Lesson 5 Lob’s Girl (1)

Joan Aiken

Some people choose their dogs, and some dogs choose their people. The Pengelly family had no say in the choosing of Lob; he came to them in the second way, and very decisively.

It began on the beach, the summer when Sandy was five, Don, her older brother,twelve, and the twins were three. Sandy was really Alexandra, because her grandmother had a beautiful picture of a queen in a diamond tiara[1] and high collar of pearls. It hung by Granny Pearce’s kitchen sink and was as familiar as the doormat. When Sandy was born everyone agreed that she was the living spit of the picture, and so she was called Alexandra and Sandy for short.

On this summer day she was lying peacefully reading a comic and not keeping an eye on the twins, who didn’t need it because they were occupied in seeing which of them could wrap the most seaweed around the other one’s legs. Father—Bert Pengelly—and Don were up on the Hard painting the bottom boards of the boat in which Father went fishing for pilchards[2]. And Mother—Jean Pengelly—was getting ahead with making the Christmas puddings because she never felt easy in her mind if they weren’t made and safely put away by the end of August. As usual, each member of the family was happily getting on with his or her own affairs. Little did they guess how soon this state of things would be changed by the large new member who was going to erupt into their midst.

Sandy rolled onto her back to make sure that the twins were not climbing on slippery rocks or getting cut off by the tide. At the same moment a large body struck her forcibly in the midriff and she was covered by flying sand. Instinctively she shut her eyes and felt the sand being wiped off her face by something that seemed like a warm,rough, damp flannel[3]. She opened her eyes and looked. It was a tongue. Its owner was a large and bouncy young Alsatian, or German shepherd, with topaz eyes, black-tipped prick ears, a thick soft coat, and a bushy black-tipped tail.

“Lob!” shouted a man farther up the beach. “Lob, come here!”

But Lob, as if trying to atone for the surprise he had given her, went on licking the sand off Sandy’s face, wagging his tail so hard while he kept on knocking up more clouds of sand. His owner, a gray-haired man with a limp[4], walked over as quickly as he could and seized him by the collar.

“I hope he didn’t give you a fright?” the man said to Sandy. “He meant it in play—he’s only young.”

“Oh, no, I think he’s beautiful.” said Sandy truly. She picked up a bit of driftwood and threw it. Lob, whisking easily out of his master’s grip, was after it like a sandcolored bullet. He came back with the stick, beaming, and gave it to Sandy. At the same time he gave himself, though no one else was aware of this at the time. But with Sandy,too, it was love at first sight, and when, after a lot more stick-throwing, she and the twins joined Father and Don to go home for tea, they cast many a backward glance at Lob being led firmly away by his master.

“I wish we could play with him every day.” Tess sighed.

“Why can’t we?” said Tim.

Sandy explained. “Because Mr. Dodsworth, who owns him, is from Liverpool,and he is only staying at the Fisherman’s Arms till Saturday.”

“Is Liverpool a long way off?”

“Right at the other end of England from Cornwall, I’m afraid.”

It was a Cornish fishing village where the Pengelly family lived, with rocks and cliffs and a strip of beach and a little round harbor, and palm trees growing in the gardens of the little whitewashed stone houses. The village was approached by a narrow, steep, twisting hill-road, and guarded by a notice that said LOW GEAR FOR 1 ? MILES, DANGEROUS TO CYCLISTS.

The Pengelly children went home to scones with Cornish cream and jam, thinking they had seen the last of Lob. But they were much mistaken. The whole family was playing cards by the fire in the front room after supper when there was a loud thump and a crash of china in the kitchen.

“My Christmas puddings!” exclaimed Jean, and ran out.

“Did you put TNT in them, then?” her husband said.

But it was Lob, who, finding the front door shut, had gone around to the back and bounced in through the open kitchen window, where the puddings were cooling on the sill. Luckily only the smallest was knocked down and broken.

Lob stood on his back legs and plastered Sandy’s face with licks. Then he did the same for the twins, who shrieked with joy.

“Where does this friend of yours come from?” inquired Mr. Pengelly.

“He’s staying at the Fisherman’s Arms—I mean his owner is.”

“Then he must go back there. Find a bit of string, Sandy, to tie to his collar.”

“I wonder how he found his way here,” Mrs. Pengelly said, when the reluctant Lob had been led whining away and Sandy had explained about their afternoon’s game on the beach. “Fisherman’s Arms is right around the other side of the harbor.”

Lob’s owner scolded him and thanked Mr. Pengelly for bringing him back. Jean Pengelly warned the children that they had better not encourage Lob any more if they met him on the beach, or it would only lead to more trouble. So they dutifully took no notice of him the next day until he soiled their good resolutions by dashing up to them with joyful barks, wagging his tail so hard that he winded Tess and knocked Tim’s legs from under him.

They had a happy day, playing on the sand.

The next day was Saturday. Sandy had found out that Mr. Dodsworth was to catch the half-past-nine train. She went out secretly, down to the station, nodded to Mr.

