Paws and Whiskers

by Jacqueline Wilson

  ‘But it won’t be Best Mate, will it?’ he said.

  A little later his dad came in and sat on his bed. He tried something different. ‘After what you did,’ he said, ‘I reckon you deserve a proper treat. We’ll go to the football tomorrow. Local Derby. We’ll have a pizza first, margherita, your favourite. What d’you say?’

  Patrick said nothing. ‘A good night’s sleep is what you need,’ his dad went on. ‘You’ll feel a lot better tomorrow. Promise.’ Everyone, Patrick thought, was doing an awful lot of promising, and that was always a bad sign.

  From up in his room Patrick heard them all evening whispering urgently in the kitchen below – it was loud enough for him to hear almost every word they said. His mum was going on about how she wished they didn’t have to live in a flat. ‘Never mind a dog,’ she was saying, ‘Patrick needs a place where he can play out. All kids do. We’ve been cooped up in this flat all his life.’

  ‘It’s a nice flat,’ said his dad. ‘I like it here.’

  ‘Oh, well then, that’s fine, I suppose. Let’s stay here for ever, shall we?’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that, you know I didn’t.’

  It wasn’t a proper row, not even a heated argument. There were no raised voices, but they talked of nothing else all evening.

  In the end Patrick bored of it, and anyway he was tired. He kept closing his eyes, and whenever he did he found himself living the day through again, the best of it and the worst of it. It was so easy to let his mind roam, simply to drift away of its own accord. He liked where it was taking him. He could see Best Mate, now a fully grown greyhound, streaking across the park, and he could see himself haring after him, then both of them lying there in the grass, the sun blazing down, with Best Mate stretched out beside him, his paw on his arm and gazing lovingly at him out of his wide brown eyes. Patrick fell asleep dreaming of that moment, of Best Mate looking up at him, and even when he woke up he found himself dreaming exactly the same thing. And that was strange, Patrick thought, very strange indeed.

  Best Mate was still lying there beside him, only somehow he looked much smaller than he had before, and they weren’t outside in the park in the sunshine, and his nose was cold and wet. Patrick knew that because Best Mate was suddenly snuffling at Patrick’s ear, licking it, then crawling on top of him and licking his nose as well. That was when he first dared to hope that this was all just too life-like to be a dream, that it might be real, really real. He looked up. His mum and dad were standing there grinning down at him like a couple of cats that had got the cream. The radio was on down in the kitchen, the kettle was whistling and the toast was burning. He was awake. This was happening! It was a true and actual happening!

  ‘Mum rang up the rescue centre last night,’ his dad was telling him, ‘and I went and fetched him home first thing this morning. Are you happy now?’

  ‘Happy,’ said Patrick.

  ‘A lot, or a little?’ his dad asked.

  ‘A lot,’ Patrick said.

  ‘And by the way, Patrick,’ his mum was saying as they went to the door, ‘your dad and me, we’ve been talking. We thought having a dog might make us get on and really do it.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Get a proper house with a little bit of a garden. We should have done it a long time ago.’

  And that was when the giggling started, partly because Best Mate was sitting down on Patrick’s chest now, snuffling in his ear, but mostly because he had never been so happy in all his life.

  That same morning – it was a Saturday – they went out and bought a basket for Best Mate, a basket big enough for him to grow into, a bright red lead, a dog bowl and some dog food, and a little collar too with a brass disc hanging from it, engraved with his name and their phone number, just in case Best Mate ever got himself lost. In the afternoon they all walked up the hill through the iron gate and into the park, with Best Mate all tippy-toed and pulling on his lead. Once by the bench at the top of the hill Patrick and Best Mate ran off on their own, down to the pond where they scared the ducks silly, and then back up through the trees to the bench where his mum and dad were waiting. It was better than footie, bike riding, skate-boarding, kite-flying, better than all of them put together. And afterwards they lay down on the crisp autumn leaves, exhausted, and Best Mate gazed up into Patrick’s eyes just as he had in the dream, so that Patrick had to squeeze his eyes tight shut and then open them again just to be quite sure that the whole day had really happened.

