D Page 3

  Also, she loved to sing, and the class had been working all week on the Hallelujah Chorus by Handel. It was supposed to be sung by men as well as women because it had some deep bass parts in it, but Mr Berger took responsibility for those and Mariette managed to do the tenor bits without cracking up and the rest of the girls were altos and sopranos. Dhikilo sang some high Hallelujahs and also played a keyboard that could sound like a cathedral organ if you pressed the Cathedral Organ button. The first few sessions had been full of mistakes and laughing, and then they got the hang of it and it was really starting to sound rather majestic.

  “Hello, girls! This afternoon we will begin on ‘Sloop John B,’ a traitional folk song as arrange by The Beach Boys,” said Mr Berger.

  Dhikilo sat blinking while the other girls picked up the sheet music. “What about the Hallelujah Chorus?” she said.

  “It’s too ifficult to sing,” said Mr Berger.

  “But weren’t we all having fun?” said Dhikilo. The other girls’ eyes were downcast, studying the new notes.

  “It was in the wrong key,” said Mr Berger, and his voice, normally smooth and low, had a sharp edge to it, warning her not to get herself into trouble.

  Dhikilo spent the next forty-five minutes trying to sing “Sloop John B” and deciding it was the worst song she had ever heard.

  Onkeys, Only a Fiver

  I’m not going to tell you much about the weeks that followed, because Dhikilo found them increasingly frustrating and upsetting, and there’s no point making you frustrated and upset, too.

  In short: the D didn’t come back; the D stayed gone.

  * * *

  But it was worse than that.

  For a while, Dhikilo thought she must simply get used to all the words with D in them not having D in them any more. That was annoying, but being annoyed didn’t change anything, so she decided (“ecie”?—no, that was ridiculous!) that if the whole world had made up its mind to be stupid, she would just have to put up with it.

  Unfortunately, stupidity, like rust and weeds and lies and mould, tends to spread. And as the days passed, the disappearance of the D began to have some creepy consequences.

  There was an old cobbled street in Cawber where the most characterful little shops huddled together. One of them sold musical instruments and Dhikilo always stopped to gaze through the window, especially at the drums. But after the D disappeared, the drums did, too. The shop put an extra saxophone in the empty space but it wasn’t the same. She hoped that the drums had been sold rather than locked away or discarded.

  Outside the Mermai, the oldest pub in Cawber, there was a sign that said:

  UE TO THE CONFUSION BETWEEN

  ARTS AN ARTS, IT WILL NO LONGER

  BE POSSIBLE TO PLAY ARTS HERE

  On the corner of Stranloper Avenue there was a dentist’s surgery—now a entist’s surgery—which had always had a flower garden out front, to make people feel less frightened of going in and having stuff done to their teeth. Just before the D went missing, the garden was gorgeous yellow with dozens of daffodils—or “affoils” as Dhikilo supposed they must now be called. But after a few days, the daffodils all vanished. Maybe selfish flower-thieves had stolen them? No. Next day, the denuded garden itself was gone, replaced by a rectangle of grey pebbles. And by the end of the week, the sign advertising the entist had been taken down, too, and a different sign said, PRIVATE PROPERTY: KEEP OUT.

  Further down the street was the Health Centre, an ugly concrete building with a glass front door that slid open and shut by itself when people walked through. There were always people walking through, usually very old ladies being helped by their very old husbands or the other way round. On the day that the KEEP OUT sign went up at the entist’s surgery, the Health Centre seemed quieter than usual. Dhikilo ventured nearer to the big door, hoping she wouldn’t make it slide open, because the people inside might think she was just fooling around, wasting electricity. She needn’t have worried: the door was sealed shut and would remain that way for ever. UE TO LACK OF OCTORS, THIS CENTRE IS NOW CLOSE, said a sign. FOR URGENT MEICAL ATTENTION, PLEASE RING THESE NUMBERS.

