The Dog that Saved the World (Cup), page 1
First published in 2021 in Great Britain by
Barrington Stoke Ltd
18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP
This ebook edition first published in 2021
www.barringtonstoke.co.uk
Text © 2021 Phil Earle
Illustration © 2021 Elisa Paganelli
The moral right of Phil Earle and Elisa Paganelli to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in any part in any form without the written permission of the publisher
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library upon request
ISBN: 978-1-80090-034-9
To our Elsie, of course ...
... and to my friends at Barrington Stoke, who are by far the greatest team the world has ever seen
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
The true stories that inspired The Dog that Saved the World (Cup)
1
Football is the best thing ever. Fact.
I mean, sleeping is great too, but when I dream, it’s always about scoring goals. And I like eating – I’ll scoff every scrap of food in my bowl, but only so I have loads of energy to chase a football all day.
Everything comes back to football in the end. Know what I mean?
I’m pretty good at it as well. I should be, given how much time I spend in the park dribbling, passing, practising my silky skills. I don’t want to sound like a big head, but when people see me playing football, they stop and watch. Some of them even get their phones out and film me. They laugh and point and clap, which just makes me show off all my best tricks. There’s nothing better than playing football in front of a crowd, and the bigger the crowd, the better. Some days in the park, we end up with so many people watching that it feels like we should be charging them.
“We’d make a fortune,” Elsie always says. “Imagine how happy Dad would be if we went home with a hat full of cash?”
Elsie’s right too. We haven’t had much money lately, and it’s caused Dad, and Elsie, a lot of worry.
Elsie has been my best friend ever since she was born. She’s the person I always play football with. She’s skilful, fast and has a properly powerful shot.
She’s not as good as me, but that’s OK. After all, there’s a really good reason why I’m a better footballer. Two reasons, in fact: I’ve got four legs and Elsie only has two.
Anyway, football has always been our thing. It’s what Elsie and I do, the thing that makes us best mates. And then recently, it became more than that.
Football took us on an adventure. A BIG ONE.
And this adventure changed Elsie’s world, and mine …
2
There were three people in our team. No substitutes, no big-money transfers in or out. Just Elsie, Dad and me. It had been that way for a long time, since Mum left when Elsie was a baby. You could say I was the coach, and the captain too, but Dad would have disagreed. He liked to think he was the boss, the one who decided the tactics on and off the pitch. But when he tried to boss Elsie and me about, I just talked over him. Loudly.
We lived in a flat down by the railway tracks. It was small, but Elsie and I liked it cos we got to share a room. Dad slept on the settee in the living room.
“It’s nearly 6.08, Pickles,” Elsie said to me every night. “Ready for the roar?” And I pricked my ears up, my tongue lolling.
The 6.08 was a BIG train, one that thundered out of the city and all the way up to the north.
Elsie told me, “If you close your eyes and REALLY use your imagination, the noise of the train is like the roar of a football crowd. You know, when a winger goes on a run and everyone jumps to their feet!”
I have to admit, the roar didn’t remind me of that at all. I didn’t like it. The way the sound made the walls shake, knocking Elsie’s medals off the old fruit crate she used as a trophy cabinet. But I made myself remember that Elsie is actually two years younger than me. If she could be brave and turn the noise of the train into something cool, then I could too.
So when the rumbling started, we’d always do the same thing. Elsie would jump to her feet and grab an empty toilet roll, pretending it was a microphone.
“Here comes Elsie,” she would say, in her best commentator voice. “She picks the ball up inside her own half and beats one, two, three players as if they weren’t even there.”
As the train roared closer and louder, Elsie always jumped onto her bed, and I did the same, running in circles as if I was the winger. Or if I really wanted to make Elsie laugh, I’d dive on my back like I was one of the beaten defenders.
“This is a brilliant run,” she’d yell, louder and louder to match the train’s roar. And as the train whizzed past, Elsie would shout, “She sees the keeper off her line and shoots … GOOOOAAAAAL!”
And I’d bark “GOAL!” too, and Elsie and I would celebrate like we’d just won the cup.
It was the same every night, with the same response from Dad too.
“Will you two keep it down?” Dad always yelled from the doorway, holding the phone to his chest so the person at the other end couldn’t hear. “I’m trying to close a deal here!”
Dad did a lot of that – “closing deals”. I think it meant he was working. He sold things to people over the phone – that’s what Elsie told me anyway. But it never seemed like anyone wanted what Dad was selling. It all sounded very confusing. To be honest, being a dog seemed a lot more fun. And simpler too.
But Dad always calmed down by the time we had dinner. And he always made it fun. Well, as fun as eating food that came in dented old cans could be.
“Dad,” Elsie would say. “Why do we always have food from damaged cans? Is it because it’s cheaper?”
“No, no, no!” Dad said. “Far from it. The dents make the food taste better. Makes it one of a kind.”
