The Hero Pup

by Megan Rix

  ‘Patch is still very young, though, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s twelve weeks old,’ Joe said.

  ‘Patch will be coming into school with Joe sometimes, but when he’s here, he’s working. Patch is going to be an assistance dog. He’s not just a pet, so if you want to say hello to him you must ask Joe first, and only one at a time because I don’t want you all trying to stroke him at once. Do any of you have any questions for Joe?’

  Lots of children did. But the main thing everyone wanted to know was how they could become Helper Dog volunteers and bring a puppy to school too.

  At the end of the assembly the head teacher made everyone wait so that Joe and Patch and then the rest of his class could go back to their classroom first.

  ‘Even though I know you’re just trying to be friendly, just think how scary it must be for a little pup to have a stampede of children wanting to say hello,’ he told them. ‘You’re frightening enough for me and I’m much older than he is!’

  Joe took Patch out to the playground before he headed back just in case the little dog had an accident in class.

  ‘What a lovely puppy,’ Miss Addams said when Joe and Patch reappeared. ‘I’m so glad he’s going to be visiting us.’

  ‘So is he going to be for someone who’s in a wheelchair like me?’ Charlie asked. ‘Could I have him one day?’

  ‘No, he’s going to help a wounded soldier,’ Joe said. ‘He’s a man called Sam and –’

  ‘Might not be in a wheelchair then,’ interrupted Archie. ‘My uncle got wounded, but he’s got a prosthesis.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Ben.

  ‘When one of your limbs has been amputated and you’re given a man-made part to replace it. My uncle’s was made using a three-D printer.’

  ‘But if the soldier that Patch goes to needs to be in a wheelchair,’ Joe asked Charlie, ‘is there anything you think might be really useful for Patch to learn to help him?’

  ‘Hundreds of things,’ Charlie said, rolling her eyes. ‘But the most useful one is this.’ She dropped a pencil on the floor. As Joe and the others stared down at it she said, ‘You could all pick it up without a second’s thought, but if I drop my pencil, or anything, I have to ask someone to please pick it up for me, and if there’s no one to ask, it stays there or I stay there until someone comes along.’

  ‘Right,’ Joe said thoughtfully, and he sat down at his desk while Patch sat under it. Joe was pretty sure he could teach Patch to pick up a pencil and give it back to him, no problem, but he wasn’t going to tell Charlie that until he’d tried it first.

  Joe’s mum came to pick Patch up after an hour and take him home. School wasn’t so much fun after Patch had gone, but at least no one bothered to ask him anything about his dad. All they wanted to do was ask him about Patch.

  Back at home, Patch missed Joe. Joe had always been with him all day, every day before.

  When Patch needed to go outside, he barked at the back door and Joe’s mum came downstairs and let him out.

  ‘Why don’t you come upstairs with me?’ she said, and Patch followed her. He went to sleep under her desk, but as soon as Joe came in he raced back downstairs, barking his high puppy bark. He was so excited to have Joe back that he ran round and round in circles, then raced to grab Squeaker and ran back to Joe, his tail wagging like crazy.

  ‘He’s very pleased to see you,’ Joe’s mum laughed.

  ‘Not as pleased as I am to see him,’ said Joe, hugging Patch and letting him lick his face. ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes when he came to school.’

  ‘I thought it might make your first day back a little easier,’ Joe’s mum admitted.

  ‘It did.’

  ‘Your school is fine about Patch coming in, by the way. Not every day, though, because it’ll be too hard for anyone to get any work done with him there.’

  Joe nodded. Any time was fine with him, although all the time would have been best.

  ‘Come on, Patch,’ he said, and the puppy ran after him for a game of ball in the garden.

  After tea, Joe and Patch went up to his bedroom. He thought about Charlie and how tough some things were for her that were simple for him to do. Sitting on the chair, Joe dropped a pencil on the floor and tried to reach it without getting up or moving his legs. It wasn’t easy. In fact it was just about impossible to do without falling off the chair. How did Charlie manage every day, he wondered. Before now he’d never thought too much about it – she never seemed any different from anyone else in the class and she was much noisier and nosier than most!

