Muzzled (5 page)

“Good luck everyone,” I said after we’d loaded the greyhounds into their respective boxes, closed the doors and stepped up onto the viewing steps.

All around the air crackled with nervous energy as we held our collective breaths waiting for the lids to rise.

A cheeky grin creased Ben’s face. “And may the best dog win—even if the best dog
is
mine.”

“Pull the other one, Benno!”

“Ya gotta be joking, mate. That bag of bones of yours couldn’t run out of sight on a dark night.”

Ignoring the good natured ribbing around him, Ben widened his grin into a cocky taunt. “Hey, at least he doesn’t need spectacles to
find
the lure like your mutt, Jimmy. My dog, Cool Customer, is a sure thing. Reckon he’ll win by the length of the straight.”

Ben’s nose squished and his dark eyes twinkled. Ooh, be still my heart. He looked so cute. If we weren’t surrounded by stewards and trainers I’d have stood on tiptoe and kissed him right on the tip of his squishy nose. Especially as that slutty Mary Parker was draping herself all over him and batting her eyelashes at him.

I sent her a lethal
hands-off-my-man
glare and elbowed Ben in the ribs. “
Your
dog win this race? In your dreams, Benjamin.”

Before Ben could retaliate, the mechanical lure, situated on the rail, fired up with a high-pitched buzz that sent the dogs over the edge, barking and scratching at the grill to get out. As the lure roared past the starting boxes, the lids shot open. I held my breath. Would Lofty jump? Or would he miss the start and find trouble? I needn’t have worried. The pink rug a fashion statement on his red brindle body, Lofty pinged from the outside box, cut straight across the field, and was two lengths in front before they’d passed the winning post the first time around.

I grinned up at Ben. Now it was only a matter of by how far the big ugly dog would win.

Thirty point eight seconds later, Lofty galloped past the post in full stretch and the race caller declared Big Mistake the winner by six lengths. What a star! What a champ! In two weeks’ time, he’d be Gawler’s representative in the final of the Country Championships.

However, instead of lifting my euphoria to an all-time high, the win sent my heart fluttering like a trapped moth inside my chest.

What if I couldn’t keep Lofty safe until then?

5

Ever-increasing traffic snarled bumper to bumper along the main road winding out of Gawler—a once peaceful country town—now no different to any other over-populated suburb.

The thrum of engines labored in slow gear with the honk of impatient horns as I turned off into a back street where hundred-year-old houses rubbed shoulders with modern square blocks of cold concrete. The local fodder store, still showcasing a hitching rail out front, came into view; its grey stone walls roughened by a century of harsh Australian weather. I drove past, inhaled a deep breath, savoring the rural smell of chaff, bran and sweet smelling hay.

“Don’t fret,” I told Stanley, the red brindle greyhound balancing precariously in the back of my station wagon—between four newly purchased bags of kibble and several tins of powdered milk. As I drove over the outdated railway bridge leading out of the sprawling township of Gawler, a passenger train roared underneath, its destination, Adelaide. I waited until Stanley could hear me again before continuing. “Just a couple of quick snips and it will be all over,” I assured him. “You won’t feel a thing, and just think—after that you can move in with a lovely family and maybe have a couch to sleep on in the living room. Maybe even some children to play with.”

The dog didn’t look convinced.

On the way home from the track I’d picked up Stella’s brother, Stanley, from his foster home with, a lady who lived in a hundred-year-old cottage in the heart of Gawler. The tall elegant dog had passed all his GAP tests with ease, including tolerating cats, little fluffy dogs and allowing his foster mum to remove his food before he’d finished eating. He’d even been presented with a special green collar to show he could be walked on the streets without a muzzle now.

There was only one procedure left to face before Stanley was ready for his new adoptive home. The one I was attempting to downplay—neutering.

As though seeking more reassurance, and who could blame the poor guy, Stanley stretched his neck forward and licked my left ear with his hot rough tongue.

