Mr Dog and the Seal Deal

by Ben Fogle

  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain by

  HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2019

  HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

  HarperCollins Publishers

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  The HarperCollins website address is

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  Text copyright © Ben Fogle 2019

  Illustrations copyright © Nikolas Ilic 2019

  Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

  All rights reserved.

  Ben Fogle and Nikolas Ilic assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  Conditions of Sale

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Source ISBN: 9780008306397

  Ebook Edition © 2019 ISBN: 9780008306403

  Version: 2019-05-02

  To Willem

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Map

  Dedication

  Chapter One WHO’S DITZY?

  Chapter Two TO THE RESCUE!

  Chapter Three A CRY FOR HELP

  Chapter Four A TANGLED TALE

  Chapter Five SEAL SPOTTING

  Chapter Six DOUBLE DISCOVERY

  Chapter Seven DELIGHT AND DANGER

  Chapter Eight A DANGEROUS JOURNEY

  Chapter Nine THE LAST HOPE

  Chapter Ten SEALING THE DEAL

  Notes from the Author

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  About the Author

  BEN FOGLE is a broadcaster and seasoned adventurer. A modern-day nomad and journeyman, he has travelled to more than a hundred countries and accomplished amazing feats; from swimming with crocodiles to rowing three thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean; from crossing Antarctica on foot to surviving a year as a castaway on a remote Hebridean island. Most recently, Ben climbed Mount Everest. Oh, and he LOVES dogs.

  Books by Ben Fogle

  MR DOG AND THE RABBIT HABIT

  MR DOG AND THE SEAL DEAL

  Chapter One

  WHO’S DITZY?

  ‘Ahhh! A life on the waves for me!’ Mr Dog stood on the deck of the fishing boat as it chugged towards the harbour and breathed the salty sea air. His dark, scraggy fur was ruffled by the summer wind, and his white front paws rested on a fishing basket crammed with catches fresh from the ocean. ‘I made a good choice allowing a fisherman to look after me! Yes, a very good choice indeed.’

  Mr Dog loved travel and adventure. He had no real home and no single owner, but he let people take him in now and again as he travelled from place to place. The boat’s skipper, John Tregeen, was the latest to be won over by the roaming animal’s special scruffy appeal. Mr Dog turned to him now, raised his shaggy eyebrows and wagged his long tail furiously, hoping for a treat. In place of a collar he had a red-and-white hanky tied round his neck. There were so many delicious fish on the boat, surely one could be spared for a hungry hound …?

  John Tregeen, who was tall, fair and red-cheeked, smiled with one hand on the tiller, steering them home. ‘Sorry, dog. These fish are going up for sale, not down a mutt’s gullet!’ He pulled a bone-shaped biscuit from his pocket and tossed it over. ‘How’s this instead?’

  Expertly, Mr Dog caught the treat and crunched it quickly. Mmm, not bad, he thought. But one treat is never enough! He danced on his back legs to encourage the skipper to throw another.

  His plan worked! Another treat came sailing through the air …

  And a white blur swooped down and snatched it!

  ‘Hey!’ Mr Dog frowned at a seagull as it landed on the other side of the boat and the treat vanished down its yellow beak.

  John laughed. ‘Too slow, my friend.’

  ‘That was mine!’ Mr Dog told the seagull.

  ‘Sorry, old sport,’ the bird replied with a screech. ‘Finders keepers. There’s not much food to be had on the beach today; the humans are cleaning it up.’

  ‘Are they, indeed?’ Curious, Mr Dog forgot his stomach and looked towards the golden beach. It nestled at the bottom of a large sloping hill that showed off the town’s streets and houses to the sea. There were lots of children holding black bin liners down on the sand, some of them with grabbers on the end of sticks, while adults watched and organised.

  ‘They’re picking up everything,’ said the gull. ‘Rope, bits of net, fishing lines … and plenty of the plastic rubbish that washes up on the shore.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Mr Dog. ‘That pollution makes a mess and hurts animals.’

  ‘True.’ The gull nodded. ‘It’s just a shame they clear up all of the food that’s been left behind too.’