  Patch tilted his head to one side and watched Joe as he tried unsuccessfully to reach the pencil.

  ‘Get it, Patch,’ Joe told the puppy, pointing at the pencil. ‘Get it.’

  Patch went over to the pencil, put his nose to it and then looked back at Joe.

  ‘That’s it. Get it,’ Joe said. ‘Please.’

  Patch carefully picked up the pencil in his mouth as Joe held his breath. The pencil was much thinner and harder to grasp than any of his toys and it fell out of the puppy’s mouth.

  ‘Get it, Patch.’

  Patch carefully picked up the pencil again.

  ‘Bring it here,’ Joe instructed, tapping his lap, and Patch slowly walked over to him with the pencil still in his mouth. Joe took it from him.

  ‘Good dog! You’re such a good dog,’ Joe said, making a big fuss of Patch and giving him a treat from the bag he now kept on his bookshelf.

  Patch wagged his tail and then went over and picked up another pencil Joe had forgotten about that had rolled under his desk. It felt a bit awkward in his mouth, but he managed to hold on and then dropped it in Joe’s lap.

  Joe laughed and laughed. ‘You really are one amazing dog,’ he said. ‘One amazing dog.’

  Chapter 16

  When Joe was about to leave for school the next day, Patch raced to the front door as well.

  ‘Sorry, Patch, you can’t come,’ Joe told him, although he really wished the puppy could.

  Patch tried to push his way past him and out of the door. Joe couldn’t really mean that he had to stay behind. Where Joe went, he went – that was the way it was and the way it should be.

  Joe felt awful.

  ‘No, Patch,’ he said. He held out his hand, palm facing the puppy, in the ‘stay’ command.

  Patch sat down and looked up at him with his head cocked on one side.

  ‘Good puppy.’

  Patch whined and was about to stand up.

  ‘No.’

  He sat down again as Joe opened the door and went out.

  From behind the door, Joe heard Patch give a cry of protest that tore through him, but he made himself walk on down the path and along the road to school.

  Patch lay by the front door with his head resting on his paws and that’s where Joe’s mum found him.

  ‘Come on, Patch, how about some breakfast?’ she said.

  Patch trotted behind her as she headed to the kitchen, but his tail didn’t wag like it usually did. He sat down and watched her as she poured food into his bowl and he ate it up because he was always hungry, but he wasn’t a happy pup. As soon as he’d finished, he went back to the front door, whined and sat down on the mat to wait for Joe to come home.

  ‘Where’s Patch?’ Charlie asked as soon as Joe got to school.

  ‘He’s not coming today,’ he told her. ‘But he’s coming again next Monday.’

  The rest of Joe’s classmates were also disappointed that Patch wasn’t with Joe.

  ‘He was so cute.’

  ‘And so good – my dog would have freaked out if I’d brought him into school.’

  ‘I asked my mum if we could have a Helper Pup too, but she said she was allergic to dogs.’

  ‘It’s too much for a little pup to come to school every day,’ Miss Addams told them. ‘Much as we’d all like him to. Now, do you want to hear about this year’s school day trip or not?’

  Every term their year got to have a day out.<
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  ‘This time we’re going to … Fridlington-on-Sea.’

  ‘Miss, miss,’ Charlie said, ‘can Joe bring Patch along?’

  ‘Ooh yes. That’d be good!’ various other children in the class enthused.

  ‘Please can he, miss?’ Charlie asked. ‘You’d like him to, wouldn’t you, Joe?’

  Joe nodded. There was nothing he’d like more than to bring the puppy along. He was sure he’d have an amazing time and Lenny was always saying Helper Pups needed lots of learning experiences. Plus Patch would get to see the sea!

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ Miss Addams said. ‘I’ll have to check to make sure, of course. But would you like to bring him with us, Joe – if he’s allowed?’

  ‘Yes, I would. But I’ll have to check with Helper Dogs first,’ he said.

  The day seemed to take forever to be over. Joe ran all the way home to see Patch. He’d missed him so much.

  Patch stood up, his tail wagging, as Joe ran gasping up the path and put his key in the lock. Patch had spent nearly all day waiting for him and at last Joe was home.

