Rainbow Street Pets

by Orr, Wendy

  It made the beagle breeder happy to see people falling in love with one of her puppies. She knew this dog was going to a good home.

  ‘Her name is Bella,’ said Kate.

  ‘Because she’s so beautiful,’ Justin agreed. They had been studying Italian, and bella, for beautiful, was one of the first words they had learned.

  ‘How are we going to wait three whole weeks before we take her home?’ Kate asked. She could hardly bear to put the puppy down again, even though the mother dog was anxious and Bella was squirming.

  ‘You can visit again next weekend,’ said the owner.

  CHAPTER 2

  ella grew bigger and stronger day by day. Justin and Kate went to see her the next Saturday, and the one after that, and they could hardly believe how much she changed each time.

  The puppies could run and were starting to climb and jump up on things. And Bella was still the strongest, prettiest and smartest of all.

  Tomorrow she was going to be eight weeks old, and Kate and Justin were going to take her home.

  That night after work they went to a pet warehouse to buy Bella a soft comfy dog bed. It was pink with a pattern of white bones, and as they walked around the pet store they filled it up with toys. They chose a soft baby ball for her to roll, a teddy bear to comfort her when she was alone, and a squeaky rubber bone for her to chew.

  They bought a water dish, a food dish, a red collar and soft leash; special puppy food, puppy treats, and a sack of pee pads to put in the bathroom, for when they were at work and couldn’t take Bella outside.

  On Saturday morning they were too excited about getting their new puppy to go out for breakfast. They had toast and coffee, tidied the kitchen, and were ready to go.

  Kate sighed with happiness. The sun was shining in the windows; the apartment was clean and polished. Soon their beautiful puppy would be in her little pink bed in the corner, and their lives would be even more perfect than they were now.

  Another car was already at the beagle breeder’s when Kate and Justin arrived.

  ‘We were lucky we chose Bella first!’ Kate whispered as they walked to the door.

  Luckily, the other family seemed very happy too. They had a boy and a girl, and they’d chosen a boy and a girl puppy. ‘The pups will be company for each other during the day,’ they told Kate and Justin, ‘and the kids will give them lots of exercise.’

  ‘Beagles do need lots of exercise!’ the owner agreed. ‘And you’ll need to be firm with them and start some puppy training right away.’

  She kissed each puppy on the top of its smooth little head as she handed it to its new owners. ‘They’ve already had their first lot of shots,’ she explained. ‘You’ll have to take them to your own vets for the next ones in a couple of weeks. But love’s the most important thing – lots of play and lots of love should give you long and happy lives together.’

  Kate and Justin were ready to give the puppy just as much love as she needed.

  Bella sat on Kate’s lap on the way home. For the first ten minutes she snuggled and squirmed, trying to climb up to lick Kate’s face. Then she tried to waddle across to Justin. For the last five minutes she squirmed as if she couldn’t get comfortable. Finally, as they pulled into their parking space, she threw up.

  ‘I should have brought a towel,’ said Kate, wiping vomit off her new jeans with a tissue.

  Justin took the puppy, snapped the little collar in place, and clipped on the leash. ‘We’d better keep her outside till she’s finished.’ He put her down on the grass.

  Bella had never worn a collar before, but she didn’t seem to mind. She didn’t even seem to mind that she’d just been sick. She waddled around the grass, sniffing and squeaking.

  ‘I wonder if she has to pee?’ Justin asked.

  ‘Let’s wait a bit longer,’ said Kate.

  Bella was too busy to pee – there were new smells to sniff and new things to see. She yipped at a boy on a skateboard, cowered at the hiss of a bus opening its doors, and bounded over to people walking past. Nearly everyone stopped to smile and say, ‘She’s so cute!’

  Justin and Kate felt very proud as they carried their new puppy up to their home.

  An hour later, Bella had peed on the floor, tipped over her water dish, chewed the ends off the laces of Justin’s sneakers, and finally fallen asleep in the middle of the floor.

  Kate picked her up and laid her gently in the pink-and-white-bone bed.

