The Puppy who was Left Behind

Chapter Two

“So are you ready to get going?” Grandad asked, smiling at Anna.

Anna nodded excitedly. She was standing on the bank, ready to cast off the mooring ropes. And Grandad was at the tiller, about to start the engine. They were going to set sail at last!

Mum had had to head home after lunch and a quick cup of tea. She was an illustrator and she had a lot of work on at the moment, which was why Anna was coming to stay on the boat. She could have stayed at home, but Mum wouldn’t have been able to do anything very exciting with her, and Dad was out at work every day. Anna didn’t really fancy spending the time just watching TV or lounging around in the garden.

She would have loved to go off exploring with Fred, but Mum and Dad weren’t happy about her being on her own. Anna had tried to argue that Fred would be with her, but it hadn’t convinced them. Fred hadn’t helped much, either. He’d walked in while they were talking, carrying his lead as though he were an angelic dog. But when Anna had taken it out of his mouth, the lead had fallen apart, because he’d chewed it all the way through. After that it was quite hard to claim that Fred was supersensible and they would be fine…

Luckily, Gran and Grandad were spending the summer on their canal boat, the Hummingbird, and were going to be passing quite close to where Anna and her parents lived. They’d happened to ring up for one of their regular chats, and Gran had asked Anna if she was looking forward to the summer holidays.

“Sort of,” Anna had told her doubtfully. “But Mum’s got to work for the first bit of the holidays so she can get everything done before we go away.”

“Oh yes, she did tell me that,” said Gran. “She’s got a big piece of work to finish off, hasn’t she?”

“Yes.” Anna sighed. “It’ll be nice not having to get up and go to school, but it isn’t really going to feel like the holidays. Not if we can’t go out and do stuff. Usually we do trips and go off on our bikes with a picnic. Mum says she’ll try and arrange for me to go and see Lucy and Jenna – you know, my friends from school. But it isn’t the same if we can’t have them back round to our house, too.”

“Mmm, I see what you mean…” Gran said thoughtfully. “Anna, I’ll have to ask your mum and dad, of course, but would you like to come and stay on the boat with us for a few days? That would give your mum lots of time to get her work done and you wouldn’t be stuck inside all day.”

“Just me?” Anna gasped. “On the boat? Oh, I’d love it! Would we actually get to sail? I mean, we wouldn’t just be moored up on the bank?”

“Of course! Your mum and dad could drop you off, and then pick you up again a few days later, somewhere further down the canal.”

“Fantastic!” Anna said gleefully. “Oh… Oh, but Gran, I’ve just thought. What about Fred? I was planning to play with him lots in the garden. Mum’s going to be so busy – she said he’d just have to make do with a couple of short walks every day. If he’s just with Mum and there’s no one to play with him, he’ll get all naughty and jumpy and start chewing things. Well,” she added honestly, remembering the lead, “I mean, he’ll chew things even more than he does already.”

“Yes, I’d forgotten about Fred.” Gran was silent for a moment, and Anna could tell she was thinking. “I don’t see why you couldn’t bring him, too. You could take him for some lovely runs along the towpath. Perhaps you could race me and Grandad in the boat!”

Anna giggled. She would probably win. Canal boats were good, but they weren’t really built for getting anywhere fast.

She had passed the phone over to her mum, with a pleading, hopeful look, and it had all been arranged. Mum would drop off Anna and Fred at the boat on Thursday, the first day of the holidays, and she would stay for a week.

Anna had been to visit her grandparents on the boat before, but only for the day, and they had always stayed on the mooring – more like being in a house than a boat. So she was really excited to be setting off down the canal at last.

She heard the rumble of the engine starting up. Grandad was getting ready for them to pull away from the bank! Fred nuzzled the back of her knee with his cold nose and whined. Anna had kept him on his lead – there wasn’t a lot of space on the boat, and even though Fred was only five months old, he was already getting big. His long, plumy tail was just at the right height to sweep Gran’s ornaments off the shelves set into the side of the saloon – the boat’s little living room. Plus everyone seemed to keep falling over him, especially Grandad. He’d tripped over Fred at least twice, and then when Fred hid under the table, Grandad trod on his tail, which was sticking out.

