“Come in!” I told Dylan, hurriedly.
Dylan looked at me blankly, as if I’d just asked him to take all his clothes off and dance around the garden.
I didn’t have time for this; so I just left the door ajar and hurried back through to the kitchen, where I knew a lumpy black blob would be cowering behind the bin.
Both Soph and Fee were trying to coax him out with cooing and some crisps, but with no luck.
“Is that Dibbles?” asked Dylan, finally following me in and ignoring my two best mates. (He’d only met them a couple of times before, when we’d bumped into him in town.)
“Yep, that’s him,” I nodded, though all you could see were two worried brown eyes peering over the bin.
I pulled a packet of toffees out of my pocket and waved them at Dibbles – it seemed to do the trick and he began slinking towards me.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He doesn’t like doinggg-ing sounds,” I explained, as I made a big fuss of the most scaredy-cat dog in the world. “But Mum says we’ve got to get him used it, and we can help by reassuring him if he’s frightened of a noise.”
It had been a couple of days now, and we’d realized that Dibbles (’cause that’s his new name; his PROPER name) had a real phobia of the theme tune to the news on telly, and the sound of the toilet being flushed, as well as the doorbell. All of them got him scurrying behind the kitchen bin.
But with lots of hugs, he was already getting better. At least he’d stopped trying to clamber into the kitchen bin to hide any more…
“Hey, Dibbles…! Don’t be scared!” murmured Dylan, crouching down beside me, Soph and Fee on the floor.
“So, let’s see the paper, then!” I said, now that Dylan was doing the coaxing and patting for me.
Grabbing it from him, I sat cross-legged, with Soph and Fee gazing over my shoulders.
“ Wow!” said Soph.
“It’s on page two,” said Dylan, so busy scratching Dibbles’ head that he didn’t notice we were already at page two.
“ Wow!” said Fee.
Wow!, I said in my head, though I shouldn’t have been so surprised – a photographer and journalist from the paper had come round to interview me yesterday after school. They said they were going to do a cute story about me adopting the un-adoptable dog from the shelter.
But the reason I was thinking Wow wasn’t anything to do with the picture of me cuddling Dibbles (with his brand new, un-smelly, satin-edged blankie) … it was the headline.
Fee read aloud.
“Why have you gone all pink, Indie?” Dylan blinked my way. I ignored my stepbrother and thought about the headline about me-having-a-talent-for-doing-good again.
Me!
Little old me! Little old pink-cheeked, embarrassed-by-that-compliment me !
I had a talent for doing good!
And you know something? It was true! Maybe I’d goofed up on stuff along the way, but in the last couple of weeks, I’d made lots of good stuff happen, whether I meant it to or not.
You want a list? OK, well…
“I can put that down on my CV for Miss Levy now!” I said excitedly, pointing to the headline.
“Right, so you’re good at doing good,” nodded Fee. “But what else are you going to put down, Indie – you have to have three things, don’t you?”
So I did…
“I know!” shouted Soph, making Dibbles almost start slinking for the bin again. “You’re good at being patient ’cause Dibbles keeps eating all your stuff, but you haven’t got cross with him once!”
“OK … if I write down that I’m good at being good AND good at being patient, then that still means I need to find one more talent…” I frowned.
“Hey, LOOK,” muttered Fee, elbowing me.
I did what I was told and looked up, to see Dibbles smothering Dylan with licks.
“Uh-huh. So?”
“So, Dylan hasn’t turned into a swollen, red puffball yet, has he?” Fee pointed out.
“So you’re good at curing allergies!”
I was so pleased, I wanted to hug someone, so I hugged Dibbles, who was tail-thumpingly happy to be hugged.
Still, just to be on the safe side, we made Dylan spend the next half hour cuddling George, shaking paws with Kenneth, letting Smudge use him as a cushion and wiggling his hands in the fishtank.
He didn’t start sneezing or swelling or anything.
And that’s when we realized that my step-mum Fiona (nice as she was) was maybe kind of slightly paranoid, and that Dylan WASN’T allergic to animals in the first place.
Dylan was very happy not to be a swollen, red, allergic puffball.
And I was very happy to find that my talent was being good at stuff.
“Achoooo!” sneezed Dylan suddenly, as Dibbles licked his face.
OK – so maybe Dylan was just a bit allergic-ish.
“Hey, Indie –achooo! – aren’t those bite marks in the bottom of Caitlin’s didgeridoo?” he asked.
Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc., New York
Text copyright © 2005 by Karen McCombie
Illustrations copyright © 2005 by Lydia Monks
Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2005 by Walker Books Ltd
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eISBN: 978-0-307-49615-7
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How to Be Good(ish) Page 5