The Chocolate Dog

by Holly Webb

  For Jade, Amy and Rachel, and Jasmine, Maddy and Faith

  – two families of amazing sisters

  Contents

  Cover

  Half Title Page

  More Books by Holly Webb

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Back Ads

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Amy wriggled. Choc had his nose in her ear again. “Ow, Choccie, don’t.” She leaned away from him, giggling. “It’s cold.” They’d been in the car for ages, four hours at least, and the heat was making Choc’s chilly nose feel icy. He’d been licking the bare part of her shoulder or sticking his nose in her ear every few minutes since they’d left the house.

  Choc hated being stuck in his dog crate in the boot of the car. He saw no reason why he couldn’t sit next to Amy and Lara in the back seat. He knew that was where he was meant to be – right in the middle of the two girls, so they could both make a big fuss of him. He stared through the wire of the crate with mournful chocolate-brown eyes, and slobbered down the back of Amy’s vest top.

  “Uurgh, Choc…” Amy squashed sideways so he couldn’t dribble on her neck any more, and peered through the wire at him. “I know you’re bored, but please stop licking me…”

  Choc’s eyes were round and soulful like Maltesers now, and Amy smiled. She could never resist that look. She pushed two fingers through the wire of the crate and scratched him behind the ears. He sighed with delight, leaning his head up against the side, eyes closed, shivering happily. Behind the ears was the best place. A really good behind-the-ears scratch could have him on the floor with all four paws in the air. He slumped gradually down to the floor with a long sigh.

  Amy eased her hand back from the crate. Choc had fallen asleep, she thought, blinking as the air in the car slanted suddenly green. The trees were arching over the road, pushing against each other so close that the car was driving through a green tunnel, a tunnel with strange dappled patterns of sunlight here and there. Amy wondered if anyone else had noticed. Dad was only looking straight ahead. That was probably a good thing, if you were driving, Amy thought sleepily. It was the middle of the afternoon, and it felt like they’d been driving all day. Her little sister, Lara, looked like she was about to melt into her pink car seat, and their mum was fanning herself with a paper fan Amy had made her at school.

  Amy leaned her head against the car window and sighed. She was hot, and half-asleep like Choc, and the car seat was sticking to her legs. She took a breath, about to ask Mum if they were nearly there, and then caught Dad’s eye in the mirror, and didn’t. Everyone was grumpy, and Mum had been grumpy all week. The baby wasn’t due for another month, but Amy was already feeling fed up with it, and the way it was making Mum so tired and cross.

  Lara did it instead. “Mum, are we there yet?”

  “No.” Mum’s voice was tight and tired. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, as though she was just as sticky as Amy. And about four times the size. She was enormous.

  “If we were there we’d be able to see the sea, Lara, wouldn’t we?” Mum sighed.

  “Not if there was something in the way,” Lara muttered. “Like a wall. Or trees. Houses.”

  “Lara, don’t,” Dad said firmly. “Ten more minutes.”

  “That’s what you said last time,” Amy couldn’t help putting in. Dad seemed to think they wouldn’t notice. He’d been saying ten more minutes for ages. “Oh! Did you see? That was a sign for Sandmouth! Five, it said, five miles.”

  “There you are, then. Ten minutes,” Dad agreed smugly. “Like I said.”

  “It’s pink!” Amy stared at the cottage as they pulled up outside.

  Her mother nodded, a little doubtfully. “When they said it was called Shrimp Cottage, I didn’t realize it would be painted shrimp pink. It’s a bit bright…”

  Amy smiled. “I like it.” The cottage was the same colour as pink candy shrimps, the ones on the penny sweets shelf at the sweetshop they went to after school sometimes. She loved those. She always had to save one for Choc, though, otherwise he knew she’d had them – he had a nose like a sniffer dog. If she didn’t give him a shrimp, he’d sit there and howl at her until she said she was sorry.

