Читать книгу Mr Dog and the Seal Deal - Ben Fogle, Ben Fogle - Страница 8
Оглавление‘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 shallow 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!
