by Anne Fine
‘Thorn in your paw?’
‘Lost one of your puppies?’ Closer look. Correction. ‘Great, great, great grand-puppies?’
Nigel is saying nothing.
So one of the blokes reaches over to stroke him.
Mistake!
Over he keels.
TIM-BER!!!
I won’t say the real word, in case we have a few soft-hearted souls out there, reading this at bedtime. (I like to keep things ‘family’.) Let’s just admit Old Nigel was not exactly in peach form. He wasn’t quite himself. His own little personal party was over.
A blessing, really. His life had been a burden to him for quite a while. Any responsible owner would have taken him up to Ms It’s–Kinder–and–I-Assure-You-He-Won’t-Feel-a-Thing Massingpole the very first time he…
Hey! No time for morbid chat! The speciality howling had brought the park-keepers running. It was time to go.
Fun over.
There’s not much more to tell. The chaos I caused made it into the paper. (I could have done without the word ‘mangy’ appearing quite so often, but, hey! That’s the tiger of fame: you can’t ride it.) Poor Bella – she was blushing for a while. (We all call her The Lion Queen.) I made a deal with Buster: no respect – no bone, and I doubt if he’ll be teasing me so much or so often.
And we all went to Nigel’s funeral. (Bit of a ‘dig and drop’ if you want
my opinion. It could have been nicer, but there you go, if you’re not there to see it, I guess it doesn’t really matter.)
And, next day, Hamish left his squeaky bunny outside our gate, so I’d have something to do till the old hairs grow back again, and I can come out without everyone pointing.
‘See him? I read about that dog in the paper. It seems what happened was…’
It’s quite a tale, huh?
But, fact is – it’s over.