  * * *

  And then there was this:

  One of Dhikilo’s favourite things about living in Cawber was that every summer, in the park opposite the railway station, there was a Donkey Derby organized by the Cawber Lions Club. She always went. Once, when she was little, Malcolm paid for her to ride on one of the donkeys and she’d loved sitting on the back of an animal. But you were supposed to race other children and she disappointed Malcolm by not wanting to do that. The last couple of years, she’d just enjoyed stroking the donkeys’ flanks and looking into their patient inhuman eyes and watching their amazing horsey heads swinging to and fro. Also she enjoyed seeing the farmers’ sons in their green overalls and big boots following the donkeys around, picking up their poo with shovels and buckets.

  This year there’d been banners in the streets advertising the Donkey Derby and she’d marked the date in her diary so that she wouldn’t forget. After the D disappeared, the banners advertised the Onkey Erby instead, but Dhikilo was determined not to let that spoil her fun, and on the big day she rushed to the railway station straight after breakfast.

  The park was already crowded with people. There were lots of food stalls, and an ice-cream van, and a Test-Your-Strength pole, and stalls where you could win prizes by throwing things at other things, and a merry-go-round, and an inflatable bouncy castle. Dhikilo hurried straight to where the donkey enclosure had always been. There was no enclosure and no donkeys. Instead, there was a shop selling a strange-looking plastic toy.

  “Get yer onkeys ’ere!” hollered a fat man in a bright yellow polo shirt. “Only a fiver! Get yer onkeys!”

  He demonstrated the toy for some children who ventured near. It was a kind of plastic gun that was shaped like a trumpet. The man pointed it up into the air and pulled the trigger. It made a honk and fired a piece of pink fluff towards the sky. The fluff expanded into a ball and began to float slowly back towards the ground. The children squealed with delight and their father pulled his wallet from his trouser pocket.

  Dhikilo went to the tent where the old folk from the Lions Club hung out.

  “What happened to the donkeys?” she asked.

  “What are they, poppet?” asked the kindly old lady with the spectacles on a silver chain.

  “The donkeys,” said Dhikilo exasperatedly. “You know: they’re like small horses.”

  “I think you may mean ponies?” offered an old man. “There’s a pony club in Chalkton, I believe. Not too far.”

  “I mean donkeys!” said Dhikilo, almost crying. “The same donkeys who were here last year. The donkeys who are always here! What have you done with the donkeys?”

  The Lions Club folk looked pained and concerned.

  “On’t shout, pet,” the old lady said. “You’ll scare the little chilren. Where’s your mother an father?”

  So Dhikilo walked home, and even though the weather was warm, she was feeling shivery and strange. She passed the old Catholic church, which was now covered in scaffolding because workmen were ismantling the ome to replace it with something more moern. And when she got back to her house, Ruth was oing some garening, pulling the aisies out by their roots, while Malcolm was inside watching television, listening to a politician saying that iversity was all very well, but not if it got in the way of forging a strong, safe nation.

  Hel in Our Hearts

  When too many things in your life change all at once, you get very attached to the things that haven’t changed. That’s certainly the way it was for Dhikilo.

  Most mornings, on her way to school, she still saw the tottery old lady taking her Dalmatian for a walk. Dhikilo waved to her as usual and the old lady would wave back, but she didn’t look happy and she didn’t call out “Nice day so far!” any more, or even “Nice ay so far
!”

  And one day, a couple of weeks after the disappearance of the D, her Dalmatian was absent; the old lady walked alone.

  “Is your dog all right?” called Dhikilo.

  The old lady jerked as if someone had thrown a stone at her.

  “Sorry?” she said.

  “Is your dog all right?” said Dhikilo. “Your nice Dalmatian.”

  The old lady’s eyes glimmered and her mouth went stiff. “I on’t have a og,” she said. “I’ve never ha a og.” And she walked away as fast as an old lady with stiff legs can walk.

  * * *

  In the days after that, Dhikilo noticed that it wasn’t only the Dalmatian who had disappeared. All the dogs were gone.

