“I won’t,” I shouted back. What? Buying cigarettes for my baby? No! She needed them for her school play the next day, as a stage prop, so I promised I would buy her a pack of chocolate ones. She was delighted. Little did I know what that promise would entail, how difficult it would be, and how many cafés and sweet shops I would have to visit.
However, while I was out scouring the city for chocolate cigarettes, unbeknownst to me Edie was bravely fighting to save Lola’s life and her own!
She had taken Lola for a walk along the banks of the River Tiber, the perfect place for such an exercise. Well, Lola loves water (as the photo of her on the right testifies) and an insignificant little detail like ‘collar and lead’ wasn’t going to stop her going for a swim. Somehow she broke free of Edie and leaped straight into the river, the currents quickly carrying her away. Edie ran about half a mile, slid down a muddy bank and, after some very scary moments, managed to grab Lola, but was unable to climb back up again, the slope far too slippery. Before her strength ebbed completely, one hand stubbornly preventing my dog from floating away again (to who knew what fate), a passerby spotted them and called the Fire Brigade, who pulled them to safety watched by an applauding crowd on the bridge above.
The first I knew of it was, when returning home proudly clutching the chocolate cigarettes (already wallowing in my daughter’s hero-worship), I bumped into Edie and Lola, both looking as though they’d been dragged through a very muddy hedge backwards!
My chocolate cigarette escapades paled in comparison.
Edie, my hero.
No comments:
Post a Comment