He said, “Because you’re lanky and your legs are all over the shop.”

As I paid my fare he said, “Come back to prat around like a fool at Dither Hall again, have you?”

Before I could say “It’s Dother Hall, actual—” he accelerated off so violently that I shot down to the end of the bus and almost ended up in a small child’s pushchair. Luckily there wasn’t a small child in it, just a pig.

The woman with the pushchair said, “Mind my pig.”

I am huddled up well away from her, but I think I can still smell pig poo.

We bumped along the road to Heckmondwhite. The driver is careering along sounding his horn whenever there is anything in his way on the road. Pedestrians. Bicyclists. A cow pat. But he slowed down behind a lollipop lady who was walking home. With her sign. She tried to let him pass but he cheerily waved her on and drove slowly behind her. Then for no reason when we got to a sharp corner he revved up and blasted his horn and she fell into a hedge. He was laughing so much I thought he might swallow his pipe.

I couldn’t help being excited. This is like a postcard of a winter scene in Yorkshire. There is even some snow on the top of Grimbottom Peak. And I shivered as I thought about Fang up there. Raising his fictitious children as fictitious puppies.

Winter of Love

AS THE SKY DARKENED and we bumped past isolated farms and little hamlets, we arrived at the bus stop in Heckmondwhite just when the street lamps were lighting up. In my Dother Hall brochure it says, “Heckmondwhite has its own ‘zany’ cosmopolitan atmosphere.”

I don’t know that most people would call a village green and a post office and a pub called The Blind Pig “zany.” Unless you counted the knitted flags over the village hall.

I bet the Dobbinses, my substitute parents, have got something to do with that.

Maybe I should just nip quickly over to the pub and see my fun-sized friend, Ruby, and my four-legged mate Matilda, her bulldog? I could give her the lipstick I’ve bought her. Not Matilda, Ruby. Dogs don’t wear makeup. But what they do wear is the little ballet tutu I have got for her from Pets Party shop. I hope it will go round her waist. She is quite porky in the middle.

And anyway, even if Rubes is out I could leave the presents with her older brother, Alex. Alex the dream boy. Alex with his long limbs and his longish thick chestnut hair. And his two eyes. And his back and front … and everything. And we could chat about performing arts. He’s gone off to Liverpool to do drama there and I could chat about my performance plans. Maybe tell him about my Labradad idea.

Maybe not. I want him to think of me as an attractive thespian.

Yes, I will pop to see Ruby. And whilst I am popping about maybe Alex, her very gorgeous brother, will pop up and that will be poptastic and I will say, “What a surprise, Alex, I was just popping by to …”