Bad Bella

by Ali Standish

  A small yip escaped from Bella’s mouth.

  Andy and Alice turned, and their eyes fell on her.

  “Bella?” Alice whispered. “Is that you?”

  Even though her paws were stiff, Bella broke into a run. She ran as fast as she could, and this time she knew where she was running.

  Home.

  In the blink of an eye, she had crossed the street and was standing in front of the Roses.

  “Bella!” they shouted.

  Their voices were filled with joy.

  Andy knelt down and touched his face to Bella’s.

  “You scared us so much!” he said. But he didn’t sound like he was scolding her at all.

  Bella kissed him all over his cheeks and nose and chin to tell him that she was very sorry for running away.

  I only did it because I was scared, too, she tried to say. Because I thought you didn’t want me anymore.

  Alice could not lean down, but when Bella looked up she saw that Alice was laughing and smiling her mightiest smile. “We love you so much, Bella,” she murmured. Each quiet word hung in the air like a beautiful snowflake floating down from the sky. Bella wanted to catch each one and keep them in a place where they would never melt. “I don’t know what we would do if we ever lost you again.”

  Bella sidled up to Alice to keep her warm and steady on her feet. She gently licked her palm. You won’t, she said with her eyes, and she knew that Alice would understand. I will never, ever leave you again.

  “It’s a Christmas miracle!” Andy said, laughing. “But it’s time to go inside now. Then once we’re all warm, you can meet your new brother, Ben.”

  From the moment she walked in, Bella could tell that something was different in the apartment. Shiny packages had been placed under the Christmas tree. One of them was shaped and smelled suspiciously like a bone filled with peanut butter. Four colorful socks with fluffy white edges were hanging above the fireplace.

  “I wanted everything to be just right for you when you got home,” Alice said.

  Andy laid the baby’s basket down on the couch so that Bella could sniff Ben’s fuzzy little head and stare at his scrunchy pink face.

  He stared back at her with Andy’s eyes and Alice’s nose. He was a beautiful baby. And he smelled like both of them. Like home.

  Bella loved him already.

  Andy fixed Bella a bowl of warm milk and a heaping bowl of food. Then he dried her wet fur with a fluffy towel while she ate and drank.

  “Poor girl,” he said. “Your paws are freezing.”

  “Do you think we still need to take her to the vet?” Alice asked.

  Bella’s ears shot up. The vet? Alice and Andy were planning to take me to the vet?

  Suddenly Bella remembered what Alice had said to Leslie the night Bella ran away. We’re going to have to take her in. . . . I know it’s her least favorite place in the world, but it’s best for her in the long run.

  Alice hadn’t known that she was wrong. The vet was not Bella’s least favorite place in the world.

  But Bella had been wrong, too. Alice had never considered taking Bella to the pound. All along, they were only going to take her to the vet!

  “Let’s see how she seems tomorrow,” Andy said.

  Bella wagged her tail. She was not worried. By tomorrow, Andy and Alice would see that there was no reason to take her to the vet. No reason to go anywhere at all, except perhaps the park to play snowballs.

  After giving Bella two scoops of ice cream, Andy called Leslie to tell her that Bella had come home. “Yes, she’s fine,” he said. “Better than fine. She’s perfect. Just like always.”

  Perfect, Bella repeated to herself. The strange word felt light and bubbly on her long tongue.

  When Andy was done, he lifted Bella up and carried her to the bedroom. For a second, Bella’s heart fell. Her round checkered bed had been moved away to make room for the baby’s crib.

  But then Andy laid her down at the foot of the bed.

  Alice was resting with her head propped up on a stack of pillows, and she reached out her hand to rub behind Bella’s ears.

  “Ben has to sleep in here at first,” she said. “So you’ll just have to share with us.”

  Bella did not protest. The soft, warm bed was already soothing the aching cold from her body. Alice’s foot made a very nice pillow indeed.

