Bailey

by Susan Hughes

  “Oh, Bailey!” Kat cried in alarm. But the little yellow Lab picked himself up and gave an enormous shake. The girls both crouched down and clapped their hands.

  “Good boy, Bailey!” they cried. “Here, boy!”

  At once, Bailey’s ears perked up and his eyes brightened. He galloped toward the girls at full puppy speed.

  “Whoa, Bailey, slow down!” warned Kat. But Bailey came barreling toward them, and when he reached the girls, he couldn’t stop. He tried, but his little legs went here and there. Bailey skidded into Kat, who fell back on her bum with a thump, knocking over Maya as well. Girls and puppy were tangled together in a heap.

  Just then the door to the doggy day care opened.

  “Aunt Jenn,” cried Kat, her heart sinking. There was her aunt, frowning, her hands on her hips.

  “Girls?” Aunt Jenn raised an eyebrow.

  Kat and Maya jumped to their feet. Kat reached down and scooped up Bailey. “We’re fine. Bailey’s fine,” Kat said quickly. “We were just playing. Everything’s fine.”

  “Totally fine,” Maya added.

  Bailey gave a little happy puppy bark. He squirmed and licked Kat’s hands. “See?” Kat said. “Bailey’s fine.”

  Aunt Jenn’s face cleared. She grinned. “Okay, that’s good. I just thought I’d come and say thanks. It’s probably time for Bailey to nap again. I’m sure you’ve tired him out! He’ll be fine now until I close up and can spend the evening with him.”

  Kat nodded, hugging the sweet puppy close to her. Aunt Jenn wasn’t angry. She wasn’t worried about Bailey.

  Carefully, Kat and Maya put Bailey back in his crate.

  “Bye, little guy,” Kat told him, giving him a last rub on the head.

  “Have a good little sleep,” said Maya. She kissed the palm of her hand and then placed the kiss onto the puppy’s head.

  “Thanks, girls,” said Aunt Jenn. “It looks like you did a great job looking after Bailey today.”

  Kat and Maya held their breath. They didn’t want to ask. They didn’t dare hope. But they couldn’t say good-bye until they knew.

  “So,” continued Aunt Jenn, “do you think you two could come again tomorrow and maybe Thursday afternoon as well? Bailey’s owner won’t be back until Thursday night. I’m sure Bailey would like some playmates, especially if I’m as busy tomorrow as I’ve been yesterday and today.”

  “We’d love to,” said Kat. “Right, Maya?”

  “You bet,” agreed Maya with a huge smile on her face.

  • • •

  On Wednesday, the girls hurried toward Tails Up! right after school.

  Kat complained to Maya as they walked. “Megan and Cora stood behind me in the line after recess. Then they started making little kissy noises as we walked back into class,” said Kat. “When I turned around, they looked all innocent and said, ‘Oh, Kat, were you looking for Owen?’ They are so annoying. Can’t they think of anything better to do than bug me?”

  Maya shook her head. “I told you. Revenge. An eye for an eye. If they do something mean to you, do something mean back.”

  Kat shrugged. “Yeah, maybe,” she said. And then all thoughts of school and Megan and Cora vanished as Kat turned onto Orchard Valley’s main street. Tails Up! was in sight, and there was a little lonely puppy waiting for them.

  Once again, the reception area was crowded with customers and their dogs. Kat was pleased. Aunt Jenn’s business was doing so well!

  The girls made a beeline to the doggy day care room.

  “It’s us, your buddies!” Kat called out to Bailey as they hurried toward his crate. She saw the puppy jump to his feet and wiggle. He gave little excited puppy woofs, asking to come out and play.

  “I think Bailey recognizes us,” cried Maya.

  Kat lifted up the puppy and gave him the first hug. Then she passed him over to Maya, who covered his head in little kisses.

  As soon as Maya set Bailey down, the retriever puppy went off to explore the room again, sniffing here and there, his tail high. After a while, the girls sat on the floor and rolled Bailey’s ball back and forth between them. Bailey raced after it excitedly. The ball was too big for him to hold in his mouth, but he pounced on it like a kitten, and sometimes he managed to trap it between his big puppy paws. The girls laughed while he wrestled with it.