  ‘She looks so sweet when she’s asleep,’ said Kate.

  ‘The breeder said she’d need about twenty hours of sleep a day – she’ll probably sleep for ages,’ said Justin.

  They tucked the teddy bear in beside the peaceful puppy, closed the door quietly and went out for lunch.

  Bella slept for nearly an hour. Then a door slammed in the apartment upstairs. She woke up and found herself alone.

  Bella had never been alone before. She’d never been away from her mother and brothers and sisters. She started to cry. She whined and yipped, and then she howled.

  Howling felt good for a while, but when she was bored with it she chewed gently on her teddy bear. The teddy bear fell over, so she growled and wrestled it out of the basket. It was bigger than her, but she dragged it around the floor until its ear came off.

  She began to explore the apartment. Kate’s furry slippers were beside the bed. They smelled of wool and Kate, and Bella began to chew.

  CHAPTER 3

  very night after school, Timothy took Sherlock for a walk. Sometimes when his dad got home they all went for a long walk together, down to the beach or the leash-free park. But unless he had soccer practice, Tim always walked Sherlock first.

  When his mother had moved out two years ago, Tim had hated coming home from school. Mrs Gunther, their neighbour, would meet him at the school gate and take him next door till his dad, Matt, got home from work.

  Tim had lived next door to the Gunthers for as long as he could remember. They were like extra grandparents. But going home to Mrs Gunther wasn’t the same as going home to his mum. And when his dad got home it still wasn’t the same, because Matt was as miserable as Tim, and the house felt sad and empty too, even when they were both there. But Sherlock had changed everything.

  Sherlock was a beagle, and until three months ago he’d been a sniffer dog. He’d worked with Tim’s dad at the airport, checking that people weren’t bringing in any food or plants or animals that they weren’t supposed to. It was a very important job, because if bugs or diseases came in with the food or plants, they could spread around the country. Sherlock had been good at it. He’d walk along beside Tim’s dad, and if he smelled any plants or animals, he would sit down in front of the person and their bag.

  ‘Show me,’ Matt would say, and Sherlock would sniff at the pocket on the backpack, or the corner of the suitcase where the smell was coming from.

  He could smell so well that sometimes he sat down in front of a bag that someone had used as a picnic bag the week before, even though there was no food in it now. He’d smelled dog treats that people had forgotten they had in their pocket, and chocolate bars they’d forgotten were in their bags.

  But he’d also found lots of things that people knew they weren’t allowed to bring in with them. He’d discovered papayas, grapes, lemons, mangoes, and nearly every other kind of fruit there was. Sometimes the fruit he found did have fruit flies or other bugs. He’d sniffed out sausages and salamis hidden in socks, seeds tucked into shoes, wooden carvings full of woodworm, and a giant python coiled in a suitcase.

  On his eighth birthday, Sherlock had retired and come home to live with Tim and his dad. He was still a very good detective, but it was time for him to relax and enjoy being a dog, instead of working all day.

  Tim’s dad had been worried that Sherlock might be bored, but the beagle loved his new life just as much as he’d loved working. He slept in his basket in the living room, but every morning at six-thirty he woke Matt, and then Tim.

  Now, when Tim ca
me home, the house wasn’t empty, because Sherlock was there waiting for him. He sniffed Tim up and down, as if he was finding out what the boy had been doing, who he’d seen and what he’d eaten. He did the same to Mrs Gunther when she came over to make a snack. No matter what Tim was eating, Sherlock was sure he needed some too. His eyes were so soft and pleading that it was very hard to say no.

  ‘You know what your dad says,’ Mrs Gunther reminded Tim when he tried to sneak Sherlock half a biscuit or a bit of cheese. ‘Beagles love to eat, and it’s very easy for them to get fat. It’s not healthy for them!’

  But sometimes she gave in to the begging eyes too, and cut a slice of apple or carrot for Sherlock. ‘At least that’s healthy,’ she said when Tim saw her doing it.

