The Invisible Dog Read online

  Contents

  ONE: The Lead and Collar

  TWO: The Name

  THREE: The Price

  FOUR: The Show

  FIVE: The Tea Leaves

  SIX: The Money

  SEVEN: The Kennels

  EIGHT: The Twist

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  PUFFIN BOOKS

  The Invisible Dog

  Dick King-Smith served in the Grenadier Guards during the Second World War, and afterwards spent twenty years as a farmer in Gloucestershire, the county of his birth. Many of his stories are inspired by his farming experiences. He wrote a great number of children’s books, including The Sheep-Pig (winner of the Guardian Award and filmed as Babe), Harry’s Mad, The Hodgeheg, Martin’s Mice, The Invisible Dog, The Queen’s Nose and The Crowstarver. At the British Book Awards in 1991 he was voted Children’s Author of the Year. In 2009 he was made OBE for services to children’s literature. Dick King-Smith died in 2011 at the age of eighty-eight.

  Discover more about Dick King-Smith at:

  www.dickkingsmith.com

  Some other books by Dick King-Smith

  BLESSU

  THE CROWSTARVER

  DINOSAUR SCHOOL

  DINOSAUR TROUBLE

  DUMPLING

  FAT LAWRENCE

  THE FOX BUSTERS

  GEORGE SPEAKS

  THE GOLDEN GOOSE

  HARRY’S MAD

  THE HODGEHEG

  THE INVISIBLE DOG

  THE JENIUS

  JUST BINNIE

  LADY DAISY

  THE MAGIC CARPET SLIPPERS

  MAGNUS POWERMOUSE

  MARTIN’S MICE

  THE MOUSE FAMILY ROBINSON

  POPPET

  THE QUEEN’S NOSE

  THE SCHOOLMOUSE

  THE SHEEP-PIG

  SMASHER

  THE SWOOSE

  UNDER THE MISHMASH TREES

  THE WATER HORSE

  ONE

  The Lead and Collar

  Rupert died when Janie was only two, so she didn’t really remember anything about him.

  She knew what he looked like, of course – there were lots of photos of him: on his own, or with Mum or Dad, and one she specially liked of herself as a toddler sitting on the lawn with Rupert standing beside her. She was just sorry she’d never known him.

  ‘Mum,’ Janie said one day, ‘how long ago did Rupert die?’

  ‘Oh, let’s see,’ her mother said. ‘He died when you were two and now you’re seven. So – five years ago.’

  ‘And how old was he?’

  ‘He was eight.’

  ‘That’s not very old for a dog, is it?’ Janie said.

  ‘Not for most dogs,’ her mother said, ‘but then Rupert was very big, a giant really. Great Danes don’t usually live as long as smaller dogs.’

  ‘What did he die of?’

  ‘Kidney failure.’

  ‘Were you and Daddy sad?’

  ‘Terribly.’

  ‘Is that why we’ve never had a dog since?’

  ‘I suppose it is, really. We talked about getting a puppy, but somehow it seemed as though no other dog could replace Rupert, so we never did.’

  ‘What kind of puppy would you have got?’ asked Janie.

  ‘Oh, a Great Dane again, I think. We wouldn’t want any other sort of dog. But they’re awfully expensive to buy and awfully expensive to keep.’

  ‘Shall we ever have another one, d’you think?’

  ‘I don’t know, darling,’ Janie’s mother said. ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘We’ll see’, Janie knew, always meant ‘probably not and don’t go pestering me about it or it’ll be certainly not’. So she thought she’d better drop the subject.

  However, the spirit of the late great Rupert must have decided otherwise, for only a few days later Janie came by chance upon something she’d never set eyes on before.

  She was hunting about at the back of the garage, where her father had his workbench, looking for an oil can to oil her bike, when she saw something hanging high on a nail in a dark dusty corner.

  It was a dog collar with a lead attached.

  Janie climbed up on to the bench and took it down.

