by Anna Wilson
I must have had my puzzled face on because Mum said, ‘How can I explain it better . . . ? I know – imagine that you and Molly want to go to the cinema on the bus without an adult. Well, Molly’s mum and I would have to weigh up the pros and cons – in other words, we would have to think about whether it was a good thing for you to do something so grown-up on your own, or whether in fact it would not be safe enough and therefore would be a bad thing.’
‘Oh, I see,’ I answered, going back to the book.
I personally could only see the Pros of my idea, and not any Cons. But just as I was thinking that may be I should show Mum the book after all I ran into a list of Cons I had never even thought of:
Matching your female dog with a suitable male is an art in itself and requires a lot of time, effort and – sometimes – money . . .
Uh-oh, I thought. Mum is seriously going to be put off the idea of Honey being a mummy if she sees the words, ‘time’, ‘effort’ and ‘money’ all in the same sentence. Honestly, you would think that someone might have advised Ms Sitstill not to write in such an unhelpfully scary way.
I decided to read on in the hope that eventually I would soon come to some Pros which I could use later in my very well-planned conversation with Mum.
The first top tip, or ‘golden rule’ as Ms Sitstill put it, was this:
1) KNOW YOUR BREED
Well, that wasn’t difficult! I knew that Honey was a Golden Labrador Retriever. And I knew that she was a pure pedigree with no other type of dog in her except Labrador Retriever – in other words, she was not a crossbreed.
The reason I knew this for sure was that I had got her from Frank Gritter, winner of Honksome Sock Wearer of the Year Award, whose lovely pooch, Meatball (yes, that is her real name, poor thing), was Honey’s mum.
2) KNOW YOUR STUD DOG
I wasn’t one hundred and one per cent sure of what exactly a stud dog was. I knew that a ‘stud’ was a little gold thing that you had put into your earlobe when you had your ears pierced, but somehow I didn’t think that dogs had to have their ears pierced before they had puppies.
I looked up ‘stud’ in the glossary:
A stud dog is the dog who will be the father of the puppies.
Aha! I turned back to the main section, feeling as though I was at last getting somewhere. But what I read next filled me up with more and more concerns of an anxious and worrisome nature:
Is the stud a good breeding dog? Is the stud’s owner a responsible breeder?
As far as I could see, Perfect Puppies was asking me more questions than it was giving me answers! How did I know whether or not a stud was a good breeding dog? How would I even find a person who had such a perfect stud dog? And how would I know all the correct and important questions to ask the breeder when I met him?
I sighed heavily and sank down under the table to lie next to Honey and stroke her soft velvety ears.
‘What are we going to do, Honey? You’d like to be a mummy, I know you would.’
Maybe I should ask Nick about all this? I thought. But then I realized that he would be bound to check whether or not I had asked Mum’s permission, and even if I lied, he would find out from April.
I was about to fall down in the dumps with despair when I had a binding flash of inspirational thinking. Unfortunately it was nearly Literally blinding, as I jumped up when I thought of it and banged my head on the table . . .
Frank Glitter! He would know all about how they found a proper stud dog for Meatball, AND he would be able to tell me all about how much it cost and – this was the most exciting part – he would be able to tell me how much money they had GOT for the puppies they had sold!
If Honey had puppies, we could sell them! Surely Mum would not say no to a money-making scheme like that? She was always moaning about how much money her daughters cost and especially how April was running around having a riot with her credit card, even though she had a job of her own, etc, etc, and on and on like that.
The Pros of this blindingly mega-brilliant flash of inspiration were obvious, I thought to myself.
The Cons were that it involved talking to the One and Only Putrefying Pong-Meister of Year Five: Sir Freaky-Stinky Frank Gritter the Sock Stencher.
On Saturday morning Nick popped over. I answered the door. I had been hovering in the hallway, trying to make up my mind whether to go over to Frank’s.
‘Hi, Nick!’ I said. Honey ran to say hello too. Now that she’s so well trained she knows she’s not allowed to jump up when she is really pleased to see someone, so she just wagged her tail so hard that her bottom waggled from side to side as well.