  Amy had to be very careful what she fed him. Choc didn’t only have eyes like Maltesers, he’d happily wolf down half a packet of them too, and dogs weren’t supposed to have chocolate; it was really bad for their insides. Choc just didn’t seem to think so. Amy could understand why – after all, they had named him Chocolate, so why couldn’t he eat it?

  Mum and Amy and Lara had made an emergency appointment at the vet’s last Christmas, after they’d come down in the morning and found that Choc had eaten all the chocolate Christmas decorations. And the foil, unless he’d carefully taken it off and binned it. He must have climbed on the arm of the sofa to reach the top ones, Amy reckoned.

  The vet had said he thought Choc would be fine, he’d probably just be really sick, because milk chocolate wasn’t as bad as the dark kind. But Choc hadn’t even burped. He came home from the vet’s sulking like he always did (he would duck right down in the car and try to dig his claws into the floor of his car crate if they even drove past). Then when they got in the house, he whisked past Mum, who was trying to head him off into the kitchen – she would rather he was sick on a tiled floor – and back into the living room to see if the tree had grown any more chocolate. It hadn’t, so he had a peppermint candy cane instead.

  Choc was whining in his car crate now. He knew they’d stopped, and he couldn’t stand being shut up in the boot for much longer.

  “We’d better get him out.” Dad took his seat belt off and stretched wearily. “Poor dog sounds as though he’s got his legs crossed. Why don’t you girls take him for a quick run round that patch of grass over there? He can have a proper walk later, once we’ve unpacked. I need to go and pick up the keys from the cottage next door.”

  “Can’t we go to the beach?” Amy asked hopefully, but Dad was already making for the next-door cottage.

  The beach was so close – just down a long flight of stone steps on the other side of the road. Amy could hear the sea, and see it. It was almost blue. Not blue like on a postcard, where the sea was a shiny jewel colour. More of a greenish, brownish, blueish thing, heaving up and down like a blanket someone was shaking. She wanted to go and stand at the edge of it. Dip her toes in it. And she could tell Choc wanted to do the same. His ears were blowing in the sea-smelling breeze, and he kept looking up at her hopefully. Every time they went to the park, he tried to jump in the duck pond, and this was the biggest duck pond he’d ever seen. Amy crouched down next to him. “It doesn’t have enormous ducks to match,” she murmured, running her fingers down the curls of his ears. “But there might be fish, I suppose,” she added doubtfully. “Oh, and seagulls. But they look mean. I’d leave them alone.”

  Choc quivered with excitement. He was quite well trained – Dad had taken him to classes – so he stayed sitting, but he was sitting and leaning forward about as much as he possibly could without falling over. His nose was stretched out towards those steps. It didn’t help that Lara was dancing up and down on the edge of the pavement, trying to get a better view of the sea. Her little sister wasn’t as well trained as Choc, Amy thought, grinning to herself. She needed a lead more than he did.

  Dad was coming back now, clutching a set of keys and a folder. Mum had been leaning against the front of the car, having a drink
of water, but now she turned to look out at the sea. “Isn’t it lovely?” she murmured. “We’ll go down for a walk later, you two. Let’s just get settled in first.”

  As Dad unlocked the door, the two girls raced in. There was something fascinating about the cottage – just because it was so different to home. Their house was like all the others in the street, a semi, painted white, with a square of garden at the front and a long thin strip at the back. Over the fence at the end of their back garden was another garden, and a whole street that mirrored theirs. If Amy went to tea with a friend who lived anywhere near, she pretty much knew where all the rooms were without asking. Although sometimes the stairs were on the wrong side of the hallway, which just looked weird.

  Here, it was different. Shrimp Cottage was squashed up between two other houses, and neither of them matched. Inside, it opened up a little, somehow getting wider at the back, like a little burrow. Tunnels opened out here and there. The girls ran into a living room with fat, sagging sofas and a small stove in the fireplace, then a kitchen with a long wooden table, and last, a little glass sunroom full of wicker chairs, and one huge spider plant that seemed to be trying to take over the world.

