Monty and Me: A heart-warmingly wagtastic novel!

‘Larry who?’

I get up and have a good shake to clear my mind. Fur and slobber flies everywhere. Luckily the fall-out misses Betty but a few slippery blobs litter the lino floor.

‘Larry Rice? Lice? No. Larry Ni … Nice! That’s it. Larry Nice. I remember thinking he didn’t sound nice at all.’

‘Why’s this bloke a suspect?’

‘Not sure, but I heard the caller say they’d let him go.’

‘Did they say where he lived?’ she asks.

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Then what we need is The White Pages. There’s a copy on the hall table. We look up his address and pay him a visit.’ Betty nods conclusively. But her brow slowly creases. ‘Oops. We may have a slight problem.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I’ve eaten the top right hand corner.’

‘Of that big fat book?’ I stare at her large stomach. No wonder she’s so round!

She examines her claws, avoiding eye contact. ‘I get peckish.’

I shake my head. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. I can’t leave here. I promised Rose I wouldn’t run away.’

Betty tutt tutts. ‘Oh you dogs are so domesticated. Think outside the square, will you? I get that you’ve been trained to take orders. But don’t tell me you’ve never broken the rules. Come on! You must have.’

‘I was a naughty pup. I mean, who isn’t? Chewed a few shoes, stole food, peed on a trouser leg, that sort of thing. But I soon learned not to. And, okay, I’ll admit to a few slip-ups since, but they weren’t intentional. Not planned, like this. And they always involved food. I’m good as gold until I smell … well, anything meaty, to be honest. Then my mind gets fuzzy and I completely forget what I’m meant to be doing. It’s a bit of a problem, really.’

Betty scurries up my leg and sits between my shoulder blades and whispers in my ear. ‘There you go! Why’s this any different? And finding Larry is for a good cause. After all, we’re trying to catch a killer.’

I remember Paddy chuckling at a TV cartoon in which a tiny red devil sits on one shoulder and a little white angel sits on the other. Both are whispering in the big’un’s ears. I glance round at Betty – my own little devil.

‘Betty, you’re asking me to break one of the canine Ten Commandments: Obey your master. I promised Rose I wouldn’t run away. This is premeditated disobedience.’

She leans closer to my ear. ‘But you’re helping Rose solve the case. There are exceptions to every rule, Mr Monty.’

Betty just doesn’t get it. Leaving Duckdown Cottage without Rose’s permission is like Mutiny on the Bounty, Spartacus and Rebel Without a Cause all rolled up into one mega-pic of rebelliousness. It’s all very well squeezing through the hedge, lapping up the left-overs of someone’s lunch and then hopping back into the garden again. It’s a whole other thing to travel far from home.

Betty scampers back down my leg and stands in front of me.

‘You’re not serious about these what-did-you-call-’em? Commandy things?’

‘I am, Betty. The Commandments were laid down by our founding fathers, way back when the wolf nation first agreed to work alongside big’uns. They’re our laws and are centuries old and every dog in the world is taught them as a pup. It’s because of these laws that we have such a special relationship with people.’

‘Yeah, but there’s got to be a rule about keeping your master safe, surely?’

‘That’s number three: defend your master.’

‘What’s number one then?’

‘Love your master.’

‘Exactly!’ Betty jumps up and down with excitement. ‘So you did your very best to defend him. But now you need to demonstrate how much you love him and break the dis-obeying rule so you can hunt down his killer. You see where I’m coming from?’

I shake my head. ‘If I run away to find this man, I risk being ostracised by my kind. Do you understand what that means?’

‘Oh yes, only too well.’

Betty slumps against my leg like a deflated balloon and stares into space. Her moods go up and down very fast. I wait. Nothing happens, so I nudge her gently with my nose. No response.

‘Are you an outcast, Betty?’

She looks sideways at me and sighs. ‘Nah. Course not.’ But she doesn’t sound convincing.

Suddenly she jumps up and points a paw at the moon shining in through the kitchen window. I’m so surprised I rear up and bark.

‘But you’re not going to break any commandy things, Mr Monty, because Rose won’t even know you’ve left the house. We’ve got all night, you see. This Larry bloke is bound to be a local, so you’ll be back before she wakes up. So no harm done.’

I know what she’s proposing isn’t right but I’ll never find Paddy’s killer if I never leave the cottage.

‘Look. At least let’s find out where he lives before we make any decisions?’ Betty urges. ‘What harm can that do?’

I nod.

Chapter Eight (#ulink_331e8c86-85e0-5bfc-b2a5-6a5203a63e87)

I position my front paws on a narrow hall table, my hind legs on the floor. A phone, notepad, mug of pens and a brick-thick copy of a phone directory lies, dusty and unused, on top. With my nose I push The White Pages until a corner of it hovers beyond the table top. Tiny bits of dust rain down on Betty and she sneezes, and again, and again. I take the big book in my mouth, careful to apply just enough pressure to keep it there, but not enough to tear the cover. It sure is heavy! As usual my mouth is full of slobber and there is a moment when I feel the directory slip, but I tilt my head just in time to stop it falling. Relieved, I quietly place it on the worn carpet.

‘Allow me,’ the rat says, spying the drool-coated cover. She slides on her belly across its surface, her fur like a cloth, wiping up the mess. ‘Who needs Sainsbury’s wipes when you’ve got me?’

She chuckles like raindrops on a tin roof.

I stare down at a well-chewed directory that’s three years out of date. And it’s not just the top right hand corner that’s missing.

‘I thought you said you’d only nibbled a corner?’

‘Okay, so it’s a little bit more than that.’

I give the book a shove with my nose and it falls open at the E section.

‘Can you turn the pages? My paws are too big.’

‘No problem, governor.’

Digging her front claws into the carpet, she kicks out her back legs, flipping the pages at lightning speed.

‘Tell me when to stop. I can’t read.’