by Holly Webb
“What’s your name?” the lady asked.
“Emily. Emily Harris. And this is Maya.”
“I’m Maya’s dad, Tom Knight,” Maya’s dad added, holding out his hand for the lady to shake, but she laughed, and shook her head instead.
“I’m really sorry, I’ve got horrible dirty gloves on, you don’t want to! I’m Lucy, I run the shelter.” She smiled at Emily. “So … you want to come and help. Do you have a dog at home?”
Emily shook her head. “No. Does that matter?” she asked sadly. “I’d love a dog, but my mum thinks we’re all too busy to look after one. It was Maya and my other friends at school who said maybe I could work at the shelter instead. I like cats too,” she added quickly.
“It doesn’t matter at all – I just wondered what gave you the idea, that’s the only reason I asked. Sometimes people come and help out because they’ve had a dog or a cat from a shelter, and they realise how much work we do.”
“Do you really run this whole place on your own?” Maya’s dad asked, looking around in amazement. All the buildings around the farmyard had been converted into small pens and they all looked full.
“I’m the only person who’s here all week,” Lucy agreed. “But I have a lady who comes in to do the office work every morning, and some volunteers who pop in on different days.”
“But if one of the dogs was ill, you might be up all night – and then you’d have to do everything the next day as well!” Emily said worriedly. She’d seen how tired her mum got when one of them was sick and she didn’t get any sleep – it meant she wandered around like a ghost the next day, and Emily had to remind her about things like packed lunches and teeth-brushing.
“Mmm. Luckily it doesn’t happen all that often, but it’s awful when it does. We’ve got a beautiful spaniel cross who took the whole night to have six puppies a few weeks ago. I was so tired the next day that I ended up feeding half the dogs cat food.” Lucy smiled. “Luckily they didn’t seem all that bothered.”
Emily sighed blissfully. “There are puppies!”
“Yes…” Lucy sighed. “They’re really gorgeous – but six more dogs to find homes for.”
Emily nodded wistfully. “I’d love a puppy, but my mum’s right – my baby sister’s too little. If we had a dog it would have to be a nice, calm older dog who wouldn’t mind if Sukie tried to feed it Lego. Sukie’s my little sister,” she added. “She’s two.”
“Oh, I see.” Lucy nodded. “Well, some dogs are good with little children, but not all of them. Your mum’s just being sensible.” She looked at Emily and Maya for a moment. “Do you want to come and see some of the animals?”
Emily nodded enthusiastically. Lucy hadn’t said yes to wanting a helper, but at least if she was letting them look around, it must mean she wasn’t totally against the idea?
She followed Lucy in through one of the doors set around the edge of the yard, and blinked as they came in out of the bright sunlight outside.
“This used to be the dairy,” Lucy explained.
The long, low building ran all along one side of the yard. It was a line of pens, opening out on to a passageway, and each pen had a dog or maybe two inside. As they saw Lucy and Emily and the others, they leapt up excitedly, scratching at the wire fronts of the pens, and barking.
“So many!” Maya murmured, as she looked down the long passage.
“We’re quite full at the moment,” Lucy agreed. “Twenty-three dogs. That’s including the six puppies though.”
“Do you get lots of visitors wanting to rehome them?” Maya’s dad asked, crouching down to let a pretty little Jack Russell lick his fingers through the bars.
Lucy sighed. “Not enough, to be honest. That little one – Posy, we call her – she’d make a gorgeous pet. But even though we put the details up on the website, we just don’t get enough people coming to see us. Four or five visitors a week, usually. We’ve had Posy for nearly a month now.”
“Must be expensive to keep them all – the food, and paying to keep these pens warm.” Maya’s dad reluctantly said goodbye to Posy, and moved on to look at the elderly Labrador in the next pen. He was sitting down, about the only dog that was, but he was thumping his huge black tail on the concrete floor, and panting excitedly.
“This is Barney. He’s a darling – his owner couldn’t look after him any longer, because he had to move in with his daughter’s family. It’s a huge change for an old dog like Barney, coming here, but he’s been so good.” Lucy stroked him, and Barney closed his eyes and slobbered happily. “He’s going to be hard to rehome. Everyone wants puppies, you see. Not a grand old man like Barney.”
