First published in 2019 in Great Britain by

  Barrington Stoke Ltd

  18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP

  This ebook edition first published in 2020

  www.barringtonstoke.co.uk

  Text © 2019 Gill Lewis

  The moral right of Gill Lewis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in any part in any form without the written permission of the publisher

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library upon request

  ISBN: 978-1-80090-014-1

  For Ruth Tingay

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 1

  Everything changed the day Haggis died.

  Bobbie had never got on with Haggis. He was Granny’s dog. He was old, like Granny. He was small and fierce too, like Granny. He’d bite your ankles if he had half a chance.

  But Bobbie hadn’t wanted him to die.

  Poor Haggis.

  It was no way for any animal to die.

  *

  That morning, Bobbie had walked down the garden path to the shed where Granny lived and knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” shouted Granny.

  Bobbie walked in and sat on the end of Granny’s bed. Haggis watched Bobbie and growled rude dog words at her from his basket beside the wood-burner.

  Granny lived in the garden shed. It was more like a summerhouse. It had big windows that looked out across the fields to the moorland and mountains. There was a bed, an armchair and a table, and that was it. Dad had put a wood-burning stove inside to keep her warm through the winters. Outside, she had a small campfire with a ring of stones around it and two old deckchairs to sit in. There were candles in jam jars hanging like fairy lights along the branches of a tree.

  She said she wouldn’t live anywhere else.

  She was Granny Mountain.

  She even looked like a mountain. Her face was full of wrinkles, like a craggy rock. She had wisps of snow-white hair on top of her head. She stomped in her big boots across the Scottish hills as if she was a mini mountain troll.

  “Are you coming up on the hill today, Granny?” said Bobbie.

  Granny scowled and pulled on her blue woollen coat. It was the one she wore if she went to town. “Your mum says I’ve got to have my flu jab today. I missed it last year and there’s flu going round.”

  “In summer?” said Bobbie.

  “So it seems,” said Granny. “Your mum says I have to go.”

  “I’ll look out for our eagle for you,” said Bobbie. “I’m going up the hill to see if he’s still there.”

  Granny stood by the window and looked out at the dark-green block of forest at the edge of the farm. “I reckon he’s having a lie-in,” she said. “I haven’t seen him flying about yet this morning.”

  Bobbie got up to go. “I’ll say hello to him for you.”

  “You’ll need these,” Granny told Bobbie. She looped the strap of the binoculars over Bobbie’s neck. “You can take Haggis with you too.”

  Bobbie and Haggis looked hard at each other.

  Haggis growled softly.

  “I don’t think Haggis wants to come with me,” said Bobbie. She didn’t want Granny to know that she didn’t want to take him.

  “He doesn’t like being left on his own,” Granny said as she pushed them both out of the door. “Now shoo, both of you.”

  Haggis grumbled, but he trotted after Bobbie on his stiff little legs as she went through the farmyard and out across the hill. The sheep and lambs moved away from them as they made their way up the track that led to open moorland. Only Mavis, Bobbie’s hand-fed lamb, bleated sadly after her.

  The sky was bright blue but a cool breeze was blowing and so Bobbie zipped up her coat. It was her favourite coat. It had been a present from Granny nearly a year ago for her tenth birthday. Bobbie loved it. It had lots of pockets. It had pockets inside pockets. It even had pockets inside pockets inside pockets. She could hide a whole packet of biscuits without Mum seeing. It was the best sort of coat.

  Bobbie crossed over the footbridge and waited for Haggis to catch up with her. She looked back to the small farmhouse and the fields dotted with sheep. Her own small flock was mixed in with Dad’s sheep, but she knew all hers by name. The farm was home. It sat in a valley in the middle of land owned by Charles Hunt, the 10th Duke of Glen-Gallows. The Duke owned the moorland and mountains as far as the eye could see.

