Buttons the Runaway Puppy

Chapter One

“Wait for me!” Sophie called after her twin brothers. She was pedalling as fast as she could, but they were so much bigger than she was, and they’d had enormous new mountain bikes for their birthday last month. There was no way she could catch them up if they didn’t slow down a bit. “Tom! Michael! Wait for me! Please!”

Tom and Michael circled round and hurtled back towards her, braking and pulling up in a cloud of dust.

“Come on, Sophie! You must be able to pedal a
bit
faster,” Michael told her, laughing.

“Aw, now that’s not fair, Mikey, she’s only got little legs.” Tom grinned at Sophie, and she scowled back.

“Can’t we have a rest for a minute anyway?” she begged. “I want to watch the dogs, and this is the best bit of the common for that. I want to see if any of the ones I know are out for walks today.”

“Yeah, I don’t mind,” Tom agreed.

Michael rolled his eyes. “Just for a minute. You’re dog-mad, Sophie Martin!” he told her, grinning.

They wheeled their bikes out of the way of the path, and then slumped on a bench. All three of them stared out across the common, which was packed with dogs and their owners. This was definitely the best place for
dog-watching
: raised up on a little hill, they could see all the way around.

“Look, Sophie, there’s that mad Red Setter you like.” Michael pointed at a dog frisking about on one of the paths, its dark reddish coat gleaming in the sunlight.

Sophie giggled as she watched him running round and round in circles, and worrying at sticks. His owner was trying to get him to fetch a ball, but the big dog was having none of it.

Tom sighed. “If I had a dog, I’d train
it an awful lot better than that one. Poor thing doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going.”

“I don’t think it’s very easy to train a dog,” Sophie said.

“Of course it isn’t,” Tom agreed. “That’s why there’s so many badly behaved dogs around. People can’t be bothered to train their dogs properly, and they just let them do whatever they want because it’s easier than getting them to behave.”

“OK then, if you could have any dog you want, what would you have?” Michael asked. “Mum and Dad keep saying that one day we can. Dad didn’t say ‘no’ straight away last time I asked.”

Tom whistled through his teeth. “Nothing small and yappy. A dog you
could take on proper walks. Maybe a Dalmatian.”

“Mmm, I could go for a Dalmatian. Or a Golden Retriever,” Michael mused. “Wouldn’t it be great to get a dog now, just before the summer holidays? We’d have all summer to go for really long walks.”

Tom nodded. “Don’t get your hopes up. What would you have, Sophie?”

Sophie was staring back down the path that they’d come up. “I’d have a Labrador. But a chocolate one, like Buttons. I
think
that’s her coming up the path now. Oh dear…”

“What’s she done this time?” Tom asked.

Sophie put her hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles, as the
chocolate-brown Labrador puppy danced around her owner, tangling him in her lead.

“Whoops,” Tom muttered, and Michael bobbed up from the bench to see what was going on.

“Ow, that must’ve hurt. Do you think we should go and help?”

Buttons was standing on the path, looking down at her owner in confusion.
What on earth are you doing down there?
she seemed to be saying. Her owner unwrapped her lead from his ankles grimly, and started to heave himself up out of the bramble bush.

Sophie looked at Tom and Michael. “We probably should, but Buttons’s owner is so grumpy, he might shout at us.”

“He’s called Mr Jenkins,” Tom told her. “I heard one of his neighbours talking to him when we walked past his house the other day.”

Michael nodded. “I think Sophie’s right, he’s probably hoping no one saw. We’d better be looking the other way when he comes past.”

All three children stared innocently over the common towards the lake, pretending not to have seen Buttons trip up Mr Jenkins.

“Good morning!” Michael called politely, as the old man walked by, trying to hold Buttons back to heel. Mr Jenkins lived on the next road across from the Martins, with his garden backing on to theirs, so they saw him quite often. Their
mum always said hello when she passed him.

“Hmmph,” Mr Jenkins grunted, and stomped on past.

“You see! So grumpy!” Sophie whispered, as he disappeared down the path.

“Yes, but I’d be grumpy too, if I’d just fallen in a bramble bush,” Tom pointed out.

Buttons appreciated them saying hello, anyway. She looked back and barked in a friendly way as Mr Jenkins hurried her along. She liked those children. They always smiled when they saw her, and the girl had once asked politely to stroke her. Mr Jenkins had let her, and she’d said how beautiful Buttons was and scratched behind her ears as well.

