Read an Excerpt
The moment Molly heard the dog growl behind her,
she dropped to the ground, low and crouching.
Her world grew wider. She could see almost the whole
way round the playing fields without moving her head.
She looked down and saw fur.
On her hands.
Only they weren’t hands. They were long brown paws.
She twitched. The paws twitched under her.
Oh no, she thought. Not again.
Then she heard the dog louder and closer. Above her,
she saw black slavering jaws open wide, yellow teeth
ready to snap her spine.
So Molly ran. She ran swift and straight, right across
the playing fields. Running faster than she ever thought
she could. She had no idea how she was running like this.
This incredible fast leaping flight, feet barely touching the
ground.
The dog sprinted after her, barking its determination to
catch her and rip her and kill her.
Molly ran faster. But the dog was close behind and the
hedge at the edge of the playing fields was a long way off.
She was running on instinct. Running because she was
being chased. Running because it felt like the right thing
to do, with these legs, and this blood pumping through
her veins.
But she had no idea what to do next. Would the dog
get tired before her? Could she escape if she just kept
running?
Then she felt the dog’s hot breath on her tail.
Without thinking, Molly switched direction. She leapt
to one side and started running parallel to the hedge,
away from the straight-line course the dog was struggling
to alter.
Her legs had done that. Not her head.
She’d escaped the dog for a moment, but now she wasn’t
running towards the safety of the hedge.
Molly could see the whole park, all the way around,
apart from a narrow blind spot right in front of her nose
and another blind spot directly behind her. Her wide field
• f vision showed the black-and-white hunter hurtling
towards her again.
So she ran at amazing grass-skimming speed, dodging
towards the hedge, then away, then towards the hedge
again.
The dog howled in frustration behind her.
She sprinted and jumped, until at last she reached the
hedge and ducked under its lowest branches.
On the other side, Molly tumbled to the ground, landing
• n her knees and ripping her jeans open.
She gulped a lungful of cold autumn air, glanced at her
trembling hands to check they were pale skin, not brown
fur, then stood up and looked over the hedge.
A black-and-white greyhound was panting and grinning
up at her. Molly gasped and stepped back.
“Oy! Linford!” The man running up behind the dog was
red-faced and waving a lead. “Don’t worry about him, he
won’t hurt you. He’s had his exercise for today, haven’t
you, Linford? Did you see them? Did you see how fast they
ran?”
“No,” said Molly. “Who was running fast?”
“He was chasing a hare! A beautiful long-legged brown
hare.”
“A hare?”
“Aye, a hare. Like a rabbit but bigger, stronger, smarter
and much faster. And it only just got away. Greyhounds
were bred to catch hares, and I bet you’d have caught
her, yes you would,” he rubbed his dog’s ears, “you’d have
caught her if you’d had a longer run at her.”
He smiled at Molly, clipped the lead on the dog’s collar
and walked off.
“A hare,” said Molly again.
So that’s what she was. A hare…
