by Jean Ure
Cupcake said, “What?”
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” I said, “just for a few minutes, then we’ll put him back.”
Now we were seriously embarking on a life of crime. Not only was Cupcake trespassing in someone’s garden, she was abducting someone’s puppy. And I was aiding and abetting her. You can be done for aiding and abetting. But I didn’t care, it was worth it! Joey sat in his chair beaming, with Cookie in his arms, squirming and wriggling and covering his face in wet doggy kisses. Cupcake hung over the wall, watching, with this soppy smile on her face. I was still perched on my bucket, and I expect I had a soppy smile, as well. I mean, it was really touching! You would have had to have a heart of stone not to be moved by it.
I guess the old woman had a heart of stone. She took us by surprise; this voice suddenly came snarling at us.
“What do you think you are doing in my garden? And where is my dog?”
Cupcake slid back down with a frightened squeak. The old woman’s head appeared over the wall. She looked at Joey cuddling Cookie, and her lips didn’t even twitch.
“I’m waiting for an explanation,” she said.
I opened my mouth to say that I was sorry, but Cupcake got in first. “We saw you throw him! You hurt him. You’re always hurting him! You hit him and you kick him, and he’s only a poor little puppy. How does he know he’s not supposed to eat your mouldy flowers? You don’t have to hit him!”
Cupcake was really going for it. I was desperate to add something of my own, but all I could think of to say was, “You should be reported!”
“Yes,” said the old woman, “and so should you. You can think yourselves lucky if I don’t go to the police. Now, give me that dog back and get out of my garden!”
It didn’t seem that we had much choice. Slowly, Cupcake heaved herself over to our side of the wall. I reached down to take Cookie. I said, “Joey, let me have him… please.”
“No!” With one hand he clutched Cookie; with the other, he did his best to fight me off. I could quite easily have plucked Cookie away from him, but it didn’t seem fair to fight a handicapped little boy.
“He doesn’t want to give him back,” I said. “He’s scared you’ll hurt him again.”
Joey clutched Cookie even tighter. “Not having him, not having him!” His voice rose to a scream. Cupcake said, “Joey!”
“Not having him!”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” The old woman threw up her arms. “All this fuss over a mere dog. If you want it that badly, then take it!”
Pardon me??? Was she serious?
“Take it, take it! Just get it out of my sight!”
I glanced nervously at Cupcake. Her eyes had gone like flying saucers. I had this feeling that my mouth was dropping open. People don’t just give their dogs to total strangers! Do they?
“Well, go on!” The old woman made an impatient shoo-ing motion with her hands. “What are you waiting for? Do you want it, or not?”
I cried, “Yes!” and spun Joey’s wheelchair round before she could change her mind. Cupcake joined me, and all three of us, with Cookie still clutched in Joey’s arms, went galloping off. The old woman’s voice came shouting after us: “And don’t ever let me catch you in my garden again!”
Cupcake’s mum was a bit startled to see us arrive back home with a puppy. “What’s this?” she said.
Me and Cupcake instantly broke into a mad kind of burble.
“There’s this old woman—”
“In the garden—”
“Her garden—”
“Near the flats—”
“By the wall—”
“Slow down, slow down!” said Mrs Costello. “One of you – Lisa! Where did you get the dog from?”
“Puppy,” said Cupcake. “He’s a puppy!”
“All right, then, puppy! Where did you get it from?”
Cupcake poured it all out, telling her mum everything: how cruel the old woman was, and how it had upset Joey, and how he loved the puppy because he was like Cookie in his Charlie Clark book, and how he didn’t want to give him back, so the old woman had said we could have him. “And please, Mum, can we?”
I could tell that her mum wasn’t mad keen, but unlike the old woman Cupcake’s mum has a heart made of marshmallow, especially where Joey’s concerned. She took one look at him cuddling Cookie and shook her head in despair.
“I’ll have to go and check,” she said. “Make sure she really means it. I don’t want to be accused of dognapping. One of you had better come with me in case I need to hear both sides of the story. Danielle?”