  Cawber-on-Sands had always been a fine town for dogs because of The Promenade, which allowed people to show off how splendid and well-behaved their animals were, and allowed the dogs to smell the bums of lots of other dogs, and also there were plenty of bins for the poo. At weekends, Dhikilo loved to sit on one of the benches along The Promenade and watch the dogs and their owners go by. It was like watching a really excellent nature documentary, except you could sit in the fresh air instead of having to view it inside on a screen.

  The weekend came—even though everyone called it the weeken—and Dhikilo went out in the sunshine to sit on a bench. The young mothers wheeled their prams as usual. A group of Germans walked past in one direction and a group of Japanese walked past in the other. Small children on scooters, disabled people whizzing along in their motorized wheelchairs, elderly couples holding hands. But no dogs. Not a single one.

  She looked round for the poo bins. They were all gone, too. In their place were signs saying things like:

  WATCH YOUR SPEE

  and

  LOAING & UNLOAING ONLY

  and

  KEEP CAWBER TIY

  She sat back down on the bench and watched the passers-by for a while longer. It was impossible that all the dogs were gone! English people loved their dogs! They surely wouldn’t give them up and pretend nothing had happened! Any minute now, some big beefy man with many tattoos would stride along The Promenade with his Jack Russell, or the silver-haired lady in the fancy mobility buggy would drive past with her silver-haired poodles panting to keep up.

  But no. Various big beefy tattooed men strode past, swinging their empty arms. And eventually the silver-haired lady trundled past, too, and the sides of her buggy still had the metal loops to which her poodles’ leashes were always tied. But always was not now.

  Dhikilo stood up to go home. Her bench, like many of the benches along The Promenade, was a memorial to a dead person who used to live in the town. Dhikilo always felt happy at the idea that, year after year, strangers would relax on these benches and be reminded of how much someone had been loved by their family. She looked down at the little bronze plaque on her bench, and it said:

  To our belove a an granpa

  Early misse every ay

  Hel in our hearts for ever

  From your aughter an granaughter

  Not Knowing

  Despite being in the bottom percentile of befriendedness, Dhikilo used to love school. After the disappearance of the D, she didn’t like it so much any more. However, she tried her best to do the work and not get into trouble, and some lessons were almost fun. Miss Meek was still a good Art teacher even though all the drawing materials had been mysteriously removed and there was no longer any red paint in the paints cupboard. In its place there was extra blue and white, and Miss Meek got the whole class sitting outside on the grass to paint the sky, which was deeply relaxing.

  “How i you like that, Hikilo?” asked Miss Meek when they were all filing back inside.

  “It was deeply relaxing,” said Dhikilo.

  “Eeply, ear,” corrected Miss Meek, with a gentle wink, as if the challenge of living without the D didn’t need to be unpleasant as long as everyone kept their good humour.

  Mathematics with Mr Gragrin was still sort of OK, too, and Geography with Mr Onalson was tolerable, because even though he had a boring droney voice, he was very keen on wildlife, and took the whole class to the woods to install bird-boxes in the trees, which was a nice outing in the fresh air, even though he spoiled it a bit by referring to birs feeing in the woos.

  History and English were horrible, though, and seemed to get worse every day. That was a shame, especially in the case of History, which was taught by Mr Unstable, who was bad news even before he lost his D. It made Dhikilo regret all the more that Professor Dodderfield had retired.

  * * *

  Speaking of whom...! One Monday afternoon, when it was almost time to go home, Molly said to Dhikilo, “O you remember Professor Oerfiel?”

  “Professor... Oerfiel?” echoed Dhikilo, not understanding for a moment. Then: “Oh! Professor Dodderfield! Of course I do.”

