Rainbow Street Pets

by Orr, Wendy

  ‘And just think how happy they’ll be when we give the dog back,’ said her dad. ‘We have to find them.’

  But there were no new phone numbers for Bears anywhere in the whole state.

  ‘So we’ll have to look after Surprise,’ said Hannah. ‘At least until we find the Bears.’

  Surprise pricked his ears.

  ‘He knows his new name already!’ Hannah said. ‘He’s a really smart dog.’

  She tugged the rope. ‘Come on, Surprise!’ And she led him into the backyard. The dog followed happily.

  ‘See how good he is!’ Hannah told her parents. She shut the gate behind her and ran over to the front step for the bowl of water.

  Surprise leapt over the fence and up onto the ute.

  ‘No, Surprise!’ Hannah whispered, and tried to push him back into the yard before her parents noticed.

  It was too late.

  ‘We can’t keep him,’ said her mum. ‘He’ll run away again, and this time he might get hurt.’

  CHAPTER 6

  achlan and his mum’s new house was in the middle of the city. There were houses beside it, houses across the road and houses behind. The garden was small and the fence was tall.

  But all Lachlan cared about was that there was no dog.

  He looked in the yard, and he looked back down the road, because Bear was the smartest, fastest dog in the world, and Lachlan almost believed that he might have already found his way to their new home. But even Bear wasn’t smart enough to find a house he’d never been to, or fast enough to follow a car down the highway.

  Inside, the house was jumbled full of furniture and boxes. The moving men had put the beds in the bedrooms and the couch in the lounge room, but Lachlan’s bedroom was so crammed with boxes he had to scramble from one box to another to get to the window. It could have been fun if he hadn’t felt like crying.

  Hannah had thought it was the best day of her life, and now it was the worst.

  ‘We’ll have to take the dog to the animal shelter,’ said her dad. ‘They can look after him properly while they find the Bears.’

  ‘I can look after him properly!’ Hannah wanted to shout – but she didn’t, because she’d seen him jump over the fence too.

  She sat on the grass with her arms around Surprise’s neck for a long, long time. Finally she pushed away and looked into his bright, brown eyes. ‘Don’t worry: if we can’t find the Bears, I’ll look after you!’

  Surprise licked her face, and they got into the back of the ute.

  ‘It might be easier if Dad went by himself,’ said her mum.

  ‘I want to go,’ said Hannah. It was the biggest lie she’d ever told, because she didn’t want to go at all. She just couldn’t let Surprise go without her.

  Her dad tied the other end of the rope to a ring in his toolbox, so Surprise had enough room to look around but not enough to jump out. Hannah gave him one more hug and got into the front of the ute between her parents.

  When they turned at the sign for the Rainbow Street Shelter, Hannah remembered how much she’d wanted to go there every single time they’d driven past. She’d never thought it would be the saddest day of her life.

  Rainbow Street was short, and at the end, surrounded by a tall wire fence, was a big garden with shady trees and green lawns. The building was pale blue, with a rainbow arching above the cheery, cherry-red door.

  Hannah knew that Surprise had to go back to the Bear family, and she knew she’d be sad that he couldn’t live with her. But this didn’t look like a sad place, and for the first time she felt the tiniest sliver of hope that something good could still happen.

  The sliver wasn’t big enough to stop her eyes being so blurry she could hardly see to untie Surprise’s rope. Tears splashed onto her cheeks as he jumped out of the ute and licked her face again. By the time her dad opened the gate and latched it behind them, that golden sliver of hope was so small it was nearly invisible.

  But it was still there.

  And so when Surprise heard all the other dogs barking and his happy, wagging tail began to droop, Hannah straightened herself up. Her ponytail bounced, and her voice came out stronger than she’d thought it would, like the voice of someone who’d hardly been crying at all.

  ‘Come on, Surprise! It’ll be all right.’

  CHAPTER 7

  he reception area was bright and cheerful. A woman with long dark hair tied up into a knot, and a name-tag that said MONA was working at a computer. A white cockatoo with a crooked left wing was sitting on a perch above the desk, and on the wall behind him was a framed photograph of a lion with three cubs.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  It was an old man’s voice, deep and gravelly. Hannah stared in amazement, because she couldn’t see him anywhere.