I was never sure if Elsie believed him. Her face didn’t look like she did.
Tuesday was always “soup night” and Wednesdays meant “bean feast”, which was beans on toast (with cheese if it was a good week). Fridays were Elsie’s favourite, as Dad called it “lucky-dip day”. He would take the label off the can before opening it, then blindfold Elsie and make her guess the food inside just by sniffing. She was amazing at it. I thought I had a detective’s nose, but it’s nothing compared to Elsie’s.
I always had dog biscuits by the way – dry, boring, tasteless biscuits. So I’d hide under Elsie’s chair as she ate. She was a brilliantly messy eater, which meant I got to fill my belly AND keep the floor clean for Dad!
But what we both loved best was bedtime, as Dad always got us warm, no matter how rubbish dinner had been, or how cold it was in the flat that night. He’d heat a hot water bottle for Elsie, and one for me too. Then we’d snuggle down in her sleeping bag while Dad told us stories about a made-up footballer who took the world by storm despite being just sixteen years old.
Elsie always looked so happy as she listened to Dad. She would stroke me behind my ear until she fell asleep and whisper “goal” in her dreams as the late trains rumbled past.
I always stayed awake later than Elsie to make sure Dad was OK, but he never did anything very interesting. Mostly he sat at the table, warming his hands on a mug of tea, staring at lots of pieces of paper covered in red ink.
I’ve no idea what the letters said – I can’t read, can I? But I think they were from someone called Bill, as Dad would say his name over and over again. Whoever Bill was, he couldn’t have been very nice, as his letters always made Dad sigh and shake his head a lot. Sometimes, Dad even put his head on the table and made the sorts of noises I make when I lose my ball. When he did that, I always went over and licked his leg, which cheered Dad up no end.
Like I said, we were a team, the three of us. And what do teams do, no matter what happens?
They stick together, that’s what.
3
Wednesdays were the best days, because that was football training day for Elsie. She played for the Saints. Both boys and girls played for the team, but Elsie was the best. I trained her well: she was the fastest runner, the best tackler, and as for her shooting? Well, she was nearly as good as me. Nearly.
This particular Wednesday, Elsie and I were running ahead of Dad as we made our way to training. We couldn’t wait to get there, and as we ran, Elsie couldn’t stop talking about a VERY important footballing event that was coming up.
“Can you believe it, Pickles?” she said to me. “It’s only a couple of months until the World Cup starts. I don’t know about you, but I am WELL excited!”
I barked to let her know that I agreed.
“I mean, it’s bonkers, isn’t it?” Elsie said. “That the World Cup is taking place right here, in our country. Dad says it’s decades since that happened. Do you think he might surprise us and take us to a match?”
I didn’t think so, but I didn’t want to burst Elsie’s
“Imagine going to a match,” Elsie went on. “All those thousands of people. If there was a goal, it’d be like five trains passing the flat at once!”
I loved seeing Elsie get so excited about the World Cup, and of course it was brilliant that football was “coming home”, as Elsie said. But I knew that I wouldn’t be going to a match any time soon. I’d watched hundreds of games on the telly and I’d never seen a dog in the crowd. I’d often thought about writing a letter of complaint, but then I’d remember that I couldn’t read or write. And that I’ve got paws instead of fingers. It’s not easy holding a pen in your teeth, I can tell you.
Anyway, we arrived at footie training, and Elsie started warming up with her friends. This was when I always started to feel a bit jealous. I might have been a great player, but Coach wouldn’t let me take part in practice, and I had to stand on the touchline with Dad, on my lead.
After warm-up, the Saints normally moved on to drills, but today was different. Today, Coach called the players into a huddle.
“Exciting news, team!” Coach said. “You know the World Cup will be starting soon?”
Everyone nodded (including me).
“Well, we’ve been invited to enter a competition,” Coach went on. “And the winners get to play a match during half time … at THE WORLD CUP FINAL!!”
You can imagine how excited everyone was. I got so dizzy chasing my own tail that I got tangled up in my lead and fell over.
“All we have to do,” Coach said, “is send in a video showing how skilful we are. The two teams who perform the best tricks will be chosen. So, what do you think?”
Well, of course nobody needed asking twice. Coach pulled out his phone and hit record, and everyone started showing off their best footballing tricks – lollipops, step-overs, flick-flacks.
It was all very impressive, but as I stood there and watched, I knew something the players didn’t. Every team in the country would do the same thing. They needed something else, something different – something that would make the Saints stand out.
They needed me! I pulled so hard on my lead that the catch broke, allowing me to dash free and show the camera just what I was made of. I performed all my best tricks: around the world, switch scoop, rocket launcher. I was unstoppable. And after a minute or two, Elsie had a BRILLIANT idea.
“Let’s put Pickles in a Saints shirt and film him!” she said. “We can make it look like he’s our star player! We’ll definitely win then.”
