Bailey walked along the pens, looking worried. He looked at each dog in turn. They barked, they whined or they ignored him, and Bailey looked increasingly unsure.
But then he came to a pen near the end, and he stopped.
‘This one’s a whippet,’ Henrietta said. ‘She’s fast. She’s hardly more than a pup and she’s a sweetheart.’
‘She’s hurt her face,’ Bailey whispered.
‘Most dogs in here have scars,’ Henrietta told him and she was talking to him as if he was an equal and not six years old.
Bailey looked back along the lines of pens-then, as if he’d made some sort of decision, he sat beside the pen with the whippet. The whippet was lying prone on the concrete floor, her nose against the bars, misery personified.
Bailey put his nose against the dog’s nose. Testing?
Nick started forward, worried, but Misty put her hand on his arm.
‘Trust Henrietta. If she thinks a dog’s safe with kids, she’ll be right. And did you know kids from farms have twenty per cent fewer allergies than city kids? What’s a nose rub between friends?’
Bailey looked back to them, his little face serious. ‘She’s skinny,’ he said cautiously. ‘Can I pat her?’
‘Sure you can,’ Henrietta said, and Nick and Misty walked forward to see. They reached the cage-and something amazing happened. Ketchup stared down at the whippet from the safety of Misty’s arms. He whined-and then suddenly he was a different dog. He was squirming, barking, desperate to get down.
The whippet was stick-thin, fawn with a soft white face, and she was carrying the scars of mistreatment or neglect. She’d been flattened on the floor of the pen, shivering, but as Misty knelt with Ketchup in her arms she lunged forward and hit the bars-and she went wild.
Both dogs did.
They were practically delirious in their excitement. Two dogs with cold bars between them… That these dogs had a shared history was obvious.
‘Hey, I’d forgotten. You’ve brought her friend back.’ Henrietta grinned and stooped to scratch Ketchup behind his ears, only Ketchup wasn’t noticing. He was too intent on the whippet.
‘These two were found together,’ Henrietta told them. ‘I reckon they were dumped together. We put ’em in pens side by side but they seemed inseparable so they ended up together. Your little guy…’ She motioned to Ketchup. ‘He’s cute and normally we’d have had no problem rehousing him, but no one’s wanted the skinny one. And somehow no one wanted to separate them.’
‘He’s ugly,’ Nicholas said, looking at the whippet, appalled, and the Shelter worker looked at him as if she wasn’t sure where to place him.
‘I like whippets,’ she said neutrally. ‘They’re great dogs, intelligent and gentle and fun. Whippets always look skinny, but you’re right, this one’s ribs practically cross over. She’s a she, by the way. She’ll feed up, given time, but, of course, they ran out of time. They were both in the van when it crashed on Thursday. Dotty Ludeman found this one in her yard last night and brought her in. So here they are, together again.’
She smiled then, the tentative smile of a true animal-lover who thought she scented a happy ending. ‘So Misty’s saved one-and your little boy wants the other?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Nick had visions of something cute. Surely Bailey had visions of something cute.
‘Whippets can run,’ Bailey breathed.
‘How do you know?’
‘There was a book about dogs at the hospital,’ Bailey told him. ‘Whippy the Whippet. Faster’n a speeding bullet.’
‘I know that book,’ Misty said. ‘Ooh, I bet she could run on our beach.’
Our beach. That sounded okay. Nick crouched to get a better view of the…whippet? He knew zip about dogs.
‘She’s really skinny,’ Bailey said.
‘Are you sure she’s safe with kids?’ Misty asked, and Henrietta chuckled and nodded and opened the cage. The skinny dog wriggled out and wormed ecstatically around Ketchup. Misty and Bailey were sitting on the concrete floor now and the whippet wound round them and back, round them and back. Ketchup whimpered but it was a whimper of delight.
‘Uh oh,’ Misty said.
‘Uh oh?’ Nick queried.
‘I need to tell you.’ She smiled and sighed, letting the whippet nose her way into her arms along with Ketchup. ‘What are lists, anyway? If you don’t want this little girl, then I do.’
‘Do you want her to live on your side of the wall?’ Bailey demanded, watching the skinny dog with fascination.
‘If you and your dad don’t want her,’ she said. ‘But if you do…these two are obviously meant to be together.’
‘So could we cut a hole straight away?’
‘I guess we could,’ she said, glancing at Nick. Who was glancing at her. Only he was more than glancing.
She’d take on the world, he thought. She’d taken on Ketchup. She’d take on this skinny runt of a dog as well.
Would she take on…?
No. Or…way too soon.
Or way too stupid.
‘You want her?’ Henrietta was clearly delighted. She checked out Nick, clearly figuring if she could go for more. ‘If Misty wants hers plus the whippet, and your little boy wants another, then we have plenty…’
‘No,’ Misty and Nick said as one, and then they grinned at each other. Grinning felt great, Nick thought. Even if it involved a whippet.
‘Do you think she’ll let me pick her up?’ Bailey asked.
‘Try her out, sweetheart,’ Henrietta said and Bailey scooped her up and the whippet licked his face like Ketchup had licked Misty’s.
‘There’s been kids in these dogs’ background,’ Henrietta said, surveying the scene in satisfaction.
‘And pizza,’ Misty said. ‘I bet this little girl likes pizza.’
‘That means we need to have pizza tonight,’ Bailey said. ‘On the beach again. Or on the veranda. We’re going to live together,’ he told Henrietta. ‘Can we take her, Dad?’
‘I guess…’
‘Then she’s Took.’
‘Took?’ Nick said, bemused.
‘Yes,’ Bailey said in satisfaction, cuddling one scrawny dog and one battered teddy. But then he glanced along the row of dogs and looked momentarily subdued. ‘But… Only one?’
‘Only one.’ That was Misty and Nick together again.
‘Okay,’ Bailey said, with a last regretful look at the rest of the inmates. He hugged his new dog closer, as if somehow loving this one could rub off on the rest. ‘She’s mine. I’m calling her Took ’cos that’s what she is.’ He smiled shyly up at Henrietta. ‘Me and Dad and Ketchup and Took are going to live on both sides of Miss Lawrence’s house and we’re going to cut a hole in the wall.’
‘Why not just open the door?’ Henrietta said, and chuckled, and went to do the paperwork.
They took the two dogs back out to the farm and left them in the laundry while they shifted Nick and Bailey’s gear.
That took less than an hour.
The laundry was shared by both sections of the house. In theory, they could put the dogs there to sleep. During the day Misty could take Ketchup to her side of the house and Bailey could take Took to his side. But it was never going to happen. Bailey was in and out of Misty’s side about six times in the first fifteen minutes.
‘I need to go see Gran,’ Misty decreed at last, so both dogs settled in the sun on the veranda. Together. When Misty came home, both dogs and Nick and Bailey were on the veranda. Together.
Two days ago, this veranda had been all hers. Now…
Now she had emotions running every which way.
But why quibble? If she had to put her dreams on hold, maybe this was the next best thing.
They ate pizza again-‘Just to show Took we can,’ Bailey explained. Then Nick read his son a bedtime story on his side of the house and he came outside again as Misty was thinking she ought to go into her side of the house. But Took had left her now-sleeping owner and come back to join Ketchup. Both dogs were at her feet. Why disturb them?