  Andy brought Ben in, and Alice leaned over to kiss him on the head before Andy settled the baby into his crib.

  When Andy climbed under the covers, he sighed a satisfied sigh. Then Alice sighed a happy sigh. Last, Bella sighed a grateful sigh. The baby was too young to sigh, but Bella knew he would if he were able.

  “Just think, Bella,” said Andy as he turned off the light. “A year ago you were being dropped off at the pound. And now here you are with us, and with a new baby brother.”

  “Right where you belong,” Alice added.

  Bella considered this. Deep into the night.

  For so long, she had tried her very best to be a good dog. Ever since the McBrides had called her “Bad Bella” for the first time, she had been so afraid of disappointing her humans.

  But Andy says I’ve always been perfect, Bella thought. So maybe I never really was a bad dog. Just like Hazel and Runt and Leo and Zoey weren’t.

  Maybe just because someone tells you you’re bad doesn’t mean that you really are.

  But, she thought too, she didn’t always have to be on her best behavior, either. That’s what it meant to belong somewhere. To be a part of a family.

  It meant that Andy and Alice loved her for exactly who she was, the same way that Bella loved them.

  It meant that being Bella was enough. Just Bella.

  That night was the very last time Bella thought of the McBrides.

  When she awoke the next morning, she would find she had much more important things to think about. Like being a big sister. Like showing Ben off to Leslie and Leo and Zoey. Like teaching her little brother how to fetch, and play snowballs, and run faster than the wind.

  But all that would come later. For now, Bella snuggled deeper into the covers, listening to the gentle sounds of her sleeping family. Feeling full and happy and warm.

  And wanted.

  THE END

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  Hello! It’s me, Ali Standish, the author of this book. Right now, I’m sitting in my office with the real-life Bella. She would say hello, too, but she is curled up in a neat little ball, fast asleep. She is also snoring, but please don’t tell her I told you so, because she doesn’t know she snores and would be very embarrassed to know the awful truth.

  Yes, that’s right, there is a real Bella, whose story inspired the one you just read. Perhaps you have paid too much attention in science class and are a bit confused about how the story of a dog who acts so much like a human could be true. Well, let me tell you.

  When Bella and I first met, I had just graduated from college. I really, really loved college, by the way. (Unlimited ice cream! No parents to make you clean your room! Classes that don’t start until ten o’clock!) But one thing that I didn’t like was that students were not allowed to have pets on campus. When I was growing up, my family had lots of pets, and I have always known that there is nothing quite like the love of a dog. So as soon as I graduated, found a place to live, and started my job as a teacher, I decided to look for a pup of my own.

  My now husband, Aki, and I were living in Washington, DC. One crisp autumn Saturday, we drove out of the city and went to a few adoption fairs. At each one, there were so many wonderful dogs. But none that felt like our dog. Then, at the last fair, I was petting a very sweet black Labrador when Aki called me over.

  “Ali,” he said, “come meet this one!”

  He was standing with a white dog that had black and brown spots and patches over her face and body—like an Oreo milkshake!—a big smile, and a fluffy tail that wagged so hard, her whole body shook. “What’s her name?” I asked.


  Well, you already know the answer to that.

  Aki and I realized immediately that Bella was special. What other dog smiled like she did? What other dog wagged so hard? Bella didn’t need to wrap her leash in circles around us (she did anyway). By then, we already knew we were going to take her home.

  Bella had been living with a wonderful foster mom, and when we told her that we wanted to adopt Bella, tears welled in her eyes. “She’s the best dog I’ve ever fostered,” she said. “I don’t know why it’s taken so long for someone to adopt her.”

  We didn’t, either. But we are grateful every day.

  On the car ride home, Bella sat in the back, first with her head out the window and her wet nose twitching, then curled up on the seat.

  It was after she had fallen asleep that I took out the little folder of information that the rescue organization had given us. Inside was a glimpse at Bella’s past, including a form that had been filled out by the man who had dropped Bella off at the pound.

