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Always one of the bigger boys in his class, Douglas started to shoot up and fill out when he was thirteen years old. After that, he never really stopped.
Apart from the fact that half the time his trousers were too short for him, which wasn’t too uncommon in a class of growing teenage boys - although their parents usually found new trousers for them before Douglas’ did - he didn’t mind too much. It put him at even more of an advantage in rugby, if nothing else.
Not that he was overly keen on sport, but seeing as PE was mandatory, he might as well make the most of being good at it without having to put too much effort in. With his size, there wasn’t much that could stop him on his way to the touch line. Alright, his teammates weren’t strong enough to put him on their shoulders after his try, but their cheers and claps on the back were more attention than Douglas got at home.
That lasted until the first time that Douglas tripped over his own feet on the way to the touch line, and had to sit on the sidelines with a bloody nose for the rest of the match. No-one laughed, thank god, but their sympathetic looks weren’t much better.
The week after, Douglas found himself in the way of Richard Williams, the next biggest boy in their year. Richard was grinning as he headed for Douglas, ball tucked firmly under his arm, and Douglas grinned back because he knew perfectly well that Richard wasn’t going to get past him. Bending at the knees, he braced himself and went in for the tackle.
No-one blamed Douglas for Richard’s broken arm.
No-one stopped him from doing cross-country running for the rest of the term, either.
--
By the time Douglas was fifteen, some of the other boys had started to catch up with him, but he still avoided contact sports whenever the teachers let him. Running helped him work out where his feet were, at least.
The rest of him wasn’t so easy to keep track of. After he’d had to pay his mother back for a whole stack of plates knocked off the kitchen table, Douglas spent most of his time carefully looking before he turned around. Sometimes he wondered if he would always be like this - too tall, too big, too clumsy to be trusted around anything that didn’t bounce when it got knocked over.
The weather over the Easter holidays was brilliant that year. Douglas took advantage of it to go outside every day, where there were no too-low ceilings to knock his head on, and no too-small rooms in which he could get in his parents’ way.
The park up on the hill had a river to paddle in, giant trees overhanging it, their branches thick and sturdy enough to hold even Douglas’ weight when he climbed up onto them. He was hanging out over the river, wondering if he could leave doing his homework until the last weekend before school started again, when Richard turned up, splashing in the river.
When he caught sight of Douglas in the tree, he stopped.
Douglas regarded him warily. Richard had never seemed to hold a grudge for that broken arm, and it certainly hadn’t done him any permanent damage; he was just as tall as Douglas now, if not as bulky. Even so, Douglas hadn’t talked to him very much over the last year or so, and not just because they were in different sets for most things.
“Hullo,” Richard called out, raising a hand to wave at Douglas. “What are you doing up there, Richardson?”
His smile looked genuine enough, and Douglas was sufficiently bored and fed up of being by himself, that he shrugged and answered, “Nothing interesting.”
“Fair enough,” Richard said with a grin. “Me, neither. Nearly everyone’s gone to the seaside for their holidays this year. I don’t blame them, but it doesn’t leave the rest of us much to do, does it?”
Shinning down the tree, Douglas brushed himself off, and said curiously, “Don’t your family usually go away over the hols, too?” Richard had never had trousers that were too short for him, even when he’d grown two inches right after Christmas.
Grin widening, Richard said, “Usually. Cathy had puppies though, and we can’t leave them.”
Shoving his hands in his pockets, Douglas looked away and kicked a pebble. He knew he couldn’t have a puppy. The one time he’d asked his parents, they’d made it perfectly clear what he could do with that idea, and he hadn’t asked since.
He mustn’t have done a very good job of pretending he didn’t care though, because Richard said, “If you don’t have to be home too soon, you can come round and play with them if you like?”
Surprised, Douglas looked up. He bit his tongue before he could ask why Richard was inviting him around, when Douglas had broken his arm last year, and instead just nodded.
