THE DOG WHO RAN AWAY. A Short Story.

Mr. Trundle had a shop called:

“Mr. Trundle’s carpet bundles”. In there were all the lovely soft, hairy, smooth and beautiful carpets from all over the world and in there too was a naughty dog who thought she’d pretend to be one so she could get extra crumbs and dropped morsels of food.

Esme already had a very important job for Esme is a guide dog. This means that when she goes out she has to make sure that her owner, Sally from Labrador Alley, doesn’t walk into things on the pavement and can cross the road safely. Sally needs Esme because Sally is blind. This means that for Esme to run away from home meant that she had been very naughty indeed.

Mr. Trundle saw Esme and greeted her with a big smile. Mr. Trundle had a long beard made of candy floss, fruit and not bar feet, chocolate fingers which melted when he went out into the sun, wagon wheel ears (big chocolate biscuits they are) and was a friend to all sorts of spiders; Flies; Ants and other creepy things which lived in his beard which was now so long he had to hold it out in front of him with one hand so he wouldn’t fall over it.

Esme loved his pork pie hat which she longed to eat but couldn’t reach up to it because each time she tried jumping high enough she fell down to the floor again. Mr. Trundle was many metres tall.

While he was having his lunch of salad and cake (all mixed up on the same plate) Esme crept into his shop because he’d forgotten to lock it as Suzie the spider was tickling his beard so much. She curled herself up amongst the carpets and fell asleep.

Suddenly in the middle of the afternoon she felt herself being carried into a lady’s car and put into the back of it. She heard the lady saying what a fine carpet she was and how she would fit nicely underneath her dining room table:

“Great”,

Said Esme to herself in Woofle, a kind of dog’s language only understood by small children and dogs.

“I’ll have lots of lovely stuff to eat especially if there are messy children in the house”.

There were children in the house but they were the cleanest children that ever lived! After three days of having nothing much to eat Esme was so very hungry. She missed Sally from Labrador Alley so much and Sally missed her. She hated having muddy cold shoes rested on her as well. At home Sally always wiped the mud off her but now there was lots of it on her side which sometimes she licked off because she was so hungry but she had to wait till nobody could see her do it or else they’d realise she was a dog.

Then one day the postman called with a big heavy parcel the size of a truck! Esme was so excited, thinking it may be dog food that she barked.

“Mummy, our carpet just barked”,

One of the children said. She was a lovely little girl of about five years old who still understood Woofle. Esme then owned up to being a dog and running away from home. The lady took her back to Mr. Trundle’s shop at once and got her money back. He scolded Esme for being so bad and said that Sally missed her and had been wondering where she’d gone. He took her home in his van which too smelled of lovely new carpets and took care to make sure his pork pie hat which was made of pastry, meat and jelly, was high up out of her reach.

When Esme came home she wagged her tail, ran round, sniffed Sally’s computer and said:

“Good evening”

To it, (she usually ignored it because she and it weren’t friends) and then had the biggest meal in all the length of Labrador Alley! She decided that being a guide dog was quite nice really and never ran away again.