Panic Read Online Free PDF Page B

that made him whole.
    There was pain, too : a stinging, incessant stabbing that began in his eyes and seemed to reach back into his brain, tearing at him, making him feel helpless and furious all at once.
    He stopped running, and turned to face his master. She approached, red-faced and puffing for air, and reached for the cord that he had snatched from her hands, the one that hurt his throat and always prevented his attempts to run.
    When she was close enough, he put his head down, flattened his ears and stared into her eyes.
    And growled.
    Mrs Roberts practically leapt backwards in surprise, and she had to admit, a little fear.
    Moments earlier, she had been standing in the tiny St. Davids police station, smugly telling that bitch Glenda Davis that she had very important information about a crime, and that no, sadly she couldn't tell Glenda anything about it, but felt she had to wait to speak to an actual police officer.
    The look on Glenda's face had been pric eless.
    Mrs Roberts hated Glenda; hated her not just because she had once had the cheek to accuse Mrs Roberts' daughter of assaulting her son (assault! A playground scuffle, assault!) but more to the point, because Glenda was her only rival as the biggest gossip in town, and Glenda had an unfair advantage.
    How was Mrs Roberts to compete when Glenda's job was to answer the phone and have local scandal handed to her on a plate? Glenda got to know it all: who was drunk, whose husband had been fighting who. Even what went on behind closed doors, even if a husband was beating up his wife! The very thought of it made Mrs Roberts shudder.
    Thankfully, the crime rate in the town was so low, so virtually non-existent, that Glenda Davis' gossip never truly even reached Defcon 3 status (Mrs Roberts liked to brand her gossip thus, perceiving that a Defcon 5 would get most people in the town murmuring and raising an eyebrow, while a Defcon 1 would provoke genuine outrage throughout) and now, deliciously, St. Davids had a genuine, honest-to-God Defcon 1 criminal event, and it was she who knew all about it. Not Glenda.
    Just thinking about it made her tremble with delight.
    The occasion, however, had been ruined. Barely as soon as she had begun to gloat, intending to draw out Glenda's curiosity for at least fifteen minutes, the woman's desk phone had rung, and she had put on an (impressive, Mrs Roberts had to admit) act of being shocked at some vital piece of news, before telling Mrs Roberts that she would have to leave, as Glenda had some important confidential police work to carry out.
    Her emphasis on the word important made Mrs Roberts seethe. She knew full well what that bitch was implying.
    As if that was not bad enough, when Mrs Roberts had planted her hands on her ample hips, preparing to tell Glenda Davis that she was going nowhere, thank-you-very-much, the damn dog had slipped its leash away from her grasp and bolted out of the door.
    And now, here she stood, panting and sweating in the misty morning, having been forced into an embarrassing, wobbling sprint by her own dog. Glenda would no doubt be laughing her obnoxious head off.
    The very thought enraged Mrs Roberts, and she glared at Sniffer.
    The dog was hostile, no doubt about it; its eyes levelled at her in a clear, confident challenge.
    She took a step toward Sniffer and faltered as the growl deepened. Then Glenda Davis's irritating, high -pitched laugh resonated in her mind, and Mrs Roberts set her jaw, took a couple of shuffling, surprisingly agile steps forward, and grabbed the dog’s collar firmly. Sniffer writhed and growled, but there was nothing the little terrier could do.
    Mrs Paula Roberts was not about to be made a fool by a tiny dog, no thank-you-very-much, not today.
    Hauling the wriggling terrier, Mrs Roberts set off for home, determined that Sniffer would learn that Bad Dogs could contemplate the consequences of their actions tied to a post in the cold garden, and on an empty