The Scruffy Puppy (2 page)

Inside the pen, Sid heard the voices. The nice one, who always stroked him even more than the others when she brought his food. She always scratched his ears, and chatted, and he could tell she liked him. She was talking to someone that he hadn’t heard before, though. His ears twitched thoughtfully,
and he wondered if it was one of the people who took dogs away. Someone had taken the young Staffie in the opposite pen only yesterday. But even though people looked into his enclosure, they didn’t usually want the door opened so they could meet him. He’d stopped bothering to wag his tail and give them hopeful looks. None of them really seemed to see him anyway.

His ears flattened and he wriggled round in his basket a bit. He would go back to sleep, until it was time for food.

“Oh! I thought he was going to wake up!” the young girl said.

The voice sounded sad, and Sid’s ears pricked up again. He couldn’t help it. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the nice woman there with a girl beside her, crouched by the wire and staring at him.

“He
is
awake!” the girl said excitedly. “Oh, how could anyone not find him cute? He’s gorgeous! Look at his beautiful ears!”

The brown and white dog looked like a sort of wiry-haired terrier, but his mad, frizzy ears had come from somewhere else entirely. Maybe a spaniel, or something little and fluffy like a Papillon? The ones with the ears like butterflies? Or maybe a poodle? Bella wasn’t sure, but she loved them. They
made him look like a dog who’d been put together from bits. As he got up and came cautiously towards them, she saw that he had a mad plumy tail as well. He walked over to the wire, slowly, and his tail began to waft from side to side.

“Hello!” Bella breathed. “Oh, aren’t you lovely?” She glanced up at Jo. “Is it OK to put my fingers through the wire? So I can stroke him?” she asked.

“Sure, as long as you’re gentle – Sid’s very friendly,” Jo answered.

Bella slipped her fingers through the netting, and giggled as Sid came closer and licked at them curiously. “That tickles! Hello, sweetheart.” Carefully, slowly, she reached her fingers round to rub under his chin. All the dogs she’d met before loved that. It seemed that Sid did, too. He closed his eyes and sighed blissfully.

“Please can we open the pen? So I can meet him properly?” Bella whispered to Jo.

Jo smiled at her. “Hadn’t we better see what your mum and dad think first?” she said.

“Oh! Oh, yes, I forgot. I’ll get them! I’m sure they’ll love him. I’ll be back in a minute, Sid.” And Bella jumped up, hurrying away between the pens. The lady on reception had told them
not to run, in case it upset the dogs, but she just couldn’t help going fast.

Sid sighed and his tail dropped down. His ears sagged as well and he turned to trail back to his basket. It had been stupid to think that the girl had liked him. She had fussed over him and rubbed his chin in just his favourite place, but then she had vanished.

“Hey…” Jo called gently. “She’s only gone to find her mum and dad. She’s coming back. Sid… Don’t be sad, my lovely.”

But Sid had gone back to his basket and curled up determinedly. He wasn’t listening.

Chapter Two

“Well, he doesn’t look very friendly,” Mum said rather doubtfully.

“Oh, but he is! Well, he was…” Bella pleaded. “You tell them,” she said, turning to Jo.

“He’s a lovely dog, but he’s been here a while and he’s not been adopted,” Jo explained. “Some dogs stop bothering to try and say hello to everyone.”

“Oh…” Bella saw her mum’s face crumple a little. Her mum was just as soppy as she was. A dog who thought he’d never have a proper home was making them both want to cry.

“We could at least open the pen and meet him properly, couldn’t we?” Bella asked, fixing her eyes on her mum.

“Oh, yes,” Mum nodded.

Sid was still in his basket, but his ears were twitching frantically. There were lots of people outside his pen now – he could hear them. Were they talking about him? He popped his head up a fraction and darted a glance across the pen.

“Aw, look at him!” Bella’s mum laughed. “Look at those ears!”

“Exactly!” Bella beamed at her.

“Isn’t he a bit … scruffy-looking?” Dad said, coming up behind them with Tom.

Bella glared at him. “He’s gorgeous!”

“He does have a lovely personality,” Jo put in as she opened the pen. “Very friendly, and he likes lots of exercise. Bella said you like to run? He’d be over the moon at that. He’s got great long legs…”

Dad smiled. “Let’s meet him then.”

Sid stood up in his basket, his tail waving uncertainly back and forth. They were definitely getting him out! His tail wagged faster and faster, and when Jo called, “Sid! Sid, here boy!” he shot out of the basket so fast he skidded over the tiled floor, and almost crashed into Dad’s feet.

“Hello!” Dad laughed. “All right, you’re keen, aren’t you!” He rubbed Sid’s huge feathery ears, while Bella scratched him under the chin again. Sid stood there, practically dribbling with pleasure.

“What do you think, Tom?” Mum asked.