“No, I’ll come!” Cupcake leapt forward, so I said I would stay and keep an eye on Joey. It seemed only fair to let Cupcake go, if that was what she wanted. After all, she had been the really brave one.
It was quite tense, waiting for Cupcake and her mum to come back. What if that mean old woman had changed her mind? Joey was so happy! And so was Cookie. Who could bear to part them?
Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait long. Cupcake rushed into the kitchen, waving a lead and a dog bowl, followed by her mum, still shaking her head.
“So, it looks like we’ve got ourselves a puppy.” She said that the puppy had been a present from the old woman’s daughter. “A very silly present… she’s far too old to cope. I think she was actually quite relieved to get rid of it.”
Cupcake said, “Him. Not it.” And then she turned to me, very proudly, and said, “He’s a Beadle.”
I said, “What’s a Beadle?”
“It’s his breed… a Beadle. I told you he was a pedigree!”
It turned out she meant Beagle. I typed it into Google and found a whole site devoted to them, with lots of pictures of adorable little patchwork puppies with long, flappy ears. Just like Cookie!
CHAPTER FOUR
Monday morning, at break, Cupcake went round telling everyone about Cookie.
“We’ve got this puppy. He’s so cute! He belonged to this horrible old woman who was mean to him. She used to kick him. Didn’t she?” She turned to me, but before I could open my mouth, or even just nod, she’d gone rattling on again. “Can you imagine? A tiny puppy? And one time she hit him. Like really hard, right across his nose.”
“So what happened?” said Claire. “How’d you end up with him?”
“We threatened to report her and she got scared. Didn’t she? She got really scared!”
I said, “Y—”
“She told us if we wanted him, we could take him. So now he’s ours!”
“What sort is he?” said Livy. “Is he anything special?”
“Yes!” Cupcake smiled proudly. “He’s a Beadle!”
I said, “Beagle.” Not that anybody took any notice. They were all too busy saying how they’d got Jack Russells or Labradors or springer spaniels. Someone then asked what a Beadle was. I tried again, I said, “Beagle,” as loudly as I could, but Cupcake just shouted right over the top of me.
“They’re brown and white and about this size!”
It was unlike Cupcake to be so rude, but I forgave her. She was obviously excited. She told me later that her mum had said getting Cookie was the best thing that had ever happened.
“He and Joey have just, like, totally bonded!” She said that Cookie wouldn’t leave Joey’s side; he even slept on his bed at night. She said, “Mum was a bit worried at first. She thought she had enough to cope with without having a puppy to look after, but I told her, we’d look after him! We’d take him for walks. We’d go up the park, and take Joey as well. We could do that OK, couldn’t we?”
I didn’t remind her that I had been the one who originally suggested it. I’d never seen her so happy. If she wanted to think it was her idea, that was OK by me.
Cupcake’s mum had started to bring Joey after school, in his wheelchair, to meet Cupcake, and now Cookie came with them, trotting along on his lead at the side of the chair, as good as gold. When they reached the school gates and we all started pouring out, he
would jump on to Joey’s lap and sit there, with everyone going “Aaah! Sweet!” as they walked past. Joey kept telling people, “My dog, Cookie!” Soon, the whole of our year group knew about Joey and Cookie. So did lots of others. Even Year 12s would sometimes stop and say hello. Even, once, this really tough boy called Mason Brewster who I’d always thought was just a bully. He said, “Nice dog!” and gave Joey the thumbs up.
“He’s a Beadle,” said Cupcake. I’d given up trying to correct her.
Mum said to me that Cookie had done wonders for Joey. “It’s really perked him up, poor little soul. He’s had such a rough deal. That little dog has given him a new lease of life.”
Joey and Cookie had become like me and Cupcake: inseparable. They just wouldn’t be parted! One day cos it was wet Cupcake’s mum said me and Cupcake had better take Cookie out on his own while Joey stayed behind, only guess what? Cookie wouldn’t come! He kept running back to Joey and bark, bark, barking, until in the end Mrs Costello gave in and we wrapped Joey up and all went round the park together in the pouring rain.