  When I saw the date she had been left there, my heart suddenly felt all strange and splintery, like it was going to crack. December twenty-second. Three days before Christmas.

  The man wrote two other things that stuck out to me. One was that he was Bella’s owner. The other was that she was not his dog.

  I didn’t understand how both of those things could be true. How could you own a dog and say she wasn’t yours?

  Unlike Bella in the story, our Bella was removed from the pound by an animal rescue organization, the Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation of Virginia. They took care of her and eventually placed her with her foster mom, which is where she lived until we found her, ten months after she had been abandoned.

  It didn’t take long after adopting Bella for Aki and me to realize that welcoming her into our family was the best decision we had ever made. We loved her unconditionally, right from the start. But it’s hard to get a dog to understand that kind of love when she’s been abandoned before. It was obvious that Bella loved her new home—loved our walks, loved the park, loved the belly and behind-the-ear scratches she got several times a day.

  But she was also still very shy. She would not get up on the furniture, even when she was invited. She was afraid of loud noises. And once, when we came home, it was to find that she had had a big, messy, smelly accident on the apartment floor. (I think you know what kind I mean. . . .) She greeted us with her tail between her legs, and she had even tried to cover her accident up with a shoe! Could I have imagined the relief in her eyes when we told her we weren’t mad at her, when we petted her gently instead of yelling at her? Maybe. But I don’t think so.

  Soon it was Christmastime. Our first Christmas as a family. I have always loved Christmas. (The cookies! The presents! The snow!) Most of all, I love Christmas trees. I love everything about them! Picking them out, decorating them, putting presents underneath them. I love their sharp, sweet smell.

  Bella did not like our tree.

  In fact, she would not even go near it. Instead, she stared at it from across the apartment with narrowed eyes. Like it might attack her at any moment.

  “Why do you think she acts that way around the tree?” Aki asked.

  I wasn’t sure, but I had a guess.

  “Maybe her old family had a Christmas tree,” I said. “They would have put it up right around the time they dropped her off at the pound. Maybe seeing another one makes her nervous because she thinks it means we’re about to do the same thing.”

  We weren’t, of course. But that’s when I started to think of this story.

  There are lots of reasons that someone might not be able to care for their dog any longer, and I can’t know or judge Bella’s original owner’s reasons for leaving her at the pound. But I do know that lots of people adopt dogs with good intentions, only to realize that owning a dog is too much of a responsibility. So I imagined a family—the McBrides—who had grown too busy to take care of their dog. I imagined how confused Bella must have been to find herself at the pound, and how she must have searched for a reason why she had been abandoned. How she couldn’t have known that it wasn’t her fault, that it is never your fault when someone bigger than you leaves you behind or stops loving you.

  Little by little, our Bella began to realize that we would never stop loving her. She didn’t mind when we left her in the apartment while we went to work, because she knew we would come home again. She also knew that when her paws grew too cold in the snow, Aki would carry her home. She even started sleeping on the bed. Right in the middle. Taking up half the mattress. Snoring. Loudly.

  By the next Christmas, Bella wasn’t quite so nervous around the tree, maybe because her memory of whatever came before we adopted her was starting to fade away. And now Christmas is one of Bella’s favorite times of the year. (The cookies! The presents! The snow!)

  In her time with us, Bella has been on many adventures. She has been to baseball games, climbed mountains, and gone kayaking. She has lived on two different continents and sailed across the Atlantic on a cruise ship. No matter where Bella goes, people always comment on what a friendly, smiley dog she is. She doesn’t have any human siblings, but last year she got a doggy brother, Keeper. He loves his big sister more than anyone else in the world.

  Throughout our years together, I have marveled many times at the way Bella so often seems to know exactly what I’m thinking. And the way I understand her almost as if she were speaking to me in plain English. Aki says she is my doggy soul mate. Neither of us wants to imagine what our lives would have been like if he hadn’t spotted Bella that day.