“Come on, Buttons,” Mr Jenkins grumbled, and Buttons sighed. He was cross with her again. She hadn’t
meant
to trip him up. There were so many good smells on the common, and she couldn’t help it if they were on different sides of the path. She’d had to go and investigate them all, and the silly lead had got itself tangled in his legs. It just showed that leads were not a good idea. She much preferred to run along without one. Especially if there were squirrels.

They were coming to the part of the common with the trees now, and there was bound to be a squirrel. Buttons looked up and barked hopefully.

“No, I’m not letting you off your
lead, silly dog,” Mr Jenkins told her, but he patted her lovingly on the head at the same time, and she knew he wasn’t cross any more. “No, because you’ll be in the next county before I catch up with you. I’m sorry, Buttons girl, we need to head home. My legs aren’t what they used to be, especially when I’ve been dragged through a bramble bush. Come on, home now.”

Buttons whined sadly. She understood some words, and
home
was one of them. Not home already? It felt like it hadn’t been a very long walk at all. She wanted lots of walks – in fact a whole day of walks, with a few quick sleeps and a couple of big meals in between, would be perfect.

“Look, Mum, Buttons is in her garden again.” Sophie nudged her mother’s arm as they walked past Mr Jenkins’s house. The summer holidays had started, and it was so hot that they were going to cool off at the pool. “She keeps scrabbling at the fence like she wants to get out. She was doing that yesterday, when I went past on my way to say goodbye to Rachel. I heard her barking loads when I was out in the garden, too.”

Mum stopped and looked thoughtfully over the fence at Buttons. “Have you seen Mr Jenkins about recently?” she asked Sophie. “I haven’t for a while, and I do usually meet him in the shops every so often.”

Sophie shook her head. “Not since that day in the park a couple of weeks ago, when Buttons tripped him up. I definitely haven’t seen him since school finished, and that’s a whole week.”

She sighed. Only one week of the summer holidays gone. She ought to be looking forward to another five weeks off school, but yesterday her best friend Rachel had gone off to Ireland to stay with her family for the whole holiday. Sophie couldn’t imagine what she was going to do all summer, without Rachel’s house to hang out at. She was sick of Michael and Tom already. Not only were they her big brothers, so they thought they could always boss her around, but they were each other’s best friends. They didn’t want their little
sister tagging along the whole time. She and Rachel had promised to keep in touch by email and send each other lots of fun postcards and things. But it wasn’t the same as having your best friend living just round the corner.

Buttons looked up at Sophie and barked hopefully.
Walk? Please?
she begged. She recognized Sophie, who often spoke to her when she went past. Buttons could sometimes hear her in the garden, too. Sophie had a sweet voice and always sounded friendly.

“Poor Buttons, she looks really sad,” Sophie said, wishing she could stroke her. She knew Buttons was friendly, but Mum had made her promise not to stroke dogs without asking the owner first.

“Thinking about it, I did see Mr Jenkins in the supermarket last week, and he was walking with a stick,” Mum said slowly. “I wonder if he hasn’t been able to take Buttons for walks, and that’s why she’s scratching like that. She wants to get out.”

“Sorry, Buttons, we’re going swimming, or else we’d love to take you for a walk. Oh, look, I’m sure she knows what we’re saying, her ears just drooped, and she isn’t wagging her tail any more,” Sophie said as she waved goodbye.

Buttons stared after them with big, sad brown eyes. She hadn’t been on a proper walk in a long time. Mr Jenkins was very good about letting her in and out of the house whenever she wanted, but he just didn’t seem to want to walk her right now. The garden was quite big – it went all round the house from front to back – but it wasn’t the same as walks. Buttons whined sadly, and scratched at the fence again. She thought she might be able to go for a walk by
herself, if she could only get over this fence. Or under it, perhaps.

“Buttons! Buttons!” She could hear Mr Jenkins calling, and her ears pricked up immediately. Maybe he was feeling better, and he wanted to go for a walk after all. She shot round to the back door, which Mr Jenkins was holding open for her.

“There you are! You’ve been out a while, Buttons.” Mr Jenkins stooped down to pat her, holding tight to his stick.