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The Last Perfect Day
1
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The day begins exactly as it should.
It’s summer, and dawn is poking its nose through the curtains. Our bed is still warm with the night of sleeping. I can hear a cockerel crowing outside in the farmyard. I can smell bacon downstairs and hear the clatter of pans on the stove and Tom’s mum and dad talking to each other in soft sleepy voices.
I know, from the moment I wake up, that today is going to be perfect.
Tom is still snoring beside me. I stand up, shake out the last dregs of sleep, and snuffle over to him. He always smells most like himself in the morning: groggy and warm and sleep-drunk, all of him Tom.
That’s my first job of the day: wake Tom up. I do it by licking his face. I love licking his face. It’s the best bit of the day.
“Ugh!” Tom groans. “Yuck, Rebel.”
That’s me. I am Rebel. It’s the name Tom gave me. He wipes the slobber off his face and hugs me close to him. I love it when he does that.
“Silly old dog,” he mumbles.
At this point, I should probably mention that I’m a dog.
But I’m not an old dog; I’m only five. And I’m not silly either. I am a good dog. I know this because Tom tells me I am good all the time, and Tom knows everything.
Anyway, we can’t stay in bed like this. We have so many things to do! Usually I wait for Tom before I go anywhere, but the bacon smell means there might be some rind going spare in the kitchen, and I think it’s important for me to find out. I jump off the bed and run downstairs and skitter across the tiles.
There’s Dad, sitting at the table and already dressed for work on the farm. I sniff his clothes as I run past, all rich with the smell of sheep’s wool and sour milk and mud. I like that smell. Mum is hard at work by the stove, wiping her hands on her apron and shifting a big copper kettle. She smells of tea and soap and potatoes and porridge and mutton and gravy, all mixed together. I like that smell even more.
“Ach! Rebel!” Mum tuts, shooing me away. “Take this and leave me alone, will you?”
She picks something out of the pan and tosses it on the floor. Bacon rind! Yes yes yes yes yes. I snaffle it straight off the tiles, smoky rich and succulent, crackling with fat and hot enough to singe the tongue.
I was right. I knew that today was going to be perfect.
Tom comes downstairs, rubbing sleep from his eyes. We sit in the happy fug of the kitchen and eat in silence until the day can begin proper. I’m not allowed to beg at the table, but if I hide under Tom’s chair, he secretly feeds me scraps of his breakfast without Mum and Dad noticing. It’s the best bit of the day.
“Thank you for doing this,” I tell him. “I love you.”
Tom doesn’t understand me when I talk. He thinks I’m just barking or growling or whining. But on a deeper level, I think he knows what I’m saying. It’s like how I can tell he loves me when he scratches my head or pats my sides or smiles at me. It’s always been like that. We’ve never needed words.
The cockerel crows again, and Dad gets to his feet. “Right! Come on, lad. Let’s not let the best of the day get ahead of us.”
Dad says that every morning.
“All right, all right.” Tom sighs. He says that every morning too.
He shovels down the rest of his breakfast, and we race outside together. And there it all is, in one big, beautiful moment: the sunrise over the fields, the first smells of the farmyard, the first fingertips of wind across the mountains, the whole length of a day spread out before us.
It’s wrong, what I said before. This is the best bit of the day: the first moment I see the farm and remember how lucky I am to be here.
I love the farm. I’ve lived on it every day of my life, ever since Tom found me as a puppy and brought me home to live with him. I’ve never left it, not once. I’ve never even been through the front gate.
Every day on the farm is the same as the one before it. First, we go to Bottom Field and see how the sheep are doing. Tom and Mum and Dad are sheep farmers. Tom says that around here, everyone keeps sheep. People make clothes from sheep’s wool and sell sheep’s milk and cheese to get by. It’s gotten harder to do that over the past few years because of all the taxes that the King keeps collecting. Tom and Dad get milking and shearing while I bound around and see how everyone is doing.
“Morning, Agnes! How’s the hoof, Beth? Looking good, Kitty!”
“Hungry,” the sheep reply. “Hungry, hungry, hungry.”
