‘I’ll just watch you to begin with, to see what you do,’ said Alexandra, perching on a convenient rock so she could see if she was getting a blister. It was quite stony underfoot here and her shoes slid about when she stepped on the rough ground.
Stéphie swept away for a bit and then suddenly lay on her stomach and started sniffing. ‘The truffle hunter’s most important piece of equipment is his nose,’ she said, obviously quoting the expert they’d met the previous day. ‘There are flies here.’
Milou got up and stretched before going over to find out why one of his people was lying on the ground. Then he started sniffing too. For a few seconds Alexandra thought he was just joining in out of politeness but then realised his nose was down and he was starting to paw the ground.
‘Look at Milou!’ said Stéphie, getting up. ‘He’s a truffle hound!’
‘Has he done this before?’ Alexandra joined the truffle hunters.
‘I don’t know,’ said Stéphie, ‘but look!’
Milou was really digging now, covering Alexandra and Stéphie with soil.
Stéphie went over, and then exclaimed in disappointment. ‘Oh, it’s only a rock.’
‘Maybe the truffle is under the rock,’ suggested Alexandra. ‘Dogs have extremely sensitive noses. I read it somewhere. Let’s help him get it out.’ She found the trowel. She moved Milou to one side and started trying to prise the rock out of the ground. She had to dig quite a bit more and wondered if she should have left Milou to it for a bit longer. Then she paused. ‘Stéphie? Can you smell something?’
They both lay full length on the ground, not caring about the mud, and sniffed. A strange, musky scent was discernible through the smell of earth. They looked at each other. ‘I think that might be truffle,’ said Alexandra.
Suddenly, getting the rock out of the way was their urgent goal and together they dug, heaved and waggled, as if at a stubborn tooth. At last the rock moved and eventually they managed to dislodge it completely. Milou was beside himself, digging furiously.
‘Will he eat the truffle?’ asked Stéphie.
‘I don’t know!’ said Alexandra. ‘It may not even be a truffle. It might be a dead body or something.’
Stéphie stopped and gasped. ‘That would be terrible!’
‘It would be of an animal or something. Not a person,’ said Alexandra, backtracking slightly. ‘Don’t worry. Here, let me have the trowel. Milou, you have a rest for a while. Stéphie, you hold his collar.’
By now the ground was a lot looser and the digging was easier. Milou pulled harder and harder until he broke free of Stéphie’s grasp, pushed Alexandra out of the way and dug furiously again until at last he stopped, something in his mouth. He dropped what he was holding at Stéphie’s feet.
‘A truffle!’ she exclaimed. ‘And it’s huge!’
Chapter Sixteen
‘We can have lunch now,’ said Stéphie after she and Alexandra had hugged each other and congratulated Milou. ‘And I think we should give some of it to Milou for being such a good truffle hound when he hasn’t been trained or anything.’
‘I did bring something for him,’ said Alexandra, rummaging in the knapsack. ‘Here. Some ends of baguette that are rock-hard. We can put some pâté on it for him.’
When they’d all eaten a few mouthfuls, Alexandra said, ‘Well, Stéphie, you’re the heroine of the hour.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It means you’ve been the one to save us by finding a truffle. A huge truffle.’
‘Milou found it.’
‘No! Milou didn’t know where to look. He just smelt it. You did all the difficult bits.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes. And you must have listened very carefully when you went truffle-hunting yesterday. Well done! Your papa is going to be very pleased with you. So will everyone else.’
‘Will it mean Papa won’t have to go away any more?’
Alexandra shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but it could certainly help.’
Stéphie drank some more squash. ‘We will need to sell the truffle, not eat it,’ she said.
