Frizzy and Jack: a story for children

When they had settled into their new home, Jack’s mother decided she would like a dog, and, Jack agreed, so they went round to the local Dog Rescue centre. Mother’s eye was caught by a small, bedraggled-looking creature. She immediately felt sorry for him.

“Isn’t he sweet!” she said, “What’s his name?”

“I don’t think he has a name he would recognize”, said the man who was showing them round, “He was very badly mistreated by his previous owner, and at the moment he doesn’t trust anyone”.

“Does he bite?”

“No; he’s just very scared of everyone he meets”.

“Well, I’d like to take him home and look after him!”

Jack’s father, who was not interested in dogs, thought he would go along with his wife’s wishes, and Jack agreed, though secretly he had hoped for a much bigger dog.

Jack said, “I shall call him Frizzy, because of his hair!”

At first, Frizzy was very mistrustful of his new family, but after a while he became used to them. He was a very affectionate little dog. When he saw Jack sitting on a chair, he liked to jump up on his lap and lick his face, which tickled Jack and made him giggle. But Jack was less pleased when he discovered that Frizzy was very timid. He was frightened of other dogs, and backed away from them when they barked at him. There was a big chocolate-coloured labrador living not far away, which barked and shook its garden gate jumping at it whenever it saw Frizzy, who was most reluctant to pass the house. Father said that the Labrador was only trying to be friendly, and that Frizzy had probably been bullied by other dogs at the rescue centre, and would eventually get over it. But Jack was not convinced. He was rather shy at taking Frizzy for a walk, because he was afraid his friends from school might laugh at him.

 “Why do you call them your friends if you’re afraid they’ll laugh at you?” said Father. “You’re not exactly being particularly brave yourself!” Jack said nothing: he knew father wouldn’t understand.

One Sunday afternoon Jack decided he would take Frizzy out and force him to be brave. He put him on the lead and deliberately led him past the house where the fierce labrador lived. As usual, they were greeted with wild barking and the big dog jumping against the garden gate, rattling it. Frizzy tugged at the lead and wanted to go straight home again, but Jack told him there was nothing to be scared of and dragged him past. They walked on to the end of the town and came to a field of cows. Although they had never been in the field, Jack knew that Frizzy would be afraid of the cows; but he wanted to teach him to be brave so he opened the gate and went in.

They hadn’t gone very far before the cows noticed them. Cows do not like dogs in their field, and they quickly gathered round in a menacing fashion. Now it was Jack’s turn to be frightened. He realized with alarm that their route back to the gate was cut off. Frizzy suddenly fled with such force that the lead was snatched from Jack’s hand, and sprinted for some woodland on the far side of the field; and Jack, panicking just as much, followed as fast as he could.

There was a fence. Frizzy found a gap between the railings and slipped through it. Jack clambered over the fence, but when he jumped down on the far side he felt a sudden agonizing pain in his ankle and collapsed on the ground. He lay there, panting. The cows stood looking at them for a while, but then lost interest and wandered off.

Jack tried to stand up, but found he couldn’t. His ankle was extremely painful, and must have been badly damaged. There was no way he could walk home. He realized he hadn’t told his parents where he was going. There was no-one about. What was he going to do?

For a while he laid on the ground in despair. Frizzy, not knowing anything was wrong, licked his face. This gave Jack an idea. “Frizzy”, he said, “You must help me! You must run home and let father and mother know where I am. I’ll write a note and tie it to your collar so they’ll know”. He felt his pockets, but discovered he had neither pencil nor paper. What was he going to do now?

There was only one small hope. He took off his watch and threaded it through Frizzy’s collar. Frizzy licked his face again.

“No, Frizzy! Not now! Go home! Run! Good dog! Run home and lead them back here! Home!”

Frizzy suddenly set off at a great rate, through the fence and across the field before the cows had time to notice, through the gate and onto the road, out of Jack’s sight. All he could do now was wait and hope for the best.

Jack’s mother and father heard Frizzy’s frantic barking. “Thank goodness!” said Mother, “He’s late for tea! I thought he’d never come!” She heard father open the door and say, “Hello, Frizzy! Now where’s Jack?” He called out, “Jack! Where are you? Teatime!” but there was no response. Then he said to himself, “That’s odd! No sign of Jack, but Fizzy’s here, and the dog lead’s missing. What’s going on?”

