I’m fourteen and I need a job. I tried delivering pamphlets but the man gave me so many I couldn’t carry them properly. I dumped half down a storm water drain, pretending I’d go back for them, and when I went to get paid he shook his head and told me I was deplorable and I was lucky he didn’t call my parents.

The sign is on the noticeboard outside the milk-bar: HELP WANTED PEKINESES. I copy down the number and race home to call it. The woman who answers sounds old and gruff. She breeds Pekes, she says, and has twelve of them, as well as some big dogs. She needs someone to feed them on Saturday mornings, to make their beds and clean their cages. She asks me my age - I tell her I’m fifteen. I tell her I have lots of experience with dogs. I tell her I am a dog person. It’s true that I like dogs. My favourite book when I was younger was Call of the Wild, from the Reader’s Digest classic collection. For a time, I dreamed of saving up for a sausage dog, or a Basenji (they have curly tails and don’t bark). I also liked Huskies, and St Bernards, I liked the fact that they carried rum in a barrel on their collar.

The woman offers me a trial, says I should wear old clothes.

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