The wrong hole

Winter was well and truly here , cold , cold , cold that’s all it was day and night. Waking up in the morning all you could see was your breath infront of you and you didn’t want to take the blankets off to get dressed.

No school so must be the Christmas holidays, not that you would know, no fancy shops in Corris with windows of tinsel and lights the village was too sleepy for that , just a post office , small shop and the slaters arms pub. This village died years ago when the mines closed down and became a very small blot on the landscape, most young people left to find lives and jobs elsewhere. But no Christmas really in the Caravan what with no electric, could have put a tree up but then just open the door look around and there’s a whole forest of them, take your pick. What to do, river was frozen, ice on the slippery rock faces, so dad takes Andrew and myself rabbit hunting. The Jack Russell could smell them sleeping in the burrows and would flush anything out into the path of dad with his rifle. But on this occasion the dog picked the wrong hole and went into a badger hole wrong move on the dogs part. He went in and never came out, we heard what was the sound of animals fighting and ran towards the woods to see. We found it by the way the ground was all torn up and my dad realised what had happened. He took a look in and could see the rear end of the dog in the hole. Well all the small space training i had came into greater effect, yes i was told to crawl in and drag the dog out. Was i scared well yes, i didn’t know what was in the hole, i had never seen a badger before , but believe me you wouldn’t want to be cornered by one. They will kill most things while protecting themselves. I too could see the dog not that far away in the hole so did what i could and grabbed it by its tale and pulled it out with me, not a sound form the dog or a movement. When it was out, i had never seen such a horrible sight, its face had been nearly bitten off by the vicious attack of the badger and i remember it vividly as you would. Upset, yes of course i was , this little Jack Russell came with me everywhere when i went exploring , my one and only silent when not barking friend. The other dog was my dads, big like him , but the jack was my little dog in my head and if he passed away in the middle of the night well it wouldn’t have been so bad, but to see your friend and companion like this was horrible. So we buried him in the field opposite.

That was the start of a Black Christmas and very soon it would be the end of my stay in Corris unbeknown to me.