The Forgotten Puppy

by Holly Webb

  For Faith

  www.hollywebbanimalstories.com

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  About the Author

  Other titles by Holly Webb

  Copyright

  “It looks weird,” Emi said, staring anxiously around the empty room.

  “Only because there’s nothing in it, silly,” her older brother Ben told her. He had a special older-brother voice he used for saying things like that, and Emi glared at him. Just because he was fourteen, it didn’t mean he knew everything.

  “I know that! It just still looks … weird. It doesn’t look like our house.”

  “It will when all our things are in it, Emi, don’t worry.” Mum was standing in the doorway holding a box. “In a week it’ll feel like we’ve always lived here, I promise. Now, can you two come and help me unload the car? The removal van will be here with the rest of our stuff soon and I want to get these bits into the kitchen first.”

  After a last worried look around their new living room, Emi followed them out to the car. There was one good thing about this house, she realized and her eyes brightened a little. Through the window, she could see out into a garden. That had been one of the things that made them all love the place. The garden wasn’t huge and it was a bit messy – Mum said all those straggly bushes needed a proper haircut – but at least it was there. The rented flat they’d been living in since Mum and Dad had decided to split up hadn’t had a garden at all, just a little concrete yard for the bins.

  Emi hurried after Mum and Ben, smiling to herself. She couldn’t wait to unpack – getting out her clothes and books would make the bedroom feel like it was properly hers. For the last couple of weeks everything had been in boxes. She wasn’t actually sure where anything was, but discovering things again would be part of the fun. She hadn’t seen her favourite purple cardigan or her slippers for ages.

  And once they were all properly unpacked – settled, Mum called it – then they could start to think about the most important part of the move. It was the most important part for Emi, anyway.

  Now they had a garden, Mum had said that at last, after years of maybe and one day and when you’re older, they could get a dog.

  “Mum…”

  “Mm-hm?”

  “Mum, are you actually listening? You look like you’re thinking about whether that picture’s in the wrong place. Again.”

  It had been five weeks since they’d moved in, and Emi’s mum was still worrying about whether everything was in the right spot or not. She blinked and looked at Emi guiltily.

  “You’re right, I was. Sorry. It just doesn’t seem to fit there and it’s getting to me. I really am listening now.”

  “Except for that picture and not liking the shape of the bath taps and the way that cupboard door squeaks in the kitchen –” Emi was counting on her fingers – “do you think we’re almost settled in?”

  Her mum smiled at her. “I suppose so. Do you feel like we are?”

  “Yes!” Emi looked at her pleadingly. “Do you remember – you said that when we were settled, we could think about getting a dog. I don’t mean we should actually get one right this minute, but we could at least think about it, couldn’t we? What sort of dog we’d like and where we’d get it from? Please?”

  Her mum nodded. “I hadn’t forgotten, Emi. I’ve been thinking about it, too. Go and see if Ben’s finished that homework he was doing and ask him to come down here for a minute.”

  Emi raced up the stairs. She was pretty sure that Ben wasn’t doing his homework at all – she could hear him talking to one of his mates about the computer game they were playing, but by the time she got upstairs and banged on his door, he had his English essay up on the screen and was looking all innocent.

  “What, Emi? I’m working.”

  It was tempting to point out that he’d only written about three lines, but the last thing Emi wanted was to get into an argument with her big brother. That would be an absolutely perfect way to make Mum forget about getting a dog.

  “Mum wants to talk to us. About the dog! Can you come down, pleeease?”

  Ben yanked off his headphones and jumped up. He was almost as keen on having a dog as Emi was, especially as he was old enough to remember Alfie, the dog Mum and Dad had owned years ago. Alfie had died when Emi was really little and she couldn’t remember him at all.

  Emi hurried back down to the living room, with Ben jumping down the stairs after her. When she got there, the little table in front of the sofa was covered in old photograph albums. She glared at her mum. “You said we could talk about dogs!” she cried out. “You’re not supposed to be unpacking more stuff!”

  Her mum laughed. “I’m not. I was trying to find some photos that I wanted to show you. Look – do you see who that is?”

  Emi and Ben stared down at the photo – a little girl with a very serious face and dark hair cut in a fringe. Emi thought the girl looked quite like her, but she didn’t remember ever wearing dungarees like that…

  “It’s you, Mum, isn’t it?” Ben said. “Was that in Japan, then?”

  “Yes.” Mum nodded. “I must have been about six there, I think.”

  Emi looked at the photo curiously. Mum didn’t talk that much about her life in Japan. She’d come to England as a student, and then she’d met Dad, and she hadn’t been back all that often. Their Japanese grandparents – Emi and Ben called them Sobo and Sofu, which meant Gran and Grandpa in Japanese – sent them presents on their birthdays and at Christmas and they called every few weeks, but Emi had only met them once, when they’d come over to visit a couple of years before.

  “This is the one I wanted you to see, look.” Mum flicked over the page and showed them the same little girl – she even had the same dungarees on – but this time she was sitting next to a dog, with her arm around its neck. Both of them looked so happy that Emi couldn’t help going, “Awwww…”

  Ben rolled his eyes at her. “You never told us you had a dog when you were little, Mum!”