“Come on then,” Richard said, clapping Douglas on the shoulder. “If we hurry, you can help feed them.”
--
The puppies were German Shepherds, seven weeks old, black and brown with giant ears and paws that Douglas was sure were far too big for their legs. In their cardboard box, the five of them tumbled over each other, gnawing on each others ears and yapping when they were squashed by a sibling, then wriggling free and butting the offender with a tiny growl.
At the side of the box, Douglas watched, seated firmly on his hands so that he wasn’t tempted to reach out for them, no matter how much he wanted to.
Next to him, Richard nudged him in the side and said with a laugh, “You can touch them, you know. You’re not going to hurt them.”
“It’s alright, I -”
“Here,” Richard said, reaching in to the box and picking up the one closest to him.
Before Douglas could refuse, Richard was holding it out to him, and Douglas couldn’t not take hold of the wriggling puppy. It was warm and soft, and he didn’t want to hold it too hard, but it nearly got free so he had to hold it a bit tighter. It yapped at him, and when Douglas brought it closer, batted at his chin with its paws and licked Douglas’ nose. Startled, Douglas leaned away, and ended up toppling backwards because his hands were still occupied keeping hold of the puppy.
“Alright?” Richard asked, as Douglas hit the floor and huffed out a breath.
Still held above Douglas, the puppy echoed the question with a bark and a head tilt. Its ear flopped over its head as it did so, and Douglas was surprised again, this time by the rush of happiness he felt just watching the little thing. Carefully, he set it down on his stomach, and nudged its ear back into place with his finger. It licked his finger, then padded up his chest and put its paws on his chin, leaning down as it barked inquisitively at him again.
“I’m fine,” Douglas told it, rubbing his hand carefully over its back.
With another bark, it turned around and started trying to chew Douglas’ shirt buttons off.
Douglas spent the rest of the afternoon playing with it, and the toys that Richard brought out for all the other puppies. By the time he went home, he was covered in puppy drool and hair, and was happier than he’d been all holidays.
--
When school started again, Richard let him come around at the end of the day to feed the pups and play with them, before Richard had to do his homework, and Douglas had to go home. They got bigger every time Douglas saw them, he thought, but no less energetic. They were always bouncing around each other, running around the room and headlong into chair legs, chasing each other and knocking each other over with triumphant little barks.
“Aren’t they going to hurt each other?” Douglas asked once, concerned when the littlest one got bowled over in a game of tag with two of the bigger ones.
“Watch,” Richard said, as the littlest one stood up, shook itself off, and dived determinedly for the biggest one’s tail. “They’re more resilient than they look. All this play-fighting helps them find out how strong they are. They might get banged around a little, but they’ll be fine.”
--
By the time they were sold on to new owners, they were twelve weeks old, not yet adults but no longer puppies either. Most of them had stopped running into chair legs, and while their paws still looked too big for them, they were more likely to stumble than fall over.
Douglas got to say goodbye to the one which he’d held on that first day. He played tug of war with it in the garden before its new owners came, and this time, he didn’t worry about hurting it. It pulled almost as hard as Douglas did, bounced back up when it fell over, and brought the rope over to Douglas so they could start again.
When he held it tightly against his chest, it licked his chin, and then wriggled up so it could lick his cheeks, which were wet from where his eyes were watering against the too-bright sun.
They were dry again by the time the pup’s new owners came out to collect it. Douglas shoved his hands in his pockets, and wandered to the end of Richard’s garden as the car drove away.
A few minutes later, Richard joined him there, with an ice cream which he held out to Douglas. “From Mum and Dad,” he said. “To say thank you for helping them with the puppies. You were great with them.”
They sat on the top of the fence while Douglas ate his ice cream, as slowly as he could to savour it, but quickly enough so that the sun didn’t melt it. When he’d finished the last of the cone, his chest didn’t feel as tight as it had, and when he looked down, he realised that he’d been swinging his feet idly against the fence while he’d been eating.