  A twisting wooden staircase led up to the bedrooms. A huge one for their parents, with a great big bed – Mum would be pleased. She said she needed a bed and a half now. Then there was a pretty blue-and-white room with striped wallpaper and fussy patchwork bedcovers.

  “You can have this one,” Amy said quickly to Lara, even though there was a view of the sea. It looked wonderful from the high window, much bluer somehow, with late afternoon sun streaming golden across it. She loved the wide window sill too. But perhaps the other room would have an even better view, and this one was just too frilly.

  Mum had struggled up the stairs behind them with an armful of Lara’s soft toys. “There’s only one room, girls. We did say, don’t you remember? We booked late; with the baby, everything was a bit disorganized. I wasn’t sure I was up to going away, and then there weren’t many places that would take Choc as well. The cottage is a bit small, but we’ll manage.”

  Amy gaped at her. “One room? You mean I have to share with Lara?”

  “I’m having this bed!” Lara bounced on to the bed by the window, seizing her mermaid doll from Mum. She sat cross-legged on the bed, clutching the doll and smirking at Amy.

  “But Mum…” Amy gulped. She remembered now, but it hadn’t seemed to matter that much a few weeks before. She’d been so excited about going on holiday that she’d forgotten it meant a whole week in the same bedroom as Lara. “She talks in her sleep!”

  Her mum sighed and eased herself down on to the other bed. Amy’s bed. “I know. But not very often.”

  “And she sleepwalks.” Amy slumped down next to Mum on the bed. Her bed now. “I’ll wake up and she’ll be standing next to me looking all spooky. It makes me go shivery when she does that!”

  Lara sniggered and made a ghostly, toothy face at Amy.

  Amy lay backwards, gazing up at the ceiling. She could hear paws scrabbling on the wooden stairs – Choc was coming to see where they’d got to.

  Choc peered whiskerily round the bedroom door and flapped his ears happily at Amy and Lara.

  Amy laughed. He had his red fleece blanket in his teeth, the one that usually lined his basket at home. It had been in the dog crate with him, to make him feel better about the journey. Now he gazed lovingly at Amy’s mum, doing his best big-eyed look. The one that said You know I am clean, loving and perfectly house-trained…

  “Where’s Choc sleeping?” Amy asked thoughtfully.

  “In the kitchen, like he does at home.” Her mum sounded surprised.

  “Couldn’t he sleep up here with us? As a holiday treat?” She turned over, squinting hopefully up at Mum. She’d tried asking for Choc in her room before, but Mum hadn’t liked the idea. If it was just for the holidays, though… She’d rather share a room with Choc than Lara, any day. But she’d settle for both.

  Lara bounced up and down on her bed excitedly. “Yes, yes! Please, Mum!”

  Choc danced over to her, dropping his blanket and licking her bare toes lovingly. Lara pulled her feet back up on to the bed with a squealing giggle, and Amy laughed too.

  “Well, I suppose…” her mum started to say, smiling at them all, and Amy hugged her. (Carefully.)

  “Yes! Thanks, Mum!”

  “I want him on my bed!” Lara crouched down next to Choc, and he licked her ear.

  “He can choose,” Amy said hurriedly. She didn’t want Mum changing her mind because they were squabbling.

  “Girls, you do realize…” Mum trailed off, and then started getting up, as if she’d changed her mind about what she was going to say.

  “What?” Amy bounced up to help pull. “What is it?”

  “Thank you, sweetheart.” Mum looked down at her worriedly. “When the new baby comes – it’ll need somewhere to sleep.”

  “Won’t the baby go in your room? In the Moses basket?” Amy asked slowly.

  “Maybe for the first few weeks,” her mum agreed. “But we need to get the room ready. Put the cot somewhere.”

  Lara looked up at her and frowned. “Somewhere where?”

  “The smallest room. Your room, Lara,” Mum said gently. “Amy’s room is really big. There’s room for both of you.”

  “There isn’t!” Amy shook her head, her eyes panicky. There just wasn’t!

  Her lovely bedroom. Full of Lara. How was there going to be any room left for her?

