The Hundred-Mile-an-Hour Dog

The Hundred-Mile-an-Hour Dog by Jeremy Strong is a laugh-out-loud story for 8 year olds about a boy who takes on the worst job in his house.

What happens

Nobody in Trevor's family will walk Streaker. Dad says he has backache. Trevor once tried claiming front-ache and got handed the lead anyway.

You can see why. Streaker goes from nought to gone before you've finished saying her name. She's part greyhound and part rocket, and she's over the horizon while you're still holding the other end of the lead.

Then Mum offers Trevor thirty pounds to walk her every day of the Easter holidays. Thirty pounds! He says yes before he's really thought it through.

His first bright idea is roller skates. Hold the lead, crouch down, let the dog do the work. Free ride, exercised dog, easy money.

They reach the street market at top speed with no brakes on either of them. He comes away with an old lady's handbag hooked over one arm, a flowery sun-dress over his shoulder and the entire market running after him shouting stop that boy.

That's how he ends up at the police station explaining himself to Sergeant Smugg, while Streaker sits in the corner looking angelic.

Trevor tells you all of this himself and he's very good company. He wanders off mid-story to explain a tank film he liked, or to complain about golf, or to list the three things his dog is best at. (Number three is smell.)

His best mate Tina is the one with the plan. She reckons they can train Streaker, because she helped train her own dog Mouse, who is a St Bernard and who sits whatever you say to him. Tina is an organiser. She enjoys deciding what she's doing and enjoys deciding what you're doing even more.

Then Charlie Smugg turns up. He's thirteen, he's the sergeant's son and he likes pushing smaller people around. He says you can't train a dog like that. Tina bets him they can. Trevor gets a sinking feeling and he's right to.

Charlie is a proper bully. He's much bigger than both of them, he arrives early and he doesn't go away, so if your reader finds that sort of character stressful, go in knowing it.

One lovely thing. Trevor gets teased at school for having a best friend who's a girl. His dad tells him that since it isn't true it doesn't matter, and that people make fun of things when they're too stupid to understand them. Trevor repeats that to you quite calmly and gets on with the story. Not a big moment in the book, but a good one.

What to read next

If your reader enjoys a narrator who gets talked into things by a much bossier friend, try There's a Beast in the Basement! Izzy tells that one, and her friend Jodi decides that ACTION IS NEEDED, which is how they all end up investigating what their head teacher is hiding.