That’s as far as the conversation goes. The sheep don’t have very much to say for themselves, but I’m happy to chat anyway. It doesn’t cost anything to be polite.
I know I’m not much of a sheepdog. I’m small and I’ve got stumpy legs and I can’t run very fast and my bark isn’t scary. Dad always says that he wishes Tom had found himself a proper farm dog instead of a scruffy old stray like me, but I know he doesn’t really mean it, because whenever no one’s looking, he scrunches me behind the ears and whispers that I’m the best dog in the whole wide world.
Bottom Field is where I usually find Priscilla, dozing under a tree. Priscilla is the farm cat. She’s not allowed to go in the house—if she does, Mum chases her out with a broom—so she’s lived outside her whole life. She smells like dust and old flowers.
“Morning, Priscilla!” I say cheerfully.
“Go away,” she mutters.
Priscilla is always like this.
“Nice day for it,” I say.
She opens a yellow eye and glares at me. “What’s nice about it?”
I have to stop and think about that. “Everything?”
“Rebel! Come on!” Tom shouts behind me.
Tom needs me! I’m a good dog, so I always come when he calls. I start running toward Tom and Priscilla gives me a knowing laugh.
“Yes, off you go, farm dog. Your master’s waiting.”
I stop. I hate it when she says that. “Tom’s not my master.”
“Really? Then how come you do everything he says?” Priscilla sighs and stretches lazily. “Poor old Rebel. Not much going on upstairs, is there?”
Ha! Priscilla is so stupid sometimes. There aren’t any stairs in the field! I dart after Tom, laughing all the way.
After the milking and shearing are done, Mum brings us lunch. Actually, it’s just for Dad and Tom, because dogs don’t have lunch. I know this because they keep telling me to stop begging and leave them alone. Lunch is always chunks of cold pie and fresh apples and sour sheep’s cheese, and it smells so good. Tom will wait until Dad isn’t looking and then toss me some so I can eat it. He’s always thinking of me. He is so clever. I love him so much.
After lunch, we move the sheep from Bottom Field up to Top Field because that’s where the best grass is. Tom’s job is to stay with them until sunset to make sure they don’t escape or get stolen by thieves or eaten by wolves. I stay with him even though I’m frightened of wolves, because that’s my job. Wherever Tom goes, I go too. I’m his dog, and he’s my boy. I would die for him if I had to.
Soon Dad heads back to the farm, and that’s it. It’s just me and Tom and the sheep now for hours. We can do whatever we want! First, I find a stick and drag it over for him to throw.
Tom sighs. “Rebel, why do you always have to choose the biggest stick you can find?”
“Uush hhrrow ihh,” I mumble through a mouthful of stick.
“Get a smaller one.”
I do as he says because I’m a good dog. Tom picks up the stick.
“You want me to throw it?”
“Yes, please,” I say eagerly.
“This stick here?” he asks with a grin, waving it. “Really?”
My tail wags furiously. I love it when he does this. “Yes, throw it now, please.”
“Are you sure?”
This is so good. “Yes!”
“All right, all right, stop barking.”
Tom throws it, and I bring it back, and we do that over and over again. Sometimes Tom chases me, and sometimes I chase him. Sometimes I’ll run around on my own barking, because I’m happy and it feels so good to run, but mainly because it makes Tom laugh, and that’s the best sound in the whole world. Afterward, I lie on my back so Tom can scratch my tummy. I love it when he does that.
“Little Belly,” he says fondly.
That’s his special name for me. It’s a bit like Rebel, but it’s also about my tummy. Tom came up with that. He is so clever.
Me and Tom, just the two of us. Now, that’s the best bit of the day. I mean it this time.
After that, we settle down until evening. By now, the sun is sinking over the mountains, ripening the sky in reds and purples. You can see the whole entire world from Top Field: all the other houses and farms, stretching right up to the mountains.
Tom pulls out a sketch pad and charcoal from his knapsack and starts drawing. He loves drawing—his pad and charcoal go everywhere with him. I lean against his chest and drink in his warmth while he smudges out a new picture.
