Ben Fogle - Mr Dog and the Seal Deal

TO THE RESCUE! Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Copyright Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Map Dedication Chapter One WHO’S DITZY? Chapter Two TO THE RESCUE! Chapter Three A CRY FOR HELP Chapter Four A TANGLED TALE Chapter Five SEAL SPOTTING Chapter Six DOUBLE DISCOVERY Chapter Seven DELIGHT AND DANGER Chapter Eight A DANGEROUS JOURNEY Chapter Nine THE LAST HOPE Chapter Ten SEALING THE DEAL Notes from the Author About the Author About the Publisher First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2019 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF The HarperCollins website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk Text copyright © Ben Fogle 2019 Illustrations copyright © Nikolas Ilic 2019 Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019 All rights reserved. Ben Fogle and Nikolas Ilic assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively. A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. Conditions of Sale This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Source ISBN: 9780008306397 Ebook Edition © 2019 ISBN: 9780008306403 Version: 2019-05-02 Map Dedication To Willem Chapter One WHO’S DITZY? Chapter Two TO THE RESCUE! Chapter Three A CRY FOR HELP Chapter Four A TANGLED TALE Chapter Five SEAL SPOTTING Chapter Six DOUBLE DISCOVERY Chapter Seven DELIGHT AND DANGER Chapter Eight A DANGEROUS JOURNEY Chapter Nine THE LAST HOPE Chapter Ten SEALING THE DEAL Notes from the Author About the Author About the Publisher

‘Hold on, young bird!’ called Mr Dog.

The gannet was too busy choking to fly away as Mr Dog ran up. Carefully, he gripped the wisp of white plastic with the tips of his teeth and tugged it out from the gannet’s beak. Phew! The bird could breathe again!

‘Puh!’ Mr Dog spat the bit of bag out on to the wet sand. ‘How unpleasant.’

The adult gannet appeared with a warning cry, hissing and waving her wings to scare Mr Dog away from her child.

‘No need for alarm!’ Mr Dog protested. ‘I was helping your little one.’

The young gannet nodded quickly. ‘It’s true!’

Mr Dog held down the bit of bag with a paw. ‘This perishing plastic is a proper peril, isn’t it?’

The mother gannet sighed. ‘There’s so much of it. And when the river flooded a while back it seemed to get much worse.’

‘Oh?’ Mr Dog raised a shaggy eyebrow. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Search me,’ said the gannet.

‘I thought that bit of bag was a fish,’ said the young bird sadly. ‘I got mixed up.’

‘Easily done,’ Mr Dog assured her. ‘Now, I’m going to help these young humans clean up the place so it can’t happen again.’

The mother gannet looked at him. ‘You are a kind dog. I wish I could help you in return.’

‘Hmm, perhaps you can,’ said Mr Dog. ‘Do you know anything about someone called Ditzy?’

‘Ditzy!’ the young gannet piped up. ‘She’s a seal!’

‘A very friendly and popular seal,’ the mother gannet agreed. ‘She used to show off in the harbour every day … then one day, a couple of months ago, she disappeared.’

‘And no one has spotted her since?’ mused Mr Dog.

The mother gannet jabbed her beak back towards the estuary where a river spilled into the harbour. ‘Well, last week, some seabirds I know said they’d seen a small dark seal swimming inland, up the river. But that doesn’t sound like Ditzy. Ditzy was big and grey with darker spots on her face and neck.’

‘It was probably just a dog they saw,’ the young gannet said.

‘Just a dog?’ Mr Dog pretended to look scandalised.

‘Everyone here misses Ditzy,’ the mother went on, ‘including us birds. A lot of tourists came here just to see her, and we would enjoy the food they left behind.’

‘I would love to find her,’ said Mr Dog. ‘I do enjoy a mystery, you know. Why, the “Mister” part of my name is short for “mystery”!’

‘Is it really?’ asked the young gannet.

‘Maybe.’ Mr Dog’s jaws widened in a doggy grin. ‘That’s a mystery too.’ He looked across the beach as two girls with buckets headed their way. ‘It seems we have company – clean-up company! I must help them tidy this beach before there are any more accidents.’

‘Well, thank you again, Mr Dog!’ said the mother gannet and, with a screech and a stretch of wings, the gannet and her youngster took off into the sky.

Mr Dog picked up the strip of white plastic with his teeth, padded across the golden sand to the children and placed it carefully into the older girl’s bucket.

‘Clever boy!’ the girl said, grinning. ‘You’re Mr Tregeen’s new dog, aren’t you?’

You’re almost right, thought Mr Dog with a woof. Mr Tregeen’s my new person!

‘Do you think he’s a hunting dog?’ the girl’s friend wondered. ‘If he is, maybe he could find Ditzy.’

‘I wish someone would.’ The girl shrugged sadly, and they walked away to pick up some more rubbish. ‘The harbour simply isn’t the same without Ditzy splashing about …’

More locals missing Ditzy, thought Mr Dog, watching them go. That girl called me clever, which is quite true … But am I clever enough to solve the mystery of the missing seal? He paddedver to a plastic coffee-cup lid and picked it up in his teeth. I suppose there’s only one way to find out. Once this clean-up is out of the way, it’s time for an adventure!

That summer evening, as the blue sky drifted into grey, Mr Dog lay in the ramshackle old kennel in John Tregeen’s garden. He’d worked hard on the beach, enjoyed a delicious meal of rice and fish afterwards and now he was napping to keep up his energy levels. Tonight, while it was cool and quiet, he would begin his expedition to find the missing Ditzy!

John Tregeen opened the back door of his cottage and peered out at the kennel. ‘You there, boy? Coming inside?’

Mr Dog rose, stretched and went over to the fisherman. He pressed himself against John’s legs to say thank you for his lodging, then turned and padded away to the garden gate.

John smiled. ‘Is it time to say goodbye?’

For now, thought Mr Dog. He gave a quiet woof of farewell to the man in the moonlight, then turned and trotted away on to the footpath that ran alongside the row of fishermen’s cottages. Ahead of him, the sea was silvery dark as it stirred and shifted in the breeze, bobbing the boats in the harbour. The cries of night birds sounded in the distance.

Mr Dog was heading for the estuary, where the river merged with the sea. Then he would follow the course of the river inland. The search for Ditzy had begun!