Puppy Party

by Anna Wilson

  Molly grimaced and said with Great Reluctance, ‘I do not have another Option Two, or even an Option Three.’

  So that was that. Frank came and helped us to walk the dogs and we did not have any further Major Disaster Moments. Molly made him agree in writing that he would not ask for any money from us. And although he rolled his eyes when he signed her special contract, he said it was OK as long as he could eat as many crisps and cakes as he wanted at the party.

  y the time we had walked all the dogs in the neighbourhood that there were to walk, there were only FOUR DAYS left until the party! I was getting rather over-panical about it, as we had done literally Zero the Hero about decorations or a cake or planning games or buying the snacks or anything.

  And Nick had called Mum and told her he had FORTY-FIVE people coming to the party. Mum had gone a bit white when he had said this, as our house is not very big, but Nick had told her it was too difficult not to invite them all.

  ‘This has turned into a mega party. We are going to have to stop doing our dog walking and start doing some party organizing,’ I told Molly.

  ‘But we’ve only earned fifty pounds!’ Molly cried, as she counted out the last coin.

  ‘Yay!’ I cried. ‘That means we have one hundred pounds in total! That is a huge and totally massive amount of money: we can probably buy even more stuff than we had thought of originally!’

  I clasped my hands together in utter and grinned at my Bestest Friend.

  But my Bestest Friend did not join in my gleefulness. In fact, she was strangely silent.

  ‘Hey, Molly?’ I said. ‘An extra fifty pounds is great – isn’t it?’ My heart had started to flutter OMINOUSLY, in other words in a manner that was full of dread and foreboding.

  Molly sighed loudly and shook her head.

  I held my breath in horror.

  ‘It’s not enough,’ Molly said quietly. ‘When I did the hack, the whole list of stuff came to at least one hundred and fifty, and that was without a cake for April and without food for the extra guests Nick has invited.’

  ‘WHAT?’ I exclaimed. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I let my head sink into my hands. ‘I’m going to call Nick,’ I said in a muffled way. ‘He will have to uninvite people.’

  Molly reached over and put a hand on my arm. ‘It’s not the people, really. It’s the dog treats,’ she said gently. ‘They are all just so expensive.’

  She chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. Then her eyes did the shiny thing they do when her brain starts to , and her eyebrows started to rise up into her fringe, and a huge grin spread over her face.

  ‘Of course!’ she cried, slapping her leg in a dramatical fashion. ‘I am so stupid.’

  I was gobbersmacked and flabberboozled. I had never heard Molly call herself that before.

  ‘Dogs eat anything, don’t they? You have seen what they are like in the park, eating all manner of disgusting rubbish. So we don’t have to spend so much on them.’

  ‘But I don’t want my dog eating disgusting rubbish!’ I protested.

  Molly put her head on one side and smiled. ‘I know, I don’t mean real rubbish. What I mean is, they can eat what we eat! Like sausage rolls and mini scotch eggs and mini pizzas and crisps – it’s all savoury stuff, isn’t it? They will LOVE it! Yes, that’s it. I will ADJUST our list, in other words change it, so that we just get a few more bits and pieces of the human-type food. And then I’ll ask Mum to take us to the supermarket to get everything, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ I said. I was not one hundred and ten per cent certain that Molly really had come up with a proper solution. But what else could we do?

  Mrs Cook said that she would be happy to take us to the supermarket the next day. It was really kind of her to agree to take us because Mum was at work and I would have had to catch the bus otherwise, which would not have been easy with a ton of shopping bags. But the bad thing about Molly’s mum taking us was that we had to wait until she had tidied up her house first (which is her major Number One Hobby in life) and that apparently took ALL MORNING!

  And oh my goodness dearie me did that morning drag on and on and on while I waited for them. I must have looked at the clock at least fifty million times between breakfast and ten o’clock. I even tried catching it by surprise a few times by creeping up on it backwards and whirling round to see if the hands had moved on any faster, as I was sure it was slowing down on purpose to annoy me.

  It was made all the worse because I was on my own. I suppose that’s what the expression ‘too much time on your hands’ means, as if I had not been on my own, the time would have had to spread itself around between more people. But as it was, Mum had had to go to work, April obviously was not there, and Honey was quite sleepy and pooped from all the extra exercise she had been getting with the other dogs we had been walking, and was sleeping it off in her basket.

  In a fit of the Most Ultra-Boring Boredom in Boringsville, I decided to get out Mum’s laptop and do some Surfing of the Internet. I thought I might find out some fun and interesting facts about dogs that I did not already know and possibly at the same time get some ideas for games that were not as bonkers as ‘musical pups’ (bah!)