  “So cute… What sort of dog is that?” Emi asked, frowning. She was usually excellent at spotting dog breeds. She had a poster on her wall that had come with one of Dad’s newspapers, showing lots of different dogs. But she wasn’t sure about this one at all.

  “Actually, are you sure that isn’t a fox?” Ben asked, peering at the little photo. “It’s got a real fox face with those pointy ears! And a bushy tail.”

  “No, it’s fatter than a fox,” Emi said thoughtfully. “I know what you mean, though, and it’s even foxy-coloured – sort of golden-red.”

  Mum laughed. “He wasn’t a fox. He was a Shiba Inu. They’re a Japanese breed. And he was called Kin – that means gold.” She smiled down at the picture. “He was lovely. The friendliest dog ever. He used to follow me around when I was little, almost like a babysitter. He’d bark at Sobo to tell her if I was crawling too far away and she’d come and pick me up.”

  “He’s beautiful. He looks like he’s smiling. What does Shiba Inu mean in Japanese, Mum?” Emi only knew a few words of her mum’s language, like her name and Ben’s. Her brother was actually called Benjiro, which meant peaceful (Emi thought Mum and Dad had picked pretty badly with that one). But he was always just Ben and most people didn’t know he had a Japanese name. With Emi it was the other way round. Her proper name was Emily, but Mum always called her Emi. She’d explained that it meant “beautiful gift”. She and Dad had wanted their children to have names that worked in both languages. Emi liked
it – it felt special to have two names.

  “Inu just means dog,” Mum said. “The Shiba bit isn’t so clear, though. There’s a kind of tree with the same name that goes reddish-gold in the autumn, so that could be it. Or some people think it means small. In one of the old Japanese languages, Shiba means small and they’re quite small dogs.” She laughed. “Kin only looks big because I was so little…”

  “Can you get them in this country?” Emi asked thoughtfully. It would be really cool to have a Japanese dog. And she quite liked the idea of taking a dog like that for walks in the park, where people asked each other what breed their dogs were. She always asked the owners if she didn’t know – most people loved talking about their dogs.

  “People are just starting to breed them over here.” Mum looked at Emi and Ben. “You know I called Mariko at the weekend?” Mariko had been a friend of Mum’s since they were students together. She was Japanese, too, and came to stay with them sometimes. “Another friend of hers – Kaii – is breeding Shiba Inus. She was telling me that Kaii doesn’t live very far from here. In fact, he’s got a litter of puppies right now…”

  Ben grinned. “Mum! Do you mean we could have one?”

  Emi was far too excited to say anything – she just gave Mum the most enormous hug.

  “A Shiba Inu?” Emi’s best friend Jess shook her head as they walked through the school playground. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of them! What do they look like?”

  “Really, really gorgeous…” Emi sighed happily. “They’re not very big, but they’re sort of solid-looking, if you know what I mean? Chunky, I suppose. Ben said Mum’s old dog looked like a fox, because they’ve got quite pointy faces and hers was an orangey-red colour. But you can get black and tan Shiba Inus, too, and even white ones.” She giggled. “Mum showed us some photos online and there was a white Shiba Inu puppy – he looked like a snowball with ears. Their fur’s not really fluffy, but it sticks out a bit, he was so roly-poly and cute…”

  Jess laughed. “You’ve fallen in love, Emi!” Then she shivered. “Ooooh, talking of snowballs, I wish the bell would go. I’m frozen. I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually snowed soon. I really wanted us to have a white Christmas, but all it did was rain in the school holidays…”

  “Maybe we’ll get a snow day off school instead – that would be good. Imagine playing with a puppy in the snow…” Emi couldn’t think of anything better.

  “So, do you know when you’re going to get the puppy?” asked Jess. “And can I come over to see it? Please?”

  Emi put an arm round her friend’s shoulders. “Course you can! But I don’t think we’ll be getting the puppy for a little while. Mum called the friend of her friend who’s the breeder, though, and we’re going to go and visit one weekend – Mum said it would be too tricky to fit it in after school. And this weekend we can’t, because we’re going to Dad’s. We’re seeing his new flat for the first time. You know he moved, too, right?”

  Jess nodded. Her parents didn’t live together, either – it was one of the things that she and Emi had in common – that and the fact that they both loved animals. Jess had three cats at her dad’s house and guinea pigs at her mum and stepdad’s. They both understood what it was like having two families and two houses. Jess knew all about having to remember which house you’d left your homework book in and sometimes forgetting which family was picking you up from school.

  “Mum said none of the puppies could come home with us for a few weeks anyway,” Emi explained. “They have to be at least eight weeks old before they can leave their mother and they aren’t quite that big yet. Nearly though!”

  “When you get the puppy, will you be able to take him to your dad’s, too?” Jess asked thoughtfully.

  Emi shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so. It’s a pretty tiny flat. Dad’s going to have to sleep on the sofa while we’re staying, so we’ll all fit. And mostly we’re going to go by train to get there. Dad can come straight from work to meet us at the station. It’s not far from the flat, he says. If he came to get us from our house by car we wouldn’t get there till really late. I’m not sure a puppy would like going on a train much.”

