Trixie Fights For Furry Rights

by Ros Asquith

  Unfortunately, what with the stiletto heels and the surprise at seeing a tiny furious girl barring her way, the pink witch tottered, squawked and then seemed to go in four different directions at once. One leg went south, one leg went north, her arms went out sideways, her pink hair blew off in a gust of wind revealing some quite ordinary hair underneath, and the box of puppies went soaring into the air.

  “Ohmigod! The pups!” I squealed, leaping up to catch it on its way down.

  “Ohmigod! The pups!” screamed Wigless Witch, struggling to get up and catch the box as well.

  We collided of course, and the box landed on our heads with a horrible crashing, tinkling sound. Then it slid to the ground and split open.

  I stared. There were no bruised, whimpering, terrified puppies to be seen.

  There were a lot of cups and saucers and plates. Or what had once been cups and saucers and plates. What had once been, in fact, the valuable tea set belonging to my gran that Mum was selling for a lot of money. Even I could see that no amount of superglue was going to save it.

  I looked at Wigless Witch accusingly. Why had she made me do that? Hadn’t she yelled “Ohmigod! The pups!” when she dropped them?

  Obviously not, said another part of my brain. Obviously she’d said “cups”.

  Dad came out looking miserable. He doesn’t really do cross, my dad. My mum does cross, but Dad does sad, which makes you feel worse. He took a wad of cash out of his pocket and picked up the witch’s once-pink-and-now-mud-spattered wig, and solemnly returned both to her. I looked shamefully down at the ground.

  I was well and truly in the dog house. Bonzo came to comfort me as I lay on my Bed of Pain, but his warm furry presence only succeeded in reminding me of what I was about to lose…I didn’t have the heart to nag Dad any more about the puppies. He said Mum would see the funny side of it eventually, but I couldn’t see how.

  Dinah and Chloe both rang me during the evening. I was supposed to be in solitary confinement, but Mum had either forgotten or relented, most probably the first. Dinah was her usual bouncy self, said it would have all blown over by morning, which I doubted. Chloe was sweet, and talked to me about the puppies as if they were hers too.

  “I don’t want them to get turned into coats, Chloe,” I sniffled to her. “Tell me they won’t be.”

  “They won’t. We’ll find a way,” Chloe said. “Don’t you worry. Most people usually buy puppies to play with, not to make into coats.”

  “But I can’t bear to lose them!”

  “No. And of course…” She hesitated.

  “What?”

  “It’s obviously a bad world out there for little animals. I saw a notice pinned on a tree in our street from somebody looking for their missing cat. That’s the third one I’ve seen round here in a week. Strange, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said glumly, remembering Dad’s words from this morning. “Thanks, Chloe.”

  “Don’t mention it. Sleep tight.”

  I didn’t, of course.

  The very next morning, Mum was huddled over the kitchen table scribbling on a piece of paper. When I came in, she covered it up in a sneaky manner.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Writing to Father Christmas,” Mum said. “He’s the only one left to turn to since you’ve smashed our only means of raising a bit of extra cash.”

  “I’m really sorry about that,” I said, trying to put an arm round her. “I said I was sorry. It was an accident.”

  I could see the edge of the piece of paper Mum had tried to cover up. It said DELICIOUS PUPPIES FOR.

  “Delicious puppies for what?” I demanded, wrestling with Mum to pull the paper out. No prizes for guessing what it said.

  DELICIOUS PUPPIES FOR SALE

  “MUM! We haven’t discussed this properly! You said you were going to have another think about it!”

  Mum sighed. “No, I didn’t. And if I had, what happened yesterday settles it. Look, Trix, you’re being really silly about this. All puppies have to leave home and we’ve already kept them too long. They’ll eat us out of house and home – and who’s going to take SIX huge dogs for a walk? They won’t be puppies for ever you know. Soon they’ll be huge, like Harpo. Just imagine!”

  I looked at humungous Harpo. It was hard to imagine six of her in one room, but I managed. “It’ll save on electricity,” I said hopefully.

  “What ARE you talking about?” Mum looked exasperated.