  DAVID COPPERFIELD

  by Charles Dickens

  I had measles very badly when I was six years old, and had to spend weeks in bed. I wasn’t allowed to read in case it strained my eyes, so I was incredibly bored. I played fretful games with my paper dolls and listened to the radio – we didn’t have a television then. When my dad came home from work he could sometimes be persuaded to read to me. He valiantly worked his way through all three Faraway Tree books, and then in desperation went to the set of Dickens novels that stayed unread in the bookcase. He started reading David Copperfield aloud.

  I was too young to understand all of it, but I loved the first few chapters, especially the passage where young David plays with little Em’ly in the boathouse at Yarmouth. I laughed at the part where the grown-up David starts courting Dora. She strikes me as a highly irritating heroine now, so coy and girly and helpless – but I still adore her jealous little dog Jip.

  The following is the passage where David meets Jip for the first time.

  DAVID COPPERFIELD

  It was a fine morning, and early, and I thought I would go and take a stroll down one of those wire-arched walks, and indulge my passion by dwelling on her image. On my way through the hall, I encountered her little dog, who was called Jip – short for Gypsy. I approached him tenderly, for I loved even him; but he showed his whole set of teeth, got under a chair expressly to snarl, and wouldn’t hear of the least familiarity.

  The garden was cool and solitary. I walked about, wondering what my feelings of happiness would be, if I could ever become engaged to this dear wonder. As to marriage, and fortune, and all that, I believe I was almost as innocently undesigning then, as when I loved little Em’ly. To be allowed to call her ‘Dora’, to write to her, to dote upon and worship her, to have reason to think that when she was with other people she was yet mindful of me, seemed to me the summit of human ambition – I am sure it was the summit of mine. There is no doubt whatever that I was a lackadaisical young spooney; but there was a purity of heart in all this still, that prevents my having quite a contemptuous recollection of it, let me laugh as I may.

  I had not been walking long, when I turned a corner and met her. I tingle again from head to foot as my recollection turns that corner, and my pen shakes in my hand.

  ‘You – are – out early, Miss Spenlow,’ said I.

  ‘It’s so stupid at home,’ she replied, ‘and Miss Murdstone is so absurd! She talks such nonsense about its being necessary for the day to be aired, before I come out. Aired!’ (She laughed, here, in the most melodious manner.) ‘On a Sunday morning, when I don’t practise, I must do something. So I told Papa last night I must come out. Besides, it’s the brightest time of the whole day. Don’t you think so?’

  I hazarded a bold flight, and said (not without stammering) that it was very bright to me then, though it had been very dark to me a minute before.

  ‘Do you mean a compliment?’ said Dora, ‘or that the weather has really changed?’

  I stammered worse than before, in replying that I meant no compliment, but the plain truth; though I was not aware of any change having taken place in the weather. It was in the state of my own feelings, I added bashfully, to clench the explanation.

  I never saw such curls – how could I, for there never were such curls! – as those she shook out to hide her blushes. As to the straw hat and blue ribbons which was at the top of the curls, if I could only have hung it up in my room in Buckingham Street, what a priceless possession it would have been!
r />   ‘You have just come home from Paris,’ said I.

  ‘Yes,’ said she. ‘Have you ever been there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh! I hope you’ll go soon. You would like it so much!’

  Traces of deep-seated anguish appeared in my countenance. That she should hope I would go, that she should think it possible I could go, was insupportable. I depreciated Paris; I depreciated France. I said I wouldn’t leave England, under existing circumstances, for any earthly consideration. Nothing should induce me. In short, she was shaking the curls again, when the little dog came running along the walk to our relief.

  He was mortally jealous of me, and persisted in barking at me. She took him up in her arms – oh my goodness! – and caressed him, but he insisted upon barking still. He wouldn’t let me touch him, when I tried; and then she beat him. It increased my sufferings greatly to see the pats she gave him for punishment on the bridge of his blunt nose, while he winked his eyes, and licked her hand, and still growled within himself like a little double-bass. At length he was quiet – well he might be with her dimpled chin upon his head! – and we walked away to look at a greenhouse.

