The Chocolate Dog

by Holly Webb

  There were nice little tents outside, round ones, like mushrooms. Even that would be better than this noisy, stuffy room. She’d love a little mushroom tent all to herself. She sighed as Cassie muttered something in her sleep and turned over. People were meant to be quiet when they were asleep.

  It was raining again. Drops hammered across the window as the wind gusted around. Amy shivered. Maybe she didn’t want to be in a tent after all. Dani and Rachel and the others from the year above her and Millie, they were all outside in this.

  Amy winced as the rain smacked against the windows again. She thought that was thunder too – the noise wasn’t quite loud enough to be sure. It was horrible out there. She was definitely changing her mind about a tent.

  “Amy, are you awake?”

  “Yes.” She quickly rubbed the tears off her face. It was Lucy, one of the younger Brownies, who had the bunk underneath her.

  “Was that thunder and lightning?”

  “Um, maybe. Oh. Yes, I saw a flash.”

  This time the thunder rolled around the trees and echoed over the house.

  “I really hate thunder.” Lucy’s voice had gone squeaky, and she was sort of gasping. Amy eased herself out of her sleeping bag and climbed down the ladder to Lucy.

  Lara didn’t like thunder either. She was probably in Mum and Dad’s bed right now. And Choc would be barking like mad. It wasn’t that he was scared; he just didn’t understand what the noise was.

  Amy put her arm round Lucy. “Are you OK?”

  “No!” The thunder growled round them again, and Lucy jumped. Somebody else was sniffling. “What’s that?” Lucy shrieked as something rattled and screeched downstairs just as a massive flash of lightning lit up the room. Amy shivered.

  “I don’t know…” Amy muttered nervously, hearing a door bang further along the landing. “Let’s go and see. Come on.”

  “I don’t want to…” Lucy whimpered, but she didn’t want to be left behind either, so when Amy pulled, she got up in her sleeping bag like a fat purple caterpillar.

  Dragging Lucy behind her, Amy pulled their door open. The dim light from the landing lit up the other girls in their room, all waking up now, and wide-eyed in the greyness.

  “Oh, you’re awake, girls.” One of the leaders, Cassie’s mum. “In that case, they can sleep on your floor.”

  Amy stared at the gang of damp-looking girls behind her, and recognized Rachel. “Did your tent leak?”

  Rachel nodded. “I think we did it wrong,” she whispered. “I just woke up and my feet were outside. I’m frozen. And my sleeping bag’s soaked.”

  Cassie’s mum was carrying a pile of blankets, and the Guides were trailing big squashy things that looked like the sofa cushions from the room downstairs.

  “I like camping indoors better anyway,” Rachel muttered to Amy and Lucy, as she made herself a sort of blanket nest next to their bed. “Especially when it’s pouring down at two o’clock in the morning.”

  “Night, then,” Amy whispered, leaning over the side of the bunk. Two o’clock. It was tomorrow. Or today was tomorrow… She wasn’t quite sure what she meant, but she knew it was good. Soon after breakfast she’d see Mum and Dad, and Choc, and Lara. She wouldn’t even mind playing mermaids again, for the seventeen-millionth time…

  “And when they went back to look the next morning, the tent wasn’t even there!” Amy told Dad. “They found most of it in the hedge, and the Guide leader says she doesn’t know what they did to it when they were putting it up, because that’s never, ever happened before.”

  Dad nodded. “I remember waking up at Scout camp and finding I’d rolled down the slope in the night and half of me was sticking out of the tent.”

  “Did the thunder wake Lara up? Was Choc all right?”

  Dad sighed. “I spent most of the night on the sofa. There wasn’t room for me in our bed with the amount of space Lara and your mum took up. And Choc was fine. Once he’d stopped growling at the thunder he came and slept on my feet. I was grateful, actually; it was a bit chilly downstairs.” He gave a big fake shiver. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be in a tent last night. I think you lot had the better deal being inside.”

  Amy nodded. “Yes… But I didn’t like sharing a room with all the others. Well, I did enjoy the midnight feast; that bit was really good. But then loads of people snored.”

