Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

Tibbles dropped with a thump on all four feet and was off like a white flash upstairs.
    “Damn!” shrieked Duffie, and lunged at Sirius. He ran away around the sofa, expecting to be beaten with a broom again.
    Luckily, they had only been twice around the sofa when the side door opened and Robin, Basil and Kathleen trooped in.
    “What’s going on?” said Basil.
    To the surprise and relief of Sirius, Duffie forgot about him and began to rage long and shrilly about the damage those wretched cats had done in the shop. While the side door was open, Romulus and Remus seized their chance and fled through it. Neither of them reappeared again that day. Sirius supposed it would have beenprudent of him to do the same, but he was not really tempted. He was too glad to see Kathleen again. He jumped up against her and squeaked with pleasure.
    While Duffie was busy dramatically throwing open the shop door and pointing to the heap of smithereens inside, Kathleen wrapped her arms around Sirius. “I’m glad it wasn’t you for once,” she whispered.
    It seemed unfair to Sirius that it should be Kathleen who cleared up the broken pottery. But he had noticed that Kathleen always did do an unfair amount of work. He lay and whined in protest outside the shop door, until she had finished and was able to take him to the meadow. Duffie, meanwhile, stumped away upstairs to find Tibbles. But Tibbles had hidden herself cunningly in the very back of the linen closet and Duffie did not find her.
    After supper that evening, Duffie angrily shut herself in the shop and worked away at her potter’s wheel to replace some of the breakages. When she heard the wheel whirring, Tibbles dared at last to emerge. Very sore and ruffled and hungry, she limped downstairs and into the living room. Only Sirius saw her. Robin, Kathleen, Basil and the thunderous voice were all crowded around the table over some kind of game. Sirius was on the hearthrug with a tough raw bone propped between his paws and his head laid sideways, grating deliciously with his back teeth. He looked at Tibbles across his nose. Tibbles stopped short in the doorway, seeing him looking.
    “It’s all right. It’s quite safe,” Sirius told her. “She’s in the shop. And there’s a whole lot of scraps still down in the kitchen.”
    Tibbles did not reply. She stepped off delicately to the kitchen, shaking each front paw with a lady-like shudder before she put it down. Sirius, in a dog’s equivalent, of a shrug, went back to his bone.
    Quite a while later, when Sirius had done with the bone and was snoozing, Tibbles limped out of the kitchen and came slowly over to the hearthrug. Though she looked rather less wretched, she was still very ruffled. She sat down, wrapped her tail across her front feet and stared fixedly at Sirius.
    “I still hurt. It’s all your fault.”
    Sirius raised an eyebrow and rolled one green eye up at her. “It was your fault, too. But I’m sorry. I was afraid she was going to kill you.”
    “She was,” said Tibbles. “She loves those silly mud pots. Thank you for stopping her.” She raised a front paw and licked it half-heartedly. “I feel awful,” she said miserably. “What can I do?”
    “Come over here and I’ll lick you,” Sirius suggested, greatly daring.
    He expected Tibbles to treat the suggestion with contempt, but, instead, she got up and, casually, as if she did not care particularly, she settled down between his front paws. Most astonished and very flattered, Sirius gingerly licked her back. She tasted clean and fluffy.
    “Farther up and over to the right,” Tibbles said, tucking her paws under her gracefully.
    Half an hour later, Kathleen looked up from the cards. “Goodness gracious!” she exclaimed. “Just look at that now!”
    Everybody looked, and exclaimed to see Tibbles tucked up like a tuffet between the forepaws of the dog with the dog’s head resting against her. Tibbles had flat wet patches all over the tabby part of her