There Is No Dog by Meg Rosoff

Author:Meg Rosoff [Rosoff, Meg]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780141923697
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2004-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

27

Eck had determined to enjoy the last few weeks of his life, but was finding it increasingly difficult. Bob spent most of his time mooning over Lucy and Mr B worked all the time, so there was no one to nudge and joggle him out of his low spirits. In the past, he and Bob might play computer games together or watch a film; they’d had tournaments to see who could balance the most dinner plates on one finger or eat the most cake. Sometimes Bob showed him pictures of naked girls and asked which he liked best, but Eck couldn’t choose. He found short noses unattractive.

Time seemed to be passing so quickly.

On this day, he woke from a depressed doze to see Estelle waving at him through the window. At first his heart leapt to see her, but on second thoughts he approached with some trepidation. It was this girl’s father, after all, who planned to eat him. Perhaps her show of friendliness was merely a ruse. Perhaps her father had sent Estelle to nibble him first, to make sure sadness hadn’t made him bitter.

But could the expression of kindness on her face be false? She held out her arms to him. ‘You seem thinner,’ she said, frowning.

Despite being quite a suspicious Eck, he found it impossible to deny the inherent appeal of Estelle’s face, particularly in comparison with the other faces he knew. She didn’t smile at him in a threatening way, or a way that suggested she wanted something, or was just barely managing not to laugh at him. She smiled in a way that made him feel as if he were the creature she most wanted to see in the whole entire world.

No one had ever looked at Eck in quite this way, and he was so moved by the experience that he forgot his suspicions and shuffled forward into her arms. He remembered how she had held him on the night of the terrible game, and screwed his eyes shut to erase the rest of the memory. He hadn’t known it was possible to experience so many intense feelings at once – misery, love, hunger, suspicion, excitement and of course the ever-present terror of mortality. The enormity of it made him quiver like a leaf.

He lay still, eyes closed, while she explained about her absence and her travels, the places she’d been and the creatures she’d met, and then she stroked and tickled him, and spoke to him in her singy voice. It was only much later that she gently disengaged herself and reached for her large leather bag.

The Eck scrambled up, eyes wide with alarm. Estelle’s bag looked exactly like the sort of thing you threw over the head of a man about to be hanged.

‘Here,’ she said, and handed it to him. ‘I brought you some things.’

Trembling with dread, Eck peered into the horrible bag. On top was a cake and beside it a long sandwich stuffed with roast beef, pickles, tomatoes and cheese.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.