  Dad didn’t say anything, and Amy glanced over at him, wondering why. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Uncle Matt came over yesterday. We’ve moved Lara’s stuff into your bedroom, Amesy.”

  Dad only called her that when he thought she was going to be upset. Amy stared out of the side window. They were nearly home.

  “I know,” she whispered. “You said you would.”

  “She’s got her bed on one side, and all her stuff packed away. There was space in your wardrobe, and the drawers, so we didn’t have to move Lara’s ones in. We moved your dolls’ house over a bit, but you’ll still be able to get at it.”

  Amy nodded, and swallowed. She hadn’t even thought about the dolls’ house. She and Mum had painted the walls, and made so many beautiful things for it – they were even working on making an armchair right now. Mum was going to get some special modelling clay so they could make little legs.

  She had missed Lara yesterday. Sticking down the tiny stones to make the glittery mermaid box, she’d really missed her.

  “You’re being very good about it.” Dad sounded relieved, and Amy wondered what Lara had been like over the weekend. She smiled to herself, looking out of the window away from Dad. She could just imagine Lara clinging on to the rails of her bed like a monkey as Dad and Uncle Matt tried to lift it out of her bedroom.

  As soon as Dad unlocked the front door, Choc launched himself at Amy, barking like a mad thing. He was so excited he kept jumping round and round in circles, then racing down the hallway, and then galloping back to jump up and lick her all over again. “Oh, I missed you,” Amy told him, catching him in mid-leap and nearly falling over. “Oof, you’re so heavy. Good boy. Good boy, Choc.”

  “Did you have a good time?” Mum hurried out of the kitchen – or hurried as much as she could at the moment, anyway. Amy hugged her round Choc and the bump, which was quite tricky.

  “Yes. But I did really miss all of you,” she admitted. “Even you,” she whispered to the bump.

  Half of her wanted to sit down and tell Mum everything they’d done. But she had to go upstairs first and see what it was like. She hurried up the stairs, with Choc pressed against her legs, making pleased little noises to himself. He had missed her too, she could tell.

  Lara’s room was the first one off the landing, and Amy glanced in as she went past. It was almost empty, just Lara’s scuffed pink wallpaper and her small wardrobe and chest of drawers left. Dad had brought the old cot down from the loft, and it was leaning up against the wall, in pieces. Amy gulped. Somehow the cot made the baby seem a lot more real. She could remember Lara sleeping in that cot. It had bite marks all along the top of the sides where Lara had chewed it.

  The room looked so empty – because everything that should have been in there was in Amy’s room. Amy stared at the carpet, and Choc sniffed at it curiously. They’d only had Choc for a couple of years, and he’d always known this as Lara’s room. He didn’t understand why everything had changed round. He patted his paw at one of the little marks on the carpet where the bed had been standing, and Amy frowned. Lara’s bed was huge. She bit her lip and dragged herself along the few steps to her own door. She almost didn’t want to see.

  Amy’s room was a large one – Millie was always telling her how lucky she was to have it. So there was room for two beds, she knew that really. If it had only been a case of two beds, it would have been fine.

  Amy’s desk was squashed up next to the window now, and her bookshelf was right next to her bed.

&nbs
p; There was a thudding noise as Lara raced up the stairs. She’d been out in the garden – Amy guessed Mum had arranged that. She stopped in the doorway and gave Amy an uncertain look. As though she still wasn’t sure she was allowed in.

  I missed Lara this weekend, Amy told herself firmly. I really missed her. I was homesick and I wished she was there.

  “Mum wouldn’t let me put my posters up…” Lara told her.“She said I had to ask you where they could go. But that isn’t fair, because it’s my room now too.” Lara pushed past Amy and flung herself on to her bed, looking up at her sister with half a smile. A sort of you can’t do anything about it smile.

  “I’m not having any of your stupid mermaid posters in my room,” Amy snarled. All thoughts of missing Lara, and this not actually being her fault, disappeared. It was the smile that did it. It was the same smile Lara used when she was telling on Amy to Mum.

