“He’s got the garden,” she said.

  But even in the garden Ginger did things wrong. He dug holes where he shouldn’t have dug holes and pulled things up that he shouldn’t have pulled up. And then he got hit or shouted at and told he was a ‘Stupid dog’ until in the end he was almost too scared to do anything at all.

  “I told you the novelty would wear off,” said Maisie’s dad. “We ought to find a new home for him.”

  But Maisie didn’t want that. Ginger was her dog and she loved him – when she remembered. Sometimes even now she would throw a ball for him or pick him up and kiss him. Ginger’s heart almost burst with happiness when she did that. Unfortunately, she didn’t do it very often. In fact she did it less and less. Ginger’s tail hardly ever wagged, these days.

  And then half term arrived at Maisie’s school, and Maisie and her mum and dad went off to visit Maisie’s nan and grandad.

  “What shall we do with the dog?” said Dad. “We can’t take it with us.”

  Nan and Grandad didn’t care for dogs.

  “It’s all right, said Mum. “We can leave it in the garden. It’s not going to starve in that short time. It’s only three days, we’ll be back Sunday night.”

  “But suppose it rains?” said Maisie.

  “He can go in the shed,” said Mum.

  So Ginger was left in the garden, with a bowl of water and a dish of dry dog food. He was tied with a length of rope so that he couldn’t reach the flower beds and dig holes, or tear up the flowers. Maisie was going to go and kiss him goodbye but at the last moment she forgot.

  “Oh!” she said, as Dad started the car. “I didn’t say goodbye to Ginger!”

  “You’re not going back now,” said Dad.

  “But, Dad, he’ll wonder where we’ve gone!”

  “Maisie,” said Mum, “it’s only a dog.”

  Ginger may have been only a dog, but he could still feel sad, and lonely, and confused. He could also feel bored.

  He ate up all his food in the first few minutes. What to do next? Every time he tried to go anywhere, the length of rope yanked him back. Right! He would have to get rid of the rope.

  Ginger lay down and started chewing.

  He chewed and he chewed, and by the middle of the morning he had chewed the rope in two.

  By the middle of the afternoon, he had dug an enormous hole in one of the flower beds. He knew they would beat him for it, and yell at him, but it was just such fun! Ginger, after all, was still only a puppy. He couldn’t always control himself. And he had lots and lots of energy! If he wasn’t taken for walks, he had to find some other way of using it up.

  The hole that he dug went right underneath the fence and out the other side. Ginger didn’t know what lived on the other side, but the more he thought about it the more he was tempted to find out.

  He made up his mind: he would go exploring!

  He didn’t rush things. He had never been out in the world before; he wasn’t sure what to expect. His small whiskery face, covered in ginger fur, peered out cautiously from under the fence. He saw pavement, and grass, and trees. It looked inviting! Ginger wriggled his way through.

  Once outside he stood for a moment, sniffing the air, then turned and went trotting up the road. Every now and again he would stop to investigate an interesting smell, and once or twice he passed other dogs, on leads. The other dogs had people with them. The people seemed a bit concerned that Ginger was out on his own. One of them tried speaking to him. He said, “Good boy! Come on, then!” and clicked his fingers, but Ginger wasn’t sure of people any more. It seemed safer to keep away from them. You never knew when they were going to cuff you or give you a kick. Ginger took to his heels, and ran.

  Ginger discovered that there were good things in the outside world, and bad things, too. These were some of the good things:

  An overturned dustbin, spilling out scraps of food. Ginger nosed about for a long time by the dustbin. Dustbins were definitely good.

  A cat sitting on a wall, sunning itself. Ginger still had faint memories of a cat from some time in his past. A big furry one that had purred and let Ginger curl up with him. Cats were good! He liked cats.

  A big red ball, lying in the gutter. Ginger pounced on it, with glee. A toy! He knew about toys. He had had some, once, before Maisie’s mum had thrown them away. (She said they were dirty, which was because Ginger had tried burying them in the garden.)

