'See?' the trainer said, glaring at the shadows. 'It's like it's some kind of mind reader.'
'It's just a mutt,' said his companion. 'Don't worry about it. Come on, get the leash on this one and let's get him back before Mr Dibbler finds out.'
Laddie followed them obediently back to Century of the Fruitbat, and allowed himself to be chained up to his kennel. Possibly he didn't like the idea, but it was hard to be sure in the network of duties, obligations and vague emotional shadows that made up what, for want of a better word, had to be called his mind.
He pulled experimentally on the chain once or twice, and then lay down, awaiting developments.
After a while a small hoarse voice on the other side of the fence said, 'I could send you a bone with a file in it, only you'd eat it.'
Laddie perked up.
'Good boy Laddie! Good boy Gaspode!'
'Ssh! Ssh! At least they ort to let you speak to a lawyer,' said Gaspode. 'Chaining someone up's against human rights.'
'Woof.'
'Anyway, I paid 'em back. I followed the 'orrible one back to his house an' piddled all down his front door.'
'Woof.'
Gaspode sighed, and waddled away. Sometimes, in his heart of hearts, he wondered whether it wouldn't after all be nice to belong to someone. Not just be owned by them or chained up by them, but actually belong, so that you were glad to see them and carried their slippers in your mouth and pined away when they died, etc.
Laddie actually liked that kind of stuff, if you could call it 'liked'; it was more like something built into his bones. Gaspode wondered darkly if this was true dogness, and growled deep in his throat. It wasn't, if he had anything to do with it. Because true dogness wasn't about slippers and walkies and pining for people, Gaspode was sure. Dogness was about being tough and independent and mean.
Yeah.
Gaspode had heard that all canines could interbreed, even back to the original wolves, so that must mean that, deep down inside, every dog was a wolf. You could make a dog out of a wolf, but you couldn't take the wolf out of a dog. When the hardpad was acting up and the fleas were feisty and acting full of plumptiousness, it was a comforting thought.
Gaspode wondered how you went about mating with a wolf, and what happened to you when you stopped.
Well, that didn't matter. What mattered was that true dogs didn't go around going mad with pleasure just because a human said something to them.
Yeah.
He growled at a pile of trash and dared it to disagree.
Part of the pile moved, and a feline face with a defunct fish in its mouth peered out at him. He was just about to bark half-heartedly at it, for tradition's sake, when it spat the fish out and spoke to him.
'Hallo, Gathpode.'
Gaspode relaxed. 'Oh. Hallo, cat. No offence meant. Didn't know it was you.'
'I hateth fisth,' said the cat, 'but at leasth they don't talk back.'
Another part of the trash moved and Squeak the mouse emerged.
'What're you two doin' down here?' said Gaspode. 'I thought you said it was safer on the hill.'
'Not any more,' said the cat. 'It'sh getting too shpooky.'
Gaspode frowned. 'You're a cat,' he said disapprovingly. 'You ort to be right alongside the idea of spooky.'
'Yeah, but that doesh'nt exhtend to having golden sparks crackling off your fur and the ground shaking the whole time. And weird voices that you think must be happening in your own head,' said cat. 'It's becoming eldritch up there.'
'So we all came down,' said Squeak. 'Mr Thumpy and the duck are hiding out in the dunes-'
Another cat dropped off the fence beside them. It was large and ginger and not blessed with Holy Wood intelligence. It stared at the sight of a mouse looking relaxed in the presence of a cat.