3 Dear Tilly

3. DEAR TILLY It was summer, but the weather was doing its best to make it feel like fall. Matilda was painting at her kitchen table, with the patio door open. She'd just finished a sea monster that she was quite pleased with and was wondering what to paint next.

WOOF! Matilda looked up and saw a dog in the backyard. She didn't even have a dog, so that was strange. Stranger still, Matilda's cat, Fluff, trotted past her and into the garden. Fluff usually hated dogs. Matilda jumped up to see Fluff pushing her face up against the dog's cheeks and curling her tail around his ears. This wasn't any old dog—it was a pirate dog! It was Bones! He was Fluffs sweetheart, and also the faithful

companion of Matilda's best friend and pirate pen pal, Jim Lad. "Is Jim here?" asked Matilda, a little overcome with excitement because she hadn't seen Jim for a few weeks. "ARE," said Bones, and shook his head. Matilda noticed a roll of paper wobbling on his collar. She bent down and untied it.

Dear Tilly, we're stuck in a cave beneath Hag's Head! Please help us! Love, Jim Lad P.S. Map on reverse. P.P.S. Please give Bones a biscuit.

"Oh, no!" Matilda cried. "Bones, can you take me there?" Bones nodded and tapped his wooden leg on the patio. Matilda's dad was building a model airplane in the study, and her mom had caught the bus to town. Matilda ran inside and grabbed her coat, a water bottle, a map, her pocket money (just in case), and a couple of biscuits. "Dad, I'm going out on my bike!" shouted Matilda as she ran past the study door. Her dad was busy trying to unstick a tiny transparent

cockpit canopy from his thumb, but there was glue everywhere, and he could only mumble, "Oh... OK. Don't go too far!" Matilda flipped a biscuit to Bones and pulled her bike out of the shed. She quickly put on her helmet and stuffed everything else in an old backpack. "Would you like a ride?" she said, placing Bones in the basket on her handlebars. Then she hopped on her bike, pushed off through her gate, and sped along the road, pedaling as hard and fast as she could. Fluff watched wistfully from the gatepost.