My Dog Doesn't Like Me Read Free Page B

him.
    â€˜Whose dog is it?’ asked the owner.
    â€˜Mine,’ I said.
    â€˜Well, you should know better.’
    But is Ugly mine? I get told off by everyone about him, but he’s really Mum’s dog.
    I tried to explain this to Mum by using an idiom we had learnt in class. She went ballistic. She didn’t like what I said even if I had been taught it by our teacher . Just the other day, Miss Jolly taught us all these famous sayings like crocodile tears, which means pretend tears, and snake in the grass, which means someone who’s sneaky. Miss Jolly calls them idioms . An idiom is understood in your own language, but if you tried to say the same thing in another language (like Japanese or Italian, for example) people would get very muddled. Maybe you would speak to someone in Italian and tell them they were a snake in the grass and they’d stare at you and say, ‘I am not a snake. There’s no grass here. I’m a human standing in my kitchen!’
    There’s one idiom I especially remembered. It’s Indian giver . It’s where someone gives you a present and then takes it back.
    When I got home from that last walk, all bloody and scratched from rescuing Ugly, I’d told Mum what had happened and what the black dog’s owner had said.
    â€˜Well, there’s some truth in his words,’ said Mum. ‘You don’t do enough for Ugly. You’ve been quite lazy.’
    There it was again. Blame me.
    So I said to Mum, ‘You’re an Indian giver. You stole my dog. He’s your dog now and you’re both hopeless.’
    Boy, did that start something. Mum looked red in the face like a volcano about to spew lava. She chased me round and round the kitchen table, all the while shouting things like, ‘Wait till I get my hands on you!’ and, ‘In my day, they’d have washed your mouth out with soap and water,’ and, ‘You’re not just a lazy lump; you’re a whingeing little creep!’
    So Mum thought I was a lazy lump as well as a whinger and a creep. Now I knew for sure. Mum didn’t love me.
    â€˜You love that stupid dog more than me!’ I yelled back. ‘You’re a bad mother!’
    â€˜How dare you!’ cried Mum. Wham. I felt a wet dishcloth on the back of my neck. Mum was as out of control as Ugly had been with the black dog. I don’t know what she’d have done if she’d caught me. As it was, I escaped to my bedroom, and that was when I started packing my things to run away.

Chapter Six
    When I was little, I liked the fairy stories Mum would read me. It’s interesting how the number three often comes into stories like that. There’s the two ugly stepsisters and Cinderella – three sisters all up; the three little pigs; the three brothers in Puss in Boots ; and then it always seems like people are given three wishes for something. So this has given me the idea that I should give Ugly three chances.
    Chance number one is that I’m going to call Ugly something different, just in case he hates his name. Maybe he will be nicer to me if I change his name. His new name has to sound like ‘Ugly’ because it would be confusing for someone to call you something really different. For example, if I didn’t want to be Eccle or Eric, maybe someone could call me Rick. Rick is the last sound on my name – Eric. I might do some research. I’ll ask my family first … 
    This morning I did my research, and now here is my list:
    Umberto – Grandad says he used to work at the jam factory with a lovely Italian man called Umberto. He would sing opera while he glued the labels onto jam jars.
    Ulysses – Dad came up with this name. Ulysses was a hero in an Ancient Greek legend about the Trojan wars.
    Ualtar – Mum is into reading about anything to do with Ireland. She gave me this Irish name, which means ‘strong