  ‘That’s Gulliver,’ said Mona, pointing to the cockatoo. ‘He likes being the receptionist.’

  ‘Gulliver!’ repeated the cockatoo.

  ‘We’ve got a lost dog,’ said Mr Cooper.

  ‘Poor little fellow,’ said Mona, coming around the other side of the desk to see Surprise. She squatted down beside him and felt him all over while Hannah’s dad explained what had happened. A small, brown-and-white dog with a stumpy-tail followed her and sniffed Surprise as if she was checking him too.

  ‘The vet will have a look later, but he seems okay,’ Mona said. ‘I wonder if he’s been microchipped?’

  She got an electronic wand from her desk and ran it over Surprise’s neck and shoulders. There was no beep.

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Mona sighed. ‘Well, let’s hope the owners find us. He’s a lovely dog.’

  Surprise was panting nervously. Hannah put her arm around his neck. Surprise licked her as if he was saying thank you.

  ‘Bert will take him now,’ Mona said, as a grey-haired man came in.

  ‘G’day, mate!’ said the cockatoo, in his scratchy old-man’s voice.

  ‘Say goodbye, Hannah,’ said her mum.

  But the old man smiled. ‘Maybe Hannah would like to see where the dog’s going to stay?’

  His voice was the same as the cockatoo’s.

  Hannah nodded.

  ‘Okay,’ said Mona and Mrs Cooper.

  Hannah kept her hand on Surprise’s shoulder as they followed Bert out to the hall. The stumpy-tailed dog trotted back behind the desk, and a grey cat in the windowsill sat up to clean his paws and watch Surprise leave.

  There were doors marked EXAMINATION ROOM and SURGERY, and rooms full of cages, some with a dog, cat, rabbit or possum dozing inside.

  ‘That’s the hospital for the sick animals,’ said Bert. ‘But this fella will go out here.’ He opened the back door.

  There was a big aviary full of birds on one side; behind it was another big enclosure with a tree in the middle and three fat hollow logs scattered around: ‘For the wild animals getting ready to be set free again,’ said Bert.

  Away from the aviary was an enclosure where cats lazed in the sun in front of their own small shelters; there was another enclosure for rabbits. Wooden walls separated them so the cats and bunnies didn’t have to see each other, and neither of them had to see the dogs. On the lawn behind them, a three-legged goat was grazing. She looked quite happy, as if she hadn’t noticed her hind leg was missing.

  Bert opened a gate and they walked through to the dog area.

  There was a dusty lawn with two shady trees and a few bushes. The kennels were in a big U around it. Each kennel had its own fenced run; some had one dog, some had two. There were big dogs, short stubby-legged dogs, hairy dogs and smooth. Two in a run together were playing, some of the others were dozing, but most were watching Bert, Hannah and Surprise.

  They crossed the lawn to an empty run.

  Surprise’s tail drooped, and so did his head. He did not want to go into the cage.

  Hannah didn’t want him to go in either.

  ‘Come on, boy,’ Bert coaxed. ‘Nobody’s going to hurt you.’ He opened the door of the run.

  S
urprise stopped.

  Bert tugged gently at his collar.

  Surprise stuck his front legs out straight and wouldn’t move.

  Hannah’s eyes filled up with tears. She could hardly see as she walked into the cage and squatted down in front of the kennel.

  ‘Come on, Surprise,’ she said, and Surprise walked in.

  CHAPTER 8

  achlan went through all the boxes till he found some paper and coloured markers. He drew sign after sign saying:

  LOST!

  BLACK AND- WHITE BORDER COLLIE

  NAMED BEAR

  WITH WHITE STRIPE DOWN HIS FACE

  HE BELONGS TO LACHLAN PLEASE PHONE

  IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM

  Their phone wasn’t connected yet, so he put his mum’s mobile number on the bottom.

  He wished he could start putting the posters up on every street corner, but there was no point – it was impossible for Bear to be anywhere around here. He’d have to wait till tomorrow and go back to the beach.

  Hannah and Surprise sat together in front of the kennel and looked around at the other dogs in their runs.

