Buster

by Jean Ure

  Copyright

  Collins

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

  77–85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith,

  London W6 8JB

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by Collins in 2001

  Text copyright © Jean Ure 2001

  Illustrations by Maggie Ling 2001

  Jean Ure and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as author and illustrator of the work.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

  Source ISBN: 9780006755098

  Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780008116750

  Version: 2014-09-23

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Keep Reading

  Also by the Author

  About the Publisher

  We are the dogs of Munchy Flats. We live here, with our people.

  I am Buster, and I am the boss dog. I was here first. I tell the others what to do and make sure that they do it. I keep them in order!

  There are two cats as well as us dogs. They are called Whiskers and Panda. They do not do what I tell them. They get into places where we cannot go, such as underneath the sofa or inside the cupboards. They sit on things we cannot reach, such as the top of the fridge or the television set. They take no notice when I bark at them.

  Cats are not like dogs!

  All of us have a story to tell, about how we came to be here. This is my story.

  I was brought here when I was just a tiny pup. My people have a picture of me, which I think they must be quite proud of, as they have hung it on the wall. I can hardly believe that I once looked like that! All wriggly and giggly, with a head that was too big for my body. It is quite embarrassing. The others sometimes tease me.

  “Oh, look!” they go. “Look at Buster as a puppy!”

  Huh! I am sure they were just as wriggly and giggly when they were young.

  I cannot remember much about those early days, but I know that I was happy. I had everything a pup could want. A warm home, people who loved me, good things to eat, and lots of fun! My people played games with me – tugging games, chasing games, games with a ball or a rubber ring. When I was old enough they took me for walks; I also had the garden to run in. I could go wherever I liked, except through the door at the side of the house.

  I knew I mustn’t go through the door, for my people had told me so, many times. But I was young and foolish, and I did so want to know what was on the other side.

  Well. One day a man came, with a ladder and buckets to make the windows clean so that the cats could look out of them. (Cats like to look out of windows.) After the man had gone, I ran into the garden – and guess what? He had forgotten to shut the door behind him! You can imagine what happened. I was through it in a flash.

  I found myself in another garden. A smaller one, this time, with a path that led to a gate. I rushed down it at once, with my nose to the ground, sniffing all the lovely new smells. While I was sniffing, a car drove slowly past. I didn’t take much notice of it. I knew about cars, for my people had brought me home in one.

  I went on sniffing. I sniffed fox, I sniffed badger.

  I cocked my leg to mark the spot – this was my territory – and as I did so a voice spoke to me over the gate.

  “Hallo, boy!”

  I looked up, and wagged. A man was standing there, holding out his hand. I thought he might have something for me, so I went eagerly wobbling up to him on my rubbery puppy legs. I know now that you should never go to a stranger, but I didn’t know it them. I was too young. I thought everyone was my friend.

  Before I realized what was happening, I found myself being grabbed by the scruff of my neck and swung up over the gate. I should have barked, to warn my people. They would have heard me, and come to my rescue. But I didn’t even whimper. I think I was too confused. All of a sudden, I had been stolen from my garden! I couldn’t believe the man would do me any harm, but I didn’t understand what was happening.

  I saw the car that had driven past the gate. It was waiting, up the road, with its engine throbbing. The man flung open one of the doors and threw me inside. He did it quite roughly, so that all the breath was knocked out of me. I just had time to give a little yelp of fright before the car pulled away from the kerb and we shot up the road at great speed.

  That was when I started to feel really scared.

  The man had thrown me on to the back seat. He was sitting in the front, behind the wheel. A woman was sitting next to him. When she spoke, she sounded quite angry.

  “What do you want with that thing?”

  “Fancied it,” said the man. “Thought the kids might like it.”

  “A dog?” The woman turned to look at me. I cringed. By now I was really frightened. “I can’t stand dogs! Filthy dirty things, messing all over the place.”

  I wanted to tell her that I didn’t do that any more. I was a clean boy! My people had praised me for it, only that morning.

  “Who’s a clean boy?” they had cried, hugging me.

  My tail had wagged so hard I thought it might wag itself right off. I was a clean boy!

  I ran to the car window and began scrabbling, frantically, trying to get out. I wanted my people!

  “Stop that!”

  The woman leaned over the back of the seat and gave me such a thump with her hand that I went spinning to the floor.

  “Pesky dog!” she said.

  I lay there, trembling, not daring to climb back up in case she hit me again. I had never been hit before. Nobody, in all my short life, had ever been unkind to me.

  “It needs training,” said the man. “I’ll soon lick it into shape.”

