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  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Notso Hotso

  Anne Fine was born and educated in the Midlands, and now lives in County Durham. She has written numerous highly acclaimed and prize-winning books for children and adults.

  Her novel The Tulip Touch won the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year Award; Goggle-Eyes won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award and the Carnegie Medal, and was adapted for television by the BBC; Flour Babies won the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year Award; Bill’s New Frock won a Smarties Prize, and Madame Doubtfire has become a major feature film.

  Anne Fine was named Children’s Laureate in 2001.

  Other books by Anne Fine

  Picture books

  Poor Monty

  Ruggles

  Books for younger readers

  Care of Henry

  Countdown

  Design-a-Pra m

  The Diary of a Killer Cat

  The Haunting of Pip Parker

  Jennifer’s Diary

  Loudmouth Louis

  Only a Show

  Press Play

  Roll Over Roly

  The Same Old Story Every Year

  Scare dy-Cat

  Stranger Danger?

  The Worst Child I Ever Had

  Books for middle-range readers

  The Angel of Nitshill Road

  Anneli the Art Hater

  Bill’s New Frock

  The Chicken Gave it to Me

  The Country Pancake

  Crummy Mummy and Me

  How to Write Really Badly

  A Pack of Liars

  A Sudden Glow of Gold

  A Sudden Puff of Glittering Smoke

  A Sudden Swirl of Icy Wind

  ANNE FINE

  Notso Hotso

  Illustrated by Tony Ross

  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 by Hamish Hamilton Ltd 2001

  Published in Puffin Books 2002

  15

  Text copyright © Anne Fine, 2001

  Illustrations copyright © Tony Ross, 2001

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and 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: 978-0-14-193958-2

  Contents

  1: How the Horror Began

  2: Getting Worse and Worse

  3: Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

  4: Talk About Tough

  5: Cat Test

  6: Fun-Time

  1: How the Horror Began

  SO SUDDENLY ONE morning I’m like, Scratch-scratch! Scratch-scratch! and can’t stop. It’s disgusting.

  Everyone else thinks so too.

  ‘Anthony, stop doing that.’

  ‘Would someone please put that pest-ridden dog out?’

  ‘Knock it off, Anthony!’

  Hey! Notso hotso!

  Especially for someone like me. I’m not fussy, exactly. (Personally, I’d call it ‘fastidious’, though I know one or two have rather harshly used the word ‘prissy’.) But I’m not one of those

  mucky ‘I’m-a-mutt-and-I’ll-scratch-if-I-like’ pups. I suppose I just think the world’s a nicer place for all of us if everyone tries to keep their smells and messes and nasty little personal habits quietly to themselves.

  Call me a fuss-budget if you will, but I just like to help to keep things nice.

  And skin problems aren’t nice. As fellow sufferers will know, skin problems aren’t something you can forget for the morning. They drive you mad, especially the itchy ones. First you think, if you just scratch this tiny bit here…

  Then you think, if you just have a little go at that itsy-bitsy patch there…

  And then you think, now you’ve started anyway, you might as well scratch sideways on to this bit here…

  And before you know where you are, every single bit of you is aflame.

  I’m not exaggerating. I mean, AFLAME.

  And no one sympathizes. They just think you’re being annoying.

  ‘Anthony, if you don’t stop that dreadful scratching, I’ll put you outside again, even though it’s raining.’

  ‘Anthony! Stop that! Now!’

  Talk about a dog’s life. If it hadn’t been for Moira next door, I might have scratched myself to pieces.

  ‘What’s wrong with your dog?’

  As if that Joshua would take his eyes off his game for a moment to glance at his own pet. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Yes, there is, Joshua. He’s dropping weird flakes all over your carpet.’

  I’m not even going to tell you about the next bit. It’s just too horrible. Suffice it to say that it involved an argument about whether or not that stuff all over the rug was actually bits of dead dog skin. And then we had to wait while Moira went home to borrow her granny’s magnifier reading glass. And then I had to put up with the two of them endlessly prodding and patting me.

  ‘Ugh! Yuk! That is some sick stuff floating off his back!’

  ‘Gruesome! You ought to tell your mum.’

  ‘Mum? She’d throw up if she saw this!’

  Nice, eh? I expect he’s forgotten some of his own rather disgusting habits. And as for Moira, well, I’ve seen her often enough, sitting with her back to the house, doing things to her nose she wouldn’t do in front of anyone except me, and possibly Belinda, her pet hamster.

  At least the two of them did something useful when my Humiliation Hour was up. They told Her Ladyship.

  ‘Mu-um! There’s something wrong with Anthony.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Tanner. Come and look at this. It’s horible!’

  So Mrs Neglectful finally ambles to the doorway, carelessly dropping cheese from the grater she’s holding. (One small bright spot in the day for me.)

  ‘What sort of wrong?’

  ‘His skin’s all coming off.’

  ‘Coming off?’

  ‘Yes. In horrible, yukky, revolting little flakes.’

