Notso Hotso - Anne Fine [7]
And, strolling through, I cause a bit of a ripple.
‘Bertha? Is that a lion I see over there?’
‘It can’t be, Gladys. It must be a speck on your glasses.’
‘I really do believe it is a lion, dear.’
‘Well, if you say so. Do you suppose the poor lamb would like a bit of my sandwich?’
I’m standing waiting to hear more – like, the answer is yes, if it’s ham or Marmite, but no, if it’s apricot jam – when, suddenly, into the dell stroll Buster and Hamish. I ask you, what is the point of having a NO DOGS sign if everyone ignores it?
And dangling from Buster’s mouth was The Lost Bone.
All right. I freely admit it. Lots of bones get lost. We have lost bones all
over. (Somewhere.) But this bone was dead special. It was cooked. And meaty. And it dripped with marrow. And it had been lost for months, since the day Buster buried it because he couldn’t manage. (He’d been hoovering up after a party with pizzas and kebabs – I tell you, you watch those skewers: they are dangerous.) I’ll spare you the
grisly details. Let’s just say that some of those half-eaten puddings left on the floor behind the sofa had waa-aaay too much sherry and coffee brandy in them.
So Buster reeled out in the dark night to bury his bone, and could hardly remember a thing in the morning.
For just a moment, I forgot the lion bit.
‘Hey!’ I said, friendly as a six-month-old spaniel. ‘You finally found the old trophy bone!’
Buster’s not listening. One look at
me, the bone’s on the grass, and Buster is running.
And Hamish isn’t far behind.
I pick up The Lost Bone. Excellent! More fun on Monday, when I am the only one who knows where to find it. I dig a little hole behind Gladys. (It turns out her sandwich is falafel and anchovy, and therefore definitely not for me.) And then I sashay off around the corner.
Only to bump into Bella.
Where flee turns out to get spelled f-1-i-r-t.
She sees me and starts sweeping the path with her eyelashes.
And guess what she says. ‘Well, hell-0, Big Boy! Fancy a stroll round the litter bins?’
My turn to flee! I made it back to the bowling green, where twenty
Frost-Tops playing a big match scattered.
‘Lion! Lion on the loose! Lion!’
‘Are you sure, Gregory?’
‘Lion!’
One of them threw a bowling ball. It kind of rolled up gently between my paws. I tried to roll it back. (Talk about heavy, I pushed my hardest and the thing got nowhere. These grizzled folk must be a whole lot tougher than they look.)
Not wanting to trash the image, I slid away between the bushes – back into the clearing, where Nigel is still sort of standing there, still sort of stopped.
‘Nigel?’ I said. ‘Nigel?’
He’s staring at me with those sad old sheep’s eyes. But nothing more. Not a flicker.
‘Come on, Nigel.’ I give him the tiniest of nudges. ‘Take a step.’
He rocked a bit dangerously, but nothing else happened.
I went back round the front. He was still staring at me, but he wasn’t blinking.
Uh-uh! Notso hotso. I always thought, when there was nothing left to hold you up, you probably fell over. But that’s arthritis for you, I expect. It is a scourge. Nigel often said as much.
He couldn’t stay there, could he? No, of course he couldn’t.
And I couldn’t carry him.
So I used subterfuge. I stood beside him and I howled. Pitifully! howled like the Lost and the Damned all herded together. I howled to bring people with stones for hearts running with stretchers.
And, as soon as I heard all the footsteps getting closer, I nipped out of sight in the bushes.
So then it’s Action Replay with the adults.
‘What’s up, old boy? What’s all this noise about?’
‘Thorn in your paw?’
‘Lost one of your puppies?’ Closer look. Correction. ‘Great, great, great grand-puppies?’
Nigel is saying nothing.
So one of the blokes reaches over to stroke him.
Mistake!
Over he keels.
TIM-BER!!!
I won’t say the real word, in case we have a few soft-hearted souls out there, reading this at bedtime. (I like to keep things ‘family’.) Let’s just admit Old Nigel was not exactly in peach form. He wasn’t quite himself.