Fiona Gibson - The Dog Share

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2021

Copyright © Fiona Gibson 2021

Fiona Gibson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008385996

Ebook Edition © 2021 ISBN: 9780008386009

Version: 2020-12-24

For Caroline, Ratty and Moth with love

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One: Two Years Earlier: Suzy

Chapter Two

Chapter Three: Now

Chapter Four

Chapter Five: Ricky

Chapter Six: Suzy

Chapter Seven: Medley Family WhatsApp

Chapter Eight: Ricky

Chapter Nine: Suzy

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven: Ricky

Chapter Twelve: Suzy

Chapter Thirteen: Medley Family WhatsApp

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen: Ricky

Chapter Sixteen: Suzy

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen: Two Weeks Later: Ricky

Chapter Twenty: Suzy

Chapter Twenty-One: Ricky

Chapter Twenty-Two: Suzy

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four: Ricky

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six: Suzy

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Medley Family WhatsApp

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Ricky

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Suzy

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One: Ricky

Chapter Thirty-Two: Suzy

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four: Ricky

Chapter Thirty-Five: Suzy

Chapter Thirty-Six: Ricky

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Suzy

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Ricky

Chapter Forty: Suzy

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two: Ricky

Chapter Forty-Three: Suzy

Chapter Forty-Four: Ricky

Chapter Forty-Five: Two Months Later: Suzy

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven: Two Weeks Later

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine: Ricky

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One: Suzy

Chapter Fifty-Two: Four Months Later: Arthur

Chapter Fifty-Three: Springtime: Suzy

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

By the same author

About the Publisher

‘Dad,’ I yell, ‘look at that dog!’

I’m running across Silver Beach. I know it so well; every rock, the names of all of the shells, the best places to find flat stones for skimming. I know most of the people we see here – and their dogs – at least to say hi to.

But I’ve never seen this dog before.

I stop and wait for Dad to catch up. ‘That’s the kind I want,’ I tell him.

‘Are you sure?’ he says, smiling. ‘Last time we looked, you said you’d have any kind …’

He means the dog rescue centre websites. I’m always checking them out, seeing which dog I’d adopt if Dad would let me. Not that he will – I realise that. It wouldn’t be fair, I’m out all day, we don’t have a garden, blah-blah-blah. I’ve heard it all a million times. But it doesn’t stop me looking … just in case.

I like reading about dogs too. I know loads of canine facts, like they only sweat from furless areas (their noses, the pads on their feet). And when they see a dog on TV, they actually recognise it as a dog. Some even have their favourite programmes (my friend Lucas’s whippet likes Match of the Day ). Dogs are amazing .

I grab a piece of driftwood and throw it. The dog tears after it and brings it back to me. We do it again and again as Dad strolls about, looking for more sticks.

The dog’s mostly brown, with a patch of white on his chest, and he’s a bit scruffy and skinny. He probably wouldn’t win any of those competitions where the dogs are paraded about in front of judges. I don’t really like those competitions, but maybe the dogs don’t mind. Obviously they can’t say, ‘God, this is boring, having to sit nicely and look neat. Can we go out and play now?’

I like thinking of all those competition dogs sending each other telepathic messages, planning a mass breakout. I mean, they can communicate through sounds, movements and by producing scents – so why not by telepathy too?

A dog is as intelligent as a two-year-old human, I told Dad recently.

That’s amazing. But we’re still not getting one, he said with a smile.

‘I can’t see anyone about,’ Dad’s saying now. ‘Maybe he’s run away?’

‘Yeah, maybe.’ I nod.

‘We should take him to the police station,’ he adds.

‘Can’t we play a bit more?’

Dad checks his watch. ‘No, we really should go. We don’t want to miss the ferry, do we?’

In fact, I wouldn’t mind missing it this time. I don’t really want to go back to Glasgow. And I definitely don’t want to take the dog to the police station. I want to play here all day, like I used to, when it wasn’t just me and Dad who came to the island, but Mum, too.

Sometimes I feel sad being here without her. It didn’t matter so much when I was little – I’d been busy building sandcastles, filling my bucket with seawater to flood moats, all of that. But I’m not little anymore. I’m ten years old and sometimes the sadness seems to creep in, a bit like the seawater that seeps in through my trainers and wets my feet. And I can’t do anything to stop it.

I miss her then. But I’m not missing her now that I have this little dog to play with. We run and run, and I pretend not to hear as Dad calls out: ‘I don’t feel good about leaving this dog on the beach by himself. If we hurry up now, we could drop him off at the police station and we’ll still catch the ferry …’

‘Aw, Dad!’

‘He’s probably run away. And someone’ll be going crazy, looking for him.’ Dad’s looking serious now, properly worried. ‘See if you can catch him. We can use my scarf as a lead …’

‘Can’t we take him home?’ I stare at Dad, wanting him to say yes more than anything. ‘Please, Dad. Please!’

‘I’m sorry. You know we can’t do that.’

‘But he’s lost! Or maybe he’s been abandoned?’ I look back round, expecting to see the dog sitting there, waiting for our stick game to start up again.