Notso Hotso - Anne Fine [2]
to offer my poor itching flanks to the Great Eye of Heaven’s healing powers.
‘Looking a bit “bare rug”, aren’t you, Anthony? Have the family been feeding you Hair-Fall-Out pills?’
‘Nice,’ I said. ‘Coming from a cat that’s as big as a barrel.’
‘Go gnaw a doorknob, Ant!’
I hate it when she calls me ‘Ant’. So I snuck back inside. And got shooed out again. And thought, ‘Right, then. It’s their fault if I go a-wandering.’
And I went down the park.
I’m not the gang type, on the whole. It’s not my scene. I think smell tours are juvenile. When Buster and Hamish and Bella over-excite themselves, their tongues get a bit piggy. And I don’t care for the way that, when they’re playing Dingoes v. Jackals, they leave a trail of mashed bushes behind them.
From time to time, I say a word on the subject.
‘Could you take a little more care?’ I plead. ‘Some of us have to walk in this park every morning. Please try to leave the place as pleasant as you found it.’
They jeer, of course.
‘Well, if it isn’t Oily Anthony, the Park-keeper’s Pal.’
‘I’m really, really worried!’
‘Oh, bite me! Bite me!’
Most days, our Buster’s in his I’m-the-Leader-of-the-Pack mood. I pad up. He turns, gives me the ultra-unfriendly Lost, are you? stare, and says, ‘Fell out of your basket, Ant?’
I roll my eyes. I mean, that sort of sarcasm is so ten minutes ago. (Or even earlier.) ‘Well, don’t you absolutely reek of cool!’ I scoff, and
wait for his hackles to rise and that stupid little growl that’s supposed to mean, ‘Watch it, Mr Nothing from Nowhere-on-Sea,’ before he invites me to join them for a bit of a muck–about.
But today, things are different. He’s taking an interest, almost.
‘What’s wrong with you?’
Hamish joins in. ‘Yeah. You look weird. Like a bare rug with feet.’
(Just what that nasty cat said. Now I’m listening.) ‘What do you mean?’
So Bella explains. ‘You’re missing great patches of fur at the back.’
Hamish agrees. ‘You look terrible.’
Trust Buster to be a whole lot more unpleasant than he need. ‘You told us you were sheepdog-retriever cross,’ he crows. ‘You never admitted you were one hundred per cent Moulter.’
I’m getting worried now – shimmying round to try and get a look at the bits I’ve been scratching. ‘It can’t be that bad, surely.’
‘In your dreams!’
‘In Never-Ever land!’
‘Well, somebody’s been putting something in your mystery cutlets.’
Up puffs Old Nigel, who’s spent the last ten minutes wheezing and staggering over the park towards us at the speed of winter turning to spring.
‘My word!’ he quavers. He can’t take his rheumy eyes off me. ‘You look even worse than I feel. I reckon you won’t last any longer than I will.’
Talk about panic. I just turned and fled.
3: Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall
SO NOW I’M serious about getting a proper look at my back and sides. Of course, since the flaking began, My Lady Houseproud has kept me right out of her flouncy-wouncy bedroom with the floor-to-ceiling mirror. But it’s in there I creep when she’s not looking. (I have to be careful. Last time she caught me hanging round the door, she said, ‘You so much as step in here while you’re shedding that stuff on the carpets, Anthony, and I will roast you on a spit!’ And I believed her.)
So slinky was the word. I made it safely to under the bed. Then out the other side to the mirror.
Oh, horror! Oh, the horror! Imagine sleek and glossy me, twisting my rear end round to take a peek at what was once the perfect hide, and finding…
Mange!
In places, my bum was raw. If I had been a carpet, you would have tossed me out without a thought. I was appalled. I take my cod liver oil. I get enough fresh air. I exercise. (In fact, of all the dogs round here, I’m probably the most particular about looking after my health and keeping regular habits.)
It wasn’t fair. I looked shocking. And if I hadn’t been exactly where I was most particularly not supposed to be,
I would have raised my head and howled.
As it was, I just whimpered.
That’s when she walked in. I didn’t wait