Sometimes, we noticed, Cookie would run along on three legs, keeping one of his back legs off the ground. We mentioned it to Cupcake’s mum and she said maybe he’d pulled a muscle from all the jumping he did. He was for ever bouncing up and down, like he was on springs. Bounce! on to Joey’s lap. Bounce! on to the bed. Bounce! on to the table. I told one of my nans about it – my doggy nan, who has a Yorkshire terrier called Biscuit – and she said best to exercise him gently for the next few days and not let him race around too much, so we kept him on the lead, which he hated. We hated it, too, cos it wasn’t any fun just walking slowly. Cookie wanted to run and play, and so did we! Even Joey liked to throw his ball for him. He said it wasn’t fair, him not being allowed to play. He seemed to accept that he couldn’t play; but it really upset him that Cookie couldn’t.
I tried to explain. I said, “If he keeps rushing about, his leg won’t ever get better.”
“And then he won’t ever be able to play,” said Cupcake.
“He be like me,” said Joey.
Me and Cupcake didn’t know what to say to that. Fortunately, Joey said it for us. “Don’t want Cookie be like me!” So after that he was the one telling Cookie to walk nicely, not run, and we waited anxiously for signs of improvement. But instead of getting better he just got worse! Soon he wasn’t using his one leg at all, and it was obvious he was in pain cos now and then he yelped. In the end Cupcake’s mum said she would have to take him to the vet.
She came to meet Cupcake from school that afternoon, as usual, with Joey and Cookie.
“How is he?” demanded Cupcake. “What did the vet say?”
Her mum said that the vet had given him some tablets to take.
“And that will make his leg all right?”
“We hope so,” said her mum. “If not – well! We shall have to wait and see. Let’s not anticipate the worst.”
Alarm bells started to ring when she said that. Me and Cupcake shot worried glances at each other. In a quavery voice Cupcake said, “What would the worst be?”
“He might need to have an operation,” said her mum.
Oh! Was that all?
“An operation isn’t anything,” I said. “My nan’s had lots of operations.”
“It wouldn’t be very nice for him,” said Cupcake.
“No, but if it made him better – it would make him better, wouldn’t it?” I said.
Cup’s mum agreed that it would. “But let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that. With any luck, the tablets will do the trick.”
It was such a game, giving those tablets to Cookie! He was really cunning. To begin with, Cupcake’s mum tried putting them in his food, but he always managed to suss them out, so in the end we had to push them down his throat – and even then he sometimes had this clever trick of hiding them in the side of his mouth and trying to bury them under the sofa cushions when he thought no one was looking. I was the best one at giving them to him! Cupcake was scared she was going to hurt him, and her mum said that her hands were too big to go into such a tiny mouth. Cupcake said, “Fudge can do it! She knows about dogs.” So I rang my doggy nan and she told me to push them right down his throat, then hold his muzzle and massage under his chin. “That’ll make him swallow!”
Nan was right. I got him to swallow every time! I do have a way with dogs. Well, all animals, really. I once reared some frogspawn until it turned into tadpoles. Not everyone can do that; Cupcake’s frogspawn went all mouldy and never even hatched. Maybe that’s what I’ll be famous for! I don’t mean rearing tadpoles, but having a way with animals. Danielle Cassidy, Animal Supremo!
For ten whole days Cookie took his tablets, and we waited eagerly to see if he stopped limping, but he didn’t. If anything, he limped worse than he had before. The next step, according to the vet, was an X-ray. Cupcake wailed, “He’ll hate it!”
“An X-ray’s nothing,” I said. “I’ve had X-rays. I’ve had two! They don’t hurt.”
“No, but he’ll have to have an anaesthetic,” said Cupcake.
“Anaesthetic isn’t anything,” I said. “My nan’s had loads.”
I was just trying to cheer her up. The littlest thing can send her into a fit of the glooms. I told her that we needed to be strong.
“We don’t want Joey being upset.”
“He already is,” said Cupcake dismally. “He asked Mum last night if Cookie was going to die.”
I said, “Die? Of course he’s not going to die!”
