The World According to Bob Read Online Free PDF Page B

fascinated by certain games, especially motor racing ones. He would stand beside me experiencing each bend and manoeuvre. On one occasion, I could have sworn I saw his body swaying as we took a particularly sharp hairpin bend together. He drew the line at action games with a lot of shooting, however. If I was playing one of these he would carry himself off to another corner of the room. If the game – or I – ever got too loud he’d lift up his head and look across. The message was simple: ‘turn it down please, can’t you see I’m trying to snooze’.
    I could get really wrapped up in a game. It wasn’t unheard of for me to start a game at 9pm and not finish until the wee small hours. But Bob didn’t appreciate this and would do his damnedest to get my attention, especially when he was hungry.
    There were times, however, when I was immune to his charms so he took more drastic measures.
    I was playing a game with Belle one night when Bob appeared. He’d had dinner a couple of hours earlier and had decided that he needed a snack. He went through his usual attention-seeking routine, making a selection of noises, draping himself across my feet and rubbing himself against my legs. But we were both so heavily involved in reaching the next level of this game that we didn’t respond at all.
    He sloped off for a moment, circling the area where the TV and Xbox were plugged in. After a moment, he moved in towards the control console and pressed his head against the big, touch sensitive button in the middle.
    ‘Bob, what are you up to?’ I asked innocently, still too engrossed in the game to twig what he was doing.
    A moment later, the screen went black and the Xbox started powering down. He had applied enough pressure to the button that he’d switched it off. We had been halfway through a really tricky level of the game, so should have been furious with him. But we both sat there with the same expression of disbelief on our faces.
    ‘Did he just do what I think he did?’ Belle asked me.
    ‘Well, I saw it too, so he must have. But I don’t believe it.’
    Bob stood there looking triumphant. His expression said it all: ‘So how are you going to ignore me now?’

    We don’t always rely on signals and body language. There are times when we have a strange kind of telepathy, as if we both know what the other one is thinking, or doing. We’ve also learned to alert each other to danger.
    A few days after I’d acquired the bike, I decided to take Bob to a local park that had just been given a bit of a makeover. By now he was completely comfortable riding around on my shoulders and had become more and more confident, leaning in and out of the corners like a motorbike pillion rider.
    The park turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Apart from a few new benches and shrubs and a decent playground for young children, it seemed nothing much had changed. Bob was keen to explore, nevertheless. If I felt it was safe, I occasionally let him off his lead so that he could enjoy himself scrabbling around in the overgrowth while he did his business. I had just done so today and was sitting, reading a comic and soaking up a few rays of sunshine, when, in the distance, I heard the barking of a dog.
    Uh oh , I thought.
    At first, I guessed it was a couple of streets away. But as the barking grew louder I realised it was a lot closer than that. In the distance I saw a very large, and very menacing looking, German Shepherd running towards the entrance to the park. The dog was no more than 150 yards away and was off its leash. I could tell it was looking for trouble.
    ‘Bob,’ I shouted at the overgrowth where, I knew, he was busy conducting his call of nature. ‘Bob, come here.’
    For a moment, I was panic stricken. But, as so often in the past, we were on the same wavelength and his head soon popped up in the bushes. I was waving my arms at him, encouraging him to join me without making too much fuss. I didn’t want the dog to spot