Pup Idol

by Anna Wilson

  ‘Erm . . .’ I said.

  ‘I mean – getting cats and a dog to do a circus act with water – now that is what I call entertainment!’ she said.

  I thought for one a tiny split of a moment that Molly was being SARCASTIC again – in other words, mean and unfriendly – and I was about to say something rude back about wearing ‘gorrrrr-geous’ tutus and hanging out with Public Enemy Number One. But then Molly started giggling again and pointing at Honey. I turned to see a very bedraggled pooch, still wedged in the tunnel, looking very pleased with herself. And then I started laughing too and Molly and I fell into a heap on the grass next to Honey, and we giggled until we couldn’t breathe.

  It looked like our Falling Over had stopped our Falling Out.

  Mum came back out into the garden with towels and a change of clothes and a large banana and strawberry smoothie for each of us.

  ‘It’s great to see you girls having a laugh together,’ she said. ‘Listen, Molly – why don’t you give your Mum a call and see if you can stay for a sleepover tonight?’

  Mum can be really cool every once in a while, when she puts her mind to it.

  ‘Will you stay?’ I asked Molly.

  My best friend wiped the laughter tears from her eyes and said, ‘Does Romeo love Juliet?’

  In other words: ‘Just try and stop me.’

  13

  How to Get Inspiration

  Molly and I sat on the grass after Mum had gone back inside.

  ‘It’s great that you’re staying over,’ I said, trying my hardest not to sound all that excited about it, even though my tummy was doing the churning butterfly thing that it does when I’m over the top of the moon.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Molly, staring at the grass.

  Then a bubble of happiness found its way to the surface of my body and I squeaked out a giggle again, and Molly took one look at me and she squeaked out a giggle too, and there we were, a couple of loonies, rolling around on the grass, laughing our faces off together all over again.

  Honey thought this looked like a huge load of fun.

  Tunnel-dog came lolloping over to us. ‘Ow! Honey! Get off!’ I yelled, as my mad pet rolled on top of me and the sharp wire bits of the tunnel frame dug into me.

  This set Molly off laughing even harder, which was not all that helpful in the circumstances.

  ‘Molly – get this hound off me!’ I cried, pushing Honey as hard as I could.

  At last, I’m pleased to say, my best friend did pay some attention to the seriousness of the situation and we both managed to get hold of the back end of the tunnel and pull it off Honey.

  Honey was so pleased to be free, she did a VICTORIOUS lap of the garden at such a top speed that her back legs tried to overtake her front legs and she did a somersault into what was left of the A-frame and knocked it flying into Mum’s lavender bushes.

  Luckily Mum was not looking out of the window. She flips the top of her lid off when Honey crushes the lavender.

  We recovered from another giggling fit and then Molly said, ‘So, you and Honey really are entering the Talent Contest with this agility thing, then?’

  Molly was being quite persistent about wanting to know what I was doing, I noticed. She was also using her Nonchalant voice – which means she was trying to pretend she didn’t care what I was doing for the contest. I was sure I could see the corners of her mouth twitching a bit. Did she think it was a funny idea? I felt rather a bit indignatious at that, and I was going to say something like, ‘Well what extra-clever and special thing are you and dear Rosie Chubb doing then?’

  But I decided better of it, and instead I said rather clippedly, ‘That is the definite plan, yes. So are you entering the contest?’

  ‘Er – yeah. Of course,’ Molly answered. I thought maybe she sounded a bit unsure, which was weird. I mean, at this Stage of the Game, with the contest only two weeks away, you either were going to enter into the Running or not.

  ‘So?’ I tried asking her in a PROMPTING way to get her to tell me more, ‘what are you doing then?’

  Molly stared at the grass again. ‘Rosie and I are doing a dance.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. And I stared at the grass too. It was just typical of Rosie to get Molly to do this, as Molly was a super-mega dancer and could easily win Seeing Stars with some of the routines she has come up with in the past; whereas Rosie is Chubb by name and chub by nature in my opinion and most probably looks like a in her ‘gorrrrr-geous’ tutu. Although that may be being unfair to hippos.

  Molly sighed very deeply and said, ‘Have you got any ice cream?’ which I took to mean that the subject was well and truly closed for the moment.

  She followed me into the kitchen, and as I put a double scoop of Chunky Choc Chip into a cone for Molly I tried to think of something else to talk about, because she had gone very quiet. Then I had an idea: maybe I could show her a bit of Pup Idol! I had recorded the latest programme, as I had missed it that week, so I asked Molly if she would like to watch it with me.

  We have always enjoyed watching telly together, and when I told her that this programme had celebrities in it doing the dog handling, she did seem to cheer up a bit, as Molly loves the whole celebrity thing even more than I do.

  So, later on, Molly and I settled down in front of the telly with a large bowl of toffee-flavoured popcorn and some drinks to keep us going through the excitement of it all.

  Honey sat with us – though not on the sofa, as she is not allowed. She sat on the floor at our feet, wagging her tail.

  Shame she doesn’t seem to have picked up any tips about how to perform like a perfect pooch.

