The
BOOK of SAM
by
A.E.Hayward
or
"The Biter Bit" (whatever that means)
This is not a story (don't turn over yet) because it's TRUE. Well, that is to say, it's mostly true. At least, some of it is, anyway. To tell the truth, only a little bit of it is, and the rest I made up. But it's not, repeat NOT, a story.
It's a sort of very long lie.
(Don't turn over yet, because there are still quite a lot of words left on this page. They wanted to go on the next page, but I wouldn't let them. After all, who's telling this lie, them or me?)
Sam is a rather fat black dog, and he lives in Scotland. I know, because he lives in my house. Well actually, it's his house and I'm just staying there. Anyway, I know him extremely well. Well, I've met him. Once.
You may be wondering when this story - sorry, lie - is going to begin. The answer is, I haven't actually made it up yet. I'm just playing for time. Isn't it clever the way these words all come in straight lines?
RIGHT! I've thought of it now, so here is the STORY. I mean, the LIE.
Sam is a rather fat black dog. He's black all over (and a bit brown round the edges) except for the backs of his feet, which are white so you can see him from behind in the dark, which is useful. Well, not useful exactly, but interesting.
Of course, you can't see him from in front in the dark, but then he can see you so it doesn't matter. (Always provided you've got white patches on your feet, that is). (Which is interesting (but not useful))() sorry ()) I've got a bit ( confused with my brack ( ets )())))()))). Ah, that's better. Even the brackets come in straight lines. Isn't science a marvellous thing?
Apart from being black all over, and a little bit brown, and slightly white, Sam is also rather fat, particularly in the middle and not so much at the ends. He does try not to be fat by taking people on lots of walks and running about energetically, but that only makes him hungry, so he eats more, so he gets even fatter. Which is interesting, but not useful. Particularly in the middle.
One day, Sam's grandpa came to stay. Actually, he came to stay for a week, not for a day. What I mean by "one day, Sam's grandpa came to stay" is that he arrived in the daytime, not at night. Actually, he arrived about tea-time. Isn't "actually" a nice word? Have you noticed I use it quite a lot?
Sam's grandpa was called Harold, and he liked going fishing. Fishing was somethinx nbkfji f wo pa ŁUgndk&b3 dkjdha querd*@73 GET DOWN, YOU NAUGHTY WORDS! Sorry about that.
Fishing was something that Sam had never really turned his paw to, and when one morning Harold said in a loud voice (it wasn't his own voice, he'd borrowed it for the occasion) "Sam, are you coming fishing?" what Sam thought he said was "Sam, are you coming for a walk?" They do sound rather alike, don't they? To a dog. So Sam jumped up and tagged along, running ahead so Harold would be able to see him if it should get dark suddenly.
It was quite a long walk to Fishing, on a gravel path that curved uphill through the trees and heather to a little reservoir. A reservoir is a kind of exclusive pond. I know it seems odd to have a pond at the top of a hill, but they do that kind of thing in Scotland. Which is interesting, but tiring.
When they got to Fishing, Harold got out his long thin fishing rod, and his fishing line (and if you thought the rod was long and thin, you just wouldn't believe the fishing line) and tied a hook on the line, and stuck a worm on the hook. Which was tough on the worm, but you can't have everything. It's a hard world. Especially for worms.
Harold then dropped the worm in the water, sat down and lit a cigar. Which was tough on the cigar, but …. Oh, what the hell do I care about the lower orders, anyway?
Sam waited for something to happen. Pretty soon, nothing did, so Sam waited a bit more.
When nothing was still happening twenty minutes later, Sam got a bit fed up so he went for a walk in the bushes to see if anything was happening there. It wasn't, so he came and waited a little longer.
Then he went to talk to the moorhens who lived in the reeds on the other side of the reservoir, but they were out so he came back and waited a little longer.
Then he sat and scratched himself for a while, but even this got a bit boring so he waited a little longer.
Then he suddenly remembered where he might have buried something, so he went to have a look. Actually (see? there it is again) he was fairly certain he hadn't buried something there, but somebody might have so he went to look anyway. But they hadn't, so he came back and waited a little longer.
He was just resigning himself to having to scratch himself again, and thinking that there must be more to life than scratching yourself and maybe he was missing out somewhere, when finally something happened.
Harold suddenly started winding in his line as fast as he could go, and Sam ran over to see how the worm was getting on. He wasn't usually very interested in worms, but he was getting a little desperate. But lo! When the end of the line came in sight, the worm was gone, and in its place was something silver that wriggled and flashed in the sun. Sam was flabbergasted; was this some esoteric metamorphosis inherent in the worm's life-cycle of which he had hitherto been in ignorance?
Harold pulled on the line until the silver thing was flopping and gasping on the grass. Sam sniffed at it, and said "You in there, worm?"
But the silver thing was rather preoccupied at the moment and did not reply. Instead it made a lunge at Sam's feet. Sam, realising in a flash that he was under attack, leapt backwards. Savage attacks by mutated worms were somewhat outside his experience. Growling loudly (he was an old exponent of psychological warfare) he circled the worm, with the hair on the back of his neck raised to make him look less rotund and more athletic and threatening. He kept the backs of his feet hidden in case the worm had good night-vision - he knew a cat who had this, and respected it. The worm made one or two savage leaps more, and Sam leapt too, to show that he was not easily intimidated. Then the worm, sensing his opponent's superiority, made one prodigious leap and landed with a splash in the water again.
Sam was furious. All that waiting around, and now that ungrateful worm was running away! Harold had kindly carried it all that way, then patiently bathed it so that Mother Nature could work her mysterious magic and turn it into a silver thing, and it didn't even stop to say "thanks". Beside himself with righteous indignation, he leapt into the water after it.
He cast around, somewhat hampered by the fact that his nose didn't work too well under water, and splashed and sploshed and pawed at the bottom in an attempt to find which way the worm had gone. Then, wonder of wonders, he felt a muscular wriggle under one paw. He had it! Seizing the ingrate worm in his teeth he bounded back to the shore and threw it on the grass.
Alas! This was not the worm he knew and despised! This was something far larger, with scaly fins and a baleful eye, a powerful tail and a great mouth full of sharp teeth which it immediately fastened in the end of Sam's nose!
Sam gave a yell of pain (at least, it may have been a yell of triumph or joy, but he thought it was pain) and shook his head. The wriggling bully released his terrible grip, sailed through the air in a graceful arc and disappeared with a colossal SPLOSH!
On the way home Harold said "Well, I never saw a dog catch a pike before."
Sam watered a tree defiantly, in case any pikes might be watching. He decided that fishing was neither interesting nor useful, and was rather uncomfortable in the nose besides. In future he would stick to rabbits. They were civilised creatures with a nice sense of decorum. At least they always kept their tails towards you. You knew where you were with rabbits.
Thank you, words. You can go now.
"The Book of Sam" by A.E.Hayward © 1975 Alfred Hayward
This web page © 2007 Alfred Hayward
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