Nick bent down to pat Honey’s head. ‘No – I’m sorry, I’m not taking you out for a walk today, girl,’ he said.
Honey sat back on her haunches, put her head on one side and whined.
Mum came into the hall. ‘Nick! We haven’t seen much of you this week – been hard at work?’
Nick went a bit red and said, ‘Er, yes. Thanks. We’re going to start looking for a flat – did April tell you?’
Mum smiled with her mouth (but not her eyes, I noticed) and said, ‘Yes. She’s in the kitchen, if you want to go through. Come on, Summer, let’s give the lovebirds some space.’ She pushed open the sitting-room door and nodded in the direction of the telly.
I rolled my eyes to hide the fact that I was feeling embarrassed. I wished Mum wouldn’t say such cringesome things about love and stuff. It always made me think of kissing. Urgh! I HATE KISSING! Not that I’ve ever done it, or indeed plan on ever doing it . . .
I made a big fuss of Honey so that I didn’t have to say anything to Mum, who would have wanted to know why my face had gone the colour that clashes so badly with my auburn hair.
‘It’s all right, Mum. I think I might go out for a bit – to Frank’s. OK?’
‘OK,’ said Mum, definitely smiling with her eyes this time. She raised her eyebrows. ‘You and Frank still getting on well then?’
I huffed loudly and rolled my eyes even more. ‘Mu-um!’ I wailed. Honestly, that woman has lovebird nonsense on the brain, I thought.
I turned to my dog, who was the only sane person in our family. ‘Come on, Honey – let’s get out of this madhouse,’ I whispered.
I’m sure she understood, because she became even more bottom-wiggly and bounced to the coat rack where her lead was hanging.
I took my time walking to Frank’s. I was still a bit worried that going to ask him for advice was not going to turn out to be such a good idea after all.
However, I had to admit to myself that the last time I had been truly desperate about something, it was actually Frank Gritter who had saved me in my Hour of Need – well, kind of. He’d certainly Been There For Me, as they say on telly in the dramatical bits in soap operas. (Why they are called soap operas I have never had a faintest idea. There is never any mention of soap in them, and no one ever sings in a warbly voice like they do in real operas.)
I had in actual fact come to the rather surprising conclusion that, even though he still stank of sock-induced honksomeness, he was not that bad a person.
Admittedly I had had to get used to his freaky boy-language so that I could decipherate what he meant when he said things like ‘Awightsummah? Yooocomintehth’par’ la’ers?’ (translation: ‘Hello, Summer! Would you like to come along to the park later?’) And I had to stand down the wind of him after Wednesday-ish, otherwise the socks he had not changed since Monday would LINGER on the breeze and make me feel distinctly Green About The Gills, which is a descriptive way of saying that it made me feel nauseatingly sick to the bottom of my boots.
Anyway, I had been feeling that going to see Frank was exactly the right thing to do, but when the moment came to actually ring his doorbell, I panicked. What if someone from school was spying on me? I could just imagine the scene in the playground on Monday morning:
Rosie Chubb: ‘I saw you at Frank’s yesterday!’
Others: ‘WoooooOOOOOHHhhh!’
/> Rosie Chubb: ‘What were you doing at Frank’s, Summer? Is he your BOYFRIEND or something?’
She would go on and on about it forever until eternity. No, it was too hideous a thing to think about.
I turned away from the front door and started to walk very quickly back down the path.
‘Hello, Summer!’
Fiddlesticks. It was Frank’s Mum.
‘Erm, hello Mrs Gritter.’
‘I saw you through the window. Come in, won’t you? Hello, Honey! I’ll just call Frank. He’s kicking a ball around as usual . . .’
‘Oh, right – thanks,’ I said, and I walked back up the path again and into Frank’s house, which as usual was very neat and tidy and not at all smelly; this never failed to completely bamboozle me. I made a mental reminder to try to find an opportunity to ask Mrs Gritter how in the high heavens above she managed to keep her house smelling so free of sock-whiff with a son like Frank around the place.