  Bobbie climbed up to the top of the small hill and sat down between the rocks, out of the cold wind. She could see Haggis below, sniffing through the heather for rabbits. She munched on a biscuit and held the binoculars to her eyes. She and Granny had been watching a golden eagle for the last three days. They had seen it flying high up in the sky. It soared with its wings spread wide. It was a huge bird. Each night it had come to roost in the trees at the forest edge. Bobbie scanned the trees until she found the eagle resting near the top of its favourite pine tree. It was hard to believe that something so big and fierce could be here on their farm. Granny said it was probably a young one that was looking for a new place to live. In the early morning sunlight, its feathers shone in all the colours of brown from gold to dark chocolate. Its curved beak was the colour of steel and its bright yellow feet curled around the branch. It was awake and watching something up in the sky.

  Loud croaks above made Bobbie look up. Two ravens sailed above her. Their feathers shone black and gun-metal blue. They had seen the eagle too, and she watched them spin downwards and dive-bomb it. The eagle spread his huge wings and flew upwards, flapping hard in the still air between the trees. He caught the wind above the treetops and vanished away across the moor. The two ravens mobbed him as he went.

  She hoped the ravens hadn’t chased the eagle away for good. She’d have to ask Granny about them.

  Bobbie finished her biscuit and looked around for Haggis.

  “Haggis,” she called.

  But she couldn’t see Haggis anywhere.

  Sometimes he pretended not to hear.

  Bobbie climbed down from the rocks and set off to look for him.

  She could see him on the other side of a stream, eating something on the ground.

  “Ugh, Haggis, drop it,” said Bobbie.

  Haggis kept munching at a very dead, very smelly rabbit.

  “Haggis, that’s gross,” shouted Bobbie as she marched towards him. “Leave it.”

  Haggis took a few steps back.

  He didn’t look quite right.

  His legs tottered and he stumbled.

  He vomited.

  He gave a little whimper.

  Then he dropped down.

  Dead.

  Chapter 2

  “Haggis?” whispered Bobbie as she took a step closer towards him.

  Bobbie had been a farmer’s daughter long enough to know a dead animal from a living one and Haggis was most definitely dead. But this was Granny’s dog. Granny loved her dog.

  Haggis’s fur was covered in dog sick, and Bobbie didn’t want to touch him. Instead, she took off her coat, scooped Haggis inside it and lifted him up.

  Despite his small size, he was solid and chunky and very heavy.

  She held him closer than she had ever done before and carried him home, feeling the sadness like a heavy weight inside her heart.

  As she walked to the farmhouse, she could see Mum’s car pulling up in the drive.

  Granny got out first. “What is it, Bobbie?”

  “Oh, Granny,” said Bobbie. And she couldn’t stop the tears from falling. “It’s Haggis. He’s dead.”

  Granny lifted the corner of Bobbie’s coat. “Poor wee man. What happened?”

  “He was eating an old dead rabbit, and then he just died. It was so quick.”

  Granny’s eyes opened wide. “Where was this?”

  “Out on the hill, Granny. Near the tree where we see the eagle.”

  Granny said some rude words that Bobbie knew she wasn’t allowed to repeat. Mum called it Granny’s blue talk.

  “I’m sorry, Granny, I couldn’t stop him,” said Bobbie.

  Granny’s rude words were electric blue and shot like lightning from her mouth.

  She snatched the coat with Haggis inside it, lifted the lid of the wheelie bin and dumped him inside, coat and all.

  “Granny!” was all Bobbie could say. “That’s my best coat.”

  ”Did you touch him?” shouted Granny.

  “What?”

  “Did you touch Haggis? Did you touch the rabbit?”

  “No, Granny,” said Bobbie.

  Granny grabbed Bobbie by the arm and pulled her into the kitchen.

  “Granny, you’re hurting me,” said Bobbie.

  “Wash your hands!” snapped Granny. “Now!”

  Mum followed them in. “What are you doing?”

  Granny turned on the tap and pulled Bobbie’s hands under the running water. “Are you sure you didn’t touch him?”

  “Yes, Granny.”

  Dad came through the door. “What’s all the noise? What’s happened?”

