Better in the morning… worse than ever in the afternoon
One of Dad’s favourite mottos is ‘Everything will look better in the morning.’
Mum says that’s probably because he’s too lazy to deal with anything today. But on this occasion he was right because the next morning was Saturday, and Saturday was always the best day of the week.
The alarm went off at half past six and I was out of the house by seven. When I first started helping at the kennels Mum used to get up and have breakfast with me but now she just came down all bleary-eyed to see me off when I was ready to leave. I didn’t mind. I liked the feeling of being the only one awake in the house while everyone else was sleeping.
I walked up the zig-zag path in the early morning sunshine. There was a layer of mist out to sea but you could tell the sun would burn it off because the air was already really warm.
I came out onto the top road and crossed into Pentilly Close. Becky, the other Saturday helper, was waiting for me outside her house. She was wearing her usual cut-off jeans and tee-shirt. Her spiky black hair was still wet from the shower.
All the bungalows in Pentilly Close had big back gardens and in the far corner of Becky’s there was a summer house. It had a square of faded carpet on the floor and a big squashy settee, and when you went in it smelt dry and warm, like old sunshine. Becky was so lucky. If I had a summer house like that I could go out to it every day after school. I could take some snacks and do my homework in peace. I could pretend Primrose and Bianca never existed.
The kennels were in Hayden’s Lane so we went to the end of the close and took the footpath across the field. Becky knew all about Primrose and Bianca because I had told her one day when I was feeling fed up. She was thirteen, but she never talked down to me. It had been partly her idea that I should try telling Mum and Dad.
‘I tried to tell them yesterday,’ I said. ‘But they wouldn’t listen.’
‘What did they say?’
‘They think I’m jealous of Bianca because Primrose hasn’t got time for me now she’s round our house every day.’
Becky pulled a piece of grass and started chewing on it as we walked along. There were bees buzzing in the hedge and little birds flitting between the branches.
‘I think you should try again,’ she said.
‘What’s the point?’
‘Well, if they think you’re just jealous you probably didn’t explain it well enough. You need to make them understand what’s going on and how fed up you feel.’
It seemed to me that I had been really clear. I’d said exactly what was going on. They should have understood. They simply didn’t want to.
‘OK,’ said Becky, ‘then could you just have chosen the wrong time?’
I groaned. Yes, that was it! How could I have been so stupid? Of course Mum wouldn’t listen when she was trying to work out what to do with a sick aspidistra. Of course Dad wouldn’t listen when he was struggling with the stress of suddenly being Daphne.
We climbed over the stile into Hayden’s Lane.
‘It’s Lollie’s last day today,’ Becky said, changing the subject.
Lollie was a bouncy black spaniel that had been at the kennels for three weeks. Her name was short for Lollipop, but Becky and me said it should be long for lol, because ‘laugh out loud’ was what she made us do.
Some dogs when they first came in were nose-under-the-paw anxious and sad. Some were aggressive and tried to run away. But Lollie was happy-go-lucky. She settled straight in.
‘At least her owner isn’t coming till this afternoon,’ Becky said. ‘We’ll be able to play with her one last time after we’ve finished.’
We met Matt coming down the lane. He was on his way to work. Now he was seventeen he had a proper summer job that paid more money than he used to get working for his parents at the kennels.
My mum had got talking to his mum at the Easter parade.
His mum: ‘Matt’s going to be working weekends at the Crocodile Cafe so we’ll be short-handed at the kennels this summer.’
My mum: ‘I know Peony’s only young but I’m sure she’d love to help out if you’d be willing to give her a try.’
Way to go, Mum!
My mum knows Becky’s mum too because they were in the same class at school, so she also fixed up for me and Becky to walk to the kennels together. Obviously, I wasn’t that keen at first, what with Becky being so much older than me, but it turned out to be brilliant because she’s animal-mad like me and really nice.
Matt grinned at us. ‘It’s going to be a real scorcher today,’ he said. ‘Looks like we’ll all be working with hot dogs!’ We heard him chuckling at his own joke as he walked on down the lane.