  “Well, I read that seven people in a room make so much heat you don’t have to have the central heating on. So six Harpos would keep the kitchen cosy all through winter…”

  “What about all the rest of the house?” Mum asked, rather sarkily. I couldn’t think of an answer to that.

  “I haven’t got time to argue about this and I’m surprised you’re worrying about the bills for the first time in your life, especially after what happened yesterday.”

  “But you CAN’T write that!” I shrieked. “Not DELICIOUS puppies!”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “They’ll be bought by dog thieves and baked in a pie!”

  Mum struggled not to laugh. “Maybe delicious is a bit silly, but everyone always puts ‘adorable’ or ‘cute’. I wanted to make it different, so people would—”

  “Be more likely to take them! Mum! We’ve raised them from the day they were born. How can you be so UNFEELING?”

  But she was looking at her watch and scooping up Tomato and heading for the door.

  “You’re always in a hurry! There’s never time for a proper conversation,” I complained. Then, to make her feel really guilty, I added, “Except you always have time to talk to parents at parents’ evening, or the silly headmistress!”

  “This isn’t a conversation, Trix. That’s when two people listen to each other. You’re just trying to bully me into doing what you want. When you’re a grown-up, you can decide to keep a hundred Harpos and their puppies if you want to, and pay for their food and vet bills and all the rest. But for now, I make the decisions. I will write out the advertisement tonight and it will be in the newsagent’s window tomorrow, and that’s final.” And off she went.

  I turned to Dad, who was pretending to examine a tap.

  “Don’t know why it’s always dripping,” he muttered when he caught me staring at him.

  “It’s not,” I said. “You’re just trying to keep out of the arguments as usual. Surely YOU don’t want to sell the pups, do you?”

  “Erm…um. Let’s talk about it later. You’ll be late for school.”

  It’s always the same. School just plonks itself in the way of real life every single day. Horrible looming boring school with stupid sums and tests, and Orrible Orange Orson lurking in the toilets and Ghastly Grey Griselda waiting to slam doors on your fingers, and the gimletty laser-eye of Warty-Beak waiting to BORE a hole into your soul as if you are a useless worm. I am going to create a world without school where children and puppies can run free and play all day and the streets are made of grass and sweeties grow on trees…

  On the way to school next day I kept seeing notices for lost cats stuck to lampposts.

  “Do you think someone is cat-napping them and turning them into hats? Like when Grandad was a lad?” I asked Chloe later in the playground.

  “I don’t think so,” she replied in her usual cautious way. “Although come to think of it…”

  “What? Come to think of what?”

  “The dog next door to us has gone missing.”

  “See? There’s a pet-napper on the prowl! If Mum advertises the puppies it’s like pointing an arrow straight at their hearts, saying ‘Get your new fur coat here’!”

  “But it’s uncool to be seen in a fur coat these days, isn’t it? What with Animal Rights and all. People in woolly hats with banners would chase them down the street calling them nasty names.”

  “What would they be doing in woolly hats?” I wondered. “They’re from animals too.”

  “Wel
l, they don’t have to be in woolly hats,” Chloe said. “Anyway, you just have to give sheep a haircut to get wool. You don’t have to murder them. It’s supportive. Probably Animal Rights people wear them to keep the sheep population in work.”

  “Fur coat people wouldn’t worry about all that,” I said. “You never see them walking down the street, or at the checkout or whatever. They’re always behind darkened windows in a stretch limo.”

  “Aren’t you two getting off the point?” said Dinah, who had joined us. “We need a plan. Where’s your mum going to advertise the puppies?”

  “Mr Drugg’s noticeboard in his window,” I told her. Mr Drugg was the newsagent and sweetie man, not that he is very sweet himself.

  “OK,” Dinah said. “Why don’t we just go down there and hide it? Chloe could keep Mr Drugg talking, he likes her. She pretty much keeps his shop going all by herself.”

  Chloe gave Dinah an annoyed look. Well, as annoyed as she’s capable of, which isn’t very. “No good,” she said. “Your mum would notice.” (This would be Very Extremely soon, since Mum nips into Mr Drugg’s on a daily basis.)