  “It’s Haggis,” sa id Granny, spitting words like she was spitting teeth. “He’s been poisoned.” She turned to face Mum and Dad. “And if Bobbie had even touched that poison with her bare hands, she’d be dead like Haggis too.”

  Chapter 3

  “Poison?” said Dad. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” said Granny. “There’s been an eagle over the moor. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what happened to the last eagle here?”

  “No,” said Dad quietly.

  “What do you mean?” asked Bobbie. “What happened to the eagle?”

  Her granny explained that four years ago, when Bobbie was six, an eagle had been found poisoned on the duke’s land.

  “Why would anyone poison an eagle?” asked Bobbie.

  “For the same reason they shoot the foxes and kill the crows and ravens,” Granny told her. “The duke doesn’t want eagles because they eat his red grouse.”

  There were lots of red grouse on the moor. They were wild birds a bit like chickens, and rich people paid thousands of pounds to come and shoot them.

  “The duke puts poison out?” said Bobbie.

  “Well, not him,” said Granny. “Angus, his gamekeeper, does it for him.”

  Dad frowned. “We don’t know that,” he said. “There was no proof the last time.”

  “Exactly, and that’s the problem,” said Granny. “But tell me who else round here wants eagles killed?”

  Bobbie dried her hands on a towel. “But it’s against the law to kill an eagle,” she said.

  “I know,” said Granny. “Isn’t that the truth?!”

  Mum poured boiling water into the teapot and opened a tin of biscuits. “I reckon we all need a cup of tea,” she said.

  “We’ll have to tell the police about Haggis,” said Bobbie.

  Granny looked at Mum. “Bobbie’s right, you know. And it could have been her who was poisoned.”

  Dad took a biscuit and broke it in two. “I’ll have a word with Angus first.”

  “A word?” said Granny. “A word!” She glared at Dad. “It’s probably him who put the poison out.”

  Bobbie’s mum put her hand on Granny’s arm. “Mum, it’s best to sort this out without calling the police.”

  “Why?” asked Bobbie.

  Granny pulled her arm away. “Because we don’t want to upset the neighbours, especially when one’s a duke.”

  “It’s not like that,” said Dad.

  Granny took a big slurp of tea. “Isn’t it?”

  “I said I’ll have a word with Angus,” said Dad. “Let’s keep the police out of this.” He stormed out and slammed the door behind him.

  Bobbie turned to Granny. “What about Haggis?”

  Granny sat down. All at once the anger was gone and she looked sad. “We’ll dig a hole. A deep one. We’ll bury your coat with him an’ all.” She sniffed loudly. “Poor Haggis. He was a fierce wee beastie,” she said, “but he was my fierce beastie. He didn’t deserve to die like that.”

  *

  Granny didn’t turn up at suppertime and Mum told Bobbie to leave Granny alone for a while. Bobbie went to bed with her window wide open. The summer night was damp with dew and the air smelled of pine and heather. Stars began to sprinkle across the sky. Bobbie could see Granny sitting outside, staring out across the mountains that she had once walked with Haggis.

  Beside Granny, the glow from one lone candle burned long into the night.

  Chapter 4

  Bobbie woke to the sound of Mum and Granny arguing downstairs.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” shouted Granny. “As if Haggis dying wasn’t bad enough, now you tell me more bad news!”

  Bobbie pulled on her dressing gown and ran downstairs into the kitchen. “What’s happened?”

  Granny was stirring a pan of porridge. Bobbie could see how angry she was.

  Bobbie’s mum sighed and turned to face Granny. “We’ve got no choice. Your brother has had a bad fall and can’t look after himself. We’re his only family. He’s coming here for a bit and that’s the end of it.”

  Bobbie sat down at the table. “Is Uncle Fraser coming to stay?”

  “Yes,” said Mum. “Your dad left early to fetch him from Edinburgh. Uncle Fraser can have the spare room.”