  And after all this time, I understand why her first owner wrote that she was not his dog.

  Because she wasn’t. All along, even before we ever met her, she had been ours. All that time, we had been hers, too.

  And we always will be.

  Bella enjoys a car ride just a few days after we adopted her.

  It wasn’t long before she made herself at home.

  Bella and Aki love playing fetch together.

  Everywhere we go, people comment on Bella’s smile!

  And she always enjoys a good snow day.

  Bella has seen the ocean . . .

  . . . and the mountains, too!

  We even sailed from the UK to the US on the Queen Mary II.

  (All those adventures can make you pretty tired.)

  Bella’s latest adventure has been becoming a sister to Keeper. He thinks she’s the best big sister ever.

  One Last Thing . . .

  Our Bella found her forever home, but there are millions of dogs (and cats! bunnies! pigs! and others!) who are still waiting in shelters around the country to find their humans. Here are some things you can do to make a difference in their lives:

  Donate your birthday. Instead of receiving gifts yourself, ask a local animal shelter what supplies they need, and ask friends and family to buy those. Some shelters may even let you host your party there—or bring animals out to your party to say thanks! And what better party favor could you give than a puppy or kitten cuddle?!

  Collect old linens. Animal shelters are often in need of things like blankets, sheets, and towels to keep their animals warm and comfortable. Organize a donation drive where people can bring their old linens to you to take to a shelter instead of just throwing them out.

  Host a bake sale! But instead of cookies and cakes, bake doggy biscuits for all the dog lovers out there who are likely to want to support your cause. Donate the profits to your local shelter or humane society.

  Follow your local shelter or humane society on social media, and share the work they are doing with your own network. The more awareness they get, the more animals they can save!

  Talk with your family about fostering an animal. Lots of animals, like Bella, have foster parents who take care of them while they wait to be adopted. This creates more room in the shelters for other animals who need a safe place. Fostering can be a great way to help an animal in need of some love without th
e long-term commitment of adopting.

  But if you and your family are (really, really) ready to give an animal a forever home, adopt from a shelter or humane society instead of buying from a pet shop or breeder. Animals in pet shops often come from puppy mills or kitten factories, places that don’t treat animals very kindly. (Happily, there are some exceptions to this, as in California, where pet stores can sell only rescue animals!) Instead of spending money to support those businesses, head to your local shelter and support all the work they do to help animals. When you take an animal home from a shelter, you make space for another dog to be rescued.

  Get in touch with your lawmakers. States, and even cities, have different laws about things like puppy mills. Write or call your local and state lawmakers and ask that they pass a law that requires pet stores to sell rescued animals instead of ones that come from puppy mills or kitten factories. If these mills and factories don’t have anyone left to sell their animals to, they will have to shut down for good. Then there will be fewer animals to rescue in the long run, and more animals who can enjoy forever homes!

  Acknowledgments

  As ever, I am hugely grateful for my agents, Sarah Davies and Polly Nolan, for championing my writing and this manuscript. To Alyson Day, for loving Bella’s story, and giving me the opportunity to share it with the world. To the whole team at Harper, for working so hard to make this novel the best it could be: Manny Blasco, Megan Ilnitzki, Renée Cafiero, Laura Mock, Amy Ryan, and Vaishali Nayak. And to Melissa Manwill for giving this book a beautiful cover, and for capturing the real Bella’s spirit while also rendering her into a new, highly lovable character.

  I started writing this book in the summer of 2014 in Claudia Mills’s chapter books class at Hollins University, and I owe her a special thanks for crying over the very first draft of the very first chapter and telling me to keep writing. I’m thankful, too, for all the feedback I received on early drafts from my fellow students Amy Deligdisch, Amy DeBevoise, Lucy Hester, Jennifer Sigler, Audrey Hackett, and Caity Neilands. And to Nancy Ruth Patterson, for jumping on the Bella bandwagon so enthusiastically and embracing the story as only a true dog lover could.