  I was so stupid! I thought he meant that he would lick me with his tongue, which I could just dimly remember my mother doing when I was born. I didn’t realize that when he said lick what he really meant was hit…

  They took me to the place where they lived. It was in a tall grey building surrounded by other tall grey buildings. There was no garden to play in; I almost never saw the sunshine or breathed fresh air. It was like a prison.

  I don’t know how long I was there. It seemed to me that it was months and months, though maybe it was only a few weeks. When you are very young, time goes on for ever – especially when you are as miserable as I was. How I missed my people! In this place, there was nobody to love me. Nobody even liked me. At first the children played with me, but they soon grew bored and lost interest. After that, I was just a nuisance.

  “Stupid dog!” they used to jeer.

  Sometimes they would pinch my ears or pull my tail. They thought it was funny when I cried. One day, they cut my whiskers off.

  “Hey, Mum!” they yelled. “Look at him without his whiskers!”

  They knew my name was Buster, because it had said so on my collar. But they ha
d taken my collar away from me and I never saw it again; and they hardly ever called me Buster. Mostly they just called me the dog.

  I remember, one time, when the children tied me to a table leg and put a bowl of biscuits just out of my reach. They laughed and laughed when I tried to get at it. I lay on the floor, scrabbling with my paws as hard as I could.

  I was desperate to reach the food. I was so hungry! I was often hungry. They didn’t feed me proper meals as my people had done; they just tossed me the scraps from their plates. When there weren’t any scraps, I had to go without food.

  Nobody ever told the children to stop teasing me. The woman used to kick me when I got in her way, and slap me, very hard, when I was a dirty boy.

  “Filthy dog!” she would scream, rubbing my nose on the ground.

  I tried so hard not to be a dirty boy! I was so ashamed of myself. I kept thinking of my people and the way they had praised me. But I couldn’t always hold myself all day and there was no garden for me to go in.

  Every evening, the man used to take me downstairs and drag me round the streets. He said that he wanted “a man’s dog”, not some niminy piminy soft sort of thing. He put a chain round my neck and every time I walked in the wrong direction, or tried to run, or sniff a smell, he would yank on the chain and make me choke. My neck became very sore, especially as I started to grow bigger and the chain became too small.

  If I didn’t immediately do what the man wanted, he would hit me with the lead. The lead was also made of chain. The first few times he hit me I whimpered in terror and crouched low to the ground. I tried telling him that I was sorry for whatever I had done, but I soon discovered that that made him even more angry with me. He would hit me again and again.

  “Show some fighting spirit! I don’t want a lap dog!”

  At night I was shut in the kitchen. They didn’t give me a basket, so I had to lie on the hard floor. I used to crouch with my head on my paws, with the chain cutting into my neck and my body sore and aching from where I had been hit.

  All the time I would dream of my people. How worried they must have been when they went into the garden and found I wasn’t there. I pictured them searching for me, peering under the bushes, frantically calling my name. They would wonder what had happened to me.

  They might think I had been knocked over by a car. Or even worse, they might think that I had deliberately run away from them. That I didn’t love them!

  At the thought of this I would put my head in the air and howl. I couldn’t help it, even though I knew that I would be punished. The man would come flying in with my lead and give me a good thrashing. He would tell me to “Stop that racket! We’re trying to get some sleep around here!”

  One day I curled my lip at him. I had learnt that he didn’t like it when I whimpered, so I thought perhaps it would please him if I showed some fighting spirit. It was what he was always telling me to do. “Show some fighting spirit, you mangy cur!”

  But all that happened was he beat me even harder. “I’ll teach you to snarl at me!”

  After he had finished, I lay on the floor, bruised and bleeding, too weak even to lick my wounds. Oh, how I wished I had listened to my people and not gone through the door.

  One night when the man was taking me round the streets, we met a lady with a pretty white dog. The dog barked a greeting and I barked back, eagerly. At once, the man yanked at me. He shouted a warning to the lady.

  “Keep it away from him! He’s a fighter. He’ll kill it!”

  It wasn’t true! I didn’t want to fight. I just wanted to rub noses, and talk. I was very lonely, as well as being unhappy. I was never allowed to mix with other dogs. Sadly, I turned my head to watch as the lady hurried away.

  The man jerked at me again. “Get a move on!”

  Then, because I didn’t move fast enough, he lashed out at me with his foot. The blow caught me on the side of my head and made me stagger. I must have pulled him off balance, for the next thing I knew he was flat on his back, the lead had flown out of his hand and I was free!

  I didn’t hesitate. I took to my paws and ran. I ran and ran and didn’t stop until the town was behind me and I was out into the country. Oh, what joy it was to feel grass under my feet again! To smell crisp fresh air and to look up at the sky. It made me think of my people. I had to get back to them. I had to find them!

  I put my nose to the ground and ran this way and that, desperately trying to pick up a scent. But there was nothing. I was lost.

