Petula

Molly concentrated on the velvety-furred pug. She was a bad-tempered dog, spoilt and cossetted, over-fed and lazy. How had she become so bad-tempered? She was the only dog Molly had ever met that was always bad-tempered. Molly saw her in her mind – her solid, black-haired frame, her crooked front legs that were bent because of her fat, overweight body, her turned-up tail, her squashed face, the white mark on her forehead, her snarl, her bad breath, her bulging eyes. In her trance, Molly stared into Petula’s dull, watery, squinty eyes. Closer and closer she got, until Petula’s eyes were the size of black snooker balls, then black basketballs, then huge, black medicine balls. And then, as Petula’s eyes seemed to blow up to the size of two black hot-air balloons, Molly’s mind slipped under them into Petula’s doggy mind.