  The first celebrity contestant on the programme was a singer called Charisse that I did not know much about, but Molly recognized her from one of her magazines.

  ‘Look at that dress!’ she said in an exclamatory way. ‘It’s to die for!’

  What on earth was that supposed to mean? Who in their right mind would want to die for a dress? Personally I thought the singer was totally UNSUITABLY clothed for the occasion of dog handling. She was wearing heels that were far too pointy and tall, like big dangerous knitting needles, and her hair was long and floppy and kept falling into her eyes. She was actually a bit like April, the way she kept flicking it everywhere.

  As I’m sure it is needless to say, her routine did not go very well. The dog that she was looking after was a huge big thing like a cross between a wolfhound and something else monster-ish, and he obviously liked the hair-flicking more than any of the treats the lady had in her hand. Every time she flicked her hair, the dog jumped up and put his paws on her shoulder and tried to lick her face. It freaked me out as it made me think of Nick Harris when he had his beard, and then that made me think of him kissing April, which is a thought I do not like to think.

  Molly loved the whole show though. She kept laughing and pointing and talking about everything and soon I was doing the same, and at last we really were back to being how we used to be.

  The best bit of the show was what happened at the end. It was incredible beyond belief. A man in a shiny suit came on the stage with a lovely black and white dog who was a collie crossbreed (it was a little bit like those sheepdogs that were in the film about the pig called Babe). Monica Sitstill was doing her thing of talking about what we were going to see on our screens next, and she was explaining that the man was a professional dog-handler, so I thought maybe he was going to show the celebrities how they ought to have handled their dogs. But no! It was even more amazing and wondrous than that.

  Some music started playing in the background. It was kind of thrilling, slightly spooky music like they use at the beginning of films like Mission: Impossible. And then the lights in the studio went down and there was a spot of light on the man and a spot of light on the dog. And then . . . THE MAN STARTED TO DANCE WITH THE DOG!

  First of all the man walked backwards, and the dog followed him, crouching right down as if it was sliding along the floor on its tummy.

  T
hen the dog went up on to its hind legs and danced backwards, and the man walked forward towards it.

  Then the dog looked to the side and the man looked to the opposite side, and then they kept doing this in time with the beat of the music.

  And then – the best bit ever – the dog, back on all fours now, danced through the man’s legs, round and round, weaving in and out, using the man’s legs as if they were actually slalom poles!

  And at the end the dog bowed! It really did! It bowed its head and lowered the front of its body to the ground to Accept the Applause.

  And it got a lot of applause.

  ‘That programme was the wickedest programme in Wickedsville!’ said Molly, when we were getting changed into our PJs. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about it before?’

  I stopped in mid-PJ-putting-on and said in a shocked way, ‘But I did try.’

  ‘When?’ Molly asked.

  ‘It was in the playground when you were talking to Rosie,’ I said. ‘And you both pretended that you couldn’t hear me.’

  Molly’s face went red very quickly. She looked as though she was going to cry. She hardly ever cries. Only when she gets hurt, like when Rosie Chubb actually stuck a pencil in her arm (I wished she’d remembered that particular incident before she had decided to be best friends with Public Enemy Number One) and when one of the boys put a frog in her hair in Year 2. And that was years and years ago. But I couldn’t understand why Molly would want to cry now when we were having such a great sleepover.

  ‘Yeah, well, Rosie can stuff it,’ she said quietly.

  ‘WHA—?’ I was shocked.

  ‘You heard me,’ said Molly. ‘She’s not my friend any more. That’s what I came round to tell you earlier, before the water-fight and everything. In fact, Rosie never was my friend. She’s boring and all she talks about is tutus and pirouettes and – and – and she can’t even dance.’

  Ah. That would be a bit of a problem if you were planning to do a dance for the Talent Contest.

  Molly looked at me from under her fringe and said, ‘I’m sorry, Summer. I’ve been horrible to you. I was just so upset that you went to the obedience class without me.’

  I felt my face go red then and I stammered, ‘I-I know. And I’m sorry too because I should have let you come with me. It’s just that the rules said only one person per dog, and I didn’t know how to tell you, because I knew you’d get upset. And also, I’m sorry to say this, but I did think I would get on better with Honey on my own because I thought that it would be the way to be truly Bonded as a Pair with her. But it turned out I was wrong,’ I added, feeling a bit – that is, embarrassed, not white and woolly.

  Molly smiled. ‘Let’s forget about it. We’re friends again now, aren’t we?’

  I hugged her (I had put my PJs on properly by now). ‘You betcha.’

  Molly breathed in deeply and hugged me back and then she said, ‘So what are we going to do for this Talent Contest then?’

  I must have looked a bit surprised at this last comment because it was honestly not a comment that I had been expecting.

  ‘Er – we?’ I said.

  Molly grinned. ‘Well, I’m not going to enter with anyone other than my Best Friend, am I?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘What about Rosie?’

  ‘I told you – she can’t dance. And seeing as it was a dance that we were supposed to be doing together, I think I’m better off out of that idea, don’t you?’

  ‘Right,’ I said.