  The collar was a very big, broad, brass-studded one with a round metal disc attached to the buckle. She rubbed the disc clear of dust and there, scratched on the face, was the name RUPERT and, underneath, their telephone number.

  Janie put the collar to her nose. It smelt of leather and dog, and just for a moment it made her feel sad to think that this faint smell was all that was left of the creature whose great neck the collar had encircled. How many hundreds of times in his eight years of life would he have gone for a walk wearing it, with Mum or Dad holding the end of the thick plaited lead?

  Janie went out of the garden gate and wandered up the lane, the loop of the lead in her left hand, the empty collar dangling. She looked down at the thick leather circlet and imagined the shape and sweep of the great neck, the Great Dane neck, within it. She saw the dog clearly in her mind’s eye as it walked beside her.

  Lost in a daydream, she almost bumped into Mrs Garrow, an elderly widow who lived alone in one of the cottages at the top end of the village.

  ‘Hullo, Janie! Where are you off to then?’ said the old lady with a loud laugh. Mrs Garrow’s laugh sounded like nothing so much as a duck quacking.

  ‘I’m taking my dog for a walk,’ Janie said.

  ‘I can see that,’ said Mrs Garrow, and she put out a hand and patted the air behind the dangling collar, just where the dog’s back would have been.

  ‘Who’s a good boy then?’ said Mrs Garrow. ‘He’s looking ever so well, Janie; you must be proud of him. Make sure you keep him on the lead, mind; there’s a lot of traffic in the lane these days,’ and she went on her way, quacking loudly.

  Some people never grow too old for games of make-believe, thought Janie. That’s nice. And two can play at that.

  ‘Heel!’ she said, and she walked on, the invisible dog pacing at her side.

  TWO

  The Name

  After Janie had gone to bed that night, her parents were talking.

  ‘I see Janie’s got hold of old Rupert’s collar and lead,’ her father said.

  ‘Yes,’ her mother said. ‘She’s been carrying it around all day. It’s lying beside her bed now.’

  ‘When I arrived home from work,’ her father said, ‘she was so engrossed with it I don’t think she even heard the car. She was walking round the lawn, dangling the collar and talking away to an imaginary animal. Every now and then she’d stop and say, ‘Sit!’ and then after a bit she’d say, ‘Heel!’ and walk on again.’

  ‘I know. I can only think she must have a very vivid imagination to play a game like that for so long.’

  ‘Has she been pestering you to get a puppy?’

  ‘No. It would be nice though, David, wouldn’t it? One day.’

  ‘Another Great Dane?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Sally,’ Janie’s father said. ‘They’re awfully expensive to buy and awfully expensive to keep. I mean, these days a decent Dane puppy costs over three hundred pounds.’

  ‘You know that, do you?’

  ‘Well … yes, I just happened to notice an advertisement. And as for feeding a growing pup – well, you can reckon on over six hundred pounds a year.’

  ‘So we can’t afford one?’

  ‘No. You weren’t seriously thinking of getting one?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right then.’

  At breakfast next morning they both noticed that the loop of the lead was round Janie’s left wrist as she ate, the collar on the floor beside her.

  ‘Do we have to have that dirty o
ld thing at the table?’ her father asked.

  ‘He’s not a dirty old thing,’ Janie said.

  ‘He? I’m talking about the collar and lead.’

  ‘Oh sorry, Dad, I thought you were talking about my dog.’

  ‘It’s a funny thing,’ her mother said, ‘but Daddy and I can’t actually see a dog.’

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ said Janie. ‘He’s invisible.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘No you don’t, Mum.’

  ‘I mean, I hear what you’re saying. By the way, what do you feed him on?’

  ‘Invisible food.’

  ‘In an invisible dish?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Think of the money you’re saving,’ Janie’s father said, ‘never having to fork out for dog meat or biscuits. Can’t cost you a penny.’

  ‘Of course it does, Daddy. When we go shopping today, you wouldn’t believe how much I shall have to spend.’

