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read the beginning of the story........
CHAPTER ONE
When my Dad’s on nights, I always go and meet him off the bus. I like going to meet him because I like walking down the canal bank and taking Skip with me. Well, I used to like taking Skip until he began to run away. Now, I have to keep him on the lead and he hates that so much, I always end up carrying him.
‘You need to train that dog,’ my Dad says. ‘Sort him out.’
But Skip won’t be trained, so I’m stuck.
I was a bit late getting up this morning so I was a bit late getting out which was why, when I got to the bottom of our path, there was a tap tap tap on the top bedroom window.
My sister, Daisy.
‘Can I come?’ Daisy shouts.
‘No!’ I shout back, and walk on, so then Daisy banged on the glass so hard, it almost broke. Even from where I was, I heard my Mum yell at her.
‘Daisy!’ she yelled. ‘Stop that and get back into bed.’
And our Daisy is only six years old.
‘Six going on sixty,’ my Gran always says.
By the time Daisy was back in bed, I must have been almost at the village, with Skip so glad to be out, he was dancing in and out of my feet, almost tripping me up. A long time ago in our village, there used to be a Coal mine but then it closed and now they’re knocking it down and putting a Marina in its place.
‘A life on the ocean wave, eh?’ my Grandad had said, looking at the canal, which only had a slick of water lying on top of the mud. ‘They’ll need a sight more water than that if boats are going to come up here.’
There are workmen all over, clumping about in their big boots, their yellow hats bobbing up and down as they walk.
‘When I was a lad,’ my Grandad went on, ‘there was so much water in that canal, we used to swim in it.’
You wouldn’t want to swim in it now. That mud’s so thick, it could drag you down by your ankles.
By the time the clock on the church struck seven, I was on the bridge looking down to the bus stop at the far end of the canal, looking for my Dad because if the bus had been on time, he would be walking down the canal bank. But he wasn’t on the canal bank, so I knew the bus was late.
From where I was standing, I could see Lock Cottage halfway down the canal path, which is where Mr. and Mrs. Carter live.
My Grandad said a Lock-keeper used to live there and when the coal barges sailed up or down the water, the Lock-keeper would open the Lock gates for them but when the barges stopped, Mr. and Mrs. Carter went to live in Lock Cottage instead.
My Mum had bought me a book about barges and there was a drawing of Cleopatra’s barge in it.
So I said, ‘Cleopatra had a barge, Grandad.’
‘Never!’ my Grandad cried. ‘A big important Queen like Cleopatra sailing in a barge! Well, you do surprise me, Danny. One thing’s for sure, anyway, it wouldn’t have looked like a coal barge. They were mucky old things full of dirt and dust and bits of coal.’
There’s an old wrecked barge in the deep water at the Pit where they used to load the coal onto the barges but it’s sunk so deep, I don’t think they’ll ever get it out. ‘Oh, they will,’ my Grandad says. ‘When they clean the canal, they’ll get it out and then they’ll take it away.’
When I looked down at the canal just now, I got a shock. It was full of clean water. So the big cleaning barge had already been, pulling up the weeds, dragging out the bullrushes and scooping up the mud.
Now, the sun was shining on the water, making it sparkle.
Skip started to bark, jumping up and down around my legs and I knew what he wanted. He wanted to get down onto the canal bank and chase the rabbits.
There are millions of rabbits on the canal but Skip can’t catch them. He can’t even catch a baby rabbit. You’d think he’d give up but he never does.
I frown at him.
‘You’re not getting off the lead,’ I say, ‘no matter how much you bark,’ so he flops down and puts his head on his paws, looking all fed-up.
When I looked down the canal path again, I groaned. Mr. Carter was coming out of Lock Cottage and I didn’t want to meet him. There’s nothing wrong with Mr.Carter except that he doesn’t know when to stop talking. He talks so much, you can’t get a word in once he starts.
I pulled at Skip’s lead but he didn’t get up.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’
I pulled again and this time, Skip got to his feet but all
he did was whine so in the end, I gave in and let him off the lead after all.
He was gone like a shot, running down the steps that led to the canal bank then racing up the path, looking for rabbits. He wasn’t whining now. He was barking.
Bark, bark, bark, that was all I could hear.
I ran down the steps after him but by the time I got to the little bridge halfway down the path, Skip had gone.
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