  ‘I think you’d better make yourself scarce,’ Mr Dog warned the gull as one of John’s two-man crew – a skinny young man named Sadiq – waved an arm to shoo the bird away.

  With a shrug, the gull spread his wings and soared across the harbour to perch on a red tugboat.

  Mr Dog was about to raise his paws for a further biscuit when he noticed a smooth head bob up from the water beside the tug. The head was mottled grey and white with dark round eyes, and whiskers that went in all directions.

  ‘Goodness,’ Mr Dog woofed quietly, ‘that’s a real seal if ever I saw one – which I haven’t until this moment!’

  The seal looked up at the gull. ‘No news of Ditzy, I suppose?’

  The gull shook his head. ‘No one’s seen Ditzy around here. Not for a long time.’

  Ditzy? Mr Dog twitched an ear. Who’s Ditzy, I wonder?

  ‘I really hope someone finds her,’ said the seal glumly. Then its head plopped back beneath the water, the gull flew away and John Tregeen was holding out another crunchy snack.

  Taking no chances this time, Mr Dog scampered over on his hind legs and snaffled the treat straight from the skipper’s hand. ‘People often tell me I take the biscuit,’ Mr Dog panted happily, sitting back down. ‘And they’re right!’

  John slowed the engine to a throaty put-put-put as the boat neared the jetty. Sadiq jumped aboard to secure the craft while the other man began to unload crates of fish. John and his friends would take the haul to market now, so restaurants could stock up for the evening with fresh cod and flounder. With a bark of farewell, Mr Dog jumped on to the jetty and left them to it, weaving his way through holidaymakers heading for the beach.

  ‘It’s a splendid afternoon for cleaning up the sand,’ he declared, ‘and since the “Mister” in my name is almost certainly short for “Never missed a chance to help”, I’d better join in!’

  As he trotted along, Mr Dog noticed the statue of a large one-eyed seal that stood – or lay – on a rock across the harbour. Mr Dog had heard that this celebrated character had lived for years on a nearby island and had regularly entered the harbour to entertain the tourists. Seals seemed to be well loved around these parts. But who or what was the mysterious Ditzy – and where had Ditzy gone?

  Just then, Mr Dog caught sight of a gannet plunging from the sky like a javelin into the harbour; perhaps it had spotted a fish that had been thrown back in the water from one of the boats? There was a younger gannet, her wings not yet as pure white as her mother’s, pecking and paddling in the creamy sh
allow wash where the tide met the beach. Mr Dog frowned to see the rubbish in the water there, not yet collected.

  Suddenly, Mr Dog saw the young gannet shake her head wildly and hop about in distress. He could see that there was something caught in her beak – something she couldn’t shift.

  Mr Dog gasped. The gannet had swallowed part of a plastic bag – and now it was stuck in her throat!

  Chapter Two

  TO THE RESCUE!

  ‘Hold on, young bird!’ called Mr Dog.

  The gannet was too busy choking to fly away as Mr Dog ran up. Carefully, he gripped the wisp of white plastic with the tips of his teeth and tugged it out from the gannet’s beak. Phew! The bird could breathe again!

  ‘Puh!’ Mr Dog spat the bit of bag out on to the wet sand. ‘How unpleasant.’

  The adult gannet appeared with a warning cry, hissing and waving her wings to scare Mr Dog away from her child.

  ‘No need for alarm!’ Mr Dog protested. ‘I was helping your little one.’

  The young gannet nodded quickly. ‘It’s true!’

  Mr Dog held down the bit of bag with a paw. ‘This perishing plastic is a proper peril, isn’t it?’

  The mother gannet sighed. ‘There’s so much of it. And when the river flooded a while back it seemed to get much worse.’

  ‘Oh?’ Mr Dog raised a shaggy eyebrow. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Search me,’ said the gannet.

  ‘I thought that bit of bag was a fish,’ said the young bird sadly. ‘I got mixed up.’

  ‘Easily done,’ Mr Dog assured her. ‘Now, I’m going to help these young humans clean up the place so it can’t happen again.’

