Sticky Beak by Morris Gleitzman Page B

might be better if they thought I was shifting over to poodles.’
    He looked bitterly towards the kitchen.
    â€˜Fat chance,’ he said.
    â€˜Darryn,’ shouted his father, ‘Amelia’s having a sleep on your bed. Don’t disturb her.’
    Darryn gave Sticky a hug.
    â€˜I should never have done it,’ he said sadly. ‘But Sticky’s forgiven me, haven’t you mate.’
    â€˜Drop off a log,’ said Sticky.
    â€˜See,’ said Darryn, beaming, ‘he’s talking to me now.’
    He gave Sticky another hug and I had to admit it did look as though Sticky had forgiven him. He wasn’t shredding Darryn’s ears or anything.
    For a sec I was tempted to grab Sticky and run for it and hide out for a couple of years, just him and me, on a deserted island off the Philippines, but I decided against it.
    Sticky gave me a look. ‘Thanks for everything,’ it said, ‘but I’m home now.’
    Darryn let me have a couple of private minutes with Sticky to say goodbye.
    We both got pretty moist in the eyes, Sticky and me, and while I was showing him a picture of me coming to visit him often, and he was telling me to bite my bum, I made a promise to myself that one day I’ll have a cocky all of my own.
    It occurred to me, as Darryn was putting Sticky back into the cage, that Ms Dunning had probably felt the same way about having a baby.
    Then I took Darryn for a long walk and wrote him lots of notes and slowly he grasped my plan to save him from a life of misery.
    He was a bit doubtful at first, but when we got here to the showground he realised what a great plan it is.
    Everything’s set up, Darryn’s in position, people have started arriving, and we’re just waiting now for the mayor to declare the Agricultural Show open.

 
    The plan didn’t work.
    I still can’t believe it.
    Everything went as smoothly as a well-oiled apple-polishing machine and the plan still didn’t work.
    I waited till the judging had started in the Dog tent, then I wheeled the extra display stand in.
    Mr and Mrs Peck were so busy fussing about with their poodle that they didn’t notice me getting into position next to them at the end of the row of dogs.
    I timed it spot on.
    Just as the judges were inspecting Amelia Peck Hyloader The Third, I whipped the cover off my stand.
    The judges moved on, peered over their clipboards, and the blood drained from their faces.
    It was probably the first time they’d seen a boy on a dog display stand.
    Darryn was brilliant.
    He panted and got up on all fours and looked at his parents with mournful eyes and let his tongue loll out.
    He looked exactly like a boy whose parents treat him worse than a dog.
    That’s when everything went wrong.
    Mr and Mrs Peck didn’t sweep him up in their arms and weep and say how sorry they were and promise never to boot him out of his room again when the poodle wanted a nap.
    They didn’t even look at each other and say, ‘Let this be a lesson to us not to neglect Darryn in future’.
    Mrs Peck just screamed.
    And Mr Peck just shouted, ‘Darryn, get off there this minute, you’re upsetting the dogs’.
    Darryn was very good about it all.
    After we’d run for it and hidden behind the Jam And Preserves tent and seen that no one was following us, he thanked me.
    â€˜It was a good try,’ he said sadly.
    Then he went off to find his mates.
    I felt awful.
    I wrote a long note explaining that it was all my idea and that Darryn shouldn’t be punished because he’d only agreed to do it because he was gullible, and I left it under the Pecks’ windscreen wiper.
    Walking back across the car park I was spotted by the one person I didn’t want to be spotted by.
    Mr Segal.
    â€˜Rowena,’ he called out, ‘about your TV project.’
    It was too late to run.
    Mr Segal sprinted over and blocked my way.
    â€˜Brilliant,’ he said,