Tom was grinning. “He’s great. Dad, you know he’s about to drool on your trainers?” Tom crouched down by Sid and stroked his back. “He’s a weird
mix, isn’t he. Short fur and fluffy ears. But he’s really friendly.”

Bella sighed happily, and Sid looked up at her with shy black eyes. “I told you, didn’t I,” she whispered, as Dad stood up and began to talk to Jo about dates for bringing Sid home with them. “I said they’d love you, and I was right!”

“He’s so sweet,” Bella told Megan as they put their coats away. She’d been waiting for her friend by the gate, but Megan hadn’t arrived until just before the bell. Bella should have known – it was the same every morning – but she’d been desperate to tell Megan about Sid.

“The lady from the shelter’s coming over after school to see the house—”

“What for?” Megan asked, sounding surprised.

“Oh, to make sure it’s a proper home for a dog. That we’ve got a bit of garden, and no young children, things like that.”

“I’d have thought they couldn’t be that picky.” Megan shrugged. “If they’re just stray dogs.”

“Well, they’ve got to find them nice homes,” Bella pointed out, feeling a
bit hurt. “Or they’ll only end up back at the shelter again, won’t they.”

“Mmm, suppose so. Did you do that maths homework?”

“Yes.” Bella was about to start telling Megan how beautiful Sid’s ears were, but her friend was already hurrying out of the cloakroom. Bella sighed. Maybe she was going on about Sid a bit too much. But how could she stop talking about him when he was so gorgeous?

The home visit went well, even though Bella was really nervous. She’d been certain that Jo would find something awful about their house, and say that they couldn’t bring Sid home after all.
But Jo seemed to think they’d be brilliant dog owners, especially as Mum worked from home. Bella had shown her a leaflet about dog-training classes, which she’d picked up at the hall where she went for dancing, and Jo had beamed at her.

“Great! You sound as though you’re taking it all really seriously. I think Sid shouldn’t be too hard to train. He’s very good-natured, and he already knows how to sit and walk to heel.”

Jo had also told them a little bit of Sid’s story. He’d been found abandoned as a puppy, stuffed into a cardboard box at a rubbish dump. Mum had cried when Jo told them that, and Bella had felt like crying, too. How could anyone be so cruel? It had made all of them – Mum, Dad, Bella
and Tom – determined to make sure that Sid had the best home ever after such an awful start.

Jo had arranged that they could come and pick Sid up at the weekend – just a week after they’d first seen him. It wasn’t really all that long to wait, but for Bella, it seemed as though the week lasted forever. She dashed out of school on Friday afternoon with just the speediest, “Bye! Have a nice weekend!” to Megan. She and her mum were meeting Tom up the road at his school. Then they were all going to the pet shop to choose a basket, and the other things that Sid would need once they brought him home.

By the time they got to the shelter at nine o’clock on Saturday morning,
Bella had already been up for hours, and she was buzzing with excitement. Today was the day! They were really going to be bringing Sid home.

“I’ve been making a big fuss of him,” Jo said, smiling. “He was a bit down when you left last weekend – he’ll be so pleased to see you again.”

Bella nodded. She’d been worrying that Sid wouldn’t understand they were coming back to get him.

“Dad and I will look through the paperwork,” Mum suggested to Bella and Tom. “Why don’t you two go and see Sid?”

“Ah, is that a new collar and lead for him?” Jo smiled. “Let’s go and get him and put them on. Then we can bring him out here to your mum and dad.”

Bella gulped excitedly.

Tom fumbled at the fastening on the collar, undoing it so they were ready to give it to Sid. “This is so cool,” he muttered, nudging Bella. “Our own dog!”

“I can’t believe it’s really happening,” Bella whispered back, as they followed Jo down to the pens.

But it was. Sid was there, sitting hopefully by his door, as if he’d heard their voices. When he saw them his tail beat slowly back and forth, and he glanced from Bella to Tom and back to Bella again, as though he wasn’t quite sure it was really happening either.

“He’s so lovely,” Bella murmured, choking up a little bit.

“Don’t start crying!” Tom rolled his eyes. “You’re as bad as Mum! This is a good thing, Bella! Hey, Sid,” he added in a gentle voice. “Look what we brought for you.” He held out the lead, and Sid’s slowly wagging tail suddenly went about ten times faster.

Jo laughed. “He loves his walks. Or his runs, I should say.” She opened the pen door and let Tom slip inside to fuss over Sid, and then put the collar on.

“It looks so nice,” Bella said proudly. The collar was a smart blue one that
she’d chosen, with a matching lead. Mum had even had their phone number put on the little bone-shaped tag already.

Tom grinned at her, and passed over the lead. “You can take him, Bella. You chose him, after all.”

Bella’s fingers were shaking as she took the lead, and Sid stared up at her hopefully. His tail was still wagging at top speed. “Are you coming with us, Sid?” she murmured. “Shall we go home?”