Chris Cooper - Rascal - Running For His Life

‘Scram,’ he muttered.

So this man fell into the second group of people – the ones who wouldn’t help Rascal on his long journey home.

Once, Rascal would have simply turned and left, but things were different now. He was starving and here was this glorious sizzle and smell!

Rascal began trotting casually along the pavement past the stand. He kept his eyes forwards and wagged his tail eagerly, as if he was concentrating on what lay directly ahead. He didn’t even glance at the hot dog stand. The man didn’t pay much attention to the dog now, either.

Rascal had almost passed the stand when suddenly he whirled around and jumped up on to his hind legs. His front legs landed against the edge of the counter.

‘Hey!’ yelled the man angrily, but Rascal’s head was already craning forwards. The sausages were hot, but it was OK if he held them between his teeth and made sure that they didn’t touch his tongue.

He managed to get two of them. He would have liked more, but there wasn’t time. As soon as his front paws hit the ground again, he took off.

‘You thieving dog!’ shouted the man furiously.

Just the taste and smell of the food was enough to drive a hungry dog crazy. Rascal fought the temptation to wolf them down there and then. He raced into the park area.

Now that he was running, his front paw had begun to throb a little, but the thought of a hot breakfast acted as powerful medicine.

A boy on a park bench laughed as the dog streaked by him with two sausages hanging out of its mouth. Normally Rascal would have stopped to say hello to a friendly face, but now wasn’t the time for socialising.

Finally, Rascal slumped to the ground, around the other side of a small building in the park and out of sight of the hot dog stand.

The first of the sausages was gone in two snaps of his jaws. His tummy gurgled gratefully. He took his time with the second one. It was hard to say when he would get the chance to eat again. Better make sure he really enjoyed it.

The food was delicious, but there was a part of the dog that wasn’t happy about getting breakfast this way. Back when he was with his family, he had always known that he wasn’t allowed to take food from the table. Oh sure, Joel might take a bite or two of food from his plate and feed it to Rascal under the table. That was different. But Rascal had learned as a puppy that, if he jumped up on to the table, someone – probably Joel’s mum or dad – would frown and say, ‘No! Get down!’ The worst thing they would ever say – when the young Rascal had sampled the Christmas turkey the family was about to tuck into, for instance – was, ‘Bad dog!’

Now there was no human around to say it to him, but the words still formed in the back of his mind: ‘Bad dog!’ Rascal put his head miserably on the grass.

Maybe he was a bad dog? It was a horrible thought, but why else would he be here, alone and so far from home? So far from Joel? A whimper escaped from the dog’s throat as he thought once again about his master. What was Joel doing now? Was he thinking of Rascal?

Usually, Rascal was an observant dog, but all these thoughts of home stopped him noticing what was going on around him that morning. He didn’t see the white van that pulled up alongside the park, or the man and woman that got out of it.

CHAPTER 2

What finally caught his attention was the piercing whistle. He looked up to see two people standing by the van. They wore identical green sweatshirts. The side door of the van was pulled open.

‘Hey!’ shouted the woman, looking right at Rascal. ‘Want to go for a ride?’

She pointed to the inside of the van. Rascal could see an open cage with a blanket on the floor and a rubber chew-toy.

It looked nice and comfortable in there, but Rascal stayed put. His tail thumped with curiosity against the grass as the people began to walk towards him.

‘It’s OK, boy,’ said the man in a voice that was trying hard not to sound threatening. He held out one hand. A doggy treat sat in his open palm – one of Rascal’s favourites, too! A red lead dangled from the woman’s hand.

‘Here you are.’ The man tossed the dog treat on to the grass between them.

‘Breakfast time,’ said the woman. Like the man, she spoke slowly and her voice was kind, but Rascal still held back.

Something wasn’t quite right about this . . .

The man and woman had slowed down, but they were still walking, still getting closer and closer.

The wonderful smell of the treat filled Rascal’s nostrils. His mouth began to water expectantly. More often than not, when there was one doggy treat, there were lots more where that came from!

He got to his feet and took a step forwards. But suddenly a gate in his mind opened and an old, old memory rushed through it. The hairs on the back of Rascal’s neck rose.

Dog catchers! That’s what these two were – dog catchers! If they caught him now, they would take him away in their white van.

Rascal only had a hazy memory of the place Joel and his family had taken him from when he was a puppy – more like a snippet of a dream than a real memory.

But one thing was certain: if these dog catchers took him back to a place like that, he would never see Joel again.

Once he understood this, the decision was made. He’d just have to live without the treat. Rascal swerved to the side and ran.

‘Get him!’ shouted the man, but his partner wasn’t close enough.

‘The collar-trap’s in the van,’ yelled the woman. The man nodded quickly and began to sprint back towards the parked vehicle. The woman ran after Rascal.

Usually the dog would have just run and kept on running. But the pads of his front left paw were hurting again. It was difficult to put much weight on the leg, and that meant it was difficult to run fast.

He turned on to a path that ran between a tennis court and a hedge. The woman followed, but she wasn’t fast enough to catch him.

Rascal paused to give his bad paw a bit of a rest. He looked back at the woman, who was jogging towards him at a steady speed.

Suddenly, there was a noise up ahead of him. It was the man! He must have circled round the other way, and now he was on the path in front of Rascal. He held some sort of big loop in one hand.

The tennis court was surrounded by a mesh fence and the path was too narrow for Rascal to get past either of the dog catchers easily. There was nowhere to go – he was trapped.

But then he spotted a gap in the hedge. It was his only chance.

Rascal charged towards the man, who lunged forwards and flicked the loop in the dog’s direction. It brushed the side of Rascal’s neck, but it didn’t go over his head. That was lucky because the man, still holding the handle, released the thin end of the loop and it snapped down into a tight little circle.