  (Well, thank you, Joshua. And don’t

  expect any company or sympathy next time you get chicken-pox.)

  ‘Yes, Mrs Tanner!’ chimes in Moira. ‘He’s all poxy red underneath. And bits of him have gone gooey.’

  (Fine, Moira. Just don’t sit waiting for me to waste any more of my time fetching sticks to amuse you, next time you’re stuck at home with the measles.)

  The Kitchen Queen strolls over. I’m hoping she at least has the sense to put the grater down before she touches me. And wash her hands thoroughly after. After all, as I s
aid, I wouldn’t call myself fussy. But I do like the leftovers that get scraped into my bowl to be reasonably wholesome.

  Touching me, nothing! Mrs What?-In-My-House? draws back. ‘Ugh! That is horrible. That is repellent.’

  Well, thank you very much. Is there anyone out there, reading this, who’s been wanting a crowd of insensitive people?

  Because I’ve got a load here.

  A whole set.

  2: Getting Worse and Worse

  PERSONALLY, I’D HAVE thought it was an emergency. But not her. Not Lady Laid-Back.

  ‘Is it an emergency?’ the vet’s assistant asks, down the phone.

  ‘No,’ she says. (Just that: ‘No.’)

  And she settles for an afternoon appointment on Thursday.

  However, get this. Later that day, when Mr Whoops-Sorry-Forgot-to-Pick-Up-the-Dogfood-Again strolls in from work, she orders him straight back out to buy a pack of hoover bags. ‘No, you can’t leave it till later,’

  she tells him when he starts grumbling. ‘Not with flakes of dog skin all over. This is an emergency.’

  Not the most sensitive bunch. And don’t think I’m making it up when I tell you I haven’t been shooed out of the house quite so forcefully or so often since that toddler with the allergies was visiting last Easter.

  I made the most of it – even turned

  into a bit of a sun demon on the quiet, after I’d walked past Lady Vain’s fortress of beauty mags on the landing and seen an article that claimed that – sensibly handled – ultraviolet light can work wonders with what they tactfully call ‘iffy’ skin.

  Though that great snoring slug-coloured heap on next door’s wall did turn a bit brutal when I stretched out

  to offer my poor itching flanks to the Great Eye of Heaven’s healing powers.

  ‘Looking a bit “bare rug”, aren’t you, Anthony? Have the family been feeding you Hair-Fall-Out pills?’

  ‘Nice,’ I said. ‘Coming from a cat that’s as big as a barrel.’

  ‘Go gnaw a doorknob, Ant!’

  I hate it when she calls me ‘Ant’. So I snuck back inside. And got shooed out again. And thought, ‘Right, then. It’s their fault if I go a-wandering.’

  And I went down the park.

  I’m not the gang type, on the whole. It’s not my scene. I think smell tours are juvenile. When Buster and Hamish and Bella over-excite themselves, their tongues get a bit piggy. And I don’t care for the way that, when they’re playing Dingoes v. Jackals, they leave a trail of mashed bushes behind them.

  From time to time, I say a word on the subject.

  ‘Could you take a little more care?’ I plead. ‘Some of us have to walk in this park every morning. Please try to leave the place as pleasant as you found it.’

  They jeer, of course.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t Oily Anthony, the Park-keeper’s Pal.’

  ‘I’m really, really worried!’

  ‘Oh, bite me! Bite me!’

  Most days, our Buster’s in his I’m-the-Leader-of-the-Pack mood. I pad up. He turns, gives me the ultra-unfriendly Lost, are you? stare, and says, ‘Fell out of your basket, Ant?’

  I roll my eyes. I mean, that sort of sarcasm is so ten minutes ago. (Or even earlier.) ‘Well, don’t you absolutely reek of cool!’ I scoff, and

  wait for his hackles to rise and that stupid little growl that’s supposed to mean, ‘Watch it, Mr Nothing from Nowhere-on-Sea,’ before he invites me to join them for a bit of a muck–about.

  But today, things are different. He’s taking an interest, almost.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  Hamish joins in. ‘Yeah. You look weird. Like a bare rug with feet.’

  (Just what that nasty cat said. Now I’m listening.) ‘What do you mean?’

  So Bella explains. ‘You’re missing great patches of fur at the back.’

  Hamish agrees. ‘You look terrible.’

  Trust Buster to be a whole lot more unpleasant than he need. ‘You told us you were sheepdog-retriever cross,’ he crows. ‘You never admitted you were one hundred per cent Moulter.’

  I’m getting worried now – shimmying round to try and get a look at the bits I’ve been scratching. ‘It can’t be that bad, surely.’

  ‘In your dreams!’

  ‘In Never-Ever land!’

  ‘Well, somebody’s been putting something in your mystery cutlets.’

  Up puffs Old Nigel, who’s spent the last ten minutes wheezing and staggering over the park towards us at the speed of winter turning to spring.

