“It’s not fair on me!” Jack wailed. “I want to go on the slide!” Then he noticed Zoe and her dad, dawdling along the path. “She can take Scout for a walk.”
“Oh…” Lauren glanced round and smiled at Zoe, and then at her dad, looking a bit embarrassed. “Sorry. No, Jack, that’s silly.”
“I could take him for a run about, if it helps?” Zoe put in eagerly. “I mean, if that’s OK, Dad?”
Her dad nodded. “We’ve got time.” He shrugged his shoulders at Lauren, grinning. “Zoe used to get in a real tizz if I wouldn’t let her go on the swings… I know how you feel.”
Lauren smiled, looking relieved. “Oh, if you really wouldn’t mind, that would be such a help. We’re having trouble fitting proper walks in just now. Jack’s dad always used to walk Scout at lunchtime, but he can’t do that with his new job. Scout knows you, so I’m sure he’d love it. Just be careful, Zoe, he is very strong. And don’t let him off the lead, will you? He’s not good at coming back. We need to do some more obedience classes, but I haven’t found a session we can get to yet.”
Zoe nodded. “I’ll make sure I’m holding him tight. And Dad’ll be there, too.” She beamed at her dad as Lauren put the lead into her hand, and Scout pulled eagerly, his tail suddenly speeding up. The park was huge – she and Mum and Dad used to bring Honey here nearly every day.
“Shall we run?” she whispered to Scout. “Shall we? Would you like that?”
Scout’s tail wagged even faster and he gave a tiny woof. Zoe laughed and raced off across the grass with the puppy bounding beside her, his ears flapping and his paws thumping the grass.
It was the best feeling ever.
Chapter Three
Scout paced up and down the kitchen, whining over and over. He was worried and lonely. Everyone was out and he wasn’t used to it. Usually either Lauren or her husband, Ben, was at home and he felt safe. Even if Lauren or Ben weren’t paying him attention, he knew that they were there. But over the last few days, they had been going out and leaving him behind for what seemed like forever. It made him miserable. He didn’t understand what was going on and he wanted his people back.
He had watched Lauren and Jack and baby Tilly leaving this morning, and realized that it was going to happen again. What if they never came back? He had started to whine, but Lauren hadn’t understood that he was worried, and Jack had just told him to shh.
Scout was tired, and his basket was right there, nice and warm by the radiator, but he couldn’t seem to stop pacing. Maybe he’d never see them again? He whined louder and then slumped down suddenly, lifting his nose to the ceiling in a long howl, fear and loneliness taking over for a moment. He lay on the kitchen floor, howling and howling, until there was a loud thumping against the wall and a muffled shouting. Scout didn’t understand that it was the man next door, annoyed by the noise, but he could tell that the shouting was angry and it frightened him even more.
Anxiously, he slunk into the living room, away from the kitchen and the scary shouting. He tucked himself away behind the end of the sofa – it was a tight fit for such a big puppy, but he felt safer in the small space.
He was still upset, though.
Scout listened, hunched and tense in the tiny space, wondering if the angry noises were still going on. The panicked feeling inside him was building up again and he pawed anxiously at the side of the sofa, scrabbling harder and harder with his claws. Somehow, the clawing seemed to help him feel a little calmer, and he went on, shredding the fabric with his claws till it hung down from the sofa in tattered ribbons. There was yellow foamy stuff behind the fabric and that pulled out, too, if he bit at it. Scout scrabbled and chewed and gnawed, and some of the miserable feeling inside him went away.
Scout heard the footsteps coming to the door, and he jumped up, full of relief and excitement. They were back! They hadn’t abandoned him! He dashed to the door and leaped at it, his paws slipping and sliding on the smooth wood. He could hear Lauren laughing on the other side of the door.
“Hello! Hello, Scout! Yes, we’re back. Did you miss us? I know, it’s not fair, is it? I didn’t have time to come and get you before I went to get Jack. Are you hungry?” She nudged Scout gently out of the way so she could get the pushchair over the front step. “No running out. Good boy. Hey, don’t jump up…” Lauren pushed Tilly inside and turned to shut the door.
Scout knew he wasn’t supposed to jump up at the pushchair, but he was so desperate to see them all – to love them, to show his family how much he had missed them.
“No, down,” Lauren said firmly, and Scout backed off from the pushchair and turned to greet Jack instead. But the little boy stumbled away from Scout’s scratchy paws as the puppy tried to jump up and lick his face.
“Mummy! He’s hurting me!” The frightened tone in Jack’s voice made Scout’s ears flatten and he backed away. Had he done something wrong? He just wanted to be with them…
“Mummy, look!” Jack was standing in the living-room doorway, staring at the sofa and the floor. Lauren lifted Tilly out of the pushchair and followed him in.
“What’s the matter? Oh no…”
“Was it Scout?” Jack asked, and hearing his name, Scout looked at them worriedly. Their voices were cross.
“It must have been. It’s ruined. The new sofa! Oh, you bad dog!”
Scout retreated down the tiny hallway, his head hanging and his bottom in a crouch. What had he done? He’d been so desperate to see them and now Lauren was angry. He just didn’t understand.
“Hi, Zoe!”
Zoe looked round from where she was sitting chatting with her friend Lucy and waved at Jack, smiling. A group of Reception children were kicking a ball around the playground.
“Hi! Are you playing football with the others?”
“Yes – I just came to tell you about yesterday. Guess what Scout did!”
“I don’t know… Um… Did he pull you to school on your scooter?”
“No! He chewed up our sofa! He really wrecked it. Mum was so cross. We came in from school and there were bits of it all over the floor. She had to put a blanket over the end of it so we could watch TV, otherwise we’d have been sitting in the sofa!”
“Oh no. Why did he chew it up?”
Jack shrugged. “Don’t know. Mum said maybe he didn’t like being left on his own when she had to go to work and Dad did, too.”
Zoe nodded. “Ooops.” Some dogs really hated being on their own. Honey hadn’t liked it much, either, but luckily her mum and dad had managed to work their shifts round looking after Zoe and being home enough of the time that Honey didn’t get too upset. And sometimes her gran had popped in to see Honey if they were going to be away for more than a couple of hours.
“Mum shut him in the kitchen today – there’s not much he can chew in there, she said.”
It didn’t sound like much of a fun day for Scout, Zoe thought, locked up in the kitchen. She wondered if Lauren would bring him to school to pick up Jack that afternoon. She’d missed seeing him the day before because she had football club after school, but it sounded as though Lauren hadn’t brought Scout on the school run anyway.
“I’ve got to go, it’s my turn in goal! See you later, Zoe!” Jack suddenly raced away and Zoe waved after him. She watched Jack running around with his friends and bit her lip, feeling worried. Jack seemed to be really settling in, but what if Scout was getting himself into more trouble, stuck at home on his own?