The Secret Dog Read Free Page B

glance, she’d galloped off to join her calf.
    To Josh, this had seemed little short of a miracle. It was as if the vet could raise the dead!
He
wanted to be able to do this too.
    Suddenly Josh remembered where he was. Not in a field healing Highland cows, but a classroom. He looked around anxiously. Had anyone noticed him daydreaming?
    It seemed not. He wished school were easier. Reception had been fine. But once teachers started writing on blackboards, he’d struggled to make sense of their sentences. For a while, he told himself it was their bad handwriting.
    But this past year, new computer whiteboards had arrived. He still couldn’t make out half the words, even when they were typed. Maybe it wasn’t as many as half. But it was enough so that he couldn’t figure out what sentences meant.
    So geography wasn’t horrible
just
because Mr Eldon was mean and boring. He also used the whiteboard a lot. Like his English, religious studies, history and citizenship teachers.
    It wasn’t that Josh didn’t have plans to deal with this. He might not be able to read well but he wasn’t an idiot. But his major tactic was still praying the teacher wouldn’t call on him.
    ‘Josh? Are you with us today?’
    He’d drifted off again. Worrying what he was going to do about Reggae peeing in his bedroom.
    ‘I’m sorry.’ Apologising automatically was one of the things Josh did to try to make things better when he got called on.
    ‘That’s very nice, Josh,’ Mr Eldon said sarcastically. ‘But I’d prefer an answer to my question.’
    Josh’s eyes searched the classroom. There were a lot of faces looking in his direction. He noticed Kearney, who was smiling maliciously at him. He wished he had a friend. Someone’s kind eyes would make these horrible moments easier.
    ‘I think I must have missed the question.’
    ‘That was the way it seemed to me too,’ Mr Eldon said.
    ‘Could you repeat it please?’ Josh asked.
    ‘I think not. Instead I’ll give you a detention – a double detention – in the hope that next time you’ll have some incentive to stay with us for the whole period.’
    A double detention – that might mean his uncle would get home before Josh! Before he had a chance to clear away the newspapers soaked with dog pee  . . .  His uncle might find Reggae!
     
    * * *
    Josh ran all the way home, praying that his uncle hadn’t come home early. He’d changed the newspapers in his room at lunch, but Reggae had drunk a lot of milk  . . .
    After taking off his shoes at the door, Josh rushed through the house. Then he breathed a sigh of relief. He was home first.
    He climbed the ladder to his room, and then, holding his nose with one hand, he crumpled up thesodden newspaper with the other. Fortunately, he’d left the window open at lunchtime.
    ‘I know it’s horrible for you to be left alone. And with this stink,’ he told her. ‘At least you’ve managed to hit the paper. Most of the time.’ He finished gathering the soggy paper up. Reggae looked at him eagerly. As far as she was concerned, now that he was home, it was time to play!
    ‘Let me get rid of this first.’
    Even with the loft window wide open, there was no mistaking the smell from the bottom of the ladder.
    Why did dogs have to grow so quickly? She’d only been living with him a little over a month!
    As he climbed back into the loft through the hatch in the floor, Reggae attempted to jump up on him. Her little legs were not quite up to the task. Josh had to catch her to keep her from falling.
    ‘Careful!’ he said. ‘It’s a long way down.’
    Reggae gave him a cheeky look, as if to say ‘I knew you’d catch me!’
    ‘You think you’re pretty smart,’ Josh said with a smile in his voice.
    Then he heard the front door close. That had been close.
    ‘Josh, are you home?’ his uncle called.
    ‘Just got here,’ Josh shouted down the hatch. He could hear his uncle walking past the ladder on the way to his room. Then he heard him