  “It’s our room!” Lara shouted back, bouncing up on the bed and glaring at her. “The girls’ room. Mum said so!”

  Choc made a worried little noise, his tail wafting nervously from side to side. But he followed Amy as she stormed down the stairs, still dragging her rucksack and sleeping bag.

  Her mum was standing at the bottom, as though she’d been just about to come and see what was going on.

  “Amy? What is it? What happened?”

  “I’m not sharing a room with Lara!” Amy yelled. She was tired of being nice to her mum because of the baby. No one was being nice to her. “I won’t! I want my room back!”

  Dad came out of the kitchen, looking annoyed. “Amy, you know we can’t do that. The baby—”

  “I never wanted there to be a baby! Why should I have to give up my room?” Amy almost faltered as she finished saying it. She knew what a horrible thing it was to say, especially when her mum was so tired. But she couldn’t help it. No one cared what she thought. They just moved her out of the way, like all her stuff.

  She straightened up, shaking her hair out of her eyes, and glared at her dad. “I never wanted Lara either, and I hate her, and I’m not sharing!”

  “Amy!” her mum whispered in a hurt voice, and someone made a little whimpering sound from the top of the stairs.

  Lara was listening.

  “She doesn’t mean it, Lara,” her mum started to say.

  “Yes I do!” Amy yelled. “Why do you always take her side?”

  “Go out into the garden!” Dad snapped angrily. “I don’t want to see you right now, Amy, I’m too cross. Out! And don’t come back till you’re in a better mood.”

  “Fine!” Amy hissed back, stamping through the kitchen with Choc trotting after her, his feathery tail waving as he saw her struggling with the back door. The garden meant Amy was going to play with him.

  But she didn’t. She sat down on the edge of the patio, crying. Choc nosed her hopefully a couple of times, but she didn’t get up, so eventually he sighed heavily and sank down beside her, with his nose on her foot.

  “They hate me now,” Amy muttered. “It’s not fair. I wish I lived somewhere else. I wouldn’t care where.”

  But I could go somewhere else, she thought, sitting up a little straighter and putting her chin in her hands. I could go away, and then they’d be sorry. Wouldn’t they?

  She looked down at the sleeping bag and rucksack she’d dumped on the grass. She had everything she needed. Even some food – Millie had told her there’d be a midnight feast at the pack holiday, but everyone had brought so much, they’d never eaten her stuff. She had a packet of iced ring biscuits and some cola bottles. A big bag. And her purse was in the front pocket of her rucksack. Mum hadn’t been sure if she might need it.

  Amy got up slowly, looking back at the kitchen window. No one was there to see her. Mum and Dad were probably sitting on the stairs cuddling Lara and telling her that her nasty big sister didn’t mean it.

  “I did,” she muttered, glancing up at her bedroom window. With Lara’s stupid pink mermaid sun-catcher hanging in it. Amy snorted and flung her rucksack on. She almost slammed the back gate against the wall, but she caught it at the last minute. If it banged, Dad would come out to see what was going on.

  Choc whined at her anxiously. He knew he wasn’t supposed to go out of the garden. He had, a couple of times, before Dad put wire netting across the bottom of the fence panels. The people down the road had brought him back the first time, saying they’d found him staring into their guinea pig hutch. The second time, Amy and Mum had found him sitting in the park, watching the children in the playground. Amy had thought he hadn’t really wanted to come back with them. He kept looking back and whining, and his whiskers were covered in biscuit. He was very good at looking starved. He was also very good at being loud. If she went off without him, he’d bark…

  “Come on, Choc,” Amy whispered, patting her trousers – she didn’t really want to run away in her Brownie uniform, but she could hardly go back in and change, could she? “Choccie, here boy. I wish I’d got your lead. You’ll have to be good. And I’ll hold your collar for the roads.”

  She scurried down the side path to the front of the house, creeping down the little drive on the far side of the car in case they saw her from the hallway. Then out, on to the pavement, whispering to Choc, “It’s OK. Come on.” He seemed to know they were doing something they shouldn’t; he kept casting anxious glances back towards the house.

