Max Never Barks

My lovely Max had given me the biggest puzzle of my life.

Max, my lovely two-year-old Labrador retriever, was barking madly. You might ask, what’s the big deal about a dog barking? But Max had never barked until today. He never even barked at strangers. We used to joke that he was the most useless guard dog in the world.

But today, on this beautiful summer afternoon before Mum’s gorgeous chicken curry dinner, he was barking madly at someone on the beach.

The sky was growing redder as the sun dipped below the horizon. The heat of the day was fading with the sun’s last shadows, leaving wispy clouds of purple and red. It was a perfect Saturday evening, the night before Dad’s memorial, and the empty, peaceful beach was broken by Max’s frantic barking. His body had gone completely stiff. Drool dripped from the side of his mouth, and his brown eyes shot laser beams, so wide that the whites showed. I had never seen him like this.

My brother, Jamie, took the lead from my hand. “Max, what’s wrong? Calm down, boy.”

I looked away from our trembling, barking dog to the still figure of a man crouched on the sand about fifty metres ahead, scribbling something on the beach. He looked like any ordinary man you might see at the beach, except for something that had just dropped from the pocket of his shorts onto the sand.

…what happens next? You decide!