  The Professor was not the sort of person you could easily forget. He was wildly eccentric and bushy-bearded and acted out incidents from history in different voices like a one-man pantomime. Also, he was blind and had a guide dog. The dog was a chocolate-brown Labrador whom the Professor called Nelly but required the girls to address as Mrs Robinson. Mrs Robinson was the only dog allowed in the school, and Dhikilo always felt a thrill of surprise whenever she walked round a corner and almost tripped over a big brown beast lapping water from a bowl.

  Most teachers retire in their sixties but the Professor kept going until he was in his nineties, as ancient as some of the history he taught. Some of the girls found him slightly scary—his eyeballs were milky from whatever had blinded him, and he didn’t bother to cover them up with dark glasses. But he was the best History teacher ever. And he knew all about Somaliland! Even the Geography teacher didn’t know much about Somaliland—he got it muddled up with Somalia.

  “Most of us are from nations that are old and tired,” the Professor had announced to the whole class, waving his arms around so that his oversized tweed jacket flapped like a cloak. “Dhikilo here is from a nation that’s still being born! Keep abreast of the news, ladies, and any day now you’ll see its little head poking out!”

  Several of the girls had gasped or giggled. The Professor was always saying things which a particularly sensitive parent might object to. The girls therefore lived in fear of him being removed from the school for saying too many outrageous things. Each year, fresh classfuls of youngsters fell under his spell and hoped he would hang on a little longer, even though he was twice as old and twice as mad as any of the other teachers.

  “Invaders and interlopers, the lot of us!” he was fond of declaring. “Do we have any Iron Age originals among us today? Hmm? Any Regni? Any Jutes? Anyone who arrived here before the great Age of Migrations in the fourth century? Or are we all scavengers? Foxes sniffing the rubbish bins at twilight?” Extending his palms towards his open-mouthed audience, the Professor would then grin broadly. “All right. Let this old fox teach you some real history.”

  It had been Professor Dodderfield, too, who comforted Dhikilo when she was upset about her mother. He had a little office where he and his dog would hang out between classes; Dhikilo visited him there to explain why she hadn’t handed in her essay on the Egyptians. She didn’t bother to hide her tears because she figured he couldn’t see them anyway. But he must have heard or smelled or sensed them, because he said, “Don’t cry, it distracts the dog.”

  “I can’t help it,” she replied.

  “Then cry,” he sighed. “But explain the historical context.”

  “My mother is dead,” Dhikilo told him.

  “What, Ruth Bentley? That’s terrible! I taught her when she was as young as you are now! Barely more brain than a hamster, but still...dead! Not right at all.”

  “I’m talking about my real mother,” said Dhikilo. “In Somaliland.” She wiped her wet cheeks with the heel of her hand. “She was thirty-one.”


  “That’s not very old,” said the Professor. “Was she sick?”

  “I don’t know,” said Dhikilo. “I don’t know anything about her.”

  “Well, that’s a hard thing. Not knowing. And a hard thing for her, too. Not having known you, when she would undoubtedly have wanted to know you. Sadness is definitely called for. In her case, not so much, because she can’t feel bad if she’s dead. But in your case, I would recommend crying quite a bit more. Certainly for the next twelve minutes. Then hold off for the duration of Double English, then it will be time to go home. Don’t cry while walking, you might bump into something or get run over. Cry until dinnertime, hold off during dinner, do your homework if you have any, then cry until ten-thirty p.m. if need be, then get a good night’s sleep. Don’t be sad on an unslept brain, it stops the memories settling where they should.”

  “I don’t have any memories of my mum.”

  “Yes you do, you just don’t remember them,” said the Professor.

  * * *

  Two years on, Dhikilo still didn’t remember anything about her mother, but she remembered Professor Dodderfield as vividly as if she’d seen him yesterday.

  “He’s ie,” said Molly.

  “Died?”

  “That’s what I sai.”

  Dhikilo blinked. “How awful,” she said.

  Molly didn’t seem at all upset. “He must’ve been a hunre years ol.”

  “It’s still awful,” said Dhikilo.

  “My mum’s going to the funeral.”