  ‘With a bit of luck, his owner will find him quickly,’ said Bert.

  Hannah nodded. For the first time, she really did want Surprise’s family to find him.

  ‘He seems a friendly boy. If the vet’s happy with him, he might let him share a run with another dog.’

  Hannah thought Surprise would like that, but not as much as he’d like having his own home.

  ‘And of course he can have a turn in the playground – that’s the best part of a volunteer’s job.’ Bert pointed to the dusty lawn in the middle of the U of kennels. ‘We let them out in here to run around, sniff all the new smells, play ball …’

  ‘Do you like playing ball?’ Hannah whispered to Surprise, rubbing her tears dry against his shaggy shoulder. The dog pricked his ears.

  Bert laughed. ‘Okay! As soon as the vet says so, we’ll have a game – but you have to be nice to an old man. I reckon you’ve got more energy than me!’

  Hannah’s ponytail swished. ‘I’ve got lots of energy,’ she said. ‘I could come and play with him. And clean his cage and feed him – and everything!’

  ‘We’ll have to ask your mum and dad,’ said Bert.

  The Coopers were still talking to Mona at the front desk.

  ‘G’day, mate!’ squawked Gulliver.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Hannah.

  ‘So do we,’ said her mum.

  Hannah felt a little candle of hope – were they going to let her keep Surprise until his real family found him?

  ‘You know that this dog has to go back to his owners.’

  But if they don’t want him … Hannah thought.

  ‘And you know that our fence isn’t tall enough to keep him in.’

  ‘I’ll help you build a bigger one!’

  Her dad smiled. ‘Our fence will work just fine.’

  ‘Come and see,’ said Mum, and Mona led them into a room with small animals in cages.

  In the corner was a hutch, and inside it was a fat black guinea pig.

  CHAPTER 9

  annah liked guinea pigs, and this one was very cute. She picked him up and he was warm and soft. She thought about how happy she would have been if she’d met this guinea pig this morning, before she’d met Surprise. She wished she didn’t feel like someone at a party who’d got an apple when everyone else had cake.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  Mona was watching her carefully. ‘A guinea pig may be small,’ she said, ‘but he deserves to be wanted and loved. If you don’t feel you can do that, you shouldn’t take him.’

  Hannah hesitated. The guinea pig wiggled warmly against her shoulder. ‘I’ll love him,’ she said. ‘I’ll take him out to eat fresh grass every single day. But I still need to tell you my idea: I want to be a volunteer like Bert.’

  ‘You’re not really old enough,’ said Mona.

  ‘But I could help him,’ said Hannah.

  ‘I’m pretty old,’ Bert agreed. ‘Mix our ages up together and we’ll both come out just right.’

  ‘You’ll get upset when the owner comes to pick up this dog,’ said Mum.

  ‘No I won’t!’ said Hannah, but she knew she was lying.

  ‘Only three days till school starts,’ said her mum. ‘You won’t have time to look after the guinea pig properly and come to the shelter.’

  ‘The guinea pig or the shelter,’ said Dad. ‘Not both.’

  ‘Go home and think about it,’ said Mona.

  That night, Lachlan squeezed between the boxes and sat on his bedroom floor to talk to his dad on the phone.

  ‘Bear’s a smart dog,’ his dad said. ‘He’ll be heading back to the farm. We’ve just got to figure out where he’s got to and start searching there.’

  ‘He’ll be so scared.’

  ‘That’s why we’ve got to keep on searching. And hoping.’

  CHAPTER 10

  n Lachlan’s nightmares, sometimes it was Bear that was lost, sometimes it was him and once his dad – but waking up was the worst of all because it was real.

  It was very early, but his crammed-full room felt too horribly empty to stay in any longer. He crept quietly through the boxes to the kitchen. His mum was already dressed and studying a map as she drank her coffee.

  ‘I’ve talked to Dad. He’s on his way down to this spot here, fifteen kilometres from where Bear jumped out,’ she said, pointing to the map. ‘He’ll search from there towards the farm, and we’ll search from there back down to the beach.’

  Lachlan choked down a bowl of cereal, and they left.