Drawing in a deep breath, he looked up at Richard. “I never apologised for breaking your arm,” he said.
Shaking his head, Richard reached out to grip Douglas’ shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault. It was just bad luck, that’s all.”
Slowly, Douglas nodded his head, and the last of the guilt slipped away.
After a moment, he said, “I don’t suppose you’ve got a football around here?”
Richard grinned, hopped off the fence, and pulled Douglas down with a hard tug on his ankle.
“Hey!” Douglas objected, hopping around to keep his balance. Richard stuck his tongue out at Douglas, then sprinted to the other end of the garden, and their football match got postponed while Douglas tried to catch Richard to shove grass down his shirt as payback.
--
Epilogue
Of all the things that Carolyn did not expect to find at the side of the airfield, a tiny ball of white and brown fluff with ears too big for its head was at the top of the list.
“Douglas!” she called, taking a step back.
Arthur, of course, was the first to arrive. Carolyn put out a hand so he didn’t accidentally blunder too close to the tiny beagle puppy, which was currently chewing on a tennis ball that was almost as big as it was.
“What is it, Mum?” he asked. Then his eyes widened as he caught sight of it, and he drew in a breath. “Mum! It’s tiny!”
Martin’s voice was next to be heard. “What is?” Then, “Oh. That… really is tiny. What should we do with it?”
Finally, Douglas strolled over to join them. “I suggest you pick it up and find some food for it,” he advised. “Unless, of course, you think it’s enjoying that tennis ball?”
“I very much doubt it,” Carolyn told him. “Isn’t it a little small to be picked up though? I mean, we’re all so much bigger than it.”
“As I recall, your dog is hardly much bigger than this one,” Douglas said, moving smartly out of Carolyn’s reach as he said it. “Do any of you happen to have dog food about you?”
“Arthur, give him your sandwich.”
“Aw, Mum, it’s chicken! That’s my favourite!”
“Would you prefer to be eating your sandwich at lunchtime, or stroking that puppy?”
“Can I?!”
With the chicken extracted from the sandwich, it took a remarkably short amount of time for the puppy to abandon its tennis ball, and trot over to where Douglas was kneeling down with his hand out. After it had eaten the chicken on Douglas’ palm, and throughly licked all his fingers in case there was anything left there, the puppy gave only the mildest sound of objection with Douglas scooped it gently up with both hands.
“Be careful, Douglas,” Martin said, more of an entreaty than a warning, still unnecessary.
The puppy curled up in the protective curve of Douglas’ hands, and promptly went to sleep.
“Wow, Douglas,” Arthur breathed, and then seemed to run out of words, staring at the puppy with wide eyes.
“No, Arthur,” Carolyn said sternly. “We can’t keep it.”
“Quite right,” Douglas echoed, bringing the tiny bundle up to his chest, careful but not cautious as he held it close to inspect it. “It’s well fed and clean; no doubt it lives near here, and has somehow managed to escape. I think we’ll find its owners soon enough.”
Sighing, Arthur nodded.
“Douglas,” Carolyn said, not actually immune to the wistful look on Arthur’s face as he watched Douglas with the puppy. “Why don’t you take Arthur inside and show him how to hold that thing, while Martin and I try to find its owners?”
“Well, I suppose I’ve got nothing else pressing to do today,” Douglas agreed.
“Carolyn, is that a good idea?” Martin asked doubtfully. “I mean, it is really tiny, we don’t want to hurt it.”
“Martin,” Douglas said, “Do try to have a little faith in me, would you? After all, I have miraculously managed not to damage you in the years we’ve been working together, have I not?”
It was only the yawn of the little beagle that put a stop to Martin’s outraged response. Carolyn dragged him quickly away before the tiny mouth had closed from its gigantic yawn, and left Douglas to show Arthur that being big didn’t mean he had to worry about hurting things which were smaller than he was.