Puppy Party

by Anna Wilson

  ‘Honey’s birthday!’ I said, nodding, as the face of my Best Friend lit up and looked how mine felt – tight and smiley and sparkly with happiness at my Very Brilliant Idea.

  ‘Honey’s birthday is the same week as April’s as it so happens – remember Frank told us she was born at Easter that time he came into school and announced that “A Dog is for Life, not Just for Christmas” and we all teased him because it had just been Easter?’

  ‘YES!’ said Molly and she began scribbling furiously in her Notebook of Outstanding Beauty in a way that was not at all mindful of its specialness, in other words she was not using her bestest writing but rather making a bit of a big old scribble in it.

  This is what she wrote:

  [I should point out that this last bit was Molly’s opinion. Frank can be quite a laugh.]

  ‘We need to think about food too,’ I pointed out. ‘And decorations and stuff. Mum has said we can have a Budget.’

  ‘Faberoony!’ Molly cried. ‘So let’s brainstorm food, then.’ And she scribbled away some more.

  ‘I suppose we ought to get some of those doggy chocolates and bones and chews in the shape of shoes and things for the dogs?’ I suggested.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Molly, nodding seriously and noting down those items on her list. ‘In fact there are so many cool treats you can buy for dogs these days – like those weird red balls you can fill with biscuits so that the dogs can roll them around and get the biscuits out.’

  ‘Oh yeah! Doggy biscuits!’ I cried. ‘Write down “All manner of shape, colour and size of dog biscuits”.’

  ‘And what about a cake for April?’ Molly asked.

  ‘And one for Honey!’ I cried, getting quite over-excitical. I loved going to the pet shop and looking at all the treats for pooches – and now I had a Budget to go and buy loads of them!

  ‘It might be fun to make some decorations,’ Molly suggested, tapping her pencil against her teeth. ‘We should probably put “card” and “pens” on the shopping list just in case.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘We could cut out paw-print patterns and stick them on the walls and windows. And maybe make some of those little flags on strings?’

  ‘Bunting,’ said Molly.

  ‘What?’ I said, puzzled.

  ‘That’s what those little flags on strings are called,’ said Molly impatiently.

  I decided to ignore her know-it-all manner and move on. ‘By the way, I don’t think we should tell April about the super brainwave of having dogs at the party.’

  Molly nodded in a DECISIVE way and tapped her notebook with her pencil. ‘I absolutely and positively agree with you,’ she said. ‘If this party is a surprise, we should not actually tell her about any of the details of it anyway, should we?’

  ‘But we will have to tell someone to get April to the party otherwise she won’t come and then it would be a surprise party without her, which would not be much fun or indeed much of a surprise,’ I pointed out.

  Molly shook her head in a sad and sorry-for-me way and said, ‘Honestly, Summer, you can be quite a few sandwiches short of the full picnic sometimes you know. You will have to tell NICK of course.’

  I was muddled up with excitement and was not thinking in a straight line. ‘But how do I tell Nick without April overhearing or finding out in some way?’ I said.

  Molly said, ‘Hmmm,’ thoughtfully.

  Then her eyes went very wide and shiny and she beamed a big large smile and put her finger in the air as though she had just had a moment, which our teacher told us once is an Ancient Greek word for saying she had had the most brilliant idea, and she said, ‘We will AMBUSH him at work!’

  o you think maybe we should tell Nick about the puppy part of it?’ Molly asked later on while we were having a drink in the kitchen as a break from our brainstorming. Brainstorming is thirsty-making work.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. I wasn’t sure whether Nick would be against the idea or not.

  ‘Maybe it will be more of a surprise if we do not tell him any of the details of the party at all,’ Molly said. ‘Now I come to think of it, your mum should be Kept in the Dark too, in case she Spills the Beans.’

  ‘What nonsense are you going on about?’ I asked. ‘We cannot have the party in the dark, and as for giving people beans to eat—’

  ‘I meant that your mum might by mistake tell April about the surprise if we give her too many details,’ Molly explained.

  ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘I suppose that’s right. They are always talking together on the phone about everything. But what about Nick? If we don’t tell him about the pooch part of the party then how will he know about bringing Custard?’ I said.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Molly. ‘That’s a good point. Also, poor Honey will not get any presents if people do not know that it is her birthday too.’

  ‘Honey does not need presents – there will be lots of pooches to play with and lots of doggy treats, and that is all that Honey wants,’ I said. Honestly, considering Molly was now a dog-owner-type person, she could be quite weird about what a dog’s Essential Needs in Life could be.

  ‘Do you know, I’ve had an astoundly excellent idea about Custard,’ I continued. It was truly amazing how many moments I seemed to be having these days. ‘I can invite him as a kind of DECOY, in other words, if Nick and April come round here with Custard, that will make everything seem totally normal as if they are just coming round for tea like they always do! April will not suspect a thing.’

  Molly nodded and pulled her mouth down in an I-am-impressed sort of expression.

  Mum came into the kitchen. ‘How’s the party-planning going?’ she asked, as she turned to put the kettle on.

  ‘We-ell,’ I said, in a long-drawn-out and ponder-ish tone. And then I told her our thoughts about the Decoy.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Mum. ‘I’m not sure about that. We don’t really want Custard and Honey here if we’re going to have a houseful of guests, do we?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes we do!’ I said, rather over-hastily.

  ‘Summer is absolutely right,’ Molly said. I gave her a grateful look. ‘It will mean that April will not suspect a thing, as she and Nick always come round with Custard. They never leave him at home when they usually come, do they?’

  ‘No-o,’ said Mum in a faltering fashion. She was looking a bit anxious, which made her forehead even more wrinkly than it was supposed to be for a woman of her age.

  ‘So we have decided that we will ambush Nick at work,’ Molly went on, ‘to tell him about the party. I’m sure he won’t mind that, will he? Maybe we should take Honey or Titch with us so that the other people in the vet’s think that we have a proper appointment,’ she suggested. Then she paused and added anxiously, ‘Unless you think he might make us pay for bringing the dogs?’

  I glanced at Mum to see if she had any useful suggestions to add to the conversation. She didn’t. She was actually biting in her lips as if she was trying not to laugh, for some reason.

  ‘Ahem!’ she said squeakily. ‘I don’t think you need to take the dogs. And Nick wouldn’t charge us anyway.’

  ‘OH!’ said Molly, in a sort of offended manner. ‘So you get special family treatment, do you? I don’t think that is very fair for all the other patients.’

  Mum gave a sort of snorty laugh and then suggested that if we saw Nick we could ask him to help with the guest list. Then she told us to excuse her, because she had to go and do something she’d just forgotten she had to do.

  I decided to draw the conversation back to the party as we were getting Off The Point. ‘Listen,’ I said in a calm and collected-ish tone of speaking. ‘Let’s go to his vet place straight away after school tomorrow when we have broken up for the holidays. There is no way April will be there as her office job does not finish until at least half past five.’

  Molly was still glaring at me but I made my face all sweet and innocent-ish and just said, ‘Oh, sorry, is tomorrow not a convenient day for you? Never mind, I am not bothered if I have to
go on my own to ask him.’

  ‘Oh no, you mustn’t go on your own,’ Molly said, immediately sounding worried and concerned. ‘I am sure that I can make it and it doesn’t matter if you don’t want me to bring Titch. It might make him over-excited and rather Impossible to Deal with, anyway.’

  So that is what we did the next afternoon. It was the kind of day that Mum describes as in a smiley, beamy voice as if she is about to break into song like people do in musicals. The birds were singing and the sun was shining and the clouds were white and poofy (which are my favourite kind of clouds as they are all different shapes and you can have fun staring up at them and trying to find pictures in them. Once I found a pig and another time I saw the whole entire map of the British Isles and another time there was a dog’s head that I am absolutely convinced and certain was the same shape as Honey’s head).