  “Pfff!” huffed Granny. “He’ll expect you to roll out a red carpet for him so he doesn’t step in the mud. You’ll be getting all posh with napkins out and we’ll have to drink tea from teacups and saucers.”

  Bobbie’s mum wagged her finger at Granny. “You have to behave, Mum. Uncle Fraser is your brother and he doesn’t have anyone else. You have to try to get on. If he likes drinking from teacups, that’s fine.”

  “Hmph,” said Granny. “Nothing wrong with a mug.” She poured her porridge into a bowl and stomped outside. “If you want to see the eagle, Bobbie, come and see me after breakfast. I’ll be in my shed where it’s cold and damp, not warm and dry like the spare room that Fraser will have.”

  Mum shut the door. “Granny doesn’t even want the spare room,” she said. “She just likes to make a fuss.”

  Bobbie smiled and sprinkled salt on her porridge. “I hope Uncle Fraser brings some of his books.”

  Uncle Fraser was Bobbie’s great uncle, but she’d always called him Uncle Fraser. He used to be in charge of a museum in Edinburgh and his house was full of books on every subject from cave paintings to modern cities. He dressed the same every day, in a tweed suit with a waistcoat and silk scarf. His shoes were polished leather. In one pocket he kept a pocket watch that was a hundred years old, and in the other he had the latest smart phone. Bobbie was secretly excited that he was coming. He always came for Christmas and brought interesting presents. Last year he taught her to play chess and gave her a replica of the Lewis Chessmen, one of the oldest chess sets in the world. Bobbie loved the chessmen’s grumpy and scary faces.

  “I’m sure he’ll bring some of his books,” said Mum. “He’ll need them. There’s not much for him to do here.”

  Bobbie sighed. “Why don’t Granny and Uncle Fraser get on?”

  Mum sat down and took a sip of tea. “I’m sure you’ve heard Granny’s side of the story before. When they were children, it was just after the war and there wasn’t a teacher at their local school, so it had to shut. Their parents could only afford to send one of their children away to boarding school, so they decided to send Uncle Fraser because he was the boy. He went on to university and travelled the world studying ancient history. Granny had to stay at home on the farm. She married your grampa, who was a local shepherd. When Grampa died, your dad and I took over the farm.”

  “But Granny loves it here,” said Bobbie. “She wouldn’t want to live in the city.”

  “I know,” said Mum. “But I think she feels bitter that she didn’t have a choice and Uncle Fraser did.”

  “You would never think they were brother and sister,” said Bobbie.

  “I know,” sighed Mum. “I’ve never met two people that are more different in my life.”

  *

  Granny was waiting for Bobbie outside her shed. “Thought you’d never come,” she snapped.

  Granny looked so cross that it was almost as if there was a thunderstorm above her head with bolts of lightning shooting out. Bobbie wasn’t sure if Granny was upset about Haggis or the news that Uncle Fraser was coming to stay – or both.

  As they walked across the fields together, Granny stopped being so moody. She always got better once she was outside. Granny belonged on the mountain.

  “How are your sheep doing?” asked Granny after they’d been walking a little while.

  “I’m keeping two of the lambs this year,” said Bobbie. “Then I’ll have my own flock of ten.”

  “You’ll be needing a sheepdog of your own to help you soon,” said Granny.

  Bobbie smiled. “D’you think Dad would let me have one?”

  “Ha!” said Granny. “We’ll work on him. His dog could do with some help.”

  “I’d like one from a pup so I can train it myself. You’d help me, wouldn’t you, Granny?”

  “If you want me to,” Granny said. “Did I tell you about the time I won the county sheepdog trials with my dog, Floss?”

  Bobbie pushed her hands deep in her pockets. Granny had told her that story a thousand times, but she still loved hearing it. She and Granny walked along by a small stream at the edge of the forest and Bobbie listened happily to the story of Granny and Floss and their victory over the McKenzie brothers. Bobbie was dreaming about having a sheepdog of her own, so she didn’t notice Granny had stopped, and she almost bumped into her.

 

1 2 3 4