“You shouldn’t have brought me here, Maya,” her dad muttered. “I could take the lot of them home. He’s great.”
“Anna would have a fit,” Maya pointed out. “Mum too. And Henry would never speak to us again.”
Emily was further down the passage, murmuring lovingly to a little whippet, who was eyeing her shyly from the corner of the pen.
“She’s so pretty,” she whispered to Lucy. “But so tiny and thin!”
“Oh, be careful…” Lucy hurried down the passage to her. “Twinkle’s pretty nervous, and she does sometimes snap…” But she stopped as she came up behind Emily, and saw Twinkle tiptoe towards her, and let Emily rub her beautiful satiny ears.
“Her nose tickles.” Emily giggled as Twinkle gently nosed at her hands, and licked her.
“Well…” Lucy said quietly. “Wow. She doesn’t even do that for me. She’s the shyest little thing. We decided someone must have scared her quite badly.”
Emily looked up at Lucy worriedly. “Oh! I hope it was OK to stroke her.” She started to pull her hand back through the wire door of the pen, but Twinkle was still sniffing and licking at her.
“Don’t stop! She really likes you.” Lucy eyed her, frowning. “Look, I’d love for you to come and help out at the weekends, but you do realise we can’t pay you, don’t you? I’d like to be able to, but we’re desperately short of money, and the roof in here’s leaking.” She nodded towards a bucket in the corner. “It really needs mending before this winter comes. I just couldn’t afford to pay you.”
“Oh, I don’t want to be paid,” Emily said in a surprised voice. Then she laughed. “I’d pay you if it meant I got to hang around with the dogs. And I meant to say, I brought a letter from my mum, with her phone number and everything, saying it’s OK for me to help.”
Lucy nodded. “That’s a good idea. I’ll call her, just to say hello. So she knows who I am.” She smiled at Emily, and at Maya who’d come up behind them. “Well, if you’re going to help, you’d better come and meet everybody else.”
“There’s more?” Maya said, surprised.
Lucy laughed. “Oh yes. Another whole big area for cats – that’s the old stables. And we’ve got quite a lot of guinea pigs, a couple of rabbits, and even a pony. Oh, and the chickens.”
“Chickens? At an animal shelter?” Emily stared at her in surprise as they started to cross the yard.
“Mmm-hmm. They’re rescued battery hens.”
“Wow,” Emily muttered. “I thought just dogs and cats. I never knew you had all these other animals.”
Lucy shrugged. “Well, I never meant to have the chickens. Someone just rang up and said could we take the first lot, and I couldn’t say no… They’re over there, you see?” She pointed across to a path that ran along the side of the farmhouse to a little garden, with a fenced chicken run. The girls could see a few black and red hens strutting about. Then Emily blinked.
“Um… What sort of chicken’s that?”
Lucy glanced round. “I’m not really sure. The battery hens tend to be a mixture.”
“But she’s stripy! I didn’t know hens could look like that.” Emily pointed out the rainbow-striped chicken to Maya, and Lucy suddenly laughed.
“Sorry! I’m so used to seeing them like that I forgot you wouldn’t know. She’s got a jumper on. Battery hens get their feathe
rs pecked out sometimes, or they just lose them from being squashed up in the cages. The jumpers are to keep them warm until their feathers grow again. There’s a lady in the village who knits them for us.”
Emily giggled. “You see, Maya, you should come and volunteer too. You could give the hens fashion advice.”
Maya chuckled, but she was looking thoughtful.
“These are the cat pens.” Lucy held the door open for the girls to look in, and Maya gasped.
“Oh, he looks just like Henry!”
Emily nodded. The large black and white cat in the pen nearest the door could have been Henry’s brother. He was lounging on a shelf attached to the side of the pen, with a fat, rather tatty-looking cushion on it. There were cat toys scattered around the floor, but the Henry lookalike didn’t seem very interested in them. He stared at Emily and Maya, and yawned hugely, showing needle-sharp teeth.
