In the street, Max asked if he could push the pram. Mum raised her eyebrows at him. ‘I thought you didn’t like wheeling the pram.’ But this was different: Max felt important as he rolled it along. Kids came running to have a look and everyone wanted to pat the pups. It was lucky the pram had high sides. The pups kept trying to stand on their hind legs with their front paws on the edge, and Max had to keep jerking the pram to make them fall down so they couldn’t climb out. By the time he arrived at school, he had about ten kids with him, all talking about how lucky he was. Even Lily Moon came over. ‘They’re cool,’ she said. ‘I wish I could have one.’

‘They’re free,’ Max said, noticing how the morning sun turned her hair golden. ‘You can have one if you want.’

‘I’ll have to ask my dad.’

‘Does he like dogs?’ Max asked. He wasn’t sure if a pup would be safe around Mooney. He’d seen Lily’s dad being mean to his wife and his kids.

‘I don’t know,’ Lily Moon said, ‘but I like them.’

In the classroom Max’s teacher, Miss Myrtle the Turtle, was writing on the whiteboard. She didn’t seem happy about the pups until Mum promised to take them home straight after show-and-tell. When the bell rang, the kids came rushing in and Miss Myrtle made them sit in a circle on the floor. Max removed the pups from the pram one by one and set them down. ‘Tell us about your pups, Max,’ Miss Myrtle said. ‘How old are they? And what do you feed them?’

Max told the class everything. How he’d been there when they were born. How Rosie ate her afterbirth. How Robbo’s dog was probably the dad. And how Dad said they had to go in two weeks.

‘Free to a good home,’ Mum said.

Miss Myrtle smiled. ‘Does anyone think they might want one?’

Everyone’s hands went up, and Max was stoked. There were twenty-four kids in his class. That made four possible homes for each pup—Max was good at his six-times tables.

Max’s friend Callum didn’t get to see the pups because he was late to school, so he came around to Max’s place that afternoon. But there was a problem: he brought his big brother with him. Max didn’t like Jaden, but what could he do when they both showed up? He couldn’t tell Jaden to go away so he invited them in and gave them packets of chips from the pantry. Mum was down at the shops with Suzie, so she didn’t see when Jaden took an extra pack without asking then drank milk from the bottle in the fridge, spreading his wet pink lips around the opening.