‘Come through, Summer!’ she called. ‘Frank’s in the garden and he’s a bit too muddy to come in the house.’
Ah! So that’s how she dealt with the problem – she kept Frank in the garden! Great idea. I wondered if he had a kennel of his own . . .
Honey had already streaked out of the back door and was rolling around with Meatball, sniffing her bottom and doing all the disgusting things dogs do to greet each other. I was just thinking, Why on earth can’t they say hello in a calm and quiet manner like humans do? when THWUMP! I was hit on the head by a muddy football.
‘AWIGH’, SUMMER?’ yelled Frank. Then one of his footie mates Emerged from the Undergrowth of the bushes and shouted, ‘AWIGH’?’ as well.
I was a bit annoyed as I didn’t really want to talk to Frank in front of another stinky boy, but I didn’t exactly have a choice now.
‘Frank,’ I said, calmly, ‘how did you get Meatball to have puppies?’
‘Der!’ said Frank, wobbling his smelly head to and fro and curling his lip at me, like I was the most der-brainish person on the planet, ‘don’t you even know that yet? Well, first of all you get a daddy dog, and then–’
‘HAHAHAHAHA!’ interrupted the honksome idiot boy next to him.
‘NO! I don’t mean HOW did she have the puppies!’ I shouted, to stop him from saying anything that might be more embarrassing than the most embarrassing thing this side of Embarrassmentville. ‘I meant,’ I said more quietly and slowly so that this loony-tune could understand me, ‘How did you persuade your mum to LET Meatball have puppies?’
Frank looked at me with his eyebrows creased into his forehead as if I had asked him the most difficultest maths question in the history of the entire universe. ‘Er – what?’ he said.
I sighed very over-dramatically and turned my back on him and his friend with my arms crossed. ‘Fine. I can see that you are not actually behaving like a real live human being today and that you are in fact on Planet Zorg, so I will leave you to do whatever it is Alien Life Forms like doing on a Saturday, and I will find some more intelligenter life forms to converse with,’ I said very importantly and, feeling really quite pleased with myself, I called Honey and marched out of the garden.
‘Leaving already, Summer?’ said Mrs Gritter as I came into the kitchen. ‘Won’t you stay for a snack? Bunny always has a biscuit around this time,’ she added, opening a packet.
BUNNY? Was that her nickname for Mr Stink-i-verse? HAHAHAHAHA! That’s a useful bit of information I can store up my sleeve, I thought.
‘Thank you, Mrs Gritter,’ I said in my most politest of voices. ‘Those biscuits do look delicious. Unfortunately I have to go home now. Thank you for having me.’
Frank had appeared in the doorway at this point. He obviously had his biscuit radar-smell-o-vision on.
‘Cn’av a biscuit, Mum?’ Frank asked, grinning muddily.
Mrs Gritter handed him the plate. ‘Bunny, I hope you haven’t upset Summer,’ she said. ‘She seems to be leaving already.’
For a split of a moment I thought Frank looked a tiny bit guilty, but then his smelly mate appeared at his side and Frank blurted out, ‘She’s just her knickers in a twist cos her mum won’t let Honey have puppies.’
His mate guffawed with biscuity laughter.
I felt my face do its ultra-red thing and panicked that I might actually burst into tears in front of those disgusting examples of the male species. So I hastily grinned at Mrs Gritter through my grinding teeth and muttered, ‘Thanks for nothing, Frank,’ while making the quickest exit that was humanly possible with my dog lunging at the biscuit plate.
So that was that on the Masterly Plan front, as far as Frank Gritter was concerned.
After the completely useless time spent at Frank’s house, I decided I would have to Take my Chance and Get Straight to the Point with Mum.
Maybe if I reminded her that Nick would help us out, as he’d said, she would come around to my way of thinking, I told myself
Still, I couldn’t face talking to her that weekend, and instead I waited until Monday after school.
