“What is it, boy?” Angus asked.
Cyril looked up at his master. Then he twisted his neck round All Hail Cyril as He Returns in Triumph 257
and smelled the air again. He had to go where his nose took him; he simply had to.
“What’s troubling you, old chap?” asked Angus. “Are you hungry?”
Cyril tugged at his lead. It was an insistent tug, an urgent one, and Angus decided to let him go where he wanted to go.
So, with Cyril pulling at the leash, Angus followed him across the road, to the gardens in the centre of Drummond Place.
“So you want a run round?” asked Angus, when they reached the half-open gate of the gardens. “All right. But make it brief.
I’m hungry.”
He bent down to take the leash off Cyril’s collar. The moment he did this, Cyril tore towards the centre of the gardens. Angus, bemused at Cyril’s sudden, but totally understandable desire for a bit of freedom, followed behind his dog.
It was one of those generous summer evenings when the light persists, and it was quite bright enough for him to see exactly what was happening. A woman had been walking her dog, a large terrier of some sort, in the gardens, and now, to Angus Lordie’s horror, Cyril rushed over to this dog and began what could only be interpreted as amatory advances. The woman shouted loudly and threw something at Cyril, missing him by some margin. Angus dashed forward, shouting his apologies as he did so. Cyril and the female dog were now in full embrace.
“Stop him!” shouted the woman. “Stop him!”
Angus struck at Cyril with his leash, using it as a whip, but he missed. He raised his arm again and struck once more. This time, the lead connected with Cyril, but the amorous dog seemed to be impervious to his master’s displeasure. There was a growling sound, a warning.
Angus turned to the woman. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “It appears that . . .”
The woman glared at him.
“Listen,” said Angus testily. “You shouldn’t take a dog out in that condition.”
“How dare you!” snapped the woman.
258 Olive Has News of Bertie’s Blood Test Angus looked at Cyril reproachfully. New dogs, perhaps, behaved with greater sensitivity; Cyril, it seemed, was not a new dog.
77. Olive Has News of Bertie’s Blood Test Ever since Olive had come to play “house” in Scotland Street, Bertie had tried to avoid her at school. One reason for this was that he feared that if he talked to her she would try to arrange a further visit; another was that he was concerned that she might wish to give him the result of the blood test she had carried out.
Bertie remembered with a shudder the moment when Olive had cornered him in his room and insisted on plunging the needle of her syringe into his upper arm. It had hurt, even if not quite as much as he had feared, but what had terrified him was the sight of his blood rising so very easily in the barrel of the syringe. Olive herself had seemed to be slightly surprised at this and remarked, with some satisfaction: “I seem to have found a vein first time, Bertie! And look at all that blood. Look at it!”
Olive Has News of Bertie’s Blood Test 259
That had been some days ago, and Bertie hoped that Olive had forgotten all about the test, whatever it was, that she was proposing to conduct. He wondered if he could ask for his blood back, and if it could be injected back into him – by a proper nurse this time.
But he thought that it was probably too late for that, and this was confirmed when Olive eventually trapped him in the playground.
“No, don’t go away, Bertie,” she said. “I need to talk to you.”
Bertie looked about him desperately. At the other side of the playground, Tofu and several other boys were engaged in some game; they had not noticed Bertie, and so no help would come from that quarter. Bertie decided to go on the attack.
“I want my blood back,” he said.
Olive laughed. “Why? Why do you want it back?”
“I want it injected back in,” said Bertie. “You didn’t ask me properly before you took it.”
Olive laughed, screwing up her eyes in amusement. “Oh, Bertie,” she crowed, “you’re so silly! Everybody knows that blood goes dry and hard after a while, especially your yucky sort of blood. You can’t put it back in.”
Bertie frowned. Every day on the bus he went past the Blood Transfusion Service in Lauriston Place. He had asked his mother about this, and it had been explained to him that blood was taken there and stored until needed for transfusion. Olive, he thought, was clearly lying.
“What about blood transfusions, then?” he challenged. “Don’t you know about those?”
Olive, who could not bear to be bettered in any discussion, took a moment or two to compose herself. “Those are different,”
she said. “I would have thought that you would have known how they do that.”
Bertie waited for her to continue, but she did not.
“Well?” he said. “How are they different?”
Olive waved a hand airily. “I haven’t got time to go into all that,” she said. “I need to talk to you about the tests I did. I did some tests, you see, then I threw your blood away. Into the rubbish bin, in fact.”
260 Olive Has News of Bertie’s Blood Test Bertie glared at her in anger. But he was experiencing another emotion too – anxiety. One part of him did not believe that Olive had been able to carry out any tests at all, but another remembered advertisements he had seen for various home-testing kits. It was just possible, perhaps, that Olive had got her hands on one of these and had subjected his blood sample to some procedure or other. He shuddered.
“Worried?” asked Olive. “Well, that’s quite understandable, Bertie. It’s not knowing that’s the worst. That’s what everybody says.”
“Not knowing what?” asked Bertie. He tried to sound strong and insouciant, but that was not how his voice came out.
“Not knowing the result of a test,” said Olive calmly. “But you mustn’t worry too much, Bertie – yet. I promise I’ll tell you gently.”
He gasped. He opened his mouth to say something, but Olive silenced him. “Not very good news, I’m afraid,” she said. “You’ve tested positive for leprosy. Sorry about that, Bertie.”
Bertie stared at Olive. He looked at her fingers, hoping that he would see them crossed – a sure sign that she was telling lies.
But there was no sign of that. All he saw was Olive looking at him sympathetically, a concerned frown on her brow.
“Leprosy is a very serious disease,” Olive went on. “It’s quite rare these days, you know. There’s hardly any at the school.”
“What happens . . . ?” Bertie stuttered.
“Well,” said Olive. “Your nose can fall off. And your fingers too. It’s not very nice. That’s why lepers are given a bell. They ring it to warn people to keep away.”
Bertie reached up and felt his nose. It seemed to be fastened securely enough. He looked at his fingers again; these seemed unaffected.
“How do you catch it?” Bertie asked.
“I’ve been reading about it in the encyclopaedia,” said Olive.
“They say that it’s very difficult to get. You have to have very close contact with somebody who has it.”
“By shaking hands?” asked Bertie. If that was so, then Tofu Question Time for the Boys – and for Olive 261
would have it too. He and Bertie had shaken hands the previous day when they had agreed to swap comics. Would this mean that Tofu would have leprosy too?
As it happened, Tofu was now making his way across the playground to join them.
“What’s going on here?” he asked.
“Olive says that I’ve got leprosy,” said Bertie. And then he added, “And if I have, then you might have it too, Tofu. I shook hands with you yesterday, remember?”