Read Up With the Larks for Free Online Page B

thrust on me and thank her profusely.
We grin happily at each other. Her dog Lily is happy too,
sitting down without being told for her green biscuit. I am so
impressed I give her two.
    'Now that 'twas kind of you, maid, but we mustn't do that.
Only one. Lily would get fat, now wouldn't you, me darling,'
she chuckles over the dog who is eyeing me hopefully, knowing
a sucker when she sees one.
    The bearded collie/poodle cross is a bouncy dog that comes
bounding out when its owners come to the door: a roly-poly
man with his roly-poly wife peering over his shoulder. I'd met
them before, with Susie, so we greet each other like old friends
and I give their dog his yellow bone-shaped biscuit. Only one
this time, though. I've learned my lesson.
    The man says, 'Oh poor Blackie.'
    His wife tuts behind him, 'Susie always gives him at least
two.' Their initial friendliness is turning to disapproval.
    'Oh, right. Of course. Here, Blackie, here's another one.
Good dog – hey, gentle! OK, good boy.'
    'Girl,' comes the chorus from Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
    The last house is the one with the German shepherd. By now
the fog and rain have cleared and the sky is black and blue with
racing storm clouds over the sea. The light is exquisite, one
minute a mustard yellow dawn colour, the next dark and shadowy
as the clouds clump together. I am feeling jaunty and pleased
with myself. Maybe I can do this job after all.
    The dog must be inside the house as there is no sign of him
in the garden. I don't hear him either and assume he is out with
his owner whom I haven't met yet. I put the post in the letterbox
outside the gate and am turning to go when there is an almighty
racket, barking and howls like a wild beastie, along with more
human but petrified shouts and screams.
    'Batman, stop! Come back, stop! Here boy, here!'
    Batman? I think wildly as I stand frozen to the garden wall.
    Then there is a roar and a growl as a huge monster of a
dog jumps onto my chest and pins me back against the wall,
his massive jaw at my throat. I nearly faint with terror.
    'Batman, get off ! Leave, stop!' The woman, who is as tiny
as her dog is huge, is pulling on the beast which refuses to
budge. I can smell his rancid breath in my face. I am scared
witless.
    'Batman!' she screams one last time as he's about to devour
me. 'Ham!!'
    The dog wilts. Like a pussycat, he daintily disengages his
huge paws from my shoulders and meekly sits down at his
owner's feet. 'Sorry, be right back, don't go away,' she murmurs
as I try to stop hyperventilating. 'I must be givin' 'im his ham
now or he won't believe me next time.'
    To my horror she scuttles away into the house, leaving me
alone with the beast. But he doesn't even glance at me, he's
too busy salivating in the direction the woman disappeared.
    She comes back with a thick slice of ham as round as a
dinner plate. I've collapsed on a large stone in her garden,
trying to recover the movement and strength in my limbs that
fear has drained away. We both eye the dog as he gulps down
the food. When he finishes he lies at her feet and goes to sleep,
meek as a lamb.
    I'm still in a state so I say, testily, 'I could have had a heart
attack there, the way he leapt up at me ready to tear my
tongue out.'
    'I don't understand,' she says. 'He's never done that before.'
    It is the first time I have heard those words but I seem to
intuit that it won't be the last. Not just from this woman and
this particular dog, but from the owners of countless other
yappy, tiny creatures and huge, hulking hounds who think
baiting – or eating – the post man or woman is the greatest
thrill life has to offer.
    Now the woman begins to apologize as I take deep breaths
with one eye still on the dog. Then I take a good look at her.
She's not young and she's the tiniest woman I've ever seen.
She looks as if a gentle sea breeze would knock her over. What
is a woman like this doing with a dog like that? The dog opens
an eye and growls, as if he knows what I'm