“See, Rebel? It’s you and me, climbing that mountain.”
Tom always draws me and him together. That’s the way it’s meant to be. He talks as he draws, the words coming as easily as the lines come out on the paper. He’s happiest when he draws, even more Tom than when he’s asleep.
“They say there’s a waterfall on the other side of that mountain, even bigger than the one in Brennock. They say wildflowers grow on either side of it like a carpet, stretching to the sea. Daisies all the way down! Can you imagine that, Rebel?”
I can’t imagine it. I’ve never seen a waterfall or the sea. I’ve never left the farm. I don’t even know what a carpet is.
Tom has never seen the sea either: the farthest he’s ever gone is the market in Connick. He always talks about the different places he’ll visit one day, but I don’t think he means it. Why would he leave when everything we need is right here?
Then Tom stops drawing. It takes me a moment to realize that he’s seen something.
Through the trees in the distance, you can see a little stretch of the road to Connick. There are two men walking down it. They’re both wearing golden jackets, and they both have shiny black boots and shiny black belts. They’re both carrying muskets.
It’s the King’s guardsmen. You often see them patrolling the roads in twos or threes like this. Tom once told me that they’re checking that everyone on the road has a permit. He said that if you don’t pay the King’s taxes on time, the guardsmen take away your permit, which means you can’t use the roads, which means you can’t sell at market, which means you make no money, which means no bacon at breakfast.
That’s not all the guardsmen do. They make sure that no one ever leaves their home at night. They make sure no one says anything against the King either. If they find out you’ve been bad-mouthing him, they take you away and you don’t come back. I’ve heard Mum and Dad talking about it in hushed voices when Tom’s not in the room.
Mum and Dad say that it didn’t use to be like this. Before the King, folk could say whatever they wanted. But then the King took over and decided that he needed everything for himself. There were people who tried to fight back, called the Reds, but they were no match for the guardsmen and their guns, and they all got taken away. So now no one fights back, and the guardsmen patrol the roads, and that’s just how it is.
I hear a sharp brittle snap beside me, like a tiny bone being broken. Tom has gripped his charcoal so hard that it’s crumbled to ash and smeared black powder all over his lovely picture.
“Aw, heck,” he mutters crossly.
“Tom! Dinner!”
I hear Mum before Tom does because my ears are better than his. I run around and bark because this is very, very important.
“All right, all right!” he murmurs. “Calm down, Rebel.”
I can’t be calm. I won’t be calm. Our work is over. Now the best bit of the day—the real best bit—can begin.
Tom gathers up the flock and drives them back down to Bottom Field. I charge ahead, my nose raised until I find the scent I’m looking for. And there it is, weaving out of the chimney like a golden ribbon and twisting across the fields toward me.
Stew. Lamb stew: deep, glossy, rich lamb stew, simmering on the stove with a skin on top. Lamb stew with carrots and gravy, ladled into thick stone bowls. Lamb stew means lamb bones. Lamb bones mean bone marrow. And bone marrow means amazing, delicious dinner for good dogs like Rebel.
I was right all along. Today is absolutely perfect.
By the time Tom catches up with me, I’m already scratching at the farmhouse door and whining. He pushes it open, and I scramble inside. The kitchen is golden and glowing with the smell of lamb. I run to my bowl, and there it is! A lamb bone plucked straight from the pot, crowned with steam and glistening with blobs of fat. I’m so happy I spin in circles and lick every inch of the bone. Stew, stew, stew, stew, stew!
“Stew again, is it?” says Tom with a sigh as he slumps into his chair.
“Hush,” chides Mum, hitting him lightly with a spoon. “You’re lucky we have anything. There’s plenty around here that don’t.”
“I know,” Tom says quietly.
“Guardsmen were on the road earlier,” says Dad, eating cheerfully.
Mum shrugs. “They’re always on the road.”
“But never this often. Not so many. Not around here, so far from the High Castle.” Dad scrapes his bowl with his spoon. “Something important must be happening.”
“That’d make a change,” mutters Tom.