  “You’re going by train on your own?” Jess sounded envious.

  “With Ben.” Emi sighed. “He’s going to be a nightmare. Mum and Dad keep saying he’s got to look after me, so it’s like the ultimate excuse for him to be a bossy big brother. ‘I’m in charge, you’ve got to do as I say, you’re only nine, blah blah blah…’”

  Jess sniggered and Emi grinned at her. “Well, he is like that!”

  Emi stood between Mum and Ben on the doorstep of Kaii’s house. She was feeling a strange mixture of excited and sad – they were going to meet their new puppy for the first time, so of course she was excited! But she wished Dad was with them. It had been brilliant going to see his new flat last weekend. She’d really missed him when they hadn’t seen him for a few weeks because of his move. Dad had played computer games with them, and he’d dragged them out to the woods near his new flat, and even though Ben had said walks were boring, it had been really fun. They’d chased about and jumped over a stream. Emi had nearly fallen in, but Dad had caught her just in time.

  There was a little wood near their new house, too, Emi remembered, as she listened to the sound of barking on the other side of the door. They’d be able to take their new puppy on walks there soon! Maybe Dad would get a pet as well, she thought, as Mum smiled down at her. But not a dog – not when he was out at work all day. They were really lucky that Mum mostly worked from home, so they wouldn’t be leaving their new puppy alone too much.

  “Hello! Erika, yes? And Emi and Ben? I’m Kaii.” He beamed at them as he opened the door. His sweater was covered in dog hair but Emi was hardly looking at him because, peering nosily around his legs were two beautiful dogs. The larger dog was black and tan, but the smaller one was the same golden-red colour as Kin, her mum’s old dog. Seeing the Shiba Inu breed for real, instead of in a faded photo, Emi realized that they were so much more beautiful. Their pointed, pricked-up ears made them look really clever. They had whitish fur around their dark eyes, too, which made them stand out. Both of the dogs were staring at Emi now, with their heads on one side, as though they were trying to work out what they thought of her.

  Kaii was laughing, Emi suddenly realized, and so were Mum and Ben. Emi looked up at them, her face going red. What had she done?

  “It’s OK,” Kaii said, smiling. “I was just saying why don’t you come in? I don’t think you heard a word I said, though. You like them, then?”

  “They’re beautiful!” Emi told him, as they followed him inside. “And they look really clever.”

  “They are,” he agreed. “And they make good pets, too. They’re very loving. But you do have to be quite firm with them, otherwise they walk all over you.”

  “Are these the puppies’ mum and dad?” Emi asked. She’d love to have a puppy that grew up like these two. She was sure they were grinning at her as well. One of them had his tongue hanging out.

  “This is Daisuke and this is Kimi,” said Kaii. “Dai is the puppies’ dad, but Kimi’s their big sister. Cho, their mum, is with them in the puppy room at the moment. Would you like some tea first?”

  Emi looked at her mum hopefully, and Mum smiled and shook her head. “No, that’s OK. Emi’s so desperate to see the puppies, I think she might explode if I say yes.”

  “Come on, then. I’ve got a room for the mums and puppies at the back of the house – it leads on to the garden, so they can go outside when they’re big enough.”

  It looked like Kaii had had the room built on to the back of his house specially, Emi thought, as he led them through. It must be a lot of work, breeding dogs.

  “Here we are. Just come in quietly to start with – Cho’s very friendly, but she’s quite protective of her puppies. She’ll let you play with them in a bit, but we have to let her get used to you.”

  Emi and Ben practically tipto
ed into the room. In one corner another gorgeous golden dog was sitting upright, looking at them sharply. It seemed like she’d heard them coming and had sat up to see what was going on. And next to her, curled up asleep in the big basket, were four fat, furry, puppies, fast asleep.

  “Don’t worry, they’ll wake up in a minute,” Kaii told them, as he watched Ben and Emi trying to peer over and get a good look at the pile of puppies. “They have a sixth sense – they always know when something interesting’s happening. See? I told you!”

  One of the puppies, who was black and tan just like his dad, had popped his head up so quickly that Emi couldn’t help laughing. “He looks like a teddy bear,” she whispered to Ben and her brother grinned. It was the way the fur stood up all round their heads and paws, Emi decided. As the puppy climbed over his brothers and sisters to come and investigate, he looked like too much of a fluffball to be real.

  The other puppies squeaked crossly and woke up as he stomped over them and then Emi gasped. There weren’t four puppies – there were five! Now that they were all moving, she could see another puppy who’d been snuggled up next to the mum, with the others on top. And this puppy was a gorgeous golden colour.

  “Look…” She nudged her mum.

  “I know, they’re so cute,” Mum whispered back. “Oh, look, they’re all waking up now. They’re coming to see us!” She reached out and one of the creamy-white pups sniffed her fingers curiously and then licked her.

  The golden puppy let out a big yawn and scratched its front paws against the blanket.

  “That tail looks like a little doughnut, curled up like that. Is the golden puppy a girl?” Emi asked Kaii. “She looks like a girl…”

  “Yes! Well done. She’s pretty, isn’t she?”