Danny and Nicki scrambled out of the car. They looked across the road at the block of shops. It looked like an ordinary block of shops. Shoppers had stopped and were staring at them, talking excitedly amongst themselves. Everybody moved to the corner of the clothing shop to look. They could see the policemen wading through knee high grass behind the clothing shop. There was no sign of Patch anywhere. Danny and Nicki went across the road.
“They ran right by me.”
“Must be a dangerous criminal in there.”
“You kids, don't go around there, you might get hurt!”
“Don't worry about us,” said Danny. “It's our dog.”
“What are you talking about young man?” said an old lady. “There's a dangerous criminal back there.”
“No. It's just our dog,” assured Nicki. “He's not dangerous.”
“If he's not dangerous how come the police are chasing after him?”
“Well...” said Danny, “He likes bones you see and he brought some back home and buried them in our backyard and the police are looking for the bones that he’s getting, because they're human ones.”
“That's disgusting!” said a man.
“Did you hear that Mavis,” said the old lady to her friend, “This boy has a dog that eats human bones.”
“Bones? Of course a dog eats bones, Carol. Who are the police chasing?”
“Human bones,” shouted Carol to Mavis. “Get your hearing checked, Mavis.”
“That's disgusting,” said Mavis to Danny. “You stop giving bones to that dog right now. Do you hear me young man? Right now! What are young people coming to, giving human bones to dogs. Disgusting. There should be a law against it.”
“I'm not giving them to Patch. He's taking them,”protested Danny.
“You've trained your dog to take human bones? That's awful. Where is that policeman Carol? Tell him to arrest this boy.”
Danny gave up. Nicki was peering around the corner trying to see Patch.
There was no sign of Patch or the policemen.