But Anna’s real worry was the water. Even though it was a beautiful day, the canal still looked freezing. And deep. Anna wasn’t tempted to swim in it at all, but she had a horrible feeling that Fred might be.

When they’d first climbed into the little well deck at the front of the boat, he kept trying to lean over the side, sniffing excitedly at the water. Anna didn’t quite understand what it was that smelled so good, but then she didn’t think it was fun to eat slugs, either, which were another of Fred’s favourites.

It didn’t help that ducks kept swimming past and circling hopefully round the bow of the boat, just in case anyone fancied throwing them some bread.

The first time he saw the ducks, Fred froze, so excited he could hardly move. Once he’d decided they were actually real and not something that he’d dreamed up, he let out three huge, ear-splitting barks and yanked as hard as he could on his lead. He scrabbled frantically at the side of the boat with his claws, trying to throw himself overboard to catch the tempting feathery things.

“Fred!” Anna gasped, clutching at his lead. “Hey, come back!”

The ducks suddenly found something interesting to go and look at close to the other bank, and Mum had grabbed hold of Fred’s collar, helping Anna to haul him back.

Fred carried on growling for a bit, before he finally gave up and accepted that they’d gone.

“Wow…” Anna muttered. “I didn’t think about ducks. He was almost straight in. Is there such a thing as a dog lifejacket?”

She had a lifejacket on herself – Gran had explained that they knew she wasn’t silly enough to fall in, but accidents did sometimes happen and it was better to be safe.

“I’m sure you can get them. Does Sunny have a lifejacket?” Mum asked, glancing over at the black Labrador, who was sunbathing on the roof of the boat. He was asleep, or he seemed to be, but Anna noticed he had one eye half-open, as though he was keeping watch. She had a feeling he was partly watching for Fred, in case he did something awful.

Gran shook her head. “No… He’s actually a very good swimmer. And he’s so sensible, we’ve never thought we needed one.”

Anna sighed. “Was Sunny sensible even when he was a puppy?”

“I think he was…” Grandad frowned, trying to remember.

Anna nodded. It made sense. She found it difficult to imagine perfectly behaved Sunny as a puppy at all!

Gran shook her head. “He certainly wasn’t! Don’t you remember my best pink shoes?”

Grandad laughed. “Yes! How could I forget?”

Gran sighed. “Oh, they were lovely, those shoes. I still miss them. He chewed one of them to pieces! The other shoe was still perfect and somehow that made it even worse!” She gave Anna a hug and rubbed Fred’s ears. “Fred will settle down, don’t worry. I don’t think Irish Setters are quite as … obedient as Labradors, but he just needs to grow up a bit.”

Anna nodded gratefully, feeling a bit better. She looked up at Sunny, trying to imagine him with a pink shoe dangling out of his mouth.

Sunny snorted a little and laid his nose on his paws, as though he’d never done anything like that in his life.

Fred gave up on the ducks after that. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t allowed off the lead. Usually when they went out to the woods or the park, he could go racing away. He loved to run, but there wasn’t a lot of running space on the boat. It was only a few paces wide, for a start. And there wasn’t a hallway to race up and down like there was at home. There didn’t seem to be a garden either, only the long pathway at the edge of the water.

Fred was just as unsure about the water as Anna was. He’d never seen so much of it in one place before and he definitely thought it looked cold, too. But when he’d seen the ducks, somehow he forgot to worry about that.

He peered up at Sunny, who was still snoozing on the roof. He didn’t understand how Sunny could sleep through the loud rattling rumble of the engine. Perhaps he was just used to it. If Sunny would only wake up, maybe they could go running together. Fred was pretty sure he would be the fastest. He always was.

Sunny was watching him, Fred realized. This was his boat, Fred could smell that it was. He huffed and turned round on Anna’s feet so that he wasn’t looking at the bigger dog any more.

He was starting to wish they were back home.