  The puppy twirled round and round in a circle of excitement and licked and licked Joe’s face to show how happy he was while Joe got his breath back. Then Joe phoned Lenny to check if it was OK to take Patch on the school trip.

  ‘The more Patch gets to experience, the better,’ Lenny said, just as Joe had hoped he would.

  ‘You’re going to see the sea, Patch!’ he told the puppy. ‘You’ll love it, plus there’s lots of sand to dig in too.’

  Patch wagged his tail and then dropped his ball at Joe’s feet as a hint that now he was home it was time for a game.

  ‘OK then,’ Joe said, and the two of them headed out to the garden with Patch leading the way.

  The next day, and the one after that, Patch waited all day at the door for Joe to come home.

  ‘He knows, you know,’ Joe’s mum said when he came home from school on Thursday.

  ‘Knows what?’

  ‘Knows when you’re coming home. He waits by the door and sits up suddenly when you get close. Long before you’ve put your key in the lock. I don’t know how he knows, but he just does. I’d have said he could tell the time, but dogs can’t do that, can they?’

  Joe hugged Patch to him. ‘I wish I could take him to school with me every day,’ he said. ‘It’s a million times better when he’s there too.’

  On Friday, when Joe got home from school Patch wasn’t waiting at the front door for him. Joe couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.

  ‘Patch! Patch, where are you?’ he called.

  He could hear Mum upstairs on the phone, but Patch wasn’t with her when he went to look. Joe gazed out of the office window.

  There was Patch in the back garden, looking up at the wooden fence on the opposite side to Mr Humphreys’ high hedge. Something was sitting on top of the fence. Something very interesting that Patch had never seen before. He kept dead still and looked at it, and the interesting thing kept dead still and looked back at him.

  When Joe came out through the kitchen door Patch’s tail flipped back and forth in greeting, but he didn’t move from his spot.

  Joe looked at the cat on top of the fence. It was a large black and white one, about the same size as Patch. He’d never seen it in their garden before.

  ‘Here, puss,’ Joe called to the cat. He thought it would be a good idea if Patch could make friends with it. ‘Here, puss.’

  But the cat stayed where it was on top of the fence, just looking at Patch. The little dog whined as if to say he wished the cat would come down and say hello.

  Joe ran into the house and grabbed a can of tuna from the cupboard and pulled the ring-pull to open it. Then he ran back out with a saucer, but stopped when he reached the back door and walked slowly into the garden so as not to frighten the cat.

  ‘Here, puss,’ Joe called as he emptied the tuna out on to the saucer. Patch thought the tuna smelt very fine indeed and came to investigate.

  ‘Leave it,’ Joe said and Patch sat back on his puppy bottom and looked at Joe, begging for the lovely-smelling tuna with his eyes.

  The cat looked down at the food and its tail swished to and fro. Joe was sure the cat must want the fish, but it didn’t come down for it even though Joe waited for what felt like ages. Finally he tipped half of the tuna on to the path for the cat.

  ‘You’ll get rats, dropping food on the ground like that, and rats aren’t discriminating about whose garden they go into. So if you get rats, I’ll get rats,’ Mr Humphreys’ voice said from the top of the stepladder he was standing on to trim his hedge. ‘And then you’ll really need that cat. I wouldn’t let a cat in my garden. My Billy would have seen it off. That cat was over here this afternoon and I squirted it with my hosepipe – didn’t like that, I can tell you.’

  Mr Humphreys hadn’t much liked getting wet with the hosepipe either when Patch had visited his garden, Joe thought.

  ‘Here, Patch, you can have the rest,’ Joe said, and Patch happily ran after him as he went back inside.

  As soon as Joe put the saucer down, Patch’s head went down too. He licked up the tuna and then he licked his lips as if to say the fish was just as delicious as he’d hoped it would be.

  Joe watched through the kitchen window as the cat jumped down from the fence and went to investigate the tuna now that they’d gone. He only let Patch outside when the cat had finished.

  Patch scampered over to say hello, but the cat jumped back up on to the fence and scooted along it to the garages at the back of the houses. Patch sat down and stared up at the spot where the cat had been and whined.

