Read an Excerpt
The Great Dog Disaster
This is a story about my friend Suzanne, and her dog, and me, and Tom, and the Great Dog Disaster. Most of the time, when people say, “Oh, it’s a disaster!” it probably isn’t. Like when Dad’s watching soccer, and they’re up one to zero, and the whistle’s going to go, and the keeper gets an own goal.Or when Mom’s been to the shops, and put the bags in the trunk, and slammed it shut, and locked the car keys inside it. Or when it’s Mrs. Constantine’s Sunday School Concert, and Emma Hendry starts her solo, and her hair gets set on fire by Graham Roberts’s Christingle candle. Those things might be bad (especially for Emma Hendry, because her hair had never been cut before and she had to have a bob), but they aren’t actual disasters. Because I looked “disaster” up in my dictionary, and this is what it said:
disaster [di-zas-ter] noun a calamitous event, occurring suddenly and causing great harm or death
The Great Dog Disaster was an Actual Disaster though. It got on the news, and in the paper, and me and Tom and Suzanne had our photos taken and everything.
Tom is my brother. He’s five. He’s four years younger than me. I’m nine. My name is Anna. I’ve got another brother and a sister too, but they’re not in this story because they’re older than me and Tom and they don’t really care about dogs, and disasters, and things that me and Suzanne do. Anyway, even though lots of people have heard about the Great Dog Disaster, it’s only me who knows exactly what happened. Because there are some things about it that I have never told anyone. And I’m going to put those in this story as well. And when it’s finished, I’ll put my notebook in the shed, on the shelf, where no one will see it, behind the worms, and the wasp trap, and the piccalilli jar that’s got all Suzanne’s stitches in it.