  The only bad part about Sherlock being retired was that Tim’s dad didn’t have a dog to work with anymore. All dogs sniff, but not every dog can learn to be a sniffer dog and work in a busy airport. They have to have lots of energy to work all day, be very smart about what they’re sniffing for, and stay calm and friendly around the people they meet.

  Right now, there wasn’t another dog who could do all those things. So, until the right beagle was accepted for training, Matt had to do more paperwork and other jobs he didn’t like as much.

  Tim knew his dad wouldn’t be happy again till he had a dog to work with.

  By the time Bella was a year old, she had chewed up two left sneakers, one pair of sandals, one high-heeled boot, one pair of jeans, and more socks and underwear than Justin or Kate could count. She’d eaten sunglasses, remote controls, and the spines off a whole shelf of books.

  She’d been to the Emergency Room when she couldn’t stop vomiting after eating the lilies in a vase on the coffee table. She’d had another trip after she found a bowl of Easter eggs.

  She had a chain leash now, because she liked to chew on it whenever she had to stop on a walk. She could eat through a soft leash while they waited for a green light to cross the road.

  Justin and Kate didn’t know that she’d even eaten the back seatbelts in the car.

  One day they came home after leaving their bedroom door open and found the bedspread in the middle of the living room, white fluff scattered all over the apartment, and an empty torn-up pillowcase in the bathroom. When they went to make the bed again, they noticed more white stuffing in the bedroom and a beagle-sized hole in the mattress.

  After that they put Bella in a dog-crate when they were at work, but the neighbours complained that she howled most of the time she was in it.

  Kate and Justin took turns jogging around the block with Bella before work, and again afterwards. They found a fenced dog park where they could let her run free, but Bella ran away as soon as she was let loose. Then they learned to throw a ball for her the instant they unclipped her leash. She’d always come back for her ball.

  Bella loved playing ball. She liked jumping and catching it – but what she liked best was chasing and finding the ball after a long, hard throw. And even though she’d eaten lots of balls when she was home alone, she never lost one when she was playing. It didn’t matter how deep into the bushes the ball went, Bella could always find it.

  Sometimes, if the ball had landed in a mud puddle, or under a prickly bush, they threw her a new ball. Bella would rush to it, sniff it, and leave it there while she went on searching for the ball she wanted. They could never trick her.

  They were so sure that she’d never run away if she had a ball to play with that they decided they could start taking her to a leash-free beach.

  ‘Let’s go on an adventure, Bella!’ said Kate. And they drove to a beach with bushland between the highway and the sea. Kate sang and Bella wagged all the way.

  But just as Kate picked up the ball-thrower and unclipped Bella’s leash, a rabbit ran out of the bush. Bella bayed a deep hunting call and took off after it. Her nose was low to the ground, her tail was waving, and she was running so fast that in a moment she was out of sight.

  Kate raced desperately after her. ‘Bella,’ she shrieked. ‘BELLA!’

  No beagle appeared.

  She phoned Justin. He left work right away and came to help her hunt for their runaway dog. They ran up and down the beach and through the bush. Justin’s voice was louder than Kate’s, but it didn’t make any difference – Bella didn’t come back. Once Kate thought she heard her baying again, but they didn’t ever see so much as the white tip of a beagle tail.

  Finally, when it was dark and they couldn’t run anymore, they went home.

  Tim and his dad were at the airport. Usually Tim loved going to the airport. He felt proud when pilots said hi to his dad and smiled at him. And he liked saying hello to the other sniffer dogs. If they were wearing their jackets, they were working and he wasn’t supposed to pat them, but it was okay if they weren’t dressed yet.

  Today Tim didn’t feel like smiling or talking to anyone.

  Today he was going to visit his mum all by himself. His dad was going to put him on the plane, and his mum and her new husband and new baby would meet him when he landed.

  A little part of him was excited about going on the plane, but another part was nervous. Even though his mum had moved so far away, and he only saw her in school holidays, he’d always thought that she’d come back to him and his dad one day. When she’d married her new husband he had to admit that wasn’t true, and now that he had a baby brother, it hurt all over again.