  ‘Invisible money?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Has he got a name, this invisible dog?’ her mother asked.

  ‘Well, no, not yet,’ said Janie. ‘I haven’t decided.’

  ‘Have you decided what breed he is?’ her father said.

  ‘Oh honestly, Daddy!’ said Janie. ‘I should have thought that you’d have known a Great Dane when you saw one.’

  ‘You could just call him Rupert,’ her mother said. ‘That’s what’s written on his collar, after all.’

  ‘No,’ said Janie. ‘I think this dog ought to have a different name, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ they said.

  ‘I mean, he’s quite a different colour, isn’t he?’

  ‘Is he?’ they said.

  ‘Rupert was a fawn dog, with a black mask,’ Janie’s father said.

  ‘Whereas this one,’ Janie’s mother said, ‘is … um … well … what would you say, Janie?’

  ‘Black with white splodges,’ said Janie. ‘Or white with black splodges, whichever you like to say.’

  ‘A harlequin Great Dane!’ they cried. ‘Of course.’

  ‘So he really needs a sort of black-and-white name, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Like Magpie, you mean?’ said her mother.

  ‘Or Zebra,’ said her father.

  ‘Or Panda.’

  ‘Or Penguin.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Janie, ‘but I don’t like any of those names. I think I’ll just call him Spotty.’

  ‘You can’t!’ they cried with one voice. ‘You can’t call a harlequin Great Dane “Spotty”. It’s not dignified enough.’

  ‘He’s my dog,’ said Janie, and she put down a hand and stroked an invisible back, ‘so I can call you Spotty if I want to, or Tom, Dick or Harry.’

  ‘He liked “Harry”,’ said Janie’s father, looking down at the collar lying on the floor. ‘He wagged his tail a bit when you said “Harry”.’

  Janie’s mother raised her eyes to heaven.

  ‘Oh honestly, David!’ she said. ‘You’re as bad as she is. No doubting where she gets it from.’

  ‘Harry,’ said Janie. ‘I quite like that.’

  ‘Or perhaps Henry,’ said her father. ‘That’s a bit more dignified.’

  ‘Henry?’ said Janie. ‘Henry! Yes, you’re right, Daddy. He’s wagging his tail like mad now. Henry it is!’

  THREE

  The Price

  All this happened towards the end of the holidays and, as the new term approached, Janie’s parents began to wonder if Henry would be taken to school.

  They worried at the thought of their child doing lessons or playing games or eating her lunch, always attached to the lead and collar. It was all very well to make-believe at home, but whatever would the teachers think?

  They waited, a little nervously, for the first day of term.

  ‘Got all your school things ready?’ her father said at breakfast.

  ‘Yes.’

  Her mother drew a deep breath.

  ‘You’re not taking Henry, are you, darling?’ she said.

  ‘Oh honestly, Mummy!’ said Janie. ‘You know we’re not allowed pets at school, not even a gerbil, let alone a Great Dane. But he can come in the car with us, can’t he?’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Of course.’

  ‘And then he can go back home with you once you’ve dropped Daddy off at the station.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘You’ll have to exercise him, Mum.’

  ‘Take him for a walk, d’you mean?’ her mother asked nervously.

  ‘No, just let him out for a run in the garden. Mind you take his lead off or he’ll trip over it. Just let him out at lunch time, that’ll be enough. After all, we don’t want Henry making a mess in the house. Specially an invisible mess.’

  ‘I wonder what it would be like,’ said her father thoughtfully, ‘stepping in an invisible dog mess?’

  When, however, her mother drove to fetch Janie at the end of the school day, she found that she had forgotten something. As they came out of the playground and reached the car, parked at the roadside, Janie looked in at the back seat and made a little noise of disappointment.

  ‘Oh, Mum!’ she said. ‘You left Henry at home.’