  ‘You are not very intimate with Miss Murdstone, are you?’ said Dora. ‘My pet!’

  (The two last words were to the dog. Oh, if they had only been to me!)

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Not at all so.’

  ‘She is a tiresome creature,’ said Dora, pouting. ‘I can’t think what Papa can have been about, when he chose such a vexatious thing to be my companion. Who wants a protector! I am sure I don’t want a protector. Jip can protect me a great deal better than Miss Murdstone, – can’t you, Jip dear?’

  He only winked lazily, when she kissed his ball of a head.

  ‘Papa calls her my confidential friend, but I am sure she is no such thing – is she, Jip? We are not going to confide in any such cross people, Jip and I. We mean to bestow our confidence where we like, and to find out our own friends, instead of having them found out for us – don’t we, Jip?’

  Jip made a comfortable noise, in answer, a little like a tea-kettle when it sings. As for me, every word was a new heap of fetters, rivetted above the last.

  ‘It is very hard, because we have not a kind Mama, that we are to have, instead, a sulky, gloomy old thing like Miss Murdstone, always following us about – isn’t it, Jip? Never mind, Jip. We won’t be confidential, and we’ll make ourselves as happy as we can in spite of her, and we’ll tease her, and not please her, – won’t we, Jip?’

  If it had lasted any longer, I think I must have gone down on my knees on the gravel, with the probability before me of grazing them, and of being presently ejected from the premises besides. But, by good fortune the greenhouse was not far off, and these words brought us to it.

  It contained quite a show of beautiful geraniums. We loitered along in front of them, and Dora often stopped to admire this one or that one, and I stopped to admire the same one, and Dora, laughing, held the dog up childishly, to smell the flowers; and if we were not all three in Fairyland, certainly I was. The scent of a geranium leaf, at this day, strikes me with a half comical, half serious wonder as to what change has come over me in a moment; and then I see a straw hat and blue ribbons, and a quantity of curls, and a little black dog being held up, in two slender arms, against a bank of blossoms and bright leaves.

  SHADOW, THE SHEEP-DOG

  by Enid Blyton

  I read at least a hundred Enid Blyton titles between the ages of six and eight. They were such easy-to-read, comforting books. I could take an armful out of the library, race through them all in a week or so, and then rush back for more. I read about strange folk who lived in magic trees, girls in boarding schools, gangs of children having extraordinary adventures, and colourful circus stories.

  One of my favourite Blyton books was Shadow, the Sheep-Dog. I was given it as a birthday present when I was seven and read it over and over again. It’s an ordinary enough story about a boy called Johnny who lives on a farm and has his own collie sheep-dog, but it seemed wonderfully exciting to me. I’d have given anything to live in the country in those days – and I particularly wanted my own dog.

  Shadow is called a Wonder Dog in the story, and he’s almost impossibly clever, brave and loyal. That’s the whole charm of the story. You don’t ever have to worry reading an Enid Blyton book. You know that things will always work out well eventually in her reassuring fictional world. Shadow will unerringly rescue Johnny, and find the lost lamb, and chase off the rats and the fox and the eagle. When a rich American wants to buy Shadow to turn him into a film star like Lassie, and little Johnny is prepared to let him go to save his father’s farm, it gets a little tense, especially when there’s an unfortunate accident and poor Shadow is nearly blinded. However, this means he isn’t shipped off to Hollywood after all and, surprise surprise, he makes a complete recovery.

  If you fancy reading the whole story when you’ve read this extract, I’m sure you’ll be able to find an old copy in a second-hand bookshop.

  SHADOW, THE SHEEP-DOG

  Johnny Gets into Trouble

  One Saturday, when Johnny had a holiday from school, he wanted to go nutting on High-Over Hill with the other boys.

  ‘But you can’t possibly walk there!’ said his mother.