  Kate and Justin hardly slept all night. They got back to the beach just as the sun came up.

  They ran through the bush by the beach where Bella had disappeared, calling and searching on different paths. Kate saw something brown behind a sand dune.

  ‘BELLA!’ she screamed. The brown lump didn’t move. Kate’s heart tightened. ‘She’s hurt! Please don’t be dead, Bella!’

  Justin raced back to her. Gasping for breath, they ran around the dune, only to find someone’s forgotten brown T-shirt crumpled at the bottom of a bush.

  Kate burst into tears. Justin nearly did too. They didn’t know if their beautiful dog was alive or dead, or whether she was somewhere near them or far away.

  ‘We’ll phone the pound and the vet,’ said Justin. ‘Someone might have found her already.’

  CHAPTER 4

  ella had only seen the rabbit for an instant, but the moment she turned towards it, she hit its trail. She had never smelled anything like this. The scent of it poured into her wet black nose and flooded her body, a thousand times better than the smell of tennis balls or chewy treats. She couldn’t see or hear anything else – the scent said, Follow me! and she obeyed.

  Sometimes the trail circled, and sometimes it zigzagged through the scrub. When she came to a place where a second rabbit had run across the first rabbit’s path, she followed the second one, because her nose told her this trail was fresher.

  If she’d been a human, Bella would have said that she was happier than she’d ever been in her life. But she was a dog, so she didn’t stop to think about being happy or about what she wanted to do. She just did it.

  She ran and ran until she couldn’t run any more. Her legs folded up and she collapsed on the ground. She was panting hard, her long tongue was lolling out of her mouth, and her heart was racing. She still hadn’t caught a rabbit; she was hungry and very thirsty, but she was too exhausted to move.

  The world was dark, and quiet. The little beagle stayed where she was, and went to sleep.

  In the middle of the night, the full moon came out from behind a cloud. It beamed white onto the sand, lit up the hollows and spaces in the scrub, and shone into Bella’s eyes.

  She stretched and stood up. For a minute she felt lonely and lost, but after that she was too thirsty to worry about anything else.

  Water glinted below her. Bella trotted through the bush, across the sand to the sea and lapped up a great mouthful of salt water.

  It tasted terrible. She shook her head in disgust and tried again. It tasted even worse.

  Bella gave
up and trotted on down the beach. The salt water in her belly made her vomit, but then she found a dead fish at the tideline. It stank, but Bella liked stinky smells, so when she’d eaten it, she rolled in the seaweed it had been lying in.

  Back up near the bush, she found half an ice-cream cone, still soggy with melted ice-cream. Bella ate that quickly – and a moment later she smelled rabbit.

  She forgot that she was thirsty and tired. Her nose was telling her to run, and she ran. The rabbit led her in long looping circles through the darkness, and when it finally disappeared down a hole, Bella was further than ever from where Kate had last seen her.

  She collapsed under another bush and slept till dawn, her body twitching with exhaustion.

  The next time Bella woke up, she trotted the other way through the bush, towards the highway. She licked up pools of dew on the footpath and found some soggy chips in a crumpled bag. She was ready to go home.

  The morning rush of traffic had begun. Cars and trucks were hurtling along the highway towards the city. Bella stood on the curb; finally she gave up waiting and rushed onto the road.

  A car swerved and honked. Bella raced back to the side, her tail tucked tight with fear, and ran back into the scrub above the beach. A little later she bayed joyfully, and started on the scent of a new rabbit.

  Kate phoned the City Pound while Justin called their local vet. ‘Beagles can run a long way,’ they were both warned. ‘But we’ll call you as soon as we hear anything.’

  They hugged each other tight, and went to work. They knew it was going to be a long and miserable day.

  An hour later, a jogger with a bull terrier heard a dog barking in the bush. It wasn’t a frightened bark, or saying, Come play with me! Even though the man had never known a beagle, he was sure it was a hunting bark.