Level Three. True to You.

By Michelle Lloyd.

He tried to talk to her, talk her out of it but Lana was not a dog to be persuaded that she was wrong. Little Herbert tried to keep up but they passed something that caught both their attention.

Lana stopped, sniffed at the comic. It had been abandoned on the floor by someone. It was something that Little Herbert found hard to resist. He had asked his dad for that issue and he had not yet got it for him, it was there so close and all he had to do was just retrieve it from the floor. He bent down to get it, loosened his hold on a certain lead as he looked through the brightly coloured letters on the front, he started to catch up with the wording, the drawings and as he started to get a better grip on it, he let go of a daring Lana…and that was all it took for the dog to take off.

Tears washed down Little Herbert’s face as he tried to explain it all to his dad who had found him minutes later. He had shouted for him and it was a sad, sorry story as to what had happened that formed an explanation. All Little Herbert could see was New One’s imagined face when they told him, his friend would be so sad. He loved Lana. What would he say?

Little Herbert’s dad tried to comfort him but he could not get him to stop crying. It was the comic. He had lost his direction of focus, his attention wandered and the comic had taken over from Lana.

Little Herbert could not bring himself to tell his dad he had failed again. He had not been able to keep his promise or been true to his word or himself. Worse was Lana, he was so worried about her that he did not notice his dad talking to a policeman or a set of paws to make their way up to him. It was the lick on his face that meant he saw who had given him the soppy kiss and Lana looked at him with a guilty but happy to see him expression.

After all was explained, the policeman who had found Lana a few minutes after her escape and in the next road, left Little Herbert and his dad to get Lana safely home. Little Herbert’s dad handled the safe return of Lana to New One and there was a lot of relief for all involved.