  I don’t know if it was the weather or if it was the fact that we had just finished school for the term (hurrah and double hurrah!) or if it was that we were fizzing with excitement about the secret party, but Molly and I were actually skipping down the road to the vet’s.

  ‘Do you think Nick will be as ----- about the secret party idea as we are?’ I chirruped to Molly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Molly, pausing mid-skip as she thought about this, which meant that I crashed into her as I lost my balance when I turned to see why she had stopped and sort of toppled sideways. ‘Ow!’ Molly said angrily.

  ‘“Ow”, yourself!’ I said, rubbing my own arm. ‘Why have you stopped?’

  Molly said grumpily, ‘Cos your question stopped me completely literally in my mid-tracks. It has made me wonder something.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘And what is that?’

  Molly took a deep breath and then said, ‘Well, what if Nick has already thought up a super-romantic and ultra-dreamy date for April’s first birthday as his wife?’

  ‘Urgh!’ I said. I didn’t mean to say that. It just slipped out.

  Molly rolled her eyes and said, ‘Honestly, Summer. You are allowed to be romantic when you are married, you know. Just because you have got married does not mean you have to stop doing romantic things together. In fact, the Agony Uncle in the magazine my mum reads called Good Housewife says that you should be romantic when you are married, even if you have been married for about fifty years like my parents have, because if you stop being romantic, then that is when The Love Dies.’

  It was my turn to roll my eyes mega-hugely now. ‘Let’s just stop talking about it, can we? It is after all MY sister that I am now imagining being romantic, and it is not an image that I like to have to hold on to in my head, thank you very much. If Nick has made such a plan, he shall simply have to RESCHEDULE it for another occasion, in other words, not on April’s birthday.’

  Molly laughed and said, ‘OK. Race you to the end of the road!’

  So that was the end of the conversation about Romantic Things, thank the high heavens above.

  ick was busy when we got there. At least, that is what the beaky-nosed snarly receptionist said when we asked if we could talk to him.

  ‘No,’ she said, in the sort of voice which I think is called NASAL, in other words it sounds as though the person is really talking through their nose passages instead of their mouth. And this lady did have an exceptionally ginormous nose, so maybe she did in fact talk with it instead of using the normal manner of human communication.

  I thought back to when Felicity Shufflebottom had been working in the surgery. (Yes, that is a real name.) She had not been a nice person because she had tried to run off with Nick while he was going out with my sister. Mum said Felicity had Set Her Sights on Nick, which apparently means that she was a very determined woman and had decided that she would get Nick to go out with her, no matter what. Luckily Nick was much too nice and honest and (I hate to say it) too much with April to be distractivated by the strange fluttery-eyed attentions of someone like her, and so everything worked out all right in the end. Nick told Felicity that he could not go out with her because he was in love with April, and to prove it he asked April to marry him, and The Bottom Shuffler (as I secretly like to call her) was so upset when she found out that she stormed out of the vet’s in a huff and said she would get a job elsewhere and that would teach Nick ‘not to mess with a woman’s emotional state’, whatever that means.

  Good riddance to her, is what I say. I mean, April could be pretty unbearable at the best of times, but while The Bottom Shuffler (aka TBS) was trying to get her Grip of Iron around Nick, April was totally and completely impossible to live with. So I for one was rather a bit relieved when TBS moved off the scene.

  But even if you took all that PHENOMENAL hoo-ha into consideration, it had to be said that Felicity Shufflebottom was at least much nicer than this old beeswax of a person with a huge beaky nose who Molly and I were CONFRONTED with that afternoon (and, believe me, I never thought I would say that).

  ‘Fine,’ I said, in a strong and purposeful voice. ‘If Mr Harris is busy that is all right. We will wait until he is free.’

  ‘You don’t appear to have an appointment,’ said Nasal Woman, making a big deal out of peering at her computer screen and then peering back at us. ‘And you don’t appear to have an animal with you, either.’