Mother came to have a look, and noticed the watch dangling from Frizzy’s collar. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “Jack’s put it there for us to find! He’s in trouble somewhere, I can sense it! He send Frizzy home to get help! What shall we do?”

Father was inclined to think this was a load of nonsense, but he knew better than to argue. “Well, even if that’s the case”, he said, “what can we do about it?”

“You must go with Frizzy and he’ll lead us to where Jack is!” Seeing a look of reluctance on his face, she added, “If you don’t want to do it, I’ll go!”

“No, I’ll go”, he said, concealing his private belief that this was ridiculous. He selected a length of rope to act as a lead and tied one end through Frizzy’s collar. “Now then Frizzy, take us to where Jack is!” he commanded. “I hope this isn’t some damn stupid game of Jack’s!” he thought to himself.

The big labrador barked more frantically than ever as they passed its house, but Frizzy ignored him and trotted on. Eventually they came to the cows’ field and Frizzy waited for the gate to be opened.

“Are you sure this is right?” said Father. “Hello! Jack! Are you there?” he shouted, but there was no response. There seemed to be nothing he could do except trust Frizzy, so they set off across the field towards the wood.

Once again, the cows gathered round in a hostile manner. Father tried to shoo them away, but they quickly closed in again. Then one of them tried to tread on Frizzy. He jumped aside, but the animal’s hoof caught him a glancing blow on the front leg. Frizzy gave a piercing yelp of pain, which was answered by a faint and distant call from the wood.

Father scooped up Frizzy. “I’m coming, Jack!” he shouted, and he ran, faster than he had done for many years. He was very out of breath by the time they reached the fence and scrambled over it, but there was Jack; found at last!

He looked at Jack’s ankle. “I’m not sure if it’s broken or not, but it’s badly swollen and you certainly can’t walk on it”, he said. “We’ll just have to summon assistance and wait”. He took out his mobile phone, tried to dial a number, and cursed angrily.

“Dammit! No signal! What a time for it to give out on me! Right: I’ll have to carry you home!”

“But what about Frizzy?”

“I’m afraid Frizzy will just have to take his chances”.

“But Frizzy won’t ever get across the cow field with his leg. No, Father, I’m not leaving him. If it hadn’t been for Frizzy you’d never have found me. I’ll carry Frizzy if you can carry me.”

Father thought for a while and then said, “Yes, you’re right. We can’t leave him; not after what he’s done”.

Despite his pain, Jack managed a weak smile. “Do you think you can carry both of us, Father?”

“I’ll have to try, won’t I? We’ll manage somehow”.

In truth, Jack’s father was not at all looking forward to carrying the two of them, but he hoisted Jack onto his back and took Frizzy in his arms. “Off we go!” he said, “There’s no point in trying to cross the cows’ field: they hate dogs, and we'd never get through. There must be some other way out of this wood!”

They followed the line of the fence. It was rough under foot. Soon Frizzy was whimpering with pain and Jack was trying very hard not to cry. Just when Father was thinking he would have to give up, they found a gate which led to a farmyard. The farmer’s wife was able to make phone calls, and soon an ambulance came for Jack. Mother arrived too, to go with him to the hospital; but he didn’t want to leave until Father promised to take Frizzy to the vet at the same time.

Later, when Jack was sitting on the couch with his ankle strapped up, sipping a hot drink that Mother had given him, and stroking Frizzy, who had a bandage on his injured foot, Father said to him, “I think we’ve all learned some lessons from this, haven’t we? First, of course, you must promise us that you’ll never again wander off without telling us, right? But also, we thought you were very brave with your accident; and very clever too, thinking to put your watch through Frizzy’s collar. Without that we’d never have guessed you were hurt. I’m sure you’re going to be brave in the future too. It doesn’t matter if you feel frightened: everyone feels frightened sometimes. I don’t think you’ll be worried about people laughing at you after this. Just remember: you may be very frightened, but you can still be brave – as brave as little Frizzy was”.

“But you were brave too, Father”, said Jack.

“Oh, rubbish!” said Father. He laughed and ruffled Jack’s hair.