  The red ball was also quite dirty, but it made a lovely loud squeaky noise when Ginger bit into it. He played with the ball for some time, until in the end it rolled away from him, into the road, where a car squashed it flat.

  Cars were one of the bad things. Ginger was scared of cars. He’d never seen any before and it frightened him the way they roared and belched and rushed along at such a pace. It frightened him even more now that he knew they could squash things flat.

  Another bad thing was a big fierce dog that he met in a doorway. The dog took one look at Ginger and hurled itself at him, snarling and frothing, its lips pulled back over long yellow teeth. It was twice the size of Ginger. It could have snapped him in two with just one bite.

  Ginger screamed with terror and rolled over onto his back. From somewhere a man’s voice yelled, “Sable! Leave!”

  Sable backed off, but not before he had taken a quick snap. Ginger knew what the snap meant: “This is my territory! You keep away!”

  When Ginger wobbled to his feet he discovered that he had made a little puddle on the pavement. He looked round, nervously. Was someone going to hit him and tell him he was a bad boy? Maisie had never hit him, but her mum was always lashing out.

  Ginger was scared of Maisie’s mum. It hadn’t been so bad when Maisie was there to protect him, but Maisie didn’t seem to care about Ginger any more. She didn’t care if her mum shook him or kicked him or hurled him into the garden. He had just become a nuisance.

  Ginger put his tail between his legs and crept away. Away from the puddle and the big fierce dog. He hadn’t known there were dogs that attacked other dogs. It made him feel very small and insecure. He couldn’t trust people, he couldn’t trust dogs. Even the cat on the wall had spat at him when he had jumped up to say hello. Not like the lovely furry one that he remembered from the days when he had lived in a basket.

  Ginger was discovering that the big wide world could be a very frightening place.

  He kept on the move until in the end it grew dark and started to rain, and he thought that perhaps he had better go home. But where was home? Ginger no longer knew. He was lost!

  Some boys were coming towards him, shouting and laughing and kicking tin cans. One of them saw Ginger and called out to him.

  “Doggie, doggie! Come here, doggie!”

  Ginger cowered and slunk away. The boy held out a hand.

  “Here, doggie! Nice doggie! Want some food, doggie?”

  Ginger hesitated. The boy was offering him something. Something that smelt good. It smelt like… chocolate! Ginger remembered chocolate. Maisie had given him a tiny square at Christmas, as a ‘special treat’. He licked his lips. It seemed a long time since he had found the overturned dustbin and nosed out some food.

  Ginger crept forward, low to the ground, his ears flattened and his tail wagging hopefully. The boy held out the chocolate. As Ginger went to take it, a hail of tin cans came smashing into him. Bish! Bosh! Bash!

  The boys guffawed. They thought it really funny.

  “Har har har!” went the boys.

  One of them swooped on a bottle and booted it, very hard, straight at Ginger. The one that had held out the chocolate aimed a kick at Ginger’s head. The others set up a chant.

  “Get the dog, get the dog, get the dog!”

  Ginger turned and ran, as fast as his wobbly puppy legs would carry him. The boys galloped behind, whooping and shouting.

  “Get the dog, get the dog!”

  Ginger’s heart pounded in his rib cage. He had never been so scared in all his life. Another tin can caught him on the shoulder.

  “Get the dog, get the dog!”

  Maddened with fear, Ginger dashed out into the road. A car jammed on its brakes and pulled up with a screech only centimetres away from him. The driver leant out of his window and bellowed, angrily.

  “Get that dog off the road!”

  “It ain’t ours,” said one of the boys. And they went on their way, rather quickly, before they could be accused of causing an accident.

  The driver hooted furiously on his horn. In panic, Ginger bolted – straight down the road, into the path of a large container truck. There was a thub, as Ginger and one of the nearside front wheels came into contact.

  Ginger grunted. His body went hurtling through space. The truck drove on. The driver, sitting high up in his cab, had no idea that he had almost run over a small ginger puppy.