  Molly dug me in the ribs and twisted her mouth at me in an I-told-you-so look, but I was not going to be DETERRED, which is a posh way of saying I was not going to be put off.

  I pulled my shoulders back and held my head high to make myself look taller and said firmly, ‘I do not need an appointment or an animal actually, as Nick Harris is married to my sister and so technically I am family.’

  Molly sniggered and Nasal Woman arched one eyebrow so high it almost disappeared into her fringe (something which would have impressed me if I had been in the mood to be impressed, which I was not). Then she started to say, ‘That may be, young lady, but I am afraid I have been given strict instructions not to let anyone see the vet without an appoint—’

  ‘Hello, Summer! Oh dear, Honey hasn’t got herself into trouble has she? Eaten something she shouldn’t have?’ It was Nick, who had emerged from his Consulting Room behind Nasal Woman’s back, so she had not seen him and was still being - with me.

  ‘Hi, Nick!’ I said cheerily, ignoring Nasal Woman. She had whirled around and gone red in the face when she had seen that Nick did know me and was in fact pleased to see me.

  ‘What are you doing leaving these girls out here, Penelope?’ Nick said. ‘You know I’m free at the moment. You should have waved them through.’

  ‘I – er – aah,’ said Nasal Penelope.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Nick, waving his hand impatiently. ‘Come through, girls. I’ve only got ten minutes till the next patient.’

  We left Nasal Penelope opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish at feeding time and followed Nick into his room.

  ‘So what’s up with my beautiful girl then?’ Nick said in a weird soppy voice, and looking around as though he had lost something.

  ‘Er, I don’t know,’ I said, puzzled. ‘I would have thought you would have known if there was anything wrong with April seeing as you are now legally her husband and have to live with her all the time—’

  Molly nudged me very hard in the ribs at this point, which made me shriek, which made Nick burst out laughing, which was not very kind of him, I thought.

  ‘Whatyoudothatfor?’ I hissed at Molly, who was also laughing now.

  ‘You numpty, Nick is asking how Honey is, not your sister!’ Molly said, between laughs and gasps for breath.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, feeling stupid. ‘Erm, nothing is up with your beautiful girl. Which is why I have not brought her with me.’

  Nick looked puzzled. ‘Oh, I see. Is Titch OK, Molly?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly before bellowing with laughter again.

  ‘Honestly, Molly,’ I said impatiently. ‘You said you wanted to come with me to tell Nick all about the party and now you are not being one si
ngle ounce of a bit of help. Will you please stop laughing?’

  ‘A party?’ said Nick, perking up.

  I turned back to him and said, ‘Yes. We have come to ask you for some help, as Mum and I thought it would be lovely to have a surprise party for April’s birthday and we wanted to ask you to call some friends of hers that you think she would like to come. But the thing which is most important about all this is that you must NOT tell April. Otherwise it will not be a surprise party. That is why we have come here to tell you about it instead of ringing you up or coming round to the flat.’

  ‘Aha,’ said Nick, nodding. ‘I see. Great idea. Of course I’ll help.’

  ‘And you’ll keep it a secret from April?’

  Nick nodded again. ‘Yes,’ he said, sounding very definite. ‘Although . . .’ he added, not sounding definite at all.

  ‘What?’ I demanded. I was not liking his tone of speaking changing so suddenly like that. ‘“Although” what?’

  Nick looked uncomfortable. ‘You know what April’s like . . . she is very good at finding things out. I mean, I will do my best to keep things under cover, but I’m just saying I can’t promise she won’t discover what we’re up to!’

  ‘You jolly well better had,’ I said, putting on the same voice I had used for Nasal Penelope outside at the reception desk.

  Nick chewed his bottom lip as though he was going to start laughing again. ‘Yes, sir!’ he said, doing a comical salute as though I was the captain of a ship or an army-type commander person.

  ‘Oh! And the most important thing of all,’ I said, remembering the conversation I had had earlier with Mum and Molly, ‘is that you need to get April around to our house – I mean, my house – oh, you know! – without her knowing why she is coming round.’