  The mother gannet looked at him. ‘You are a kind dog. I wish I could help you in return.’

  ‘Hmm, perhaps you can,’ said Mr Dog. ‘Do you know anything about someone called Ditzy?’

  ‘Ditzy!’ the young gannet piped up. ‘She’s a seal!’

  ‘A very friendly and popular seal,’ the mother gannet agreed. ‘She used to show off in the harbour every day … then one day, a couple of months ago, she disappeared.’

  ‘And no one has spotted her since?’ mused Mr Dog.

  The mother gannet jabbed her beak back towards the estuary where a river spilled into the harbour. ‘Well, last week, some seabirds I know said they’d seen a small dark seal swimming inland, up the river. But that doesn’t sound like Ditzy. Ditzy was big and grey with darker spots on her face and neck.’

  ‘It was probably just a dog they saw,’ the young gannet said.

  ‘Just a dog?’ Mr Dog pretended to look scandalised.

  ‘Everyone here misses Ditzy,’ the mother went on, ‘including us birds. A lot of tourists came here just to see her, and we would enjoy the food they left behind.’

  ‘I would love to find her,’ said Mr Dog. ‘I do enjoy a mystery, you know. Why, the “Mister” part of my name is short for “mystery”!’

  ‘Is it really?’ asked the young gannet.

  ‘Maybe.’ Mr Dog’s jaws widened in a doggy grin. ‘That’s a mystery too.’ He looked across the beach as two girls with buckets headed their way. ‘It seems we have company – clean-up company! I must help them tidy this beach before there are any more accidents.’

  ‘Well, thank you again, Mr Dog!’ said the mother gannet and, with a screech and a stretch of wings, the gannet and her youngster took off into the sky.

  Mr Dog picked up the strip of white plastic with his teeth, padded across the golden sand to the children and placed it carefully into the older girl’s bucket.

  ‘Clever boy!’ the girl said, grinning. ‘You’re Mr Tregeen’s new dog, aren’t you?’

  You’re almost right, thought Mr Dog with a woof. Mr Tregeen’s my new person!

  ‘Do you think he’s a hunting dog?’ the girl’s friend wondered. ‘If he is, maybe he could find Ditzy.’

  ‘I wish someone would.’ The girl shrugged sadly, and they walked away to pick up some more rubbish. ‘The harbour simply isn’t the same without Ditzy splashing about …’

  More locals missing Ditzy, thought Mr Dog, watching them go. That girl called me clever, which is quite true … But am I clever enough to solve the mystery of the missing seal? He paddedver to a plastic coffee-cup lid and picked it up in his teeth. I suppose there’s only one way to find out. Once this clean-up is out of the way, it’s time for an adventure!

  That summer evening, as the blue sky drifted into grey, Mr Dog lay in the ramshackle old kennel in John Tregeen’s garden. He’d worked hard on the beach, enjoyed a delicious meal of rice and fish afterwards and now he was napping to keep up his energy levels. Tonight, while it was cool and quiet, he would begin his expedition to find the missing Ditzy!

  John Tregeen opened the back door of his cottage and peered out at the kennel. ‘You there, boy? Coming inside?’

  Mr Dog rose, stretched and went over to the fisherman. He pressed himself against John’s legs to say thank you for his lodging, then turned and padded away to the garden gate.

  John smiled. ‘Is it time to say goodbye?’

  For now, thought Mr Dog. He gave a quiet woof of farewell to the man in the moonlight, then turned and trotted away on to the footpath that ran alongside the row of fishermen’s cottages. Ahead of him, the sea was silvery dark as it stirred and shifted in the breeze, bobbing the boats in the harbour. The cries of night birds sounded in the distance.

  Mr Dog was heading for the estuary, where the river merged with the sea. Then he would follow the course of the river inland. The search for Ditzy had begun!

  Chapter Three

  A CRY FOR HELP

  Mr Dog wandered through the woodland that ran alongside the river. At first, the water in the river had been salty and no good to drink. But in the middle of that first night, it had started to rain hard. Thunder had crackled through the darkness. Mr Dog huddled under a tree and watched the rainwater stream from fleshy leaves. He lay on his back, opened his mouth and rolled about from side to side, drinking his fill and enjoying his freedom.