  When they went back inside, Joe wrote Patch’s online diary.

  Today something sat on my fence and stared at me. I wagged my tail, but it didn’t come down. It liked fish, though – just like I do.

  Sam laughed as he read the diary entry. He was glad Patch had made a new friend. He’d made lots of friends himself at the rehabilitation hospital and he was going to miss them when he left, but he couldn’t wait to start his new life with Patch.

  Joe made himself a sandwich for dinner and one for his mum too and took it up to her in her office.

  ‘This is very nice,’ she said, taking a bite of the tuna and tomato sandwich. Patch stared at her plate meaningfully.

  ‘Come on, Patch,’ Joe said, and they headed back downstairs.

  On the Helper Dogs website he’d seen a photograph of a dog getting the laundry out of the washing machine and he wanted to try and teach Patch to do it too.

  Joe put Squeaker on the rim of their front-loading washing-machine drum.

  ‘Get it, Patch, get Squeaker,’ Joe said, pointing at the toy on the edge of the washing machine. ‘Get it.’

  Patch trotted over, picked up Squeaker and brought the toy snake back to Joe, ready for a game.

  They played with Squeaker for a few minutes and then Joe put the toy back, only this time he put it slightly further inside the drum.

  ‘Get it, Patch, get Squeaker.’

  Patch’s tail wagged as he went to retrieve his toy. He liked this new game.

  Chapter 17

  On Monday, as soon as Joe and Patch walked into the playground, everyone crowded around them, wanting to say hello.

  ‘He’s grown since you brought him in before,’ stated Ben.

  ‘They should let him come to school every day,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Don’t crowd him too much,’ Joe warned, and the children pushed each other back to make a path for him and Patch to walk through. But it took ages for them to get to class because so many people wanted to ask him questions about Patch.

  ‘How long is he going to live with you?’

  ‘Are all Helper Dogs Labradors?’

  ‘How many Helper Dogs are there?’

  When he got to class, Joe went over to Charlie’s desk and, without saying anything, knocked her pencil to the floor.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ she said indignantly.
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  ‘Get it, Patch,’ Joe said softly as he pointed at the pencil.

  Patch carefully picked up the pencil and gave it to Joe, who put it back on Charlie’s desk. Charlie stared at the pencil for a long time and then she said, ‘When it was my birthday, my cards dropped through the letterbox on to the carpet and I couldn’t even pick them up.’

  ‘Patch could have done that for you,’ Joe said. ‘Although they’d probably have been a bit soggy from his dribble.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have minded a bit,’ she grinned. ‘You’re one fantastic pup, Patch.’

  Patch stood on his back legs and rested his front paws on the arm of her wheelchair so she could stroke him.

  ‘One fantastic pup,’ she said as she buried her face in his fur.

  Patch was having far too much fun with the children to want to go home when Joe’s mum came to pick him up.

  ‘Can’t he stay a bit longer?’ pleaded Charlie, who’d now got Patch on her lap in the wheelchair.

  ‘He’s been so good, Mum,’ Joe said.

  Mum shook her head. ‘Sorry, love, but Lenny told us Patch should only stay for a morning or afternoon at first. As he gets older he can come to school for longer,’ she told Charlie.

  Patch hopped off Charlie’s lap so Joe’s mum could give him a stroke. He’d been petted by just about everyone he’d met all morning and had also had his first taste of crunchy crisps.

  ‘I wish he could be here all day, every day,’ Charlie sighed. And Joe wished that too.

  ‘Once he’s a little older,’ Joe’s mum said as she headed out of the door.

  Patch looked back at Joe and the other children as he trotted along beside her. He wasn’t ready to go home yet either. He gave a whine as they left the school and walked towards the car.

  ‘In you get, Patch. Joe will be home before you know it,’ Joe’s mum reassured the pup as she opened the hatchback boot. Patch put his front paws on the boot edge and then hopped up and into his crate.

  ‘Good boy.’

  Patch didn’t like his crate, but he liked Squeaker, and Joe’s mum had put the snake toy inside it.