  The sea had changed when they went down to the beach later that afternoon. The faint hint of blue had gone, and the water was now a dull khaki colour, muddy and sullen-looking. It looked how she felt, Amy thought. How was she ever going to share a room with Lara? And how could she have been so stupid and not realized it would happen? Babies were small, but they took up an awful lot of space. And attention.

  Lara had actually been born on the day that Amy was starting school, so that a friend from down the road had to take her. No one had even asked what school was like when she got home; they just wanted to tell her about her new baby sister. Four-year-old Amy would quite happily have sent her back. Nine-year-old Amy was big enough to realize that probably wasn’t going to happen. It didn’t mean she never thought about it, though.

  Still. She was going to be the eldest of three soon. Somehow that felt more important than just having one little sister. She had to be grown up about things now, or at least try to be.

  Choc gave a hopeful little whine, tugging on his lead. Amy could tell he wanted to go racing off over that great length of biscuit-brown sand. She looked back at Lara, who was behind her on the cliff steps, and grinned. “Race you? Down to the sea?”

  “Oooh, yes!” Lara screamed, jumping the last two steps and dashing ahead. Amy let Choc off his lead and he barked excitedly and ran round the two girls in wide, whirling circles as they raced for the sea. Lara flung off her sandals as they ran, squeaking excitedly as she got to the water and dipped her toes in.

  “I nearly won!” she told Amy.

  “Choc won,” Amy said, hugging her. “He’s faster than both of us.”

  Sandmouth was a perfect place for a holiday, in hot weather at least. And it was hot – too hot for Mum, who stayed collapsed in a deckchair most of the time. But for messing about on the beach it was blissful. The first proper full day, they stayed on the beach until bedtime – just nipping back up to the cottage to go to the loo and fill up bottles of water. They even had fish and chips for dinner on the beach, eating the chips out of the paper with their fingers and then dabbling their hands in the sea. When they trailed back up the steps, Amy was so sleepy with sun and sea that she almost forgot she had to share a room with Lara again.

  Sharing wasn’t quite as horrible as she’d thought it would be. But Lara did talk in her sleep. She was just so noisy. She b
reathed, and wriggled, and grunted every so often. So did Choc, but somehow Amy didn’t mind him doing it. Especially when she’d turned her light off and she could feel him lying there next to her feet. Mum had insisted that they put his basket in between the two beds, but he hadn’t stayed in it for long. Amy’s bed was too tempting. He wriggled closer over the course of the night, gradually working his way up the bed, so that by morning, his nose was pressed lovingly into the back of her neck.

  And Amy had discovered there were some fun bits about sharing a room with Lara. She was just learning how to tell jokes – she got Dad to teach them to her, even if she didn’t always understand why they were funny. She was supposed to be asleep already when Amy came up to get ready for bed, but she never was. She lay there practising her jokes on Choc, waiting for the rest of her audience to arrive. She’d had a whole lot of new ones the night before.

  “Amy, where did the horse go when he got sick?”

  “I don’t know.” (Even though she did really.)

  “To the horse-pital!” Then Lara sat up, staring anxiously at her. “Was that funny? Did I get it right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Another one. This is the best one, Amy.”

  “OK.” Amy settled down in bed with her book, half-reading, half-listening to Lara chattering on.

  “Why did the mushroom go to the party?”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was a fungi!”

  Amy giggled, and Choc snorted as though he was joining in too. Lara leaned out from under her covers, walking her hands along the floor and trying to stretch over the gap between the beds. She couldn’t quite reach, so she just hung out of bed upside down instead. “Amy! Why is it a joke?”

  “Umm, it just is. Because fungi means mushrooms – and he was a fun guy. At a party. You see?”

  “No…”

  But did she really want to be told jokes every night? Amy wondered the next morning, lying on the sand in front of her castle. The thing was, when they got home it wasn’t just going to be Lara in Amy’s room. It would be all her stuff, too. Lara was obsessed with mermaids. Mermaid duvet, mermaid posters, mermaid dolls. She would even want to put up her mermaid sun-catcher in Amy’s window.