“Definitely like Henry,” Maya giggled.
“Only nine cats at the moment,” Lucy said. “Not too many. Most of them are in this big pen together over here, but Whiskers – the big black and white chap – isn’t the most sociable.” She sighed. “He beats the others up. So he has his own pen.”
“Do they ever get to go out of the pens?” Maya asked. She couldn’t imagine Henry staying shut up in a small pen – he’d hate it.
Lucy nodded. “We have an exercise area that backs on to the pens, with a sort of assault course for them to climb on. But they have to take turns. Someone’s coming to see Whiskers tomorrow though,” she added hopefully. “They saw him on the website. You never know. He’s lovely with people, he’s only a big bully to other cats. Anyway. Come and see the guinea pigs, they’re just next door.”
The guinea-pig room was one big mass of hay and fur as the guinea pigs skittered about, squeaking and chirruping as they nosed for the bits of carrot that were hidden in their bedding. They made Emily laugh, they were so round and cute, and most of them were very tame. They let Emily and Maya pick them up, and one fluffy ginger one flaked out and went to sleep on Maya’s dad.
Lucy looked at Emily hopefully. “So. You still want to come and help? Would you like to come tomorrow?”
“Yes! Yes, please!” Emily said eagerly. “And I don’t mind what I do. I can clean runs, anything.”
“I’ll probably get you to exercise the dogs,” Lucy said thoughtfully. “We just don’t have enough time to walk them all properly. We’re lucky that we’ve got lots of space – we can take them out for lovely walks without even going off the shelter site, if we can only find the time.”
Emily nodded. “That sounds great. You’re lucky having such a beautiful place for the shelter – the animals are lucky to end up here too.”
Lucy sighed. “I know. It’s a great place. I’ve worked here for about five years, and I love it. I used to work with Steve, he started the shelter and turned it into a charity. That was almost exactly ten years ago now. This was the farm his family had run for years and years, you see. And when he died he left the house and all the buildings to the charity in his will, with a little bit of money to pay the manager – that’s me. The problem is that the buildings are pretty old, and shabby, and we’ve not got a lot of spare money for fixing them up. I don’t know how we’re going to get that roof mended, but we really need to.” She shook her head anxiously. “Sometimes I worry that we’ll have to close.”
“But you couldn’t!” Emily gasped. “There isn’t anywhere else for all the animals to go!”
“I know. We always keep going somehow.” Lucy smiled at her. “Something always turns up.”
“Would you mind if I came too?” Maya asked Emily, as they walked back to her house.
Emily had been wandering along in a dream, smiling to herself, and thinking about the animals at the shelter. The spaniel puppies had been particularly gorgeous. They were still really tiny, so they were living with their mum in the farmhouse kitchen, where Lucy could make sure they stayed warm. They were white, with brown patches, and pink, squashed noses, and although they could walk, they weren’t very good at it. They kept blundering around and falling over each other.
“Mmmm?” Emily said vaguely. “Oh! That would be great! It would be really nice if we both did it.”
“You don’t want it to be just your thing?” Maya suggested, a little anxiously.
But Emily laughed. “I think Lucy needs all the help she can get.”
“Would it be OK with you, Dad?” Maya asked hopefully, as they got home and he started to open the front door.
Her dad nodded. “Sounds great. It could be a lot of hard work though, girls.”
“We’d only be doing it on a Saturday morning,” Emily reminded him. “It’s not like being there all week.”
“True. You two have got about an hour before I said I’d take Emily back, by the way. I’ll ask Anna to get your tea on.”
The girls headed upstairs, and curled up on the little sofa in Maya’s room.
“I can’t wait to go back to the shelter tomorrow,” Emily said.
“I know!” But Maya was frowning. “But it’s a bit scary what Lucy was saying about the roof, and not having enough money to keep the shelter going, isn’t it? I hope something does come along like she said it would. Or all those poor dogs and cats might end up homeless.”