  “What about putting a sign saying SOLD on top of it?” I suggested.

  “No good,” said Chloe again. “Your mum would see it and if the puppies weren’t sold she’d know it was us.”

  We all shuffled about in silence, until Chloe squeaked, “I’ve got it! We’ll change one digit of the phone number. It would be easy to change 1189 to 7189. And your mum won’t notice for ages because the ad will still look nearly the same.”

  “Chloe, you are a GENIUS!”

  Chloe went red-as-a-beetroot and gazed at her feet. “I don’t know…” she murmured. “It’s breaking the law, really.”

  “What law?” I demanded. “William The Conqueror’s Sweetie Man Protection Act of 1071? There’s no law that says you can get your head chopped off for making a mistake on an advert.”

  “Yes, but it’s not a mistake, it’s a scam by us. We’ll be criminals,” Chloe moaned.

  “Look,” Dinah said impatiently, “do we want to save these puppies or not? You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

  Chloe and I looked blank.

  “We’re not making an omelet, we’re saving my puppies,” I said. “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know. It’s something my dad says,” Dinah replied. “Anyway,” (she gave Chloe a big hug, which made her blush even more), “it’s an amazing idea. I had exactly the same one at the same time, actually.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Chloe and I went. Dinah hates to be beaten at problem-solving.

  I did a lot of nagging and persuading for the next two days, but on Saturday Mum put the card in the newsagent.

  FIVE ADORABLE RED SETTER/OLD ENGLISH SHEEPDOG CROSS PUPPIES. EXCELLENT PEDIGREES.GOOD HOMES ONLY.

  Then she put in our phone number and, worst of all, stuck on a photo of the puppies that I had taken only last week! It was the cutest picture you could imagine. They were all brushed and combed and shampooed, and even sleepy old Fattypuff looked alert, and Gertrude’s tail was even curlier and wurlier than usual.

  I gulped. It was really happening. I was going to lose the puppies. Unless Chloe’s phone-number trick might just possibly work.

  I made Mum put that bit about good homes in, even though it went against my better judgement to help with the horrible Advertisement of Doom. I also pointed out that the pedigree thingy on Harpo’s side was not strictly true, i.e. a lie, since Mum first found Harpo abandoned in a park.

  “And now,” I said, “you are abandoning the puppies just like Harpo’s cruel owners abandoned her in the first place.”

  “That’s not fair,” said Dad, coming into the room carrying three planks for protection. “They’ll go to good homes.”

  “Let me at least keep Bonzo!” I wailed. I hadn’t asked properly before because I thought it would be disloyal to the other puppies. But the thought of losing Bonzo from my bed each night suddenly overwhelmed me.

  Mum paused on her way to the door. “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  Was this a ray of hope?

  I rushed to ring Dinah.

  “No, that’s terrible,” she said. “If they let you keep Bonzo it will let them off the hook. You are betraying the other puppies.”

  “Great. Now I am a traitor as well as the Saddest Person in the World.”

  “No, we can still stop this happening. Let’s go down the newsagent and sabotage the ad.”

  “It sounds easy,” I grumbled, “but how are we really going to do it? Old Drugg is the suspiciousest and most hawk-eyed person in the world, even if he’s only got one eye that works. I just stroked a chocolate mouse in there once, right at the other side of the shop, and he made me buy it. He can see round corners.”

  “We’ll find a way. Call Chloe and we’ll go down there.”

  Half an hour later, me and Dinah and Chloe arrived at Mr Drugg’s shop, armed with a black felt tip. He’d given Mum’s disgustrous advert the very best place right in the middle of the noticeboard in the window. Big Fattypuff’s saucer eyes gazed down at me, and I couldn’t bear to look at Bonzo’s furry little face, so I dived into the shop more determined than ever.