We went to the barn first as usual to pick up our mops and buckets and see if there were any new arrivals. Each dog had a box in the barn with its name on and the number of the pen it was in. Inside the box there were things the owner had brought from home – enough food for the dog’s stay, any medicines it needed, its lead and sometimes some favourite toys.
Matt’s mum came out of the farmhouse waving four new packs of rubber gloves.
‘I’ve got a lovely bunch of Marigolds!’ she said.
All the Teversons had the same sense of humour. Matt’s younger brother Jay was always making terrible jokes. Like, there were two fleas that needed to get home – one said to the other, ‘Shall we walk or take the dog?’ Say no more.
We filled our buckets from the outside tap and picked up our mops. Lollie barked a happy hello when she saw us in the yard so we went over to see her before we got stuck into mopping out the pens and walking the other dogs.
I was mostly only allowed to walk the smaller ones but I could walk a big one if it had a nice nature, such as Harold the Newfoundland who came in most weekends. The Bumper Book of Dogs calls Newfoundlands ‘the gentle giants of the dog world’. That was Harold all right.
Becky mopped out Harold’s pen while I walked him round the three meadows that belonged to the kennels, then I mopped out Dot the Dalmatian’s while Becky took her for a walk, and so on all the way along our side of the yard. Mrs Teverson and Jay did the double pens and the dogs that had to be kept separate because if they so much as saw another dog they would go mental.
It was too hot to hurry so we took our time. We had lots of stops for cold drinks. There wasn’t a breath of wind and the thunder flies were really bad out in the meadows. If Bianca and Primrose singing power ballads didn’t work, the police could use thunder flies to make people talk.
We saved Lollie till last. I always used to walk her while Becky mopped out her pen and then we would both take her back out and throw her favourite toy for her, a rubber cupcake that squeaked when you squeezed it.
I put her on the lead and we set off round the meadows. We were half way round the farthest one when the sky suddenly went dark as if a giant silent spaceship had come over and was hovering right above us, blocking out the light. An eerie silence settled over everything, as if the birds and bees had stopped to listen.
Lollie and I stopped too. We stood there looking at each other for a few seconds. Then, just as we were about to start walking again, there was a flash of lightning and the loudest crack of thunder I had ever heard in my life. It was like a bomb going off. I dropped to the ground as if I’d been shot. Lollie gave an almighty heave on her lead, slipped her collar and threw herself under the hedge.
I felt one or two big drops of rain on my back, and then the skies opened. It was like a waterfall. I was drenched in seconds. I struggled to my feet, calling Lollie’s name, but I could hardly hear my own voice above the racket of the rain.
I called and called, searching frantically along the bottom of the hedge, but Lollie didn’t come. My clothes were stuck to my body, as cold and clammy as wet seaweed, and my trainers were full of water. Blinking the rain out of my eyes, I looked down at Lollie’s empty lead in my hand. I had to run back to the kennels and get help.
The rain was bouncing o
ff the baked earth, making sudden puddles all around. I splashed back along the path through the meadows, slipping and sliding as I went, almost falling over every time the thunder crashed overhead.
Everyone was sheltering in the barn.
‘There you are!’ cried Mrs Teverson. ‘We were just about to send out a search party.’
‘Where’s Lollie?’ said Becky.
‘She slipped her lead! What are we going to do?’
I was shivering so hard I could hardly get the words out. Mrs Teverson put her arm round me.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Lollie will be sheltering somewhere. She’ll come out soon enough when the storm blows over. But right now, we’d better get you dry before you catch your death.’
We all ran across to the farmhouse, where Mrs Teverson gave me a towel and some dry clothes to put on. By the time I had got dry, the rain had stopped as suddenly as it began. The sun had come back out and steam was rising from the concrete in the yard.
I borrowed a dry pair of wellies, two sizes too big, and we went back outside to look for Lollie. The grass in the paddock was splashy under our feet. I showed them the place where Lollie had run under the hedge. But she wasn’t there now. She was nowhere to be seen.