That was fine by me – if it helped the team and, most importantly, it made Elsie happy. So I stood there as Elsie pulled a Saints top over my head and tied a knot in it to hold it in place.
The next five minutes were awesome. There were gasps and lots of laughter as I bamboozled the team with my skills and scored goal after goal. Then I ended by nutmegging Coach, much to his embarrassment.
Did you get all that? I wanted to ask Coach, but I gave him a lick to make him feel better instead. I knew that if he had filmed it, then the other teams might as well not even enter the competition.
The Saints, Elsie and I would be on our way to Wembley!
4
The next few weeks were very, very exciting.
There were adverts for the World Cup everywhere you looked. On the telly, in the newspapers, even on the sides of buses. There were huge photographs of the most famous footballers on the planet, all about to play in the biggest tournament ever!
Elsie and I didn’t do a lot of sleeping, I can tell you. But we did do a lot of practising. If the Saints won the competition and were picked to play at the final, then we had to be on top form. So I worked Elsie hard, snapping at her heels if she started looking weak. “All right, all right, boy,” Elsie said with a smile, looking tired.
But there was one person who looked even more pooped than Elsie did – Dad. It was strange, as I didn’t see him training, not even for a minute, yet he had great big bags under his eyes. And he looked sad too – as sad as I’d felt the day I burst my favourite ball.
Fortunately, Elsie didn’t notice Dad’s tiredness. She was too gripped with World Cup fever. Plus, it’s easy to forget sometimes that she’s still only young. She doesn’t see the world like I do. That’s why I’m the boss, I suppose. So I kept a very close eye on Dad when Elsie was at school and he worked at the kitchen table.
The flat was always cold during the day. Dad turned the heating off and filled up both of our hot water bottles instead, shoving one down the back of his jumper and laying the other across his slippers.
I’d lie at Dad’s feet, warming myself on the bottle, listening as he made his work calls.
“Good morning, madam, can I interest you in double glazing today—”
Most of the time the person hung up on him before Dad even finished the sentence, which always made me feel sad and more than a bit angry.
It upset Dad too. One day when it had happened ten times, he looked pale and tired. After another ten calls, I thought he might cry. Then he started looking at all of Bill’s red letters again, which just made him look even worse.
I didn’t stand around and watch him. Course not. I tried to cheer Dad up. Tempt him into a game of footie, rolling my ball to him with my nose.
“Not now, Pickles,” Dad said. “I haven’t got time to play. I haven’t even got time to eat.” Then he muttered, “I can’t afford to eat anyway.”
Now that really DID make me feel sad – so sad that I pushed my food bowl against his shin to show him that I was happy to share. But it didn’t matter how many times I did it, Dad refused. In fact, in the end he got so cross that he shouted at me, which was most unlike him.
“For goodness sake, Pickles, STOP IT!” he yelled. “Can’t you see it’s all going wrong?”
And he buried his head in his hands and cried, then screwed every letter from Bill into a ball.
Now as you know, I LOVE a ball, but this was one game I didn’t want to take part in.
Dad was sad, REALLY sad, and I was scared that there was nothing I could do to help.
5
Dad had dried his eyes by the time he and I reached the school gates later that afternoon. All Elsie saw was both of us smiling when she raced out of the door, kicking a ball as she went.
It was Wednesday, training day, so we headed down to the park.
As we arrived, all the Saints players stood surrounding Coach, and he was wearing the biggest of beaming smiles.
“Elsie,” he said, “thank goodness you’re here! That means I can tell you all the news.”
Her team-mates beckoned her over, all with excited faces – the sort of face I’d have if every cat in the world had been thrown into prison.
“What?” Elsie yelled. “What is it?”
To be honest, I wanted to know too, and I turned to look at Dad to see if he had worked it out before us. But then his phone rang, and as he checked the screen his face turned whiter than an England kit.
Who is it? I wondered. Don’t answer the phone now, Dad. Coach is about to announce some big news!
But Dad took the call, his face all lined and worried.
I didn’t know which way to look. Should I focus on Elsie and hear her news, or Dad, to see what was going on there? It was a hard decision to make. Elsie might have been smaller than Dad, but they were both my family. I had to keep them both safe and happy.
In the end, I chose Elsie, but only because Coach was being so loud about it.
“You’re never going to believe it,” he said. “I had to read the letter fifty times, then call the people to check it was true, but I’ve had the best news. Not just the best, the GREATEST …”
Get on with it! I thought, desperate to hear what Coach had to say.
“We won! The competition … to play at the World Cup final … we only flipping well WON, DIDN’T WE? We’re on our way to WEMBLEY!”
And Coach leapt in the air like he’d just scored the winning goal in the ninetieth minute. Of course this started all the others jumping too and chanting, “OLE! OLE, OLE, OLE!”