  ‘My word!’ he quavers. He can’t take his rheumy eyes off me. ‘You look even worse than I feel. I reckon you won’t last any longer than I will.’

  Talk about panic. I just turned and fled.

  3: Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

  SO NOW I’M serious about getting a proper look at my back and sides. Of course, since the flaking began, My Lady Houseproud has kept me right out of her flouncy-wouncy bedroom with the floor-to-ceiling mirror. But it’s in there I creep when she’s not looking. (I have to be careful. Last time she caught me hanging round the door, she said, ‘You so much as step in here while you’re shedding that stuff on the carpets, Anthony, and I will roast you on a spit!’ And I believed her.)

  So slinky was the word. I made it safely to under the bed. Then out the other side to the mirror.

  Oh, horror! Oh, the horror! Imagine sleek and glossy me, twisting my rear end round to take a peek at what was once the perfect hide, and finding…

  Mange!

  In places, my bum was raw. If I had been a carpet, you would have tossed me out without a thought. I was appalled. I take my cod liver oil. I get enough fresh air. I exercise. (In fact, of all the dogs round here, I’m probably the most particular about looking after my health and keeping regular habits.)

  It wasn’t fair. I looked shocking. And if I hadn’t been exactly where I was most particularly not supposed to be,

  I would have raised my head and howled.

  As it was, I just whimpered.

  That’s when she walked in. I didn’t wait for the rocket I knew was coming. (Something along the lines of, ‘Anthony! Didn’t I warn you that, if you came in here… bleh-bleh-di-bleh –’) Tucking my tail between my legs, I slunk

  towards the door. Lord knows, I’m no slave to glamour. Ours is a mongrel world, and cross-breeds like myself know only too well that judging by appearances can all too easily lead to –

  Hang on a bit! What was this?

  Miss Sneak-in-My-Room-and-I’ll-Roast-You had thrown herself on to

  her knees at my side. She had her arms around my neck, and she was practically in tears herself.

  ‘Oh, Anthony! You poor lamb! You’re in misery, aren’t you? You’re actually whimpering. Oh, you poor darling.’

  And suddenly she’s on the phone. ‘No!’ she’s telling the vet’s assistant. ‘Thursday won’t do. The poor creature’s in agony. I don’t care how many people you have waiting. This is an emergency, and I’m bringing him now.’

  Next thing I know, I’m standing trembling on the examination table, and Delia Massingpole B.VSc., M.R.C.VS., is peering at me through a little lens.

  ‘Yes, very nasty. It must itch a lot.’

  After five years in vet school? This, I could tell her for free! But I just stood there, shedding quietly, while she looks some more.

  Then out it comes. I couldn’t bring myself to listen to the details, so, to this day, I’m not quite sure whether she said it was scabies masquerading as mange with a little touch of eczema, or mangy eczema with a faint veneer of scabies, or all three at once. All I know is, I tried to keep my head high and ponder inner beauty.

  Suddenly Ms Massingpole’s handing over a giant tub of gloopy-looking yellow cream. ‘This should do the trick.’

  Lady Lavender-Room-Haze unscrews the lid and sniffs. ‘It doesn’t smell very nice.’

  Hell-oo! I’m thinking. The stuff’s not supposed to go in your bath. Or on your face. It’s supp
osed to go on my bottom. And just so long as it does the trick, like Vet Massingpole thinks, things are peachy by me.

  Miss Shed-on-My-Rugs-and-I’ll-Kill-You is still looking dubious. ‘How am I supposed to rub it on him?’

  I’ll sit still, I am promising silently. I will sit still.

  But that’s not what she’s worrying about. ‘This stuff’s so tacky, I’ll never get it out from under my fingernails.’

  Oh, deary me! I hope you know I’m practically falling off the table here, from sheer anxiety and grief on her behalf. Good heavens! Maybe she’d better take me home straight away, and let me scratch myself bald, rather than risk getting even a dab of icky, nasty-smelling yellow stuff under one of her perfect Sugar Frost talons.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ said First-in-Command Massingpole. ‘We’ll shave him.’

  Well, whose side’s she on?

  I stare.

  And so does Mrs T. ‘Shave him?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a much better idea.’ (I’m frozen with horror. She’s plugging in the razor.) ‘We’ll shave the fur that’s

  left. That way, the cream will rub in better. The problem will go away faster. And all his fur will grow back soon enough.’

  Oh, sure! A primrose plan!

  For her.

  I turn my head to the lady who first

  picked me out from behind bars; who first decided I would be an asset to her family; who bought me my first ever real dog bed and my bright red plastic bowl; who came down fifteen times on my first night, to comfort and reassure me.

  She loves me. I know it.

  But guess what the weaselly traitress said to Butcher Massingpole?

  ‘Brilliant. Let’s do it!’

  4: Talk About Tough

  THEY WERE PITILESS, those ladies. I don’t think I’ve ever put up such a struggle, and I can’t remember ever losing a fight so fast.