Puppy Fat Read Online Free PDF Page A

settee.
    This is ridiculous, he thought.
    Nearly half a day that mural’s been up and not a single call.
    The phone must be broken.
    He went over and picked up the hand piece. The dial tone buzzed in his ear. He put it down quickly in case someone was trying to call.
    They weren’t.
    After another pace around the room, it hit him.
    Of course.
    Must be a fault at the exchange.
    Someone down at the exchange must have plugged an electric kettle and a three-bar heater into the same double adaptor and blown all the circuits.
    At this very moment in every phone box within a two mile radius of the mural there was probably a mature-age single person frantically trying to ring Mum or Dad, not realising the phones in the whole area were out.
    Keith grabbed his jacket.
    He’d go round all the phone boxes and be back here with a pile of invitations for Mum before she got home from work.
    At the front door his stomach gave a rumble and he realised he was starving.
    It’s all this nervous tension, he thought, it’s burning up my breakfast at a faster than usual rate. Must be careful to keep my energy levels up.
    He went into the kitchen and pulled open the chocolate finger drawer.
    It was empty.
    Strange, he thought.
    He rummaged through the cupboard where Mum kept all the new groceries.
    No chocolate fingers there either.
    Or in the cereal cupboard.
    Or in any of the jars.
    Or in the oven.
    Keith’s guts suddenly felt even emptier than before.
    Time was running out.
    When a person lost her taste for chocolate fingers, the end couldn’t be far away.
    â€˜Thursday,’ Dad shouted as Keith walked into the cafe.
    Keith stared.
    A jab of excitement ran through him.
    Dad was at the stove in a haze of blue smoke, with a pan of sausages in one hand and the phone in the other.
    â€˜Thursday at the latest,’ shouted Dad.
    At last, thought Keith. A woman enquiring how long Dad’ll need to get his body into shape.
    â€˜Not too much fat,’ Dad yelled above the sizzling of the sausages.
    That’s right, thought Keith, be positive.
    Dad hung up.
    â€˜If that Len Tufnell doesn’t start delivering my pork chops on time,’ he said, ‘I’m getting a new butcher.’
    Keith suddenly felt very weary.
    â€˜You look pooped,’ said Dad. ‘What have you been doing with yourself?’
    â€˜Nothing much,’ said Keith.
    He didn’t feel like going into detail about how he’d just been to every phone box this side of Woolwich and how they’d all been empty except one and how the person inside it had told him to get lost or she’d set her dog on him.
    â€˜Dad,’ said Keith hopefully, ‘have you had any other phone calls this morning?’
    Dad thought while he made a sausage sandwich.
    â€˜Just the wholesaler,’ he said, handing the sandwich to Keith, ‘and an order for six takeaway egg and bacon rolls. Why, were you trying to ring?’
    Keith shook his head and sat down at a table and stared at the sandwich. He wasn’t hungry any more.
    Why wasn’t the mural working?
    He’d made sure all the paint was waterproof so it wouldn’t run in the rain.
    The phone numbers were right, he’d double-checked.
    Keith sighed.
    I should have given Mum a bigger chest and Dad bigger leg muscles, he thought gloomily.
    Then Mr Kristos, the owner of the cafe, came in for his liver and onions.
    Keith noticed that as Dad served them up he didn’t pop a bit of onion into his mouth like he usually did.
    That’s it, thought Keith.
    Dad’s a goner too.
    When a person loses interest in fried onions, he’s pretty much lost interest in life.
    â€˜Keith,’ said Mr Kristos, coming and sitting at Keith’s table, ‘that painting you done on that wall. Exquisite.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ said Keith sadly.
    â€˜A masterpiece,’ continued Mr Kristos through a mouthful of liver. ‘Just one thing puzzles me. Why did you