  They got to the corner of the road when Amy suddenly realized that she didn’t know where they were going. She stood hesitating by the wall, her fingers curled in Choc’s collar. She hadn’t really meant to bring him – but she was glad she had. His fur was soft and springy under her fingers, and he was so warm. “Where shall we go?” she muttered.

  Choc pulled her gently to the edge of the pavement and looked up, his eyes hopeful.

  Amy laughed. “You want to run away to the park?” Actually, it wasn’t that stupid an idea. It was a big park, and the playground where they’d found Choc that time before was huge, with all sorts of climbing frames and tunnels. There was bound to be somewhere she could hide out for a bit. And it shouldn’t be too busy by now. It was late afternoon.

  Choc hurried her eagerly towards the park, and Amy wished she’d brought her coat. People kept looking at her Brownie uniform. She didn’t want anyone to notice her. It was no good running away if someone told Mum and Dad where she was and she had to go home after half an hour.

  They’d probably seen that she was gone by now, she realized, checking her watch. Dad would have gone to call her back in.

  Amy slowed down, shifting her rucksack on her shoulder. Somehow, it all seemed a bit more serious now. As though she hadn’t really run away until someone knew she’d done it.

  Choc looked back at her curiously and barked. He wanted to get to the playground. Dogs weren’t actually allowed in it, but there were usually plenty of people riding bikes or scooters round the paths at the edge, and most of them had food for a soulful-eyed dog.

  The playground wasn’t as empty as Amy had hoped it would be. A couple of mums were pushing little girls on the swings, and there was a gang of boys skateboarding over on the side. They were a bit older than Amy. The two mums kept giving them dirty looks, and making loud comments about playgrounds being for children.

  With them there watching, there was no chance of sneaking Choc into the playground, as Amy had meant to, and she was forced to come up with another plan. A patch of bushes and brambles ran along the back of the playground, and they walked round it as Amy eyed it thoughtfully. Choc sniffed around under the bushes with interest: the ground smelled of squirrels, and other small and delicious things.

  It didn’t look particularly comfortable for hiding out in, Amy decided at last. It was a bit scary, the thought of huddling up in her sleeping bag under those bushes. And prickly. And what if there were foxes?

  She jumped as one of the little gi
rls inside the playground raced along the bridge of the climbing frame, shrieking as her friend chased after her. Amy watched them dash by. The climbing frame was a massive one with all sorts of platforms and tunnels, and a couple of the little bridges ran over the back fence and out on to the grass in front of the brambly bit. The ends of the bridges had been blocked off, so that smaller children didn’t use them to run out of the playground. But it would be quite easy to wriggle up on to them. Even Choc could do it if she gave him a boost.

  The two little girls were playing on the seesaw now, so Amy quickly stuffed her rucksack and sleeping bag up on to the bridge and then picked up Choc. He wriggled in surprise, and she staggered. He wasn’t a huge dog, but he was heavy. “Come on, up, Choc!” she muttered, trying to squish him under the metal side-rails of the bridge. Choc scrabbled indignantly but clambered on, and then whisked round to poke his nose out under the rails, as if to ask her what on earth they were doing.

  “It’s all right, I’m coming too.” Amy hauled herself up and rolled sideways on to the bridge. “Come on.” She snapped her fingers, and he scurried after her down the sloping bridge to the little turret at the end of the climbing frame. “Look, it’s perfect, you see,” Amy murmured to him. “No one can see us. The rain won’t get in it, and it’s just about big enough to stretch out in my sleeping bag.” She set the rucksack down in the corner of the dusty little space and sighed. It was a bit gloomy. Running away felt as though it ought to be more exciting somehow. She unzipped her rucksack. Maybe a biscuit would help.

  Choc sniffed his way around the edge of the little room, and then put his nose out of the little doorway. He saw no reason to stay inside, and the two little girls were sitting on a bench not far away, eating raisins. He liked raisins.