again. It was difficult to put much weight on the leg, and that meant it was difficult to run fast.
He turned on to a path that ran between a tennis court and a hedge. The woman followed, but she wasn’t fast enough to catch him.
Rascal paused to give his bad paw a bit of a rest. He looked back at the woman, who was jogging towards him at a steady speed.
Suddenly, there was a noise up ahead of him. It was the man! He must have circled round the other way, and now he was on the path in front of Rascal. He held some sort of big loop in one hand.
The tennis court was surrounded by a mesh fence and the path was too narrow for Rascal to get past either of the dog catchers easily. There was nowhere to go – he was trapped.
But then he spotted a gap in the hedge. It was his only chance.
Rascal charged towards the man, who lunged forwards and flicked the loop in the dog’s direction. It brushed the side of Rascal’s neck, but it didn’t go over his head. That was lucky because the man, still holding the handle, released the thin end of the loop and it snapped down into a tight little circle.
If Rascal’s head had been in there, he would be stuck now. Instead, the dog plunged through the gap in the shrubbery and into the dark tangle of roots that lay beyond it. Sharp branches scratched and clawed at him the whole way, but he barrelled his way through to the other side and crashed out on to another path.
What now? Up ahead was a children’s playground. There was a row of swings to the side. The rest of the area was taken up by one big, multicoloured play structure. It didn’t offer many hiding spots, but there was a slide that was completely covered. Rascal went to the bottom of it and jumped up. He tucked his back legs up so that he was hidden in the bottom section where the tube levelled off. No one would be able to see him unless they were directly in front of the hole at the bottom of the slide.
Rascal lay as still as he could. After a few moments, he heard the crunch of boots on gravel. The man and woman were in the playground.
‘Where’d he go?’ asked the woman.
‘Beats me,’ said the man. ‘He can’t have run so far. It looked as if his leg was hurting him.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said the woman. It sounded as if she was smiling.
Rascal held his breath in the silence that followed. Footsteps began to crunch on the gravel again. Were they going away? No, the footsteps were getting louder, closer!
‘Have a look at this, Dan,’ said the woman. Then she crouched down and said to the dog, ‘You can’t be comfortable in there.’
Rascal let himself be pulled out of the slide. The woman held one arm round his neck and shoulders. She was about to put the lead on him when a new voice shouted, ‘There you are! Come here, boy!’
Rascal looked up. It was the boy from the park – the one who had been sitting on the bench. He was standing at the edge of the playground and holding out his arms as if he was waiting for Rascal to jump into them. As if he was Rascal’s owner!
Confusion flashed through the dog’s mind, but this had to be better than the place the dog catchers would take him to. Rascal bounded up to the stranger and launched himself into the waiting arms. The boy laughed as he staggered under the impact of low-flying dog!
He was tousling Rascal’s fur as if they were the best of friends. The two dog catchers joined them.
‘Is this your dog?’ asked the man.
‘Yes, sir, he is,’ answered the boy immediately.
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