“Hey, that tickles.” I laughed and gently pushed him away, then tightened my grip on the steering wheel to maneuver the car around a large concrete roundabout and onto the new highway. “We’ll pay a visit to the vet tomorrow, okay? Not today. Lofty, Witchy, Clark and Bugs are tired and hungry. We need to get them home out of the trailer and into their warm comfortable beds, pronto.”

As though understanding every word I said, Stanley’s tongue scorched a hot damp trail across the sensitive skin at the back of my neck. I reached behind with one hand and ruffled his ears. “I know, I know, that’s fine with you. You’re not in any hurry to visit the vet either.”

By the time I pulled into the Angle Vale shopping center and parked the car and dog-trailer outside the delicatessen where I always bought ice-cream for the dogs after racing, tiredness enveloped me. I was so looking forward to the familiar sight of my own front gate topped by the sign that said,
McKinley Greyhound Kennels
. It had been one heck of a day. What with Ben
borrowing several very energetic cups of sugar
, the mystery of why and who stole Stella, worrying whether the dog-napper actually had his beady eyes on Lofty, plus the excitement of winning three races—I was all ready for a night in—with the kennel-house double-padlocked, my front door secure and my feet up.

Maybe watching something light and fluffy that didn’t overtax my tired brain, like
Death at a Funeral.

When I pushed open the shop door and set the overhead bell tinkling, Nona, the grey haired, stooped matriarch of the Makris family, gave me a bright gummy smile of recognition. She reached for the box of cones under the counter. “Good afternoon, Katrina,” she said, her dark eyes alive and twinkling and belying her grand old age of eighty nine. “How many today, dear?”

“Let’s see. Four in the trailer and one in the car. That makes five scoops of vanilla today, thanks, Nona.”

“And you? You like some of my Petar’s home-made ice cream too? He does good job. No?”

“He does good job.
Yes
!” My taste buds already salivating at the thought of being seduced by Petar’s home made recipe, I studied the twelve available flavors in the tubs on the other side of the see-through plastic screen. Petar Makris’s ice-cream was the toast of the North. Absolutely mouth-wateringly yummy. The taste of the fruit dripped off the tongue as the cold confection slipped down the throat.

“Let’s see,” I mused and leaned closer, all the better to select a flavor. But which one? I loved them all. Blueberry? Tutti-frutti? Lemon Sherbet? Chocoholic’s Delight? I shook my head. “Mrs. Makris, you can tell your son from me that he makes it almost impossible for his customers to make a decision. Doesn’t matter which flavor ice cream I select, there’s another eleven I’ve missed out on. Okay, today’s choice is… Eeney, Meeney, Miney, Mo… Banana Dream.”

“You make good decision, Katrina. My favorite too.”

“Bet you say that to all your customers,” I said and grinned. “No matter which flavor they choose.”

Her toothless smile as she dug deep into the banana ice cream with her metal scoop and delivered a large portion to my cone, proved me right.

I paid, said my farewells, and juggling three ice creams precariously in each hand, turned away from the counter. Couldn’t wait to see the expression of delight on the dogs’ faces when I opened their trailer doors and they got an eyeful of their treat. Although to be honest, in the past, the dogs barely tasted their gourmet treat. Especially Clark. One swallow and the entire ice cream—cone and all—was no more. I wondered if dogs suffered from an ice-cream headache? If so, I wouldn’t like to be in Clark’s shoes. Or head afterwards.

“What that boy doing at your car?”

Nona’s voice, shrill in protest, came from behind me.

“Qeek, Katrina! Dog will get loose!”

Pushing through tiredness and jumbled thoughts regarding Clark’s ice cream headache, I looked through the shop window, my gaze settling on my car and trailer which I’d parked lengthwise beside the gutter in front of the shop. A tow haired boy of about eight or nine wearing khaki cargo pants, the crotch drooping around his knees, was in the act of opening the rear door of my car. Damn kid. Where was his mother?

“Hey, you! Kid! Get away from there!”

Racing from the shop to give the boy a good telling off, my mouth gaped so wide I almost swallowed a fly. The kid had a slip lead in his hand
and
he was sliding the lead over Stanley’s head. What the heck was going on around here? Had someone started up a Dog-napping Class 101 at the local Community college and somehow let the instruction handbook spill into primary school curriculums around the state?

