“I reckon you deserve a proper treat. We’ll go to the football tomorrow. Local Derby. We’ll have a pizza first, margherita, your favourite. What d’you say?”
Patrick said nothing. “A good night’s sleep is what you need,” his dad went on. “You’ll feel a lot better tomorrow. Promise.” Everyone, Patrick thought, was doing an awful lot of promising, and that was always a bad sign.
From up in his room Patrick heard them all evening whispering urgently in the kitchen below – it was loud enough for him to hear almost every word they said. His mum was going on about how she wished they didn’t have to live in a flat. “Never mind a dog,” she was saying, “Patrick needs a place where he can play out. All kids do. We’ve been cooped up in this flat all his life.”
“It’s a nice flat,” said his dad. “I like it here.”
“Oh, well then, that’s fine, I suppose. Let’s stay here for ever, shall we?”
“I didn’t mean it like that, you know I didn’t.”
It wasn’t a proper row, not even a heated argument. There were no raised voices, but they talked of nothing else all evening.
In the end Patrick bored of it, and anyway he was tired. He kept closing his eyes, and whenever he did he found himself living the day through again, the best of it and the worst of it. It was so easy to let his mind roam, simply to drift away of its own accord. He liked where it was taking him. He could see Best Mate, now a fully grown greyhound, streaking across the park, and he could see himself haring after him, then both of them lying there in the grass, the sun blazing down, with Best Mate stretched out beside him, his paw on his arm and gazing lovingly at him out of his wide brown eyes. Patrick fell asleep dreaming of that moment, of Best Mate looking up at him, and even when he woke up he found himself dreaming exactly the same thing. And that was strange, Patrick thought, very strange indeed.
Best Mate was still lying there beside him, only somehow he looked much smaller than he had before, and they weren’t outside in the park in the sunshine, and his nose was cold and wet. Patrick knew that because Best Mate was suddenly snuffling at Patrick’s ear, licking it, then crawling on top of him and licking his nose as well. That was when he first dared to hope that this was all just too life-like to be a dream, that it might be real, really real. He looked up. His mum and dad were standing there grinning down at him like a couple of cats that had got the cream. The radio was on down in the kitchen, the kettle was whistling and the toast was burning. He was awake. This was happening! It was a true and actual happening!
“Mum rang up the rescue centre last night,” his dad was telling him, “and I went and fetched him home first thing this morning. Are you happy now?”
“Happy,” said Patrick.
“A lot, or a little?” his dad asked.
“A lot,” Patrick said.
“And by the way, Patrick,” his mum was saying as they went to the door, “your dad and me, we’ve been talking. We thought having a dog might make us get on and really do it.”
“Do what?”
“Get a proper house with a little bit of a garden. We should have done it a long time ago.”
And that was when the giggling started, partly because Best Mate was sitting down on Patrick’s chest now, snuffling in his ear, but mostly because he had never been so happy in all his life.
That same morning – it was a Saturday – they went out and bought a basket for Best Mate, a basket big enough for him to grow into, a bright red lead, a dog bowl and some dog food, and a little collar too with a brass disc hanging from it, engraved with his name and their phone number, just in case Best Mate ever got himself lost. In the afternoon they all walked up the hill through the iron gate and into the park, with Best Mate all tippy-toed and pulling on his lead. Once by the bench at the top of the hill Patrick and Best Mate ran off on their own, down to the pond where they scared the ducks silly, and then back up through the trees to the bench where his mum and dad were waiting. It was better than footie, bike riding, skate-boarding, kite-flying, better than all of them put together. And afterwards they lay down on the crisp autumn leaves exhausted, and Best Mate gazed up into Patrick’s eyes just as he had in the dream, so that Patrick had to squeeze his eyes tight shut and then open them again just to be quite sure that the whole day had really happened.
Best Mate grew up fast, no longer a cute and clumsy puppy, but a creature of astonishing beauty and grace and power, known and loved all over the park. Within the year they had found the small house they were looking for, with a walled garden at the back. It was nearer the park, but a little further away from school. That didn’t matter. Patrick’s dad dropped him off at the canal bridge as he always had done, and he’d walk along the tow-path past the sweet and sour smelling brown sauce factory and up the tow-path steps to the road, where Bossy Boots would be waiting with his lollipop stick.
Ever since Mr Boots had told his fib about helping him out of the canal that day, Patrick had always done his best to avoid him. But he had to cross the road every day, and when he did Mr Boots was always waiting, ready with some feeble joke or other about what had happened. “No dogs in the canal today, Patrick?” or “No early morning swim. Patrick?” And every time he’d laugh like a drain as he ushered him across the road.
In school they still talked about “The Great Puppy Rescue”. They’d all written stories about it and painted pictures too. These were still up on the wall in the front hall with all the sports cups and the school photographs, along with a cutting from the front page of the local newspaper, laminated and in big print so that everyone could easily read it. “Patrick’s Puppy Plunge” was the banner headline, and above it there was a photo of Patrick with Best Mate in his arms, with Mr Boots and Mrs Brightwell on either side of him, and a dozen other children around them, all grinning into the camera – except for Jimmy Rington, who wasn’t exactly glowering, but wasn’t smiling much either.
So the hero-glow hung around Patrick all that year, which of course he quite liked. No one called him “loser” any more. No one laughed at him any more. So sometimes he even looked forward to school these days. The little greyhound had changed his whole life around, at school and at home. Best Mate was always there with his mum to meet him when he came out of school every afternoon. So everyone got to cuddle and pet him. Maybe this was why the legend of The Great Puppy Rescue was not forgotten – after all Best Mate was there to remind them of it every day. All the teachers seemed to love him too. Mrs Brightwell in particular made a great fuss of him and Patrick loved that – it made him feel very special.
What he didn’t like so much was that Bossy Boots was now making out that he’d jumped into the canal himself to help rescue Best Mate. Worse still he was always trying to persuade Patrick’s mum to race him, that he was too good a greyhound to be kept at home just as a pet. He told everyone that Best Mate had champion written all over him. This of course only added to the sparkle of the legend, and it was a legend that was changing. The star of the legend had been Patrick at first, but it was Best Mate who was the star now. Patrick didn’t mind this in the least. On the contrary, as far as he was concerned Best Mate had always been the star. Every time Patrick came out of the school gates and saw him waiting there for him he felt so proud.
Stories went around the school – spread mostly by Mr Boots – of how Best Mate had been seen running up on the park at full stretch, how no one had ever seen a dog run that fast. Everyone knew that Patrick and Best Mate had become completely inseparable, how Patrick never needed to put him on a lead any more, nor muzzle him; how he’d walk close beside Patrick down the street, his cheek touching Patrick’s leg. As faithful and fond as a guide dog, Best Mate was instantly protective, and even fearsome if he ever felt that anyone, dog or human, might be a threat to Patrick. The gentle eyes would flash, the hackles go up along his neck and back, and every muscle in his body would be suddenly tense and taut, ready to spring. But it took only a word or a glance from Patrick to calm him down at once. They spent so much time together that each seemed to understand the other instinctively by now, so much so that up in the park it was hardly ever necessary for Patrick to whistle for Best Mate,