Dear everyone - I've nearly had this story accepted for publication several times. I hope you enjoy reading it here. Laurel 

Wild Dog Rotto - suitable for children 7-11

Colin and Frankie had spent the summer school holidays building a tree house in the big eucalyptus growing in Colin's backyard. They scrounged planks of timber from the town's old rubbish dump and Frankie found a box of rusty nails in his father's shed.

Rotto, a big rangy black dog with a white blaze on the front of his head, lived next door. Whenever Colin and Frankie were up in the tree house, he ran over to the dividing fence and stood with his front feet against it, barking and growling and showing his teeth

"There should be a sign at the front of the house, saying, Beware of the Dog," Colin's mother said. "That dog is a menace."

"He's not," Colin said. "He's lonely. He's on his own all week. I wish we could have him over here."

"He'd probably eat you up. I hope you and Frankie aren't teasing him."

"We're not."

At the weekend when Sam Anderson, Rotto's owner, came home from the mining town of Kalgoorlie where he worked, Rotto went everywhere with him: to the football and the beach in summer.

"I wish Sam would take us," Colin said. "We could sit in the back of his Nissan behind Rotto."

Frankie had seen Rotto and Sam eating meat pies in the park opposite the supermarket. "They are wasted on that dog," Frankie said.

Read the rest of the tale on www.authorsden.com/laurellamperd

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