Unfortunately, that Monday Mum wasn’t in the sort of mood to come around to anyone’s way of thinking when she got in. For a start she was late.
‘That stupid man I have to share an office with just would not shut up tonight!’ she wailed as she stomped around the kitchen, opening and shutting cupboards and slamming down packets of food.
Honey and I skulked out of the room to wait until Mum had come out of Work Mode, even though I felt as if my brain was pushing against the sides of my skull with all the puppy-related conversation I was desperate to talk about.
But I had learned my lesson about tackling tricky conversation subjects with Mum. There was utterly no point in bringing up anything important the minute she walked through the door. She was always quite tired and grumpy and more than likely to say ‘No Way Ho-Zay’ to things without even thinking. Like the time I had been completely desperate for a pair of those shoes with wheels in that make you look as if you are hovering above the ground. They are so mega-cool and funkster. Molly has some, and so does Rosie Chubb (except it would take more than a pair of those shoes to make it look as if that hippopotamus was hovering – something like a forklift truck might do the trick . . .) and I had been DESPERATE to have a pair too. In fact I had been too desperate, which had the effect that my brain lost all its CAPACITIES for thinking before it acted. So instead of waiting patiently until Mum was ready to listen to a calm and well-thought-through argument, my brain went into overdrive and my mouth BLURTED OUT some words before I could stop it, and those words were: ‘So can I have those wheelie shoes, or not?’
I never did get a pair.
So this time I just waited as patiently as I could without chewing the insides of my cheeks off. Mum eventually made a cup of tea, and then we went into the sitting room and sat on the sofa and I thought, She MUST have had time to relax by now.
In any case, I couldn’t wait any longer to bring up the important and frankly quite scarisome topic which was playing doolally weirdo things with my mind, so I Took The Plunge:
‘Mu-um?’
‘Hmmm?’ said Mum, slurping her tea.
‘Have you thought any more about what Nick said about Honey?’ I decided to start in this most cryptical of ways so that I didn’t have to say the word ‘puppies’ out loud and put Mum off in the first five seconds of the conversation. Honey sat up as if she was listening too.
‘Hmmm,’ said Mum, putting her mug down and patting Honey absent-mindedly.
‘And?’ I said. Mum was obviously going to need a bit of PROMPTING, which is a way of saying that she needed a bit of help getting going with this conversation. In other words, I wished she would say something other than ‘Hmmm’.
‘The answer is . . . no,’ said Mum quietly.
‘S-s-sorry?’ I whimpered, closing my eyes in utter non-believing-ness.
‘NO!’ said Mum, not so quietly. ‘Summer, when are you going to learn that nagging me and going on and on about so
mething is simply not going to work? I have had the most hideous day at work with that IDIOT of a man wittering on in my left ear all day, and I come home to put my feet up and have a quiet cup of tea to find that I have my daughter wittering on in my right ear about PUPPIES!’
I guessed that was a pretty clear answer.
‘Oh,’ I said, opening my eyes and biting my lip.
Then Mum puffed out a long breath of air and gave me a saddish look and said, ‘Oh, Summer, please don’t be disappointed. You know puppies are a lot of work, even if we would only have them in the house for a couple of months. I am so busy with work these days, and you’ve got more homework, and if April’s going to move out she wouldn’t be around to help either.’
I was just about to resort to my absolutely last resort-ish solution which was to just look at Mum as Pleadingly and Sorrowfully as I possibly could . . .
This CRUCIAL (in other words mega-important) moment was Rudely Interrupted by the sounds of things being SMASHED and broken outside our house. Mum and I leaped up from our chairs in shock and Honey started barking.
‘Stay here, Summer,’ Mum hissed, her eyebrows scrunched into the middle of her forehead in a concerned and slightly frightened manner.
‘Mum! Don’t go out there!’ I cried. ‘It might be a burglar!’
But then we heard the words, ‘How could you do this to me?’ in a highly screechisome voice that was impossible not to recognize, and then there was another–