  The golden-yellow puppy had tons of energy, but Kat and Maya were careful to make sure he didn’t get into any mischief. He even used his newspaper properly!

  Dinnertime came quickly. It was time to put Bailey back in his crate.

  Kat picked him up and snuggled him in her arms, enjoying his puppy smell. The girls stood in the sunshine, looking out the window at the backyard.

  The yard was large and surrounded by a chain-link fence. There was a smaller fenced area along one side, something like a doggy “playpen.” There were also some bushes and trees running down two sides of the fence for shade.

  Kat pointed at a small children’s wading pool propped up against the fence. “I bet Aunt Jenn is going to fill that with water for her boarders one day,” she said.

  Reluctantly, the girls said good-bye to Bailey. Kat gave the weary puppy a final kiss on the head, and Maya tugged gently on his ears. “We’ll see you again tomorrow, little guy,” Maya said.

  “Don’t worry; we’ll be back,” Kat said, putting him back in the crate.

  “Maybe we should take Bailey outside tomorrow,” Maya suggested as the girls headed home. “I bet he’d love playing on the grass.”

  “He would,” Kat agreed. “And imagine how much fun he’d have splashing around in the pool.”

  “Well then, let’s do it,” Maya said. “Let’s take him in the back tomorrow.”

  Kat shook her head. “Aunt Jenn said we had to stay inside with him, remember?”

  “Well, at least let’s think about it, okay?” she suggested. “It would be for Bailey, after all. His last afternoon with us.”

  All day Thursday, Kat had trouble concentrating on her work. She usually daydreamed about puppies, dozens of them in all sizes and colors. But today there was only one puppy in her thoughts: Bailey.

  And the only thing she kept picturing was how much fun Bailey would have outside in the Tails Up! yard. She imagined him rolling in the grass and sniffing at all the outdoor smells. She imagined him free to run full speed from one end of the yard to the other, his ears flying out.

  “Kat, are you with us?” asked her teacher.

  “Yes, Ms. Mitchell,” said Kat, returning to her math problem.

  After lunch, it was even worse. The afternoon went so slowly! When the class was supposed to be working on their stories, Kat found it impossible to keep her mind off Bailey. She couldn’t wait to hear his little woofs when he saw her and Maya. She couldn’t wait to stroke his silky head and tickle his tummy. And the yard? Maybe she would ask Aunt Jenn if she and Maya could take him outside, just for a few minutes.

  Kat kept looking at the clock. The more often she looked, the slower the hands seemed to move.

  Then Heather, who sat behind her, passed her a note. “Dreaming about Owen?” the note asked. It had little pink hearts all around it.

  Of course, she knew right away who had written it. She looked over at Megan and Cora. The two girls were watching her, their hands over their mouths, giggling.

  Angrily, Kat crumpled up the note in her hand.

  Then Ms. Mitchell was crouching beside her chair. “Something on your mind today?” she asked Kat gently.

  Kat saw the expression on Megan’s and Cora’s faces change. Now they looked scared.

  “Yes,” she said, nodding. She held the note in the palm of her hand. It would be so easy to show it to Ms. Mitchell. It might finally stop Megan and Cora from teasing her.

  “Do you want to tell me about it? Are you missing Maya?” Ms. Mitchell aske
d.

  Kat paused. Maya. It was Maya who had suggested she take revenge on the two girls. Telling Ms. Mitchell about the note would serve them right. They’d probably have to stay in after school. Or they’d have to help out in the kindergarten classrooms at lunchtime. Something.

  “Kat?” Ms. Mitchell asked.

  Kat wanted to make the girls squirm. But she also she didn’t want to be a tattletale. It wasn’t like they were bullying her. Not really. And she hadn’t even tried telling them to stop.

  Kat made up her mind. “My aunt opened her dog boarding and grooming place in town,” she told her teacher. “And I’m helping her by looking after a puppy after school today. His name is Bailey.”

  “I’ve seen your aunt’s sign. Tails Up!, right?” Ms. Mitchell asked.

  “That’s it!” said Kat, her face lighting up.

  “Hmmm… That sounds really exciting.” Ms. Mitchell knew how much Kat loved puppies. Everyone in the whole school seemed to know! “I have an idea. Since you’re supposed to be working on a story now, why don’t you write a story about Bailey? That way you can think about him and do your work, all at the same time?”

