The fire crackled to life. We gathered around, soaking up the warmth.

With matches I’d taken from cars, and firewood collected by the dogs, we built a little fire by the road.

I’d cooked sausages and marshmallows on family camping trips, but never a whole animal before. Where should I even begin?

Sometimes Dad would catch a fish and put it on a stick to hold over the fire. Then, after a while, he’d lift the skin off and we’d eat the white meat.

I tried doing the same with the snake. It had scales, right? So maybe the same method would work.

Weirdly, it looked like one huge long sausage, strung up over the flames. So, like a sausage, I turned it every now and then to get it cooked evenly on all sides.

Finally, I picked off some of the burnt skin and took a bite.

It tasted fishy, but not in a good way.

The dogs watched on with wide, hungry eyes.

I threw them hunks of snake and dropped the head into the fire to make sure no one ate it, just in case it was poisonous.

Looking at the dogs munching away happily at the chunks of cooked snake, I wondered if I’d been too quick to judge? I took another bite to see if I could get used to it. It was still yuck. So, I opened a packet of stale biscuits and ate those instead. They were dry and tasteless, but at least they weren’t snake flavour. I wondered if I would soon have no choice but to eat whatever we could catch. Snakes, lizards, even bugs? I tried not to think about it too much.

The dogs, on the other hand, munched away happily until the snake meat was all gone. Then Puppy came over to sit next to me.

‘Hello Puppy,’ I said, as I gave her a scratch behind the ears.

She looked up at me with the biggest, cutest eyes, as if to say,

I smiled and looked around at the rest of the pack.

Zip was curled up next to Nosey, who always looked out for his poor-sighted friend. They were very sweet together – maybe they had even been lost from the same family?

Meanwhile, Tiny was sneaking up on a cricket who had no idea what was happening. The chihuahua had an uncanny ability to move without being heard or even seen. I’d noticed him several times over the past few days sneak up and steal a bit of food from the other dogs without them even knowing. Sometimes it was useful to be small, it seemed!

And then there was Brutus, standing away from the group. He was still a bit of an outsider, but at least he hadn’t attacked anyone since we had first found him. I hoped I wouldn’t regret the decision to let him stay. He seemed a little sad, somehow.

When I called him over he was hesitant, but when he finally approached I gave him a pat and he relaxed, slumping down on his haunches with a grunt. If I made an effort with him, maybe he would finally feel accepted.

What an odd bunch, I thought. But they were my odd bunch.