Roo lives with Harry Horse and Mandy in an old farmhouse in the Scottish Borders. She has turned down several film offers since the publication of The Last Polar Bears, preferring instead to concentrate on rabbits. It is her ambition to own one eventually. She is currently working on her first book, provisionally entitled The Bad Rabbits.
Harry Horse writes and illustrates children's books. His titles include The Last Gold Diggers, for which he won the Smarties Gold Award. He is well known as a political cartoonist and has produced cartoons for the New Yorker, the Guardian and the Sunday Herald. Unusually, rabbits do not play a large part in his life.
Poopy is a small grey plastic walrus who lives in Roo's basket. He has no hobbies, but likes to lurk on the stairs, waiting to trip people up. This is his first (and hopefully his last) book.
Some other books by Harry Horse
THE LAST POLAR BEARS
THE LAST GOLD DIGGERS
THE LAST COWBOYS
Being, as it were, an Account of a Small Dog's Adventures at Sea
PUFFIN BOOKS
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published 2003
10
Copyright © Harry Horse, 2003
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author/illustrator has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-14-192574-5
For Mandy and Roo
Roo and I are both well. I have been pottering around in the garden and Roo has been helping me. She's not really a gardening type of dog, unless you count digging large holes in the lawn as helping, which I don't.
To distract Roo from digging another big hole by the pond, I took her to the Dog Show at the community hall on Sunday.
Roo won a cup. She was the Best Unknown Breed in her class. The judge said that he was not sure what type of dog Roo was, but he liked her anyway. Roo said her breed was famous for being unknown. She wanted to keep the cup in her
basket but I would not let her. It might get dented. We have to give it back next year.
You ask in your last letter if Roo and I will ever go on another adventure again. As a matter of fact, we have had numerous requests from complete strangers to lead expeditions all over the world. One of the letters was from a chap called Colonel Parker. He wanted Roo to lead an expedition up the Amazon in search of a lost city in the jungle. I had to write back and say that Roo is not good in jungles and that we had retired.
So for Roo and me the days of adventure are over. No more expeditions for us. Your mother would not allow it for a start. She says that we are both too old. I'm eighty this summer and Roo is not far behind. She's twelve, which is quite old for a dog. But she still chases rabbits when given the chance and she never lets the robin stay on the lawn. Roo still has a spring in her step and she loves life.
And rabbits. And digging holes.
And food. Which reminds me – I had better go and feed her. Nothing comes between a dog and its dinner.
P.S. I almost forgot. Uncle Freddie has invited us to go down to Saltbottle for a few days. It's a lovely little place by the sea. We are going to stay in a hotel. Will write when we get there.
Just a few lines to let you know that we are here. The journey was awful.
Uncle Freddie drove us down. He's not that keen on dogs and I think Roo sensed this. First of all, he wanted Roo to go in a dog cage in the back. Roo growled when she saw the cage and the idea was quickly abandoned.
Roo went on the back seat in her basket instead. There was a bit of an argument over Poopy who had mysteriously appeared in the car. I should say here that Poopy is a small grey plastic walrus. He honks in a most annoying manner, particularly when trodden on, which is often. Roo tends to leave him in the most awkward places. At the top of the stairs, for instance, or on the back doorstep. I have tripped over him many times and in truth am heartily sick of the little walrus.
But Roo adores him, so what can I do?
She would not give him back and slunk under the driver's seat with Poopy clenched in her mouth. Honking in that awful way of his. It was a dreadful start to our journey. I am afraid that in the end we had to give up and Poopy came on holiday with us.
We had not gone very far before Roo began playing us up. Said that she could not ‘scent’ properly in the back. Told her that we did not need her to ‘scent’ as we had a map, thank you.
Roo said that we were bound to get lost in that case.
Tried to ignore her.
Every five miles or so Roo would ask if we were there yet.
When I told her that we weren't, she would sigh dramatically and lie with her feet in the air making horrible choking sounds. Twice we pulled over to see what was wrong with her and each time she made a miraculous recovery and jumped in the front. When I tried to lift her back, she made herself heavy. It took both of us to budge her.
What with the honking, the skittering, the scrabbling and the snuffling, it all got too much for Uncle Freddie. He pulled over for lunch at a pub called the Dog and Goose and fled inside.