  “Okay,” said Kat, giving her teacher a smile. “I’ll try that.”

  She picked up her pencil, and right away the words began pouring out. She didn’t give Megan and Cora another thought.

  After school, Kat waited outside for Maya. When Owen walked past, Kat saw a baseball fall from his pocket.

  “Owen, you dropped your ball,” Kat said, picking it up for him.

  Just then, Megan and Cora walked by. “Kat and Owen, sitting in a tree,” Megan chanted.

  Cora started to join in, but Kat had had enough.

  “That’s it!” she yelled. The girls were surprised. They stopped and looked at her.

  “I didn’t tell on you in class today. But I still have the note. You need to leave me alone. Owen is not my boyfriend,” Kat said.

  She looked at Owen. His face was completely red, and he looked very embarrassed. She hoped she hadn’t hurt his feelings.

  “But he is my friend,” Kat added. “And you need to leave him alone too.”

  “We were only having fun,” Cora said.

  “Yeah,” said Megan. “You don’t have to be so sensitive! Come on, Cora, let’s go.”

  Megan and Cora stomped off across the schoolyard. Kat was shaking. They’d made her so mad!

  “I was tired of them bugging me too,” Owen said. “Do you think they’ll stop now?”

  “I think they just pick on us because we’re quiet. Now that we stood up to them, they might leave us alone,” said Kat. “And if not, I have proof they’ve been teasing us. They sent me a note.” She smiled and patted her pocket.

  “Hi, Kat! Hi, Owen!” Maya walked up and beamed at them both.

  “Hi, Maya,” Owen mumbled, looking at his shoes. “Um, I’d better get going. See you, Kat. And thanks.”

  As Owen left, Maya turned to Kat. Her eyes were big. “What was that about?” she asked.

  Kat told her friend about the note Cora and Megan had sent her in class. Then she told her how she’d stood up to them.

  “Wow, that’s awesome, Kat!” Maya said. “I bet they leave you alone now.”

  “I hope so. Anyway, we’d better get to Tails Up! Bailey’s owner is coming tonight. We don’t want to miss him!”

  “Good idea,” said Maya.

  • • •

  The girls watched Bailey as he investigated one of the empty crates in the doggy day care room. He tilted his head to one side then the other. Now he put his front paws up on the side of the crate and tried to climb on top. The girls giggled as he toppled over, then bounded up and tried again.

  Suddenly Maya said, “Oh, I brought my camera!” She ran to her backpack and got it out. “Now we can add Bailey to our Puppy Collection!”

  “Good thinking!” said Kat. “Hey, maybe we can add the story I wrote about Bailey too.”

  “Yeah!” said Maya. “I can’t wait to read it.”

  Maya started snapping shots of Bailey tackling the crate. Kat threw a chew toy for the puppy, and Maya took more photos of Bailey playing with it. When Bailey grew tired of the toy, Kat played chase with him around and around the room. Maya took even more shots.

  Then she paused. “It would be so great if we could take Bailey out in the sunshine,” she said. “I know we can’t,” she added hurriedly. “But wouldn’t it be fun?”

  “He’d love it,” Kat agreed. “Playing on the grass.”

  “Smelling the bushes and trees,” said Maya.

  For a moment neither girl said anything.

  “I could ask Aunt Jenn,” said Kat.

  She looked out the window. It was another beautiful day, but it was getting close to dinnertime.

  “I’ll be right back,” she told Maya. She hurried out of the room and into the reception area. A woman with a shaggy sheepdog was speaking to Aunt Jenn. It was almost impossible to tell the front of the dog from the back!

  “Not too short, but I don’t want the hair left too long either,” the woman said. “Alice prefers it that way.”

  As the woman bent down to pat her dog, Aunt Jenn looked at Kat over her head and widened her eyes crazily. Kat couldn’t help giggling.

  “Okay, I think I have the right idea,” Aunt Jenn said, trying to interrupt. But the woman wasn’t done yet. Kat had the feeling she’d been speaking for quite some time.

  “Alice is nine years old,” the woman said, “and she is quite particular about her hairstyles.”

