Apple frowned and shook her head. “From what I know of Alec Tate, I don’t think he’s the sort of man to spend money on a dog he wanted to drop off the end of the pier. Anyway, don’t dogs get tagged electronically for that type of thing nowadays?”

“Is it a word, or a design?” Nat asked, peering into Woody’s fur again.

“I can’t see it properly, he’s too hairy!” said Apple, laughing.

Nat held Woody’s head while Apple tried to part the fur again, to get a better look.

“I think it’s a word,” she said. “Look, it’s letters in a circle. There’s an R, and an O, T, E, U, S, and the last one, a P.”

“ROTEUSP?” said Nat, puzzled. “I’ll get a pen.”

Between them, they wrote down the letters, and Apple decided the circle began with a P, making the tattooed word PROTEUS.

Curious, Jude joined in.

“Proteus was the name of a Greek god who could change his shape,” she said. “But why on earth would someone want to tattoo it on a dog?”

“No idea,” replied Nat. “We’ll have to ask Mr. Tate; he’s bound to know.”

Apple stared at the tattoo, her plump face serious. She pursed her lips and followed Jude back into the house, muttering something under her breath that Nat couldn’t hear.

The incident with the tattoo wasn’t the only thing that Nat needed to think about. Staying with his grandparents was always interesting, and living with them was even more exciting. Apart from her organic cider and cheese-making (which made Apple famous from Temple Gurney to Temple Meads), she had an uncanny gift for nursing sick wild animals and birds back to health. In the winter, her shed became home to orphaned hedgehogs too weak to hibernate. In the spring she would expertly fix the broken wings of tiny fledglings with cardboard and masking tape. Nat was particularly interested in helping Apple set the birds free.

Before “Clearing for Takeoff,” as she always called it, she would fill an eyedropper with a clear liquid from one of the assortment of bottles she kept locked in the cupboard. The nozzle of the eyedropper would be gently inserted into the bird’s beak, and it would guzzle greedily at the offered treat.

“What is that stuff, Nan?” Nat had asked her on more than one occasion, as he helped her remove the splint from a healed wing.

“Jet fuel,” she said, concentrating, “it’ll keep him out of trouble, give him a little boost.”

Nat was positive it wasn’t jet fuel; that would be poisonous for sure. But whatever it was, it made the birds’ feathers shine with health; their eyes were bright and inquisitive; and they looked bigger somehow.