“And the chickens.” Emily shook her head. “I still can’t get over that chicken in a jumper. But if it closes down, who’s going to give a home to a bald chicken?” She sank her chin in her hands. “Do you think there’s a way we could help raise money for the shelter? Like the fashion show we did to raise money for the Fairtrade clothes people?”
Maya nodded. “I was thinking that. Not a fashion show, of course. Although…” She rummaged in the pile of magazines balanced precariously on the arm of the sofa. “Look! I knew I remembered seeing this! I stuck a pencil in the page because it was so cute – but sort of scary at the same time.”
Emily looked at the photo and made a face – it was a dog, probably a Border terrier, she guessed. And it was wearing a coat. She’d seen lots of dogs in coats out walking in the winter – usually sensible navy or black ones, but every so often she spotted a dog in a loud red tartan, or even a flowery print coat. But nothing like this. This dog coat was pink, with a fluffy feather trim all round the edge, and the dog’s name (Lulu) spelled out in diamanté sparkles. There was a matching feathery headband as well. The dog did not look happy.
“I bet it isn’t really called Lulu,” Maya said.
Emily giggled. “In fact, it’s probably a boy.”
“Anyway. We couldn’t do a fashion show again, but there must be something special we could organise. Something that would raise loads of money…” Maya wrinkled her nose. “But I can’t think of it.”
“Mmmm…” Emily frowned, and flicked through the magazine. But it was full of photos of people at smart parties, and film premieres, and no use for thinking about an animal shelter. “Could we get sponsored to do something?” she asked vaguely.
Maya nodded thoughtfully. “Walking the dogs, maybe? Fifty pence a mile? But I’m not sure that would raise very much money, if it was just the two of us. Roofs are expensive to mend.”
“I know. It has to be something big,” Emily sighed. “And really fun. I know!” She sat up suddenly, dislodging Henry, who’d been sitting on the arm of the sofa looking grand. He hit the floor with a thump of paws, and shook himself furiously before he stalked out of the room.
“Sorry, Henry!” Emily called after him, and then she turned back to Maya. “What about a party? A birthday party for the shelter? Lucy said it was set up almost exactly ten years ago.”
“But how does a party raise money?” Maya asked. “They cost loads! Mum always starts complaining if she has a party. She says they’re astronomical.”
Emily sniffed. “That’s because your mum’s parties mean huge guys in black suits doing security, and hiring a field from the farmer next door so people can land their helicopters. Most of
us just buy a few crisps, Maya. Anyway, I meant the kind of party that you sell tickets for. And then you have competitions, games, that sort of thing. Sort of a cross between a party and a school fair.”
Maya was nodding excitedly. “Yes! And we could say it was a completely animal-friendly party! Use free-range eggs in the cake, and that sort of thing!”
“Does that mean all vegetarian? No ham sandwiches?” Emily asked suspiciously. She understood why Maya wanted to be a vegetarian, but she was sure she couldn’t be one herself. It would be way too hard.
“Only ham sandwiches made out of happy pigs,” Maya said firmly. “Ones with nice outdoor sheds, and lots of mud to roll around in.”
“Is there really such a thing as happy pigs?” Emily said in a disbelieving voice. “It sounds like you made that up.”
“I did not! There’s a farm not that far from here that’s actually famous for its happy pigs. So we can have happy ham sandwiches.”
“OK…” Emily agreed. “So now we just have to tell Lucy tomorrow that we’re organising a party for her.”
“Mmmm, I know. And we haven’t even started helping out yet. Maybe we ought to wait till we’ve actually been there for the whole morning, or she’s going to think we’re really bossy…”
“Did you have a good time? Was Twinkle OK?” Lucy asked the girls anxiously, as they came back into the main yard.
“She was fine,” Emily told her. “She did stop and sniff absolutely everything, though. I don’t think we actually walked all that far.”
“And I’m not sure Barney really likes walking,” Maya said. “He walks for about three steps, and then he sits down.”
“But luckily that’s usually when Twinkle starts to sniff something, so they’re pretty good to walk together.” Emily crouched down to rub Twinkle’s ears. “Did you have a nice time, mmm? Did you smell lots of good smells?”