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too.”
    “Bet you say that to all your customers,” I said and grinned. “No matter which flavor they choose.”
    Her toothless smile as she dug deep into the banana ice cream with her metal scoop and delivered a large portion to my cone, proved me right.
    I paid, said my farewells, and juggling three ice creams precariously in each hand, turned away from the counter. Couldn’t wait to see the expression of delight on the dogs’ faces when I opened their trailer doors and they got an eyeful of their treat. Although to be honest, in the past, the dogs barely tasted their gourmet treat. Especially Clark. One swallow and the entire ice cream—cone and all—was no more. I wondered if dogs suffered from an ice-cream headache? If so, I wouldn’t like to be in Clark’s shoes. Or head afterwards.
    “What that boy doing at your car?”
    Nona’s voice, shrill in protest, came from behind me.
    “Qeek, Katrina! Dog will get loose!”
    Pushing through tiredness and jumbled thoughts regarding Clark’s ice cream headache, I looked through the shop window, my gaze settling on my car and trailer which I’d parked lengthwise beside the gutter in front of the shop. A tow haired boy of about eight or nine wearing khaki cargo pants, the crotch drooping around his knees, was in the act of opening the rear door of my car. Damn kid. Where was his mother?
    “Hey, you! Kid! Get away from there!”
    Racing from the shop to give the boy a good telling off, my mouth gaped so wide I almost swallowed a fly. The kid had a slip lead in his hand and he was sliding the lead over Stanley’s head. What the heck was going on around here? Had someone started up a Dog-napping Class 101 at the local Community college and somehow let the instruction handbook spill into primary school curriculums around the state?
    Luckily the author of the handbook had failed to write a chapter explaining the insatiable greed of some dogs on the dog-napping hit list. After licking the boy’s face and preparing to jump out of the car and go for a walk with his new friend, Stanley glanced up and spotted me—or should I say the ice creams in my hands. His eyes lit up, his smile widened into the size of a ball park and with a woof of pure joy he yanked the lead from the boy’s hand and zeroed in on me.
    “No, Stanley! Staaaay! Siiiiit!”
    Instinctively I covered my face with both ice-cream filled hands. There was no way known to man or beast that Stanley was going to stop his mad charge. And I knew it. In fact, I barely got the words out of my mouth before thirty five kilos of red brindle determined canine hurled itself at me. My puny body didn’t stand a chance. The dog’s tunnel vision was programmed on one thing only—expensive gourmet ice creams.
    Tongue already slurping, Stanley landed in a heap on top of me and as we both hit the pavement in a tangle of arms, legs, and paws I let out a loud oof! Two iced confections mashed into my face and ran down my chin onto my shirt while Stanley chased and expertly caught those that shot in the air in four different directions. A vague thought skipped through my mind as I lay flat on my back staring at the sky.
    Why me? Surely this only happens to people in comic books?
    Through blurred vision caused by mashed and fast-melting vanilla and banana ice-cream, I transferred my gaze to the Holden parked behind my trailer. Why did it look familiar? The windscreen was scratched and the noise and vibration from the car’s exhaust had the doors rattling. And then it hit me. Bloody Purple Pants was at it again. I should have known he was behind the attempted dog-napping. Desperately, I grabbed at the dangling lead around Stanley’s neck and held on.
    You’re not getting this dog, buster!
    The guy most likely to be voted No. 1 in the Substandard Crook of the Year Award stuck his head through the car’s open window, his leathery forehead furrowed in an angry frustrated frown. “Shut your mouth and run!” he snarled to the boy