  “I see, I see,” Aunt Jenn interrupted politely. “Well, let’s take Alice into the grooming room, and I’ll get her settled while you continue.” She slowly guided the woman and her dog toward the grooming room. As she went, she shot Kat another kooky look and mouthed, “Help me!”

  “She’s too busy,” Kat told Maya, returning to the doggy day care room. “I couldn’t speak with her.”

  “Okay, well,” said Maya. She was holding Bailey. “What do you think we should do?”

  The girls went over to the window and looked outside.

  “Your aunt told us not to take Bailey outside, but that was two days ago. That was on the first day we played with Bailey,” Maya reminded Kat. “She probably wasn’t sure yet if we were responsible. She was just trying us out.”

  “Yeah,” Kat agreed.

  “I bet if you’d asked her now, she would have said yes,” Maya said.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Kat said.

  A squirrel searched for food in the back garden, twitching its tail. What would Bailey do if he saw a squirrel? Kat wondered. It made her smile.

  “Hey, what did the tree wear to the pool party?” Kat asked Maya.

  Maya grinned. “I don’t know. What did the tree wear to the pool party?”

  “Swimming trunks,” said Kat.

  Maya groaned loudly. “Not funny,” she said.

  The girls watched as the squirrel ran up the side of the fence and jumped onto a tree branch. Bailey’s ears pricked up.

  “You saw that squirrel too, didn’t you, Bailey?” Maya asked with a laugh.

  “The backyard looks pretty safe,” Kat said. “There’s a fence all the way around it. I doubt Bailey could get into trouble back there.” She patted the puppy’s head. “What do you think, Bailey? Do you want to go outside?” The puppy began to squirm and whine. Kat and Maya laughed.

  “You do want to go outside, don’t you, Bailey?” Kat said. “We thought so!”

  “What if we take him outside for only a few minutes? Five minutes. We’ll time it,” said Maya. She showed Kat her wristwatch. “Should we?”

  Kat and Maya stared at each other. Should they do it, even though Aunt Jenn had said not to? She’d placed a lot of trust in them. She’d even let them come back and help again because
they’d done such a good job the first day. They’d been responsible and taken very good care of Bailey. Then again, how could going in the backyard possibly hurt the puppy? It would be so much fun for him. Should they?

  Suddenly, at exactly the same moment, both girls made up their minds. They blurted out, “No!”

  Then they burst out laughing because they’d surprised each other, speaking at exactly the same time, saying exactly the same thing.

  Just then, Aunt Jenn came bursting through the door. She was clutching her stomach.

  “What happened, Aunt Jenn?” cried Kat. She placed Bailey in Maya’s arms and rushed over to her aunt. “Is everything okay? Why aren’t you grooming Alice?” she asked, putting her arm around Aunt Jenn’s shoulders.

  “Oh, girls, some dog people are so funny! Just so funny!” Aunt Jenn’s shoulders were shaking. Kat realized her aunt was laughing!

  “Alice’s owner decided to book an appointment for a different day. She just felt Alice was not in the right emotional state of mind to be clipped today,” Aunt Jenn spluttered. “Especially by a groomer who she’d never met.” She put her hand to her chest. “Oh my,” she gasped. “Oh my.”

  Kat and Maya started to laugh along with her.

  Then the girls suddenly had the same horrible thought. What if they had gone outside just now? Aunt Jenn would have seen them! What would she have said? What would she have done? Right away, they knew they’d been right to follow Aunt Jenn’s directions.

  “You came out to speak to me a few minutes ago, Kat. Was there something you wanted?” Aunt Jenn asked.

  Kat blushed. “No, not really, Aunt Jenn.” Then she added in a rush, “Other than, we just wanted to say thanks for letting us help out with Bailey, and we hope his owner is pleased that she boarded him here.”

  Aunt Jenn came over and patted Bailey’s head. He looked up at her with his blue eyes and smiled.

  “Well, girls, there were two things I wanted to tell you. First of all, there’s good news about the backyard. I have someone coming to fix the holes in the fence this weekend. You can’t see them from here, but there are several large openings behind those trees. A puppy could wiggle under the fence and be gone in a flash! But once the fence is fixed, we can exercise the dogs back there.”