Hoskins, the station master, who wouldn’t dream of charging any local for a platform ticket, and climbed up on the footbridge that led over the tracks. She didn’t want to be seen, but she did want to see. She saw Mr. Dodsworth get on the train, accompanied by an unhappy-looking Lob with drooping ears and tail. Then she saw the train slide away out of sight around the next headland, with a melancholy wail that sounded like Lob’s last goodbye.

Sandy wished she hadn’t had the idea of coming to the station. She walked home miserably, with her shoulders hunched and her hands in her pockets. For the rest of the day she was so cross and unlike herself that Tess and Tim were quite surprised, and her mother gave her a dose of senna.

A week passed. Then, one evening, Mrs. Pengelly and the younger children were in the front room playing snakes and ladders. Mr. Pengelly and Don had gone fishing on the evening tide. If your father is a fisherman, he will never be home at the same time from one week to the next.

Suddenly, history repeating itself. There was a crash from the kitchen. Jean Pengelly leaped up, crying, “My blackberry jelly!” She and the children had spent the morning picking and the afternoon boiling fruit.

But Sandy was ahead of her mother. With flushed cheeks and eyes like stars she had darted into the kitchen, where she and Lob were hugging one another in a frenzy of joy. About a yard of his tongue was out, and he was licking every part of her that he could reach.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Jean. “How in the world did he get here?”

“He must have walked,” said Sandy. “Look at his feet.”

They were worn, dusty, and tarry. One had a cut on the pad.

“They ought to be bathed,” said Jean Pengelly. “Sandy, run a bowl of warm water while I get disinfectant.”

“What’ll we do about him, Mother?” said Sandy anxiously.

Mrs. Pengelly looked at her daughter’s pleading eyes and sighed.

“He must go back to his owner, of course,” she said, making her voice firm. “Your dad can get the address from the Fisherman’s tomorrow, and phone him or send a telegram. In the meantime he’d better have a long drink and a good meal.”

Lob was very grateful for the drink and the meal, and made no objection to having his feet washed. Then he flopped[5] down on the hearthrug and slept in front of the fire they had lit because it was a cold, wet evening, with his head on Sandy’s feet. He was a very tired dog. He had walked all the way from Liverpool to Cornwall, which is more than four hundred miles.

The next day Mr. Pengelly phoned Lob’s owner, and the following morning Mr.Dodsworth arrived off the night train, decidedly put out, to take his pet home. That parting was worse than the first. Lob whined[6], Don walked out of the house, the twins burst out crying, and Sandy crept up to her bedroom afterward and lay with her face pressed into the quilt, feeling as if she were bruised all over.

Jean Pengelly took them all into Plymouth to see the circus on the next day and the twins cheered up a little, but even the hour’s ride in the train each way and the Liberty horses and performing seals could not cure Sandy’s sore heart.

She need not have bothered, though. In ten days’ time Lob was back—limping this time, with a torn ear and a patch missing out of his furry coat, as if he had met and tangled with an enemy or two in the course of his four-hundred-mile walk.

(1,695 words)

Ⅰ . How well did you read?

1. [Check the detail] Who was Lob in the story?

A. A Girl. B. A dog.

C. A boy. D. A fisherman.

2. [Note the fact] In Paragraph 3, what did “the large new member” refer to?

A. A big Fish. B. A nearby fisherman.

C. A dog. D. A relative.

3. [Check the detail] Who knocked Jean’s cooling puddings in the kitchen in Paragraph 18?

A. Sandy. B. Tess. C. Timmy. D. Lob.

4. [Check the detail] What did mom do to cheer the kids up after Lob was given back to its owner?

A. To tell them stories. B. To get back Lob.

C. To take them out for entertainment. D. To take them to the harbor.

5. [See the result] Who missed Lob most?

A. Dad. B. Tess. C. Sandy. D. Tim.

II. Read for words.

1. But Lob, as if trying to atone for the surprise he had given her, went on licking the sand off Sandy’s face, wagging his tail so hard while he kept on knocking up more clouds of sand. (Line 1, Paragraph 6)

A. make up B. watch out C. fight D. look

2. Then she saw the train slide away out of sight around the next headland, with a melancholy wail that sounded like Lob’s last good-bye. (Line 7, Paragraph 26)

A. sad B. happy C. nervous D. naughty

3. With flushed cheeks and eyes like stars she had darted into the kitchen, where she and Lob were hugging one another in a frenzy of joy. (Line 2, Paragraph 30)

A. run fast B. turned slowly

C. escaped secretly D. knocked lightly

III. Write for practice.

According to the story, write a short summary based on the leading questions. Word limit: above 60.

1. How many people were living together?

2. Who licked Sandy?

3. Whose dog was it?

4. Where did Lob go with its owner?

5. How did Lob come?

6. Did Lob stay with Sandy?

7. What might have happened to Lob on its second trip?

8. Where was Lob now?

9. How did Sandy feel? And why?

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