  ‘Plus,’ Molly added, getting into a bit of a stride on the subject of ‘being rude about Rosie’, ‘she knows Zero-the-Hero about celebrities. How lame is that?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘So,’ Molly continued, ‘like I was saying – what are we doing for the contest?’

  I hesitated, as I didn’t really know how to say the next bit.

  ‘Er, Molly, the thing is . . . You may as well know . . . Honey’s not exactly been performing well in the agility training. I don’t think I’m going to be entering the contest at all, to be honest.’

  ‘I see.’ She looked as glum as I felt and we both stared at the floor for a while.

  Then she looked back at me and I saw that her eyes were doing the kind of sparkling gleaming thing that they only do when she has come up with a Masterly Plan.

  ‘How about a bit of a rethink?’ she said in her most craftiest of mannerisms. ‘How about we combine our talents?’

  I wasn’t sure I was following this line of thinking.

  ‘You know – I can dance, you’ve got the dog . . . Do I have to spell it out for you?’

  And then it clicked.

  ‘We’ll enter as the DANCING DOG DUO!’ I shouted in an Alliterative manner.

  ‘Well, trio,’ Molly corrected me.

  I was so happy, I didn’t even want to argue.

  14

  How to Work as a Team

  The next day I woke up with worries and doubts jumping around inside my mind. What if Honey was as bad at dancing as she was at everything else?

  What if she did not behave and drove Molly crazy? What if Molly stormed off like Frank had done?

  I didn’t want to say any of this out loud though, especially when Molly woke up with a big grin on her face and said, ‘Today’s the day, Summer Love! Today we start our training programme!’

  And so Molly and I spent the whole of Saturday and every spare moment after that training Honey.

  In between the training, we still had to go to school and do homework. I had really had enough of school. The weather was getting to that stage where it’s too hot to be sitting in a classroom. Our school buildings are extremely ANCIENT, in fact I think they are Antiques. They were obviously built in the Ice Age when the sun didn’t shine very much, as they are clearly designed to keep you as warm as possible. This means that when it is very hot you feel as though you are like a sausage in a very high temperature of oven. That is, SWELTERING. But because it is school and there are lots of Meaningless Rules, you must still wear proper clothes that are too hot and make you sweat, instead of something sensible like a swimming costume.

  If I ever become a teacher (which I severely hope I will not, as that would be Social Death) I will make new rules that say that classes will finish in May and not RESUME until October. During the terms, if it does get too hot, classes will be served outside with a side order of ice creams and cooling drinks and there will be water fountains to run in and out of at Convenient Intervals. All pupils will be required to wear swimming costumes and delightful hats to keep the sun off their faces and out of their eyes.

  On top of all the heat and the sticky plastic chairs and fully-clothed-ness, I was fed up with Public Enemy Number One trying to get back in between me and Molly, and with Frank Oh-How-He-Stank Gritter making pathetic remarks about my lack of dog-trainership ability.

  If only he knew! We were actually getting along rather well with things. This was mainly because Molly has always been the cleverer one in our partnership of best-friend-dom, and she came up with the idea of finding out about dancing dogs on the Internet.

  ‘Hey, look at this, Summer!’ she said when we were round at her place one afternoon, sucking on ice pops to try and keep ourselves from melting. ‘Did you know that there’s a posh expression for describing what we are trying to do? It’s called “heelwork to music”.’

  On the website there was loads of info about this, because it is something that people do at Crufts every year! I also found out that there was once a puppy in true real life called Honey who won a competition at Crufts a few years ago called ‘Pup Idol’! How weird is that? That must have been where the telly programme got its idea from.

  ‘We should call our act “Pup Idol”!’ I said. ‘Every act in a Talent Contest has to have a name, and I’m sure Crufts and the telly people won’t mind. After all, it is for charity.’

  ‘A truly STUPENDOUS idea indeed,’ said Molly.

  In other words, brilliant.

  And so with t
he use of the top tips from the Internet, Molly began to make one of her lists, which she says are INVALUABLE, which means they are totally and absolutely necessary. She wrote down what we needed for our training programme; With all this planned, we started our training sessions. We taught Honey to ‘SCOOT’ (that is, to walk backwards), and to go ‘UNDER’ (that is, to crouch down and squeeze under one of those limbo poles), to wave by saying ‘PAW’ and to walk on her hind legs by saying ‘UP’.

  Every time she did as she was told, she got a handful of treats. Luckily she was doing a lot of exercise, otherwise she might have got quite porky!

  I found everything was so much easier with Molly around. For example, sometimes Cheese or Toast would get in the way in the lazy manner they do, which is to lie around on the lawn in just the place that we wanted to do some training. Honey would always try and chase the cats instead of concentrating on the routine, but Molly came up with a plan.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll grab the cats and put them inside while you hold on to Honey and give her a treat. That way she’ll come to associate treats with staying still and not chasing the cats.’

  Also, if Honey ever did something wrong, Molly would remind me, ‘Remember what Monica Sitstill says: “Reward the good and ignore the bad!”’ This meant we should ignore Honey every time she did something wrong and only make a fuss when she did something right.

  If Molly hadn’t been there, I would have got in a fluster and given up far too easily.