  After a while, the breath came back into Ginger’s body. Slowly and painfully, he picked himself up and went limping off into the shadows, dragging one leg behind him. He was cold, he was wet, he was exhausted. He was also very, very frightened.

  Poor Ginger! He hadn’t known that such terrors existed. He thought of Maisie, who had called him her very own Christmas puppy. Where was Maisie now? Why didn’t she come and help him?

  Maisie couldn’t. She was miles away, at her nan’s. She had no idea that her Christmas puppy had escaped into the big wide world and almost been killed. In any case, she was enjoying herself! She had forgotten all about her Christmas pup.

  Whimpering, Ginger dragged his poor battered body under a hedge and curled himself into a ball. What else could he do? Even if he had known how to find his way home, his people weren’t there. They had gone away and left him.

  Ginger could be dead for all they cared.

  James Colin was running away from home. He had made up his mind. Nobody loved him any more. All they cared about was the baby. Dad had said to him at breakfast, “I’m warning you, my boy! I’m not going to tolerate much more of this sort of behaviour.”

  James had said, “What sort of behaviour?” and brought his spoon down with a satisfying plap into his cereal bowl so that a great shower of milk and Rice Krispies had gone splatting across the table. Some had landed on the baby. Hah!

  Dad had roared, “That sort of behaviour!” and leant over to give James a sharp smack on the hand.

  Mum hadn’t stuck up for him. She hadn’t told Dad that it was an accident and that you shouldn’t ever punish your children by hitting them. All she had said was, “Oh, James, really! Now look what you’ve done!” And she had gone jumping up to see to the baby.

  Fuss fuss fuss! Just because a tiny weeny little drop of milk had landed on it.

  “Your manners are getting worse and worse,” scolded Mum.

  “Manners?” said Dad. “What manners? He hasn’t got any manners! He’s becoming a thoroughly rude and unpleasant little boy and I’m not sure that I like him any more.”

  “Neither do I, when he behaves like that,” said Mum; and she wiped the baby’s face, very tenderly, with a piece of kitchen towel and went, “There, there! All nice and clean again.”

  As if the baby cared! It was always messing itself up. The baby liked being dirty.

  Now it was nine o’clock and Dad was in the shop, serving customers. Mum was in the storeroom, sorting boxes. It was then that James decided: he was going to run away. He would run as far and as fast as he could and they would never see him again. Then they would be sorry!

  He took a plastic carrier bag from one of the kitchen cupboards and began filling it with food. He put in an apple and an orange and a banana. He put in a packet of biscuits and a packet of crisps and a bottle of Coca-Cola in case he got thirsty. He reckoned that should be enough to keep him going.

  Then he opened the kitchen door and crept out, very quietly, so that Mum wouldn’t hear him and come running to fetch him back. He had a sort of feeling that probably, in the end, he would come back, but not until they had appeared on television and begged him.

  In his imagination he saw his mum, with tears streaming down her face, and his dad, very pale, standing beside her.

  “Please, James! Wherever you are… come back to us! We want you, we love you! We didn’t mean to be unkind to you!”

  But that wouldn’t happen until he had been gone for about… six hours. At the very least! They had to have enough time to start getting worried and to be sorry for the way they had treated him. If Mum caught him now she would just get mad at him for helping himself to food. And for going into the road, which he wasn’t meant to do.

  James ran down the garden path and unbolted the back gate. The back gate led into a grassy passage with garages at one end, where James’s dad and his neighbours kept their cars. James thought about going to sit in the garage and get started on some of his food, but he managed to resist the temptation. It wasn’t time to start eating just yet. He was running away!

  He ran as far as the end of the passage. And there he stopped. Something had caught his eye. Something under the hedge. What was it? It looked like a bit of old fur coat – except that old fur coats didn’t whimper. This one was definitely whimpering.

