Emily's Dream (2 page)

TWO

“Emily, it’s me! Maya. I couldn’t wait until tomorrow. What did your mum say about helping out at the shelter?”

Maya knew right away how excited Emily was – her words were falling over each other, she was talking so quickly!

“She was fine – she said it was a great idea, and she knows how much I love dogs. Dad said it sounded brilliant, but I had to make sure I still had time for my homework if I go and help at the shelter, because I’ve already got dancing, but I told them it would be OK. Dancing’s only on Mondays, I could help any other night for a bit, or maybe at the weekend.”

“So you’re definitely going to go and ask tomorrow?” Maya asked.

“Yee-ees,” Emily agreed. “That’s the only problem. What do I say to them? And what if they say no, they
don’t want anybody?”

“Mmmm. I should think they’d need as much help as they can get,” Maya said thoughtfully. “They’d be more likely to hug you and hand you a bag of dog food. You’re not really nervous, are you?”

“A bit,” Emily admitted. “It’s just the thought of walking in and talking to someone I’ve never met before…”

Maya
hmmmed
for a moment. “Want me to come with you?” she suggested.

“Yes!” Emily yelped. “I mean, yes, please. Are you sure?”

“I’d like to. I’ve never been to an animal shelter,” said Maya.

“Actually, me neither,” Emily admitted. “I’m not sure what it’s going to be like.”

“Would your mum let you come back to my house tomorrow? You’re on the bus on Fridays, aren’t you? Then we could go to the shelter together. It’s really close to mine.”

“Hang on, I’ll check.”

Maya could hear discussion going on in the background, and what sounded like a full-on fight between Toby and James at the same time. She could see why Emily had said it would be too tricky to get
to the shelter tonight. She should have rung later on, she thought to herself crossly. But she’d been so keen to know what Emily’s mum and dad had said.

“Yes!” Emily said breathlessly into the phone.

“Sorry! I shouldn’t have rung now, your mum’s trying to do tea and everything.”

Emily giggled. “No, it’s fine. James squirted ketchup all over Toby while I was asking her, that’s all. She was dithering a bit because she wanted to take me to the shelter so they could see she was OK with the idea, but now she says she’ll write me a note, with her mobile number and everything. Then they can call her.”

“OK. I’ll check with Dad, but I know it’ll be fine. He’ll come with us, or maybe Anna will if he has to work.”

“Is your mum away, then?” Emily asked. She and Poppy and Izzy couldn’t help being a little bit curious about Maya’s mum, who was a singer called India Kell. She didn’t record as much any more, but she did a lot of TV work, and she was always flying off all over the place. (Which made Maya really cross. She was always trying to get her mum to use trains instead, but her mum said it wasn’t really practical to get a train to the US, and a boat would take weeks.
She and Maya had agreed that she’d do carbon-offsetting and pay for trees to be planted instead. Maya’s mum said this meant that somewhere there was a small forest that belonged to her, and she was planning to build a log cabin in it.)

“Mmmm, she’s gone to some awards thing. She’s presenting an award for Best New Act. I hadn’t heard of any of the people who were up for it, and Mum said she wasn’t sure she had either. But one of them had really nice hair, so she reckons he should win. Anyway, she won’t be back until Monday.”

“I know you don’t like it when she’s away, but you are lucky, you know…” Emily sighed. “Your dad’s there most of the time, and Anna’s the best cook. Do you think she’d make chocolate-chip cookies if we asked her really nicely?” Anna was Maya’s family’s housekeeper. She made gorgeous food, but she didn’t approve of Maya being a vegetarian. She cooked lovely veggie stuff for her, but she knew how hard it was for Maya to resist bacon sandwiches, so she was always cooking them for Maya’s dad, and wafting the delicious bacon smell all over the house.

“I bet she would. Especially if you ask her, Em. She likes you. She knows you help look after Toby and James and Sukie, and she says children should
help out. She thinks I ought to have a little sister or brother, and then I wouldn’t be spoilt rotten.”

“But you aren’t!” Emily told her in surprise. “That’s why none of us could really believe it when you said you were India Kell’s daughter. When you read about celeb kids, they’ve always got tiny sports cars, and pet zebras and things—”

Maya snorted with laughter.

“I’m serious! Or they’ve got half of Chelsea football team coming to help at their birthday party or something like that. You’re normal. Well. Almost normal, anyway,” Emily added sweetly. She was on the phone, so Maya couldn’t slap her. “You do have your own laptop – which I’d kill for, by the way – and a mobile, and your house is enormous, but otherwise, you’re not that different from me and Poppy and Izzy.”

“I love you too,” Maya said, still trying not to laugh. “Anyway. Tomorrow at mine, and I’ll make Dad come with us. He could do with a walk.”

“Do you think they’ll say yes?” Emily asked anxiously, for about the fifth time since they’d set off.

“Yes!” Maya rolled her eyes.

“I think they’d be really glad of the help, Emily,”
Maya’s dad put in. “The shelter’s pretty tiny, and I’m sure I remember seeing an article about it in the paper – it’s mostly run by one lady, and she’s really overworked.”

Appleby Animal Rescue was an old farmhouse, just outside Appleby village, where Emily and Maya both lived. It was a nice-looking house, not very big, but with a square yard in front of it, with stables and outhouses all round.

“Do you think all those building have got animals in them?” Emily asked, looking around in surprise. “I didn’t think it would be this big.”

“I suppose there isn’t another animal shelter anywhere close,” Maya said thoughtfully. “Any abandoned animals would have to come here.” She nudged Emily. “So, are we going in?”

Emily pushed the big wooden gate open. There was a sudden excited chorus of barking, and the two girls looked at each other in surprise.

Maya’s dad laughed. “Wow, the dogs know to listen for the gate opening, don’t they? Maybe they think we’re bringing them treats.”

“At least it means someone knows we’re here. Look.” Maya nodded towards a friendly-looking woman in a pair of very dirty jeans who was hurrying
across the yard towards them.

“Hello! Are you wanting to look at the animals? A dog, maybe?” She sounded really hopeful, and Emily wished so much that they were.

“No, um…” She took a deep, gasping breath and gave Maya a panicky look, who nodded enthusiastically. “I was wondering if you needed any help? I live quite close, and I love dogs, and cats too. I could come after school, maybe, or at the weekend?”

“Oh…” The lady looked at her consideringly, and Emily was glad that she’d brought clothes to change into at Maya’s house, sensible clothes that looked quite like what the lady from the shelter was wearing, except cleaner. Maya had put a sparkly top on (practically everything she owned was sparkly apart from her school uniform, Emily reckoned), but Emily had suggested she needed a hoodie on over the top, so most of it was hidden. She looked like a reasonably sensible friend for someone who wanted a volunteer job at an animal shelter.

“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.