Cupcake Wars! Read online

  “But what if it’s still there?” asked Angela. “What if it’s all alone with no one to look after it?”

  Mrs Nicely rolled her eyes. “Angela, how many times? We are not getting a dog!” she said.

  Angela tilted her head to one side. “Just a teeny-weeny puppy?” she pleaded.

  “NO!” groaned her mum. “Dogs are smelly and dirty and way too much trouble.”

  “Not if you train them,” argued Angela.

  “And what about the mess?” demanded Mrs Nicely. “Who’s going to clear up when it does its … business … on my lawn?”

  “Me!” said Angela. “And I would take it to the park for a walk every day. Please, Mum, you’d LOVE a puppy once you got used to it.”

  “You know I hate dogs,” said Mrs Nicely. “And besides, we’ve just got a new sofa. I don’t want it covered in dog hair, thank you very much.”

  Angela pulled a face. Who cared about a sofa? She’d been begging her meanie parents to buy her a puppy for months, but the answer was always the same. N-O spells NO. Maybe she could give her dad another try?

  Angela went out into the garden to find him. “Da-ad, wouldn’t you like a puppy?” she asked.

  Her dad laughed. “What did your mum say?” he asked.

  Angela pulled a face.

  “She said ‘no’.”

  “Then there’s no point talking about it,” said Dad. “In any case, we’ve got a cat.”

  “It’s not the same,” grumbled Angela. “You can’t teach Pusskins tricks or take him for a walk.”

  “Well, we can’t have both,” said Dad. “Dogs and cats don’t mix.”

  “Some do,” argued Angela. “And my puppy would be so sweet.”

  “Hmm, try telling your mother that,” said Mr Nicely. “She doesn’t want a dog and nothing’s ever going to change that.”

  Angela hung her head. It wasn’t fair. Bertie next door had a dog called Whiffer and Dora in her class had the cutest puppy in the world. Why was she the only one who wasn’t allowed a dog? Angela thought she’d be good with dogs. She would take the puppy for walks, and teach it to sit up and roll over – though probably not on the new sofa.

  There had to be some way to convince her mum! Angela had asked for a puppy for Christmas. She’d left pictures of sad-eyed puppies around the house. She’d even written PUPPY in big letters on her mum’s shopping list. But nothing had had any effect. All the same, Angela wasn’t giving up yet. She went back inside.

  “Mu-um,” she said. “What if the puppy—”

  “NO, ANGELA!” shouted Mrs Nicely. “And if you ask me again I will scream!”

  Read Puppy Love

  to find out what

  happens next.

  Copyright

  STRIPES PUBLISHING

  An imprint of Little Tiger Press

  1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road,

  London SW6 6AW

  First published as an ebook by Stripes Publishing in 2016.

  Text copyright © Alan MacDonald, 2016

  Illustrations copyright © David Roberts, 2016

  eISBN: 978–1–84715–638–9

  The right of Alan MacDonald and David Roberts to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library.

  www.littletiger.co.uk