Lost! The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog Read Free Page A

seen except acold streak of light low down in the east. A new day.

    I was glad to be awake. I don’t want to have another dream like that. Not ever.

5 In the Company of a Killer
    I woke up so hungry I could have eaten a hippopotamus, but there wasn’t one. Just as well really. They’re a lot bigger than I am. I was desperate for food. A dog like me needs regular meals. If I’d been at home Trevor Two-Legs would have put a big bowl of something scrummy-yummy in front of me. And if I’d been in a town it would have been easy. There’s always lots of nosh lying about because those two-legs, they drop stuff, and also there are litter bins. And also also also there is daylight robbery. (Which I am quite good at.)
    You hang around a food shop and when nobody is looking you snaffle a roast chicken or something. Do you know what the best target is?I will tell you — a two-legs coming out of a burger bar. There they are stepping through the doorway with a big, fat burger and they’re trying to cram it into their big, fat mouth. Easy nosh!

    You have to plan this and time everything just right. This is how it’s done:
    1. Check distance to door. Allow at least five metres.
    2. Check area for any two-legs. Make sure you have a clear run to the door and a clear getaway. Don’t let any two-legs get in the way.
    3. Check timing.
    Timing is really important. The two-legs with the burger has to be lifting the bun to his mouth at the right speed and the right time. If they are then that’s your moment. Your paws scrabble madly on the pavement, whizz-whizz-whizz , and you hurl yourself forward like an Outer-Space-Galaxy-Fighter-Rocket-Plane on a bombing run to blow up the Death-Star-Thingy-Whatsit — FWWOWWWWW !
    Three bounds and you have reached top speed and now you launch yourself through the air, flying in a graceful arc and you dive right between two-legs’s face and the paw with the burger. With a tiny neat twist of your head you snatch the Death-Star-Thingy-burger from hispaw just before it disappears into his mouth and you’re away! You land on the far side and you’re off at top speed, whoosh-whizz, chomping the burger as you go. Job done. Yum yum yum!
    I love doing that!
    Just don’t make the same mistake I did once. I waited in ambush outside a burger place. The door opened and out came a two-legs right in the act of raising the bun to his face. I ran, I jumped, I flew, I grabbed, I landed and made off chewing happily. Chomp chomp chomp! But guess what? It wasn’t a burger bun at all. It was a mobile phone, and instead of a scrummy burger I had a strange voice in my mouth going ‘Urrh? Is that you, Harry? Harry? Are you growling? What’s that chomping noi—’
    Then the phone went dead. That was because I’d just killed it and spat it out. Splrrrrgh! Mobiles are not good to eat, I promise you. They’re even worse than plastic pies.
    But you can’t find burger bars in the middle ofnowhere. I was going to have to hunt. Maybe I’d find a rabbit that didn’t mind being my breakfast. I mooched around here and I mooched around there and do you know what? I think I must have picked the only rabbit-less zone in the entire country. There wasn’t a single one. I was so fed up and miserable and my tummy was saying: Feed me! Please feed me! There’s space for an elephant in here! And that was when the cat fell on me.

    I was passing beneath a tree when there wasa startled yowl from above and as I looked up a large ginger ball of fur came zonking out of the tree, bounced off my head, landed on the ground, got up and looked at me with raised eyebrows.
    ‘Hi…’ it began. Then it saw my teeth and my hungry smile and decided to run for its life. I decided to run for its life too. I mean, you have to if you’re a dog. Cats and dogs are ancient enemies. We chase and they run. So that’s what we did.
    Whoosh! I’ve never seen a cat run so fast! And zig and zag! Away across the field we went, with my ears streaming out