“Well, I know that,” said Cupcake, though she didn’t sound as if she did. She sounded like someone who’d just walked into the garden and seen a big sign saying THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH. “Joey’s so little,” she said, “he doesn’t understand!”
“That’s why we have to be strong,” I said.
I decided that I would have to be strong for both of us. Cupcake is one of those people, she always expects bad things to happen. Me, I always look on the bright side! Dad says I’m an incurable optimist.
The day of Cookie’s X-ray, Cupcake’s mum didn’t bring Joey to meet Cupcake from school as they were fetching Cookie from the vet. I went back with Cupcake to find Cookie cuddling on Joey’s lap. He was still a bit groggy, but he looked up and wagged his stumpy tail at us. Cupcake’s mum said, “I’m glad you’re here, Dani. We have to talk, and you’re almost part of the family.”
I really liked that she said that! But I wasn’t sure I liked that we had to talk. It didn’t sound good. Cupcake whispered, “Is it about Cookie?”
Her mum said yes, it was. The vet had confirmed that he needed an operation. “And please, Dani, don’t say an operation is nothing!”
“No, don’t!” cried Cupcake.
“It’s not the operation itself,” said her mum. “It’s a question of being able to afford it… Girls, it’s going to cost nearly £300! I just don’t have that kind of money.”
We were both shocked into silence. I hadn’t ever thought about the money, and I don’t think Cupcake had, either. We both gazed across at Cookie, innocently snuggled up on Joey’s lap.
“Cookie’s not going have operation?” said Joey. His lower lip was trembling. “He’s not going get better?”
“It’s all right; he’ll still be able to walk!” I said. “Just on three legs. That’s all!”
“Yes, he could do that,” said Cupcake. “He could manage OK on three legs. Couldn’t he, Mum?”
Her mum shook her head. “That would be cruel. His bad leg would always hurt him, and what if he damaged another one? He really does need the operation. But I simply can’t afford it!”
So what was she saying?
“The kindest thing would be to ask an animal shelter to take him, then maybe they could find someone willing to give him a home and pay for his treatment.”
“Mum, no!” shrieked Cupcake. “We can’t give Cookie away!”
“I don’t want to,” said her mum, “believe me! I just can’t see an
y alternative. Maybe – ” she looked hopefully at Joey – “maybe we could take another dog from the animal shelter in his place?”
“No!” Joey clutched protectively at Cookie. “Don’t want another dog! I want Cookie!”
“But, darling, it’s not fair on him.”
“It’s not fair on Joey,” wept Cupcake.
Everyone was in tears by now. Even Mrs Costello. Even me. Then Joey went and really cracked us up.
“That why I can’t have an operation?” he said. “Cos we can’t afford it?”
“Oh, sweetheart, no!” His mum sounded horrified. “That’s not the reason! If an operation would make you well we’d find the money from somewhere. Even if it was three thousand pounds, we’d find it!”
“Then why not for Cookie?”
“Because you’re my very own special little boy!” She tried to hug him, but he pushed her off, sobbing.
“Cookie my very own special little boy!”
Joey was hanging on to Cookie like he thought someone might tear him away at any moment.
“Not letting him go, not letting him go!”
“Well…” His mum pulled out a tissue and blotted at her nose with it. “I suppose we don’t have to decide immediately.”
“No, cos something might turn up,” I said. “We might win the lottery!” I was only trying to be positive; there wasn’t any need for Cupcake to snap at me and say they didn’t do the lottery.
“How can we win if we don’t do it?”
“We do it,” I said. “My mum does it every week. Maybe she’ll win!”
I mean, it’s always possible, right? Otherwise, what would be the point? I said this to Cupcake afterwards. She said, “It’s like believing in miracles.”
I told her that I did believe in miracles. I said, “Somebody’s got to win. On the other hand – ” cos I do think you have to have a back-up plan – “we can’t just sit around waiting. We need the money now. There’s got to be some way we can get some!”
“Yes, but how?” wailed Cupcake.
“I don’t know! Give me time; I’ll find a way,” I said. “Don’t worry!”