We called her name. We squeaked her rubber cupcake. Becky rattled the box of doggie chocs her owner had left for her. But Lollie didn’t come.
Chapter 4
Homeward Bound and Dad’s first ‘Dear Daphne’
Mrs Teverson sent me and Becky home at the usual time though we wanted to stay and keep looking for Lollie.
‘Your parents will be wondering where you’ve got to,’ she said.
I told Dad what had happened over lunch. There was no-one else in the house. Primrose and Bianca were still at the beach. They must have taken shelter in the beach toilets or cafe until the storm had passed. Mum was at work.
According to Mum, the Green Fingers Garden Centre did brisk business on Saturdays. According to Dad, Accident and Emergency probably did brisk business on Sundays with all the people she had sold power mowers and hedge cutters to the day before.
‘What if Lollie doesn’t come back?’ I said. ‘What if her owner comes to collect her and she isn’t there? What if Mrs Teverson doesn’t want me to work at the kennels any more?’
‘That’s a lot of “what ifs”,’ said Dad. ‘What if Lollie does come back? What if her owner finds her safe and well when he comes to pick her up? What if Mrs Teverson is perfectly happy with your work? It could happen!’
I felt as if he was palming me off because he didn’t want to be bothered with my problems. But then he said, ‘Why don’t I phone Mrs T? I’ll tell her how worried you are and see if she’s got any news about Lollie.’
He put down his half-eaten sandwich and picked up the phone. I could hear his side of the conversation so I already knew before he told me that Lollie hadn’t come back. ‘But on the up-side,’ Dad said, ‘her owner hasn’t shown up either yet so if she gets back soon he might not even need to know she’s been missing.’
Dad told me not to worry. ‘Mrs T isn’t worried. She says Lollie will come back when she’s ready.’
I couldn’t tell whether he was just saying that to cheer me up.
‘She also says you’re one of the best workers she’s ever had and she’s got no intention of letting you go.’
Yes, I thought, he is just saying things to cheer me up. Then I felt worse than ever.
Dad chomped through the rest of his sandwich. He followed it up with a banana and a slice of coffee cake. He seemed to be thinking hard about something, probably what to watch on the sports channel that afternoon.
‘You know what we could do?’ he said, suddenly perking up. ‘We could watch that DVD you love. What’s it called now? Homeward Bound!’
I gawped at him. He wasn’t exactly a dog-lover ever since his best friend’s German Shepherd bit him on the bum when he was nine. He’d certainly never shown the slightest interest in watching Homeward Bound with me, even though I had seen it seven times, three of them with Mum.
‘Isn’t it about dogs that find their way home?’ he said. ‘That sounds just the ticket under the circumstances.’
If you haven’t seen Homeward Bound you should put it on your Christmas list right now. It’s no good borrowing it because you’re going to want to watch it again and again.
It’s about a Bulldog called Chance, a Golden Retriever called Shadow and a sarcastic cat called Sassy. They get left with friends when their family go away, but they don’t know what’s going on so they try to find their way home. They get into all kinds of danger, and you keep feeling like your heart has stopped in your chest. Several times you think one of them has died and you simply can’t stop yourself from crying.
I always cry. Dad cried too. He tried not to let me see, wiping his face on his sleeve, but then he gave up and got a box of tissues. As the final credits rolled he blew his nose and took a long deep breath.
To be honest, although it was nice watching Homeward Bound with Dad, it didn’t exactly cheer me up. It got me thinking about all the dangers Lollie might be facing right now, out in the world all on her own. She wasn’t a wise old dog like Shadow or a strong tough dog like Chance. She was as daft as a brush and as soft as butter.
It also got me thinking something that hadn’t occurred to me before. What if Lollie was trying to find her way home, not to the kennels but to her real home? It was thirty miles away, across main roads, and Lollie had the road sense of a suicidal hedgehog.
‘Feeling a bit better now?’ asked Dad. I nodded. Well, I couldn’t very well tell him his lovely idea had actually made me feel worse.