  Mr Drugg has NOT MORE THAN TWO SCHOOL CHILDREN AT A TIME signs everywhere and shouts if you breathe on his biros. Luckily, though, he has a soft spot for Chloe who is his most regular customer. Sweeties are Mr Drugg’s pride and joy. He has shelves and shelves full of them in old-fashioned huge glass jars – every kind you could wish for and a lot imported from abroad which you can’t get anywhere else in Bottomley. It’s weird, for a bloke who hates kids. He knows me and Dinah are Chloe’s best friends, so he usually lets us stand quietly at the back of his shop while Chloe and he have long chats about which is best, fudge or marshmallows.

  So, Chloe engaged him in a long conversation about the best brands of peppermint and whether the tongue-burning toffee twisters she’d ordered last week had come in yet and had he heard of the new multiflavoured sherbert from Taiwan? Chloe’s a walking encyclopedia of sweets, and me and Dinah could see Mr Drugg was really enjoying himself talking to an expert.

  Dinah leafed through magazines by the window to shield me from Drugg’s demonic eye.

  “All right, he’s showing Chloe a box of Firebreathing Flogwobblers or something,” Dinah giggled. “They’re so strong he keeps them under lock and key in the back room, guarded by dogs.”

  “Never mind that,” I hissed. “Shall I go for it?”

  “It’s now or never,” Dinah said. “You could even draw a few fleas and fly-covered sores on that itsy-bitsy picture of the puppies, just to put people off.” She was laughing so much now I thought old Drugg was bound to hear her, but his ears aren’t as good as his one eye.

  My hand slipped into the window display and I changed the phone number.

  Chloe bought a ton of sweeties and we said goodbye very politely. Mr Drugg looked at us quite fondly as we scarpered.

  “Even if we haven’t saved them for ever,” said Dinah, “it buys us some time.”

  But it seemed she was wrong.

  When I got home, Mrs Next-Door was sitting in the kitchen with Lorenzo, the puppies’ father and the Love of Harpo’s Life. Mum was saying, “So I told her she could come any time today and see them all. She’s the first person to ring, so I said she could take her pick.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Someone had rung already and the ad had only been in the window for about an hour before we changed the phone number. Then I remembered the tea set. Maybe Mum was selling something else.

  “Is that the puppies you’re talking about?” I asked in a wobbly voice.

  “Yes, isn’t it brilliant? I only put that ad in shop this morning! But that picture you took was so gorgeous, we’ll probably be swamped with calls!” said Mum brightly. “This lady who’s coming wants more than one. And is even willing to pay money for them!”

  “I’m not surprised by that,” said Mrs N
ext-Door. “Some people might see them as mongrels, but any pup of Lorenzo’s is bound to be special, isn’t it Lorenzokins?” She stroked his slinky red coat and gave him a Doggy-Treat in front of Harpo and the puppies, who were looking at her all hopeful and wide-eyed.

  But Mum had noticed my stricken face. “Trixie, she sounds very nice. Actually, she’s rather posh, I think. Maybe she has a big country estate. The puppies will be able to run about in a rural paradise. She’s called Lady Venus Goodchild, believe it or not.”

  “Sounds like some stupid bimbo in a James Bond film,” I moaned.

  “She might invite us to her lovely palatial home,” trilled Mrs Next-Door, who talks like an article in Hello! She’s an awful snob and thinks she is made for better things than a titchy house in Bottomley. She never comes round here usually.

  “But if they go miles away, we won’t even be able to visit them,” I protested.

  “She lives quite close. In Mandleton,” said Mum.

  And at that moment, the doorbell rang.

  “Go and get that, Trix,” Mum said.

  As I opened the front door, my worst fears were realised. Into the house swept a nightmare vision, the most horrible looking woman I have ever seen. She was over two metres tall and two metres wide, with staring eyes of a sickly greenish-yellow like a cat’s or a tiger’s. She had long red hair down to her knees and an enormous sticky red lipsticky mouth which she stretched wide open in what I supposed she thought was a smile, but with her rows of snaggly teeth she looked more like a crocodile eyeballing a tasty snack. She was dressed entirely in red. Scarlet boots, flame tights, maroon plastic mackintosh and a huge red feather boa that looked like a thousand ostriches had died to make it. I tried to shut the door, but she shoved a long red leg in a long red boot firmly into the hall.

  “Is your mother in?” she boomed in a Voice of Doom.