  Janie’s mother stopped herself on the verge of saying, ‘No, he’s there all right, it’s just that he’s invisible.’ From then on she was always careful, whenever she collected Janie, to have put the collar at one or other end of the back seat and the lead ready for Janie to clip on when they arrived home.

  ‘Have you told them at school?’ Janie’s mum said, a few days later.

  ‘Told who?’

  ‘Your friends.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘About Henry.’

  ‘No. But I told our teacher,’ said Janie.

  ‘What! That we’d got a Great Dane?’

  ‘No. Just that we might have one, one day. Another one, I mean, as well as Henry.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Well, we might, Mum, mightn’t we? You never know what’s going to happen.’

  ‘I do,’ her mother said, ‘and we aren’t. Your father wouldn’t consider it.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘You ask him.’

  So when her father came home from work that evening, Janie did.

  She didn’t for one moment think that he’d say yes, though she half hoped for a ‘We’ll see’, which would mean there might be a chance, but he simply said, ‘No, of course not. Can’t afford it.’

  ‘How much would a puppy cost then?’ Janie said. ‘A Great Dane puppy, I mean. A harlequin Great Dane.’

  Her father stopped himself on the verge of saying ‘three hundred pounds’. Possibly that was a guess on the low side, he thought, and probably harlequins are more expensive than other colours, and anyway, if I say a really high price she’ll forget the whole silly business.

  ‘Five hundred pounds,’ he said.

  Janie looked down at the collar, dangling as usual from its lead, and patted an invisible head.

  ‘D’you hear that, Henry?’ she said. ‘Just think what you must be worth.’

  ‘You stick to Henry,’ her father said.

  ‘I could save up my pocket money,’ Janie said.

  ‘Take you about ten years.’

  ‘Just think! I’d be seventeen,’ said Janie, ‘nearly eighteen, and then I’d be grown up and you wouldn’t be able to stop me buying a Great Dane puppy.’

  ‘I’m not stopping you buying one now,’ her father said. ‘Just so long as you’ve got the money. You come along with five hundred pounds and then …’

  ‘And then what, Daddy?’

  ‘Then we’ll see.’

  FOUR

  The Show

  Janie’s birthday was in the early part of January, and for a treat each year she was always taken to London – to the Zoo, or Madame Tussaud’s, or the Tower, or the Natural History Museum.

  ‘What shall we do for Janie’s birthday outing this year?’ her mother said. ‘Can y
ou think of something a bit out of the ordinary?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I can,’ Janie’s father said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cruft’s.’

  ‘Cruft’s Dog Show?’

  ‘Yes. Might be rather fun, don’t you think?’

  ‘Which day? It’s a four-day show, I seem to remember.’

  ‘Oh, the fourth day, I think.’

  ‘Why? No, don’t tell me, David; I can read you like a book. Great Danes are judged on the fourth day. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, yes. I mean, I know they’re your favourite breed, Sally.’

  ‘Not by any chance yours too?’

  ‘Well, yes. But I just thought it might be fun for Janie.’

  ‘I see. Don’t you think it might be a bit hard on the child? She may not be satisfied with an invisible Great Dane. It isn’t as if you had any intention of buying a puppy.’

  ‘No,’ said her husband. ‘Though I told Janie she could buy one.’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘I said that if she came along with five hundred pounds clutched in her hot little hand, then I wouldn’t stop her buying a Dane puppy.’

  ‘You say the stupidest things sometimes. Next thing you know, she’ll be robbing a bank.’

  ‘Well, shall we go to Cruft’s or shan’t we?’

  ‘Ask Janie.’

  ‘A dog show?’ Janie said when the idea was put to her. ‘What dog show?’

  ‘Cruft’s. The biggest of them all. There’ll probably be something like twenty thousand dogs there altogether. Of every breed.’

  ‘Great Danes?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Harlequin Great Danes like Henry?’

  ‘Sure to be some. Though they’ll look a bit different from Henry.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, you can’t see him too well.’

  ‘Can he come to Cruft’s?’