Читать книгу Sarah Lean - 3 Book Collection - Sarah Lean, Sarah Lean - Страница 29

THEN MRS COOPER CAME OUT. SHE SAID, “IT’S nearly teatime.” Her eyes popped wide when she saw Homeless.

“Goodness!” she said. “Where did he come from?”

Sam went quiet. His face was serious. He held his hand out for Mrs Cooper to tap what she was saying.

“You don’t often see Irish wolfhounds these days.” She laughed. “Not much call for them, what with there being no wolves here any more. I think he must be lost, don’t you?”

She checked for a collar, but he didn’t have one.

“We ought to find out who he belongs to, although I can’t imagine how anyone could lose something quite so big.”

Homeless sat down. He looked into my face. He seemed to know something wasn’t right.

“Somebody will be missing him. I’d better make some phone calls.”

Sam didn’t let go of Homeless; he didn’t let go of me while Mrs Cooper went in to make the calls.

And then Dad arrived.

“How the hell did that dog get here?” he snapped.

“The children found it,” said Mrs Cooper, coming back out.

“But what’s it doing here?”

Mrs Cooper blinked. “I thought we’d better check if it was lost.”

“And?”

“And I checked, and nobody’s reported it missing.”

Dad took a deep breath, snapped his eyes at me. “You going to tell me what’s going on?”

I put my arms round Homeless, looked into his soft brown eyes, looked into Dad’s icy blue eyes. Sam still didn’t let go of me, but he held my hand up with the card saying HOME, turned his left ear towards Dad.

Dad closed his eyes. “No,” he said, “we’re not keeping it.”

And I wished and hoped and tried to believe. Would anything that I said make him say yes? I put my hands together like a prayer.

“No! We can’t afford it.”

Sam spelled something on his mum’s hand.

“What about if we shared the cost?” said Mrs Cooper.

“I said no!” Dad growled and glared. “And right now I’ve got enough problems.”

Mrs Cooper said quietly, “Such a shame this all seems a problem,” which made Dad’s mouth screw tight.

It wasn’t like him to bite his tongue, but you could tell what he was thinking. It was written all over his face. Stop interfering, mind your own business and get out of my winter cave!

He looked at me once more. “NO!” he shouted.

Homeless’s ears pricked at a whistling sound. He looked over his shoulder. Someone was standing by the trees, a small dark figure with a purple Puffa jacket, but only I saw him. Jed. Homeless slipped through my hands, through the open gate, and ran.

Mrs Cooper sighed, “Oh, well, problem solved. For now.”

Dad glared at her, said, “Someone else can sort it out. They’ll soon forget all about it.”

Forgetting is one of the words I hate. I know what it means – it’s when you can’t remember. And when you can’t remember, you’re not as good as when you can.

Dad pushed through us, called back without looking, “Cally, come inside now.”

Mrs Cooper whispered to me, “I’m sorry, I think I made things worse.”

Sam tapped on Mrs Cooper’s hand. I could see she was making sense of the taps and shapes on her hand, listening to something. She shrugged, smiled. “Sam says, don’t worry. You’re not alone.”