  I decided, for a laugh, to type in ‘parties for dogs’ and then looked down a long list of things, most of which, as usual, were no use at all and not in the slightest tiny amount interesting. But then a site caught my eye. It was called:

  HOW TO THROW A POOCH PARTY

  ‘This looks good!’ I thought, and read on:

  Here are some quick tips for you to follow:

  Spend a Penny!

  Make sure your pup has done his/her ‘business’ before the event. This helps to avoid embarrassing ‘party pooper’ problems!

  Well THAT was kind of obvious!

  Don’t Invite Party Bores

  If a dog finds it hard to get along with unfamiliar dogs and people, it could cause havoc and will not enjoy itself either.

  Of course I was only inviting the pooches I knew and cared most about in the whole entire world . . .

  Mood Music

  If you play music, make sure the volume is turned down so that it is soft enough for sensitive canine ears.

  Oh dear, another thing to plan.

  Party Games

  How about a contest for things such as ‘largest tail,’ ‘best trick’ or ‘floppiest ears,’ with prizes or paper awards going to the winners. For a real treat, why not hire a pet massage therapist? Dogs receive their massage on a soft, warm blanket!

  Who on earth could get their pooch to lie still enough to give them a massage on a blanket! I knew Honey would not and the younger dogs would be far too excitable. But the ‘largest tail’ and ‘best trick’ contests sounded quite fun. The human guests might think it was a laugh too which would be a way of getting them to join in.

  I was just starting to feel happier about the party and more in control of things, when I read this next bit:

  Party Food

  DOGS SHOULD NOT EAT THE SAME FOOD AS YOUR HUMAN GUESTS! All dogs should still follow their normal diets. Human food can be very dangerous to dogs, particularly some takeaway or party food, so check out the list below to make sure you do not serve anything that will harm the dogs. You do not want to be dealing with a sick dog during your party!

  I was totally and utterly flabbergasted and glued to the screen. This was an utter disaster! It was in fact mightily

  I closed my eyes tight and forced myself to breathe in and out as normally as possible. Then I started talking to myself to calm myself down: ‘The party is really for April First and Foremost, in other words April is the most important person in this whole thing, not the pooches. If necessary we can shut them outside away from the human food and they can just play and run around until they are exhaustified.’

  But I knew this was not going to work: our garden was not big enough for so many dogs to be left unsupervised. And what about it being Honey’s birthday too? The whole point had been to have the party for her as well.
I couldn’t cancel the doggy guests because I had promised that Titch and Meatball could come. And Custard had to be there because he was the Decoy.

  I made myself read through a list at the bottom of the screen of all the dangerous foods. All the things Molly had talked about – the sausage rolls, the pizza and so on and so on were on there. (And chocolate was actually a POISONOUS food for dogs – at least we had not planned on giving them any of that.)

  ‘Oh Honey!’ I said, running into the utility room, where she was snuggled up in her basket, totally Oblivious to the whole . ‘Thank goodness to mercy and all the highest heavens that I read all that important information on the Internet before it was too late!’ I threw my arms around her and hugged and squeezed her.

  I had to talk Molly straight away.

  I picked up the phone there and then and Paced Up and Down the hall with Honey following at my heels and almost in fact tripping me up, while I waited what I was sure was an entire Eternity for Molly to answer.

  ‘Hello. Molly Cook speaking,’ she finally said, in her poshest telephone answering voice.

  ‘Hello, it’s me.’

  ‘Ooooh it’s yooooou! Oh, my goodness dearie me!’ squealed Molly. I could literally hear her jumping up and down with excitement. ‘Only a couple more hours till our shopping trip, which is going to be the totally bestest shopping trip ever! And then only THREE DAYS until the ACTUAL PARTY—!’

  ‘Yes, that’s why I’m ringing,’ I butted in. Goodness I was very grateful indeed that we were not yet at that point in the future where everyone in the world had those phones where you can see the person you are speaking to and Vice Versa (in other words, the other way around). If Molly had been able to see me while I was talking, she would have known that I was in a .

  Molly said, ‘Oh?’ as if she was not one tiddly iota of a bit interested in what I had to say, but because I know her so well, I could tell that actually she was extremely vastly interested indeed.

  ‘It’s about the dogs,’ I said. And then I left a dramatical pause, which I have to say was very clever of me. It is something I have learned from watching those Cliff Hanger Suspension programmes on the telly where a character tells a person only half a piece of information so that they are literally hanging, as if from a cliff by the edges of their fingernails, on the every breath of what the character is saying. It is called Reeling Someone In, in other words, it means you have that person sort of in your power for a moment.

  ‘What about the dogs?’ said Molly, in an impatient, yet interested, tone.

  ‘It’s so important that I think you should come round to my place right away before we go on the actual shopping trip so that I can show you all sorts of mega-cool things I have found out on the Internet,’ I said, which was kind of lying, but only slightly.