  In Hannah’s dreams, her dad came home with a guinea pig in the back of his ute, and she kept hiding lost dogs in her bedroom – big and little, black, brown, white and spotted, barking, bouncing dogs – till her room was so full she could hardly shut the door.

  Hannah couldn’t decide if it was a good dream or a nightmare, but now that she was awake she was too happy to care. Her ponytail bounced as she skipped out to the kitchen.

  ‘What have you decided?’ asked her mum.

  Hannah told her. She choked down a bowl of cereal, and when it was finally nine o’clock, they left.

  Mona wasn’t at the desk when they got to the Rainbow Street Shelter, but Gulliver was.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asked.

  Hannah and her mum laughed, and Mona came in from the room with the small cages. ‘So … are you here for the guinea pig?’ she asked.

  Hannah shook her head. ‘He’s a very nice guinea pig,’ she said, feeling as mean as if she’d left her best friend out of a secret.

  ‘He is. But you can’t take an animal home just because he’s nice – you have to know he’s the one for you.’

  ‘G’day, mate!’ squawked Gulliver, and Bert came in.

  ‘G’day,’ he said to the bird. He smiled at Hannah. ‘Let’s get going, helper!’

  Hannah skipped behind him out to the kennels and across to Surprise.

  The dog was at the front of his run, and his ears quivered when he saw Hannah and Bert.

  ‘The vet checked him this morning,’ Bert said. ‘He’s good and healthy, just feeling a bit lost.’

  ‘Poor lost Surprise,’ said Hannah. ‘I hope your family comes soon.’

  ‘We need to give him some breakfast,’ said Bert. ‘Then we’ll clean out his run and give him a turn in the playground.’

  He measured out a scoop of dog food from a big bin. ‘Sit!’ he said, and the dog sat while Hannah poured the biscuits into his dish.

  ‘Leave him alone while he eats, and we’ll feed the others.’

  The kennel beside Surprise had a scruffy, shaggy little white dog in it. She was lying inside her kennel, just her nose outside, watching.

  ‘Don’t go in,’ Bert warned. ‘Have a look from here.’

  Hannah peeked in from outside the run. Behind the little dog’s front legs she could see what looked like a row of fat,
squirmy sausage rolls snuggled up to drink from their mother.

  ‘Puppies!’ Hannah breathed.

  ‘Five of them,’ Bert said. ‘Dumped at the gate last week. They’re about five weeks old now, so unless someone wants to take the mother and all the puppies, this lot will have to wait another three weeks to go to new homes.’

  Very quietly, he took a bowl of breakfast into the run and put it in front of the little dog. ‘She’s still scared, and she wants to protect her babies from us,’ he said. ‘She’ll bite if she thinks she has to.’

  Bert fed the other dogs, and then let Hannah give a chunky black labrador his biscuits. The labrador was named Sam, and the sign on his cage said, READY TO ADOPT.

  ‘Now your pal can have a turn in the playground while I hose out his run.’ Bert clipped a leash onto Surprise’s collar and handed it to Hannah.

  Hannah shook her head. ‘I’ll hose,’ she said. It didn’t seem fair to come to help and only do the fun things. So she hosed the run clean, and then Bert gave her the leash, and Hannah and Surprise ran up and down and all around the playground.

  ‘Come!’ Bert called, and when they jogged over to him, he gave Surprise a little piece of dog biscuit.

  ‘Good dog!’ said Hannah, because Surprise had gone to Bert himself, even though she’d been at the end of the leash too.

  Bert unclipped it, and showed Surprise a red ball.

  ‘Fetch!’ he said, as he threw it across the playground.

  Surprise shot after it so fast he caught it before it bounced, and then dropped it at their feet. Hannah threw it over and over, and Surprise leapt and bounded from one side of the playground to the other, catching the ball till it was so slippery with slobber she had to wipe it on the grass before she could throw it.

  ‘Hannah!’ called her mum. ‘Time to go home.’

  Hannah hugged Surprise tight, and led him back to his run.

  ‘What about the other dogs?’ she asked as she followed Bert out the gate.

  ‘They’ll get their turns. But your mate’s the youngest – he takes the most running.’