now that Warren Bradley is on his way to the morgue, and I have another man in custody, Reginald ‘Beefy’ Botham. Doubtless, you will claim he is innocent and I’m afraid I am not letting you go anywhere until I have wrung from you every piece of information you claim to have because, quite frankly, I don’t have any evidence against either of the suspects.’
Albert avoided most of the food fight by walking quickly away from it just before it started, but he still had a smear of Yorkshire pudding grease on his scalp where a loose piece struck the back of his head before he could get far enough away. The sun was beginning to set behind him, and at the end of his lead Rex lay contentedly on the floor, his sides fit to burst with Yorkshire pudding.
Albert wanted to go back to his bed and breakfast and get the bath he’d promised himself more than twenty-four hours ago, but the people looking at him now deserved an explanation.
Because he was yet to say anything and several seconds had ticked by, Gary stepped in to usher everyone else back. ‘Okay, folks, let’s give the old man some breathing space, eh?’ he was the ranking police officer on the scene, even if it wasn’t his city, but Albert spoke up before anyone moved