Luckily the author of the handbook had failed to write a chapter explaining the insatiable greed of some dogs on the dog-napping hit list. After licking the boy’s face and preparing to jump out of the car and go for a walk with his new friend, Stanley glanced up and spotted me—or should I say the ice creams in my hands. His eyes lit up, his smile widened into the size of a ball park and with a woof of pure joy he yanked the lead from the boy’s hand and zeroed in on me.

“No, Stanley! Staaaay! Siiiiit!”

Instinctively I covered my face with both ice-cream filled hands. There was no way known to man or beast that Stanley was going to stop his mad charge. And I knew it. In fact, I barely got the words out of my mouth before thirty five kilos of red brindle determined canine hurled itself at me. My puny body didn’t stand a chance. The dog’s tunnel vision was programmed on one thing only—expensive gourmet ice creams.

Tongue already slurping, Stanley landed in a heap on top of me and as we both hit the pavement in a tangle of arms, legs, and paws I let out a loud
oof!
Two iced confections mashed into my face and ran down my chin onto my shirt while Stanley chased and expertly caught those that shot in the air in four different directions. A vague thought skipped through my mind as I lay flat on my back staring at the sky.

Why me? Surely this only happens to people in comic books?

Through blurred vision caused by mashed and fast-melting vanilla and banana ice-cream, I transferred my gaze to the Holden parked behind my trailer. Why did it look familiar? The windscreen was scratched and the noise and vibration from the car’s exhaust had the doors rattling. And then it hit me. Bloody Purple Pants was at it again. I should have known he was behind the attempted dog-napping. Desperately, I grabbed at the dangling lead around Stanley’s neck and held on.

You’re not getting
this
dog, buster!

The guy most likely to be voted No. 1 in the Substandard Crook of the Year Award stuck his head through the car’s open window, his leathery forehead furrowed in an angry frustrated frown. “Shut your mouth and run!” he snarled to the boy dithering beside my car and then with a clash of gears he followed his own advice and roared from the shopping center, leaving a trail of smoke in his wake.

Had PP—aka Purple Pants—been following me since I left the track? Had he noticed the red brindle dog in the back seat of my car, and, believing it was Lofty, enlisted the help of a passing kid to steal the dog?

That’s it. I’d had enough. Time to show this long-in-the-tooth, ham-handed robber-in-training exactly who he was tangling with. Time
Miss Nice Girl
went out-for-lunch and my alter-ego,
Bombshell Chick
hijacked the show.

Up until now, I’d been sitting back allowing this thug to intimidate me. Trespass on my property. Steal my dogs. Hurt Stella. Well, not any more…

From now on Mr. Purple Pants was in for one heck of a fight.

6

My kick-ass,
Miss Bombshell Chick
persona commandeered the wheel of the car all the way home. I hung onto the steering wheel as though it might do a runner, swore at slow moving traffic and entertained myself by imagining wringing PP’s scrawny neck. Very slowly. And with a beatific smile on my face.

However, after a night spent refereeing three recalcitrant greyhounds and a very snotty Chihuahua, my tough, positive
facade began to wilt. So much so, when I woke the following morning—an hour after my normal six o’clock start—I was more a deflated balloon than a feisty female Tarzan.

“Get off me, you big dodo!” I shouted, shoving at the thirty five kilo dog stretched across my chest. Stanley opened one eye, then, deciding he could still manage to sleep without using me as a mattress, closed it again.

Snuggled beside me, black head sharing my pillow, Lucky gave a sharp woof to get my attention, then smiled up at me. “And
you’ve
got nothing to grin about, madam.” I gave her a mock scowl and she replied with an even wider grin and a slurp to my nose. “Dogs who run around the house with the remote control in their mouth and turn the television on full blare at 3 am usually find themselves living back in the kennel block.” I shook my head at her. Tutted. “This is
so
not like you, Lucky.” More licks, this time with her head off the pillow so she could give my cheek her full treatment. “You should have shown our guests the correct way to behave inside the house—not acted like Queen of the Underbelly Gang.”