Free A Dog's Breakfast by Annie Graves

T here used to be a boy in our class named Glen. I sat next to him. Not by choice.
    He disappeared, Glen. The only one who knew what had happened to him was a dog. A dog I am rather fond of, as it happens.

    I never liked Glen. The rest of the O’Gearys were OK, but he sucked the fun out of everything.
    Actually, I hated him. He had a high, screechy voice like a burglar alarm. I hated that burglar-alarm voice.

    And I hated his lies and his complaints. He never opened his mouth except to complain or to lie.
    When he walked to school, he complained there was too much traffic.
    When the teacher asked for his homework, he lied about why he hadn’t done it.
    When anyone in school asked for a loan of a pencil, he complained about having to give up one of his spares.
    My mother told me that he used to lie to his mum too. (Not a good idea. They talk to each other, mums.)

    When his mother went to say good night to him, when he was tucked up in bed, she would ask if he’d brushed his teeth, and he’d lie and say that he had. She knew he hadn’t, but if she said so, he complained about the taste of the toothpaste.
    He kept a special packet of mints under his pillow so he could breathe minty breath in her face.
    She found them after he disappeared.

    One day our class went on a field trip to the woods to learn about the trees and flowers and birds and animals that lived there.
    Glen thought this was silly and pointless and a pain in the neck. He said so, too. Loudly .
    He was loud on the bus and loud when we got to the woods.
    But nobody listened, because nobody ever listened when Glen complained. We were all so used to it, we just shut out the sound of his screechy voice.
    That made him cross, though, and he dragged his feet while the rest of us went on ahead, hiking through the woods.

    Our teacher had put us into pairs on the bus. That way, everyone in the class had someone to look out for them in case they got lost in the woods.
    And wouldn’t you know it, Glen was my partner.
    That meant I was supposed to look out for him. But I didn’t.
    I feel a little bit bad about that now, but if I’d hung back with him, he’d only have complained about it later.

    It must have taken him a while to realise he was way behind. He was probably too busy complaining to himself that the whole idea of a woodland walk was stupid.
    Anyway, he wandered off the path. When you’re in a wood you don’t know, it’s very easy to get lost if you don’t pay attention. Glen wasn’t good at paying attention because he was always too busy muttering to himself.

    I can just imagine him now, looking around, seeing nobody and snorting. (He loved to snort.)
    â€˜Typical!’ he would say, out loud. (When he wasn’t muttering to himself, he was screeching, and in a wood on his own, I’d say he screeched away good-oh.) ‘Now I have to find my way back to the others. And of course there are no signs.’

    That must have been when he heard the voice: ‘I can help you with that.’
    That would have made him jump, all right! The voice had come from nowhere, you see, or nowhere obvious, if you get my drift. And it definitely didn’t sound like anyone Glen knew.
    It wasn’t anyone in his class, or any of the teachers.

    That might have been a bit scary for him, I suppose. And he didn’t like being afraid, Glen.
    He’d have to turn the afraid feeling into something he liked better.
    â€˜Don’t do that! Don’t sneak up on me like that!’ he said.

    He turned around. His eyes were rolling in his head, trying to find the person with the voice.
    â€˜Higher,’ said the voice, amused.
    Glen looked up and saw a small person in the branches of a tree. He couldn’t tell if the person was male or female. It was shaped like a human but it was small. Not small like a child. Small like a fairy.
    You’re wondering how I know this, aren’t you? Believe me, I have