I didn’t know what to do with myself after that. I just worried, worried, worried. I hovered by the phone. When Mum finally came home I told her what had happened while Dad was laying the table and she was unwrapping the fish and chips. She always gets something from the Castle Street chippie on her way home on Saturdays.
Primrose and Bianca came back from the beach just in time for tea.
‘Have you been crying?’ Primrose said, as soon as we all sat down.
I was going to say I’d just been watching a sad film, but Mum went and told her the whole story before I could stop her.
Bianca was all fake concern. ‘How terrible for you,’ she said. ‘I mean, you must feel like it’s all your fault. Well, I suppose it is your fault really.’
I glared at her. Mum said something about accidents happening.
‘And dogs are always getting run over, aren’t they?’ Bianca said. ‘You must be so worried something bad could happen.’
Primrose mentioned a cat she had seen lying at the roadside that had been hit by a car but not killed. It was writhing in agony. Really dreadful, she said. Really upsetting.
‘I’m sure Lollie will be all right,’ Mum said, firmly. ‘None of you must worry.’ Surely she didn’t think Primrose and Bianca actually cared!
After supper, they went back to the beach. I helped Mum to clear the dishes and then hung around while Dad showed her his ideas for his first ever problem page. He’d been working on it all morning and was feeling pleased with himself.
‘It was quite easy once I got going,’ he said, ‘and I think I’m actually quite good at it!’
Mum wasn’t so sure. She read some bits out loud.
Dear Daphne,
My girlfriend’s fantastic in every way except she isn’t into tennis and won’t let me watch it on TV. With Wimbledon coming up, what can I do?
Frustrated Fan
Dear Frustrated Fan,
Your girlfriend sounds a bit bossy and she isn’t going to change. There are plenty more fish in the sea, so I say ditch her and get a new girlfriend who shares your love of tennis.
Dad was nodding enthusiastically as Mum read. Mum looked doubtful. ‘Is that the kind of advice Daphne usually gives?’
‘Yes!’ exclaimed Dad. ‘She used the exact same expression last week to Heartbroken of Hil
lbrow, whose girlfriend walked out on him. There are plenty more fish in the sea, she said.’
‘But that’s different,’ Mum pointed out. ‘Heartbroken had already lost his girlfriend. Daphne was trying to cheer him up.’
Dad shrugged. The difference was lost on him. Mum moved on to the next problem.
Dear Daphne,
All my life I’ve wanted to be an opera singer but I just haven’t had the breaks…
‘Blah, blah…’ Mum skimmed through the rest of the letter. Then she read Dad’s answer.
Dear Sad Soprano,
It’s good to have dreams. They stop you from dying of boredom at work and provide entertainment when there’s nothing good on TV. But dreams don’t always come true. What I say is, if you can’t get what you want, get over it.
‘If you can’t get what you want, get over it’ was another of Dad’s favourite mottos along with, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, give up.’
The phone rang. It was Mrs Teverson. She wanted to speak to me. I was so nervous I nearly dropped the handset when Mum passed it over.
‘Good news, Peony,’ Mrs Teverson said. ‘Lollie’s back. I thought you’d like to know at once.’
I would have burst into tears of relief but I seemed to have used them all up blubbing through Homeward Bound.
‘Her owner hasn’t shown up yet so he doesn’t even need to know that she’s been missing,’ Mrs Teverson went on. ‘He probably said Sunday, not Saturday, and I just wrote it down wrong. I do hope this hasn’t put you off working up here?’
I found my voice.
‘No! No, of course not!’
‘I’ll see you next week, then.’
Mum and Dad were grinning at me. When I came off the phone Dad was all puffed up. ‘What did I tell you?’ he said. ‘Lollie will probably come back – that’s what I said – and her owner could well be delayed and not even know she’s been missing and besides, whatever happens, Mrs T will definitely want you to go on helping at the kennels.’
He looked at Mum.
‘That was good advice, wasn’t it? See – I do know what I’m doing!’
How To Get What You Want by Peony Pinker Page 2