Rascal the Star Read Online Free PDF Page A

send him home.” She looked down at Rascal worriedly. “He’s very small…”
    “He’s a Jack Russell!” Ellie said firmly. “He’s just the right size.”
    “OK. Well, let’s see if Dan likes him.”
    Ellie had no idea who Dan was, but she and Mum followed Carla through the house out into the garden, which was a tangle of cables, growing enormous lights instead of flowers. It was a truly weird-looking place.If Ellie glanced at it sideways, it almost seemed like a normal garden, but then she could see that half the plants were artificial, or real ones that must have been brought over in pots to make it look like summertime.
    Lucy was sitting on a folding chair to one side, looking anxious. She was wearing a pretty summer dress, with her coat on over the top. Her mum was beside her, and she nudged Lucy when she saw Ellie and Rascal coming.

    “Oh, thank you, Ellie!” Lucy dashed over to hug her. “You’re such a star. And you’re going to be a star too, Rascal.”
    Lucy took Ellie’s hand and pulled her over to a huddle of people looking at something on a laptop.
    Carla followed them. “Dan, this is the new dog,” she called.
    A tall, very thin man with a worried face and huge eyebrows turned round to look at them all. His eyebrows flew up when he caught sight of Rascal, but then he walked round Ellie and Rascal thoughtfully.
    Rascal sat down and panted up at him, his tongue hanging out cheerfully.
    “He might be all right,” Dan muttered, crouching down and staring at Rascal. “I had a much bigger dog in mind, of course, but still…”

    Rascal barked at him and wagged his tail, and Dan laughed. “He’s certainly a little character. Heard me saying you ought to be bigger, did you?” He glanced up at Ellie. “Can he do tricks? Does he fetch, roll over, that kind of thing?”
    “Some tricks…” Ellie said slowly. Rascal did fetch. She still wasn’t quite so sure about the rolling over. But she wasn’t going to say that.
    “Well, we’ll give it a go. Can you just wait over there for the minute? We’ll get everything set up again. Lucy said you’d seen the script? You know what he has to do?”
    Ellie nodded. She just hoped Rascal would do as he was told. She and Mum hurried over to sit next to Lucy, who looked frozen in her summer dress. Lucy’s mum took Ellie’s to go and get a cup of tea, and the girls and Rascal were alone for a moment.
    “I think Dan likes Rascal!” Ellie told Lucy. “Show me the script again.”
    Lucy handed it to her, and Ellie read itthrough carefully. Rascal ought to be able to do it all. It started with Lucy laughing at him as he rolled over and over.
    “We might need more dog treats,” Ellie muttered.
    “Ugh! Get it off me!”
    Ellie and Lucy looked up at once. They’d been peering at the script, and Ellie hadn’t noticed that Rascal was at the end of his lead, exploring. Now he was gazing up at a woman who’d been sitting on a chair close to them. She was staring down at her foot with a disgusted expression on her face.
    “Oh! She’s playing my mum,” Lucy whispered. “I don’t think she likes dogs very much.”
    “It licked me!” the woman told Ellie frostily. She was wearing pretty summer sandals, and there was a lot of foot on show for Rascal to lick.
    “I’m really sorry,” Ellie apologized, even though she didn’t feel like it. She scooped Rascal up. It was only a little bit of lick! And Rascal was a “he”, not an “it”!

Chapter Eight
Going Barkers
    It looked like the actress wanted to make even more of a fuss, but a young man with spiky hair came over just then, and introduced himself as Ben, the dog wrangler. Ellie wasn’t quite sure that she wanted Rascal wrangled, but apparently Ben was just supposed to make Rascal do the stuff that was needed for the filming. He started off by trying to give him a wash and brush-up, which didn’t go well. Rascal didn’tsee why his claws needed polishing, and he kept wriggling out of Ben’s