The longpaws yelped fearfully, dropping the objects they had gathered and shoving each other out of the way as they made for the door. They hurried past the dogs, coughing as they broke into the open.

Lucky nudged Mickey urgently. “We have to get out!” he barked.

Mickey’s eyes were wild, shooting around the room.

“But my longpaws—”

“Now!” snarled Lucky.

With an ear-piercing crack, the side of the room started sinking and the ceiling rocked.

The house! thought Lucky. It’s falling down!

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lucky and Mickey scrambled outside and bolted across the road to a stretch of grass in front of another longpaw house. They spun around in time to see a wall of Mickey’s old home buckle. Its guts sprayed through cracks and rained on the front lawn. There was the sound of tearing and cracking. The buckling wall folded inward, crushing whatever remained inside. Mickey walked a tight circle, trembling and yelping in despair.

Lucky caught his friend’s wild expression. “No!” he barked. “Stay back! Your longpaws are far away.”

Mickey dropped to the ground, his flanks heaving. “I know,” he whined. “But . . . I must defend the house!”

Lucky licked his friend’s nose. “There’s nothing to defend,” he soothed. “Your longpaws left long ago.”

There was another crack and the front door bulged forward. Debris from the broken building poured out of it, blocking the path.

“You would have been killed if you had stayed there a moment longer. Both of us would have been.”

Mickey yelped in acknowledgment. Both dogs crouched low to the grass, panting. The noises had died down. Now there was only the occasional clunk or crash and billows of white mist around the building.

Without warning, Mickey sprang to his paws, throwing back his head and howling: “All the good longpaws have gone! They’ve gone! Only the bad ones are left!”

Mickey walked a few paces and howled again, now addressing his departed longpaws. “Why did you leave me? I would never have left you! Why did you go?”

Lucky stayed quiet. Let him get it out, he thought.

Mickey’s howls grew louder. “You let me come upstairs, you gave me treats. . . . You took me to the big garden, we played together. . . . I waited for you when I was alone in the house. . . . I thought about you all the time. Why didn’t you take me with you?”

Eventually the black-and-white dog fell silent. He flopped back onto the grass and dropped his head, his eyes still fixed on the house.

“I thought they’d come back,” he whimpered. His ears twitched. “The other longpaws, the bad ones . . . we challenged them, we scared them with our growls and teeth. I could smell their fear-scent. That’s not how it used to be. I’ve never threatened longpaws before.”

“The world has changed since the Big Growl,” said Lucky.