  The storm didn’t stop until well into the next morning. The sky looked heavy, weighed down with grey clouds. Mr Dog continued his journey. Happily, he walked along the waterlogged riverbank. The river split in two, with one branch twisting out of sight to the east, while a wider branch wound round to the west. Mr Dog decided that west was best, and off he went.

  Around lunchtime, he met a fisherman who was sitting at the side of the river. From the looks of things he hadn’t caught any fish, and he was gloomily eating a ham sandwich.

  Mr Dog danced on his back legs in the hope of a donation, but the fisherman ignored him, and so he went on his way. ‘Can’t win them all,’ he told himself, and trotted onwards as the sun moved steadily through the sky.

  Late that afternoon, Mr Dog saw a gannet about to eat a fish. ‘I say,’ he called, ‘I don’t suppose any of you birds have seen a seal about?’

  The bird stopped to consider. ‘I saw something like a fat grey sausage swimming up the river …’ But then another bird swooped in and stole the fish, and the gannet took off to give chase. The conversation was over.

  As it grew dark, Mr Dog settled for the night in a cosy patch of woodland and was up again at dawn. For a while, he followed a railway line that ran alongside the river, but then a heavy goods train came rumbling by, letting off smelly fumes, so Mr Dog returned to the riverbank. Much to his annoyance, he found bits of plastic wrapping caught in the reeds there. The mother gannet on the beach had said that the floods a while back had made more plastic appear … but how?

  ‘Another mystery,’ he murmured. Quickly, he dug a hole in the wet earth and buried the plastic out of the way.

  The rain started again that afternoon and came down harder and harder. Mr Dog continued his journey along the river, as it widened here and grew thinner there, until evening fell. Wet and cold, he retreated into the woodland that ran along the riverbank for cover and thought longingly of the kennel at John Tregeen’s hous
e. He heard the lonely clank and rattle of a train trundling through the night, and as the echoes faded he heard a stranger noise. It was a sort of grunting bark, but in no dog language that he recognised.

  ‘Whatever is making that noise?’

  Mr Dog’s curiosity led him back out into the downpour. The grunting and squealing sounded more urgent, like someone was in distress. The noise was coming from beyond the forest, somewhere along the river. Mr Dog hurried out from the bracken and nettles to investigate.

  ‘Hello?’ he howled.

  A reply rose over the echoes of his call: ‘Over here!’ It was a high, throaty voice. ‘I’m stuck!’

  The sky had darkened. Lightning flashed, unleashing the thunder’s crackle and roar. The rain rang down on the shimmering river. Mr Dog shook water from his fur and pressed on along the riverbank. ‘Keep calling! I’ll find you …’

  Soon he saw something wriggling on the riverbank: a sleek, smooth figure, bundled in blubber. The animal was dark grey with wide black eyes and looked tired and scared. Two stubby webbed flippers, with a claw on each tiny toe, waggled helplessly from its chest. There were bristly whiskers across the snout that pushed out from its face. The animal was struggling, as if in some invisible embrace.

  ‘Aha – a seal!’ cried Mr Dog. ‘Found you at last.’

  ‘A dog!’ cried the animal in surprise, sliding slowly back into the water. ‘Why are you looking for me?’

  ‘Because you’ve been missing! Ditzy, isn’t it? I’m so happy to find you!’

  ‘Ditzy?’ The seal’s eyes widened further. ‘Oh, no, no, no. I’m not Ditzy. I’m called Lulu. Ditzy’s my friend. I’ve been looking for her.’

  ‘Have you indeed? Well, that makes two of us.’ Mr Dog remembered the gannets saying some seabirds had sighted a small grey seal inland – it must have been Lulu that they’d seen! ‘Well, it’s nice to meet you, Lulu. My name is Mr Dog.’

  ‘Hello, Mr Dog,’ said Lulu. ‘Are you a friend of Ditzy’s too?’