  ‘All right, I will see if Mum will let me,’ she said. I could tell that she was quite inquisitive now.

  Luckily Molly did come round, almost straight away. She cannot resist anything about dogs, especially now that she has her own gorgeous pupsicle, Mr Titch.

  ‘So,’ she said, before I had even completely opened the front door. ‘What is this extremely important piece of information about dogs on the Internet that you couldn’t tell me about over the phone?’

  ‘Come in,’ I said, fixing a beamy grin on my face.

  Molly followed me into the sitting room where I had the laptop ready. I had scrolled to the list of dangerous foods and I gestured to Molly to sit in front of it.

  ‘I am so sorry about this, Molly, but I am in a total panic about the party food situation. I have found this information and I thought you should see it because you have not been an actual dog-owner-type person for really that long, and you might not know that there are foods that human people can eat that our doggie friends simply can’t as otherwise they might get ill or even actually die!’ I had to stop there, as I was running out of breath and feeling a little light in the head.

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ cried Molly, looking down the list. ‘I knew about the chocolate, OBVIOUSLY – every dog-owner knows that, for goodness sake who would give their dog chocolate?’ I was pretty sure she had no INKLING at all about that, but Now Was Not the Time to argue, ‘But I had no idea about the other things!’ She scanned the list rather panickedly and began wildly scrolling down the page and reading more and more. She squeaked every time she read something new, and her face got whiter and whiter. I began to feel rather ashamed that I had got her into such a state.

  Eventually Molly sat back, slumped in the chair and looking like a person who has been made to run fifty times round the sports field and then been told that they will have to do it again in five minutes. Except that she actually looked worse than that, because she not only looked exhaustified and Deflated, but she had also gone very quiet and was staring at the screen as if she was in a trance.

  My heart slid in a slippery fashion into my shoes as I realized we would definitely have to cancel the dog part of the party. It was all just too difficult.

  I gulped. ‘Are you OK, Molly?’ I asked softly.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said distractivatedly. She was still staring at the screen but she was now scrolling down and reading more and more of the scary information.

  ‘Molly,’ I said, worriedly. ‘You don’t need to read any more. You will only make yourself more and more anxious.’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Molly. She was still reading.

  ‘So do you think we should maybe think about cancelling the pooch bit of the party?’ I muttered. Molly turned to me as I said this, and I cringed, waiting for an explosion from my Best Friend.

  But there was no explosion. In fact, Molly was happily smiling at me. She also had a rather UNSETTLING look in her eyes. In other words, her eyes were glinting in a suspicious and worrying manner. In fact, it looked as though she was about to say that she had thought of a Masterly Plan.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but Molly got there first. ‘I’ve just had the most Masterly of Masterly Plans,’ she said, her beaming smile turning into the sort of smile a mad-genius-inventor-type person smiles before saying that he or she has just discovered the secrets of the universe, and that now they have told you that, they are going to have to kill you.

  ‘Yes?’ I said, trying not to show how nervously miserable I was feeling at the PROSPECT.

  ‘Yes!’ said Molly. ‘We do not need to cancel anything.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘NO! We will get some ingredients from the supermarket this afternoon and we will cook our own dog food! Look,’ she said, pointing to Mum’s laptop. ‘Look what it says right here: “Why not have a go at cooking your own dog food?” And there’s a whole load of recipe links here. It is utter geniusness.’

  I was not finding Molly’s enthusiasm for this new plan very infectious. In fact, I could not help feeling that it was not an idea that was going to turn out at all well.

  f we make our own doggy treats, this will truly be a party to remember!’ Molly announced.

  ‘But why in the high heavens above would anyone who is at all sane and normal want to COOK THEIR OWN DOG FOOD?’ I asked. Molly shot me a particularly strange look.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Er, I seem to remember that someone was quite keen on cooking for their pooch when that pooch was expecting puppies?’ she said pointfully.

  ‘No – what? Oh . . . !’ I said, and suddenly I felt very silly and sheepish indeed. Because the thing is, when Honey was expecting, her eating habits went just a little bit , to say the least, and I was so worried that she was not eating properly that I looked it all up in my book, Perfect Puppies, and I discovered that a pregnant dog can often go off her normal food and that it can be a good idea to tempt her with other things. Such as peanut butter on toast, and scrambled egg made with butter and cream.

  ‘That was different,’ I muttered defensively. ‘Honey was pregnant, and it is well known that pooches can go off their usual food at such a delicate and sometimes difficult time
.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Molly, ‘I actually think it is a faberoony idea to cook for the pooches. It will be such fun! Not to mention very responsible in a dog-owner-type way, as then we can be one hundred and ten per cent certain that we will not be feeding