  James set down his carrier bag. He knelt, cautiously, to take a closer look. From under the hedge a pair of eyes peered up at him. It wasn’t a fur coat. It was… a dog!

  The next minute James was racing back up the passage, up the garden path, in through the back door, across the kitchen, out into the hall, shouting as he went: “Mum! Mum! Come quickly! I’ve found something!”

  James’s mum came hurtling out of the storeroom. For once she even left the baby behind.

  “What’s the matter? What is it? What are you shouting about?”

  “I’ve found something, Mum! I think it’s hurt!”

  Together, Mum and James went running down the garden path.

  “Out here!” said James.

  “Out here?” said Mum. “What were you doing out— ”

  “Look!” cried James. “Under the hedge!”

  “Oh!” Mum was down on her knees in an instant. “It’s a puppy! Oh, the poor little thing! It’s absolutely drenched… run, James, and fetch a blanket! Quickly! A blanket or a big towel. Anything will do. Just be quick!”

  James snatched the first thing that he could find. It was a blanket from the baby’s pram, but Mum didn’t even seem to notice.

  “We must get him to the vet,” she said. “Immediately. Go and tell your dad while I get the car out!”

  James ran into the shop. In front of all the customers he shouted, “Dad, I’ve found a puppy and we’re taking him to the vet!”

  “You’re what?” said his dad.

  “Taking him to the vet!” shouted James.

  “What for?” said his dad; but James had already gone hurtling back into the house.

  Mum had taken the baby out with her to the car, but she had left the puppy wrapped in its blanket on the kitchen floor. James squatted down and very gently stroked it.

  “Puppy,” he said. “Poor puppy!”

  The puppy cringed, as if it thought James was going to hit it.

  “It’s all right, puppy!” James spoke crooningly, as he had heard Mum do with the baby. “I’ll take care of you!”

  Mum had come back.

  “I’ll need you with us, James. I’ll need you to keep an eye on the baby.”

  James really didn’t see why the baby couldn’t have been left in the shop with Dad. Did it always have to go everywhere with them? He grumbled about it to his mum. “Why can’t we leave the baby with Dad?”

  “Oh, James! Don’t be difficult,” said Mum. “You know Dad’s busy serving customers.”

  Carefully, Mum picked up the puppy and carried it out to the car. She told James to get into the back with the baby and to hold the puppy next to him.

  “Gently! Don’t hurt him.”

  James sat there, with the puppy on one side of him and the baby on the other. He tried showing the puppy to the baby, but the baby just lay there in its special baby seat, kicking its legs and making the ‘Gaa gaa gaa’ noise that it made when it was happy. It probably thought they were going out in the car just for fun.

  “Sick doggie,” said James. You had to talk to babies in baby talk or they didn’t understand. “Sick doggie, going to vet.”

  “Gaa,” said the baby, blowing a few bubbles.

  James gave up. It didn’t even seem to understand baby talk!

  There was an old lady with a cat in the vet’s waiting room, but she took one look at the puppy and said that Mum had better go in first.

  “That’s very kind of you,” said Mum.

  “Quite all right,” said the old lady. “Felix is only here for his teeth. Your little dog looks very poorly.”

  “He’s not ours,” explained Mum. “James found him under a hedge. We think the poor little thing must have been in some kind of an accident.”

  “The vet will make him better,” said James, “won’t he? Won’t he, Mum? He’ll make him better?”

  “I’m sure he’ll do his very best,” said Mum. “You stay here and look after the baby for me. Can you do that?”

  James made a grunting noise. He supposed he could, if he really had to. He would far rather not have had to. He still didn’t see why it couldn’t have been left in the shop with Dad. It could have been put on the counter in its carry cot and all the customers could have come and ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ at it.

  “I know I can trust you,” said Mum.

  Mum and the puppy went into the surgery. James was left on his own, holding the baby. He felt a bit nervous. He had never held the baby before. Suppose he dropped it? It might break, like Mum’s flowers!

  The old lady leant over to look.

  “Is that your little sister?” she said.