  I drooped, my tail between my legs, my head hung low. The weather had changed while I had been prisoner in the tall grey building with the woman who kicked and the man who beat and the children who cut off my whiskers. When I had last played in the garden at home it had been warm and sunny. Now there was a white powder all over the ground, and the wind blew fierce and chill.

  I was bigger than I had been; I felt that I was no longer a pup but a grown dog. But my ribs stuck out and my coat was thin and harsh, and I had no protection against the terrible cold. I felt weak and ill. My neck hurt and my body was sore.

  I dragged myself as far as I could, but in the end I had to give up. I could go no further. I crept under a bush and lay down, whimpering. I wanted my people. I wanted them so badly!

  All night long I dozed. I dreamt that I was back in my own cosy basket, in front of the fire at Munchy Flats. I couldn’t sleep properly because of the pain. I felt as if my whole body was burning up.

  I might have stayed there for ever if it hadn’t been for the children. I heard these high piping voices, and I shivered and tried to cram myself further back under cover of the bush. I didn’t trust children! Children teased and tormented.

  Then I heard a voice cry, “Hey, Andy! There’s a dog here!” and my heart sank. I had been discovered.

  Two faces peered at me under the bush. I cringed, expecting a fist to come crashing into my face, or a boot to smash against my ribs.

  It didn’t happen. Instead, one of the children cried to the other, “Go and get Gran! Tell her, quick, there’s a dog been hurt!”

  One of the faces disappeared. I heard feet go scrunching off across the powdery grass. The child that had stayed behind stretched out a hand, and I flinched.

  “It’s all right, doggie!” His voice wasn’t like the voices of the children who had cut off my whiskers. It didn’t sound as if he was threatening me. “We’ll see to you!”

  I was still very nervous but I managed to wag the tip of my tail, just to show him how grateful I was that he hadn’t hit me.

  He stroked my head. His touch was very gentle. I hadn’t realized that children could be gentle.

  “Gran’s coming,” he said. “She’ll know what to do.”

  I gave him one feeble lick, and then I knew no more until I woke up – how much later, I am not sure – in a basket in front of the fire! For one wonderful moment I thought that the bad things had been a dream, and that I was back at Munchy Flats with my people. But it was the children’s gran who had picked me up and carried me home and laid me in the basket.

  She bathed my battered body and put soothing ointment on my wounds, and somehow managed to remove the horrible choke chain from around my neck.

  “Poor boy!” she said. “Poor boy!”

  I think I must have lain in the basket for some days, too weak to move. The old lady never left my side. She told me how she had had a dog, a little black dog called Sukie, who had died.

  “I loved her so much! She was old, it was time for her to go. But oh, I do miss her! Maybe you have come to take her place.”

  She gave me a new collar, with a tag. She called me Prince, and when I was strong enough she took me for walks across the fields. I knew that she hoped I would stay with her, and perhaps I could have been happy, but all the time I had this feeling that I had to get back to my people.

  One day when we went for a walk I picked up trails which were familiar. I became very excited. Suddenly, I knew which direction to take! I stopped, and looked up at the
old lady. She sensed that I was trying to tell her something.

  “Prince?” she said. “What is it?”

  I gave a little apologetic whimper and slowly moved the tip of my tail.

  “Prince, what’s wrong?” said the old lady.

  If only I could have explained! I licked her hand, once, very quickly, trying to say thank you; then with a bound I was off.

  The old lady called after me: “Prince, Prince! Don’t leave me!”

  For just a moment I paused; but the call of my people was too strong. I had to get back to them!

  I was strong again now, and could keep up a good pace. I zig-zagged to and fro, to and fro, my nose pressed to the ground as I searched for a scent that would lead me home. I was sorry I had had to leave the old lady. She had been so good to me. She had loved me and cared for me, and I hated to think of her being unhappy. But I had to get back to my people!

  I followed trails this way and that. Across fields, across roads, up hills and down. Through woods and valleys and streams. Sometimes I would pick up a promising scent, only to lose it a few miles further on. Then I would have to double back on my tracks and start the search all over again. But I didn’t mind! I didn’t mind how many trails I had to follow. Sooner or later I would find the one that took me to my people.

  The weather was still cold, but my coat was thicker now, and I was able to move faster and keep myself warm. When I was tired I hid under bushes or in undergrowth. When I was thirsty I drank water from puddles or from streams. But when I was hungry… I had to stay hungry!

  Every now and again I would find myself near houses, but I didn’t dare go too close. The foxes did, though. They were braver than me. They waited till dark, then raided the bins, dragging out all the scraps of food that human beings had thrown away. One night I found some bones that they had left. I crunched them up, greedily, trying not to think of the big bowls of meat and gravy that the old lady had given me.