  ‘I could borrow Will’s bike,’ said Johnny. ‘I can ride a bike. Let me go, Mother. It will be such fun.’

  His father looked up from the newspaper he was reading.

  ‘High-Over Hill is dangerous,’ he said. ‘I remember your uncle falling down the steep side of it when he went nutting as a boy – and he broke his leg. If you go, you must keep on the west side – that’s not dangerous.’

  ‘All right, Dad,’ said Johnny, beaming. ‘Can I borrow Will’s bike, then?’

  ‘Yes, if you take care of it, and clean it when you come back,’ said his father. ‘You must remember that if you borrow things you must always return them clean and in good condition.’

  ‘Can I take Shadow with me?’ asked Johnny.

  ‘No,’ said his father. ‘Shadow has work to do with the sheep this morning – and anyway I don’t want him running along the roads all the way to High-Over Hill. It’s too far.’

  ‘But Shadow wouldn’t mind,’ said Johnny, looking sad all of a sudden, for he hated spending a day without Shadow. ‘Shadow would like it. Oh, please give him a holiday too, Dad!’

  ‘Shadow is already at work,’ said the farmer, nodding towards the window.

  Johnny looked out. Sure enough, he could see Shadow on the far hill, running with the other dogs, separating the sheep out into little flocks for the shepherd. Some were to go to market that day, and the dogs were helping to bunch the sheep.

  Johnny said no more. He had been taught not to argue with his parents. He thought he would get Will’s bike, and then he would go up to the hill where Shadow was at work, and explain to him that he couldn’t take him with him that day.

  Will was one of the farm-hands. He was quite willing to lend Johnny his bike, for the boy was careful. Johnny looked to see if the brakes were all right, thanked Will, and then jumped on the bike. Off he went, cycling up the path that led to the hill where the sheep were grazing.

  Shadow came bounding to meet him. He had already seen Johnny that morning, for he had slept on the boy’s bed the night before. But when he had heard the shepherd whistling to the other dogs he had licked Johnny’s sleepy face, and had run out of the door. He was Johnny’s dog – but he had to work for his living just as the other dogs did!

  ‘Shadow, I’m going off for the day,’ said Johnny. ‘I’m going nutting.’

  Shadow looked at Johnny and the bike. He understood quite well what the boy meant. He wagged his plumy tail joyfully. How he loved going off for the day with Johnny!

  ‘Don’t look so pleased about it,’ said Johnny. ‘I’ve got to go without you. You can’t come today, Shadow. I’ve just come up here to say goodbye to you. I’ll be back by tea-time.’ />
  Shadow’s tail drooped down. All the wag went out of it. What – Johnny was going off without him! He looked up at the boy with mournful brown eyes.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, Shadow,’ said Johnny, ‘else I shan’t be able to go. You see, Dad says you have work to do today. So I can’t have you with me. But cheer up – I’ll be back by tea-time. I promise!’

  Shadow wagged his tail just a tiny bit. He was very sad – but he didn’t want to stop Johnny from having a happy day. The shepherd whistled to the dogs, and Shadow had to bound off. He licked Johnny’s hand, barked to tell him to be sure and have a good day, and then leapt off to join Tinker and Rafe.

  Johnny rode over the hill on his bicycle. He soon joined the other boys, and they shouted to one another.

  ‘Gorgeous day!’ yelled Ronnie.

  ‘What have you got for your lunch?’ shouted Harry. ‘I’ve got ham sandwiches, and the biggest bit of chocolate cake you ever saw.’

  ‘Have you all brought baskets for the nuts?’ said Johnny. ‘I’ve got one. I hope I get it full. My dad loves hazel nuts. He eats them with salt.’

  The boys rode off together happily. It was a long way to High-Over Hill, but it was quite the best place for nutting. There were hundreds of fine nut-trees there.

  One of the boys got a puncture in his back tyre. All of them jumped off to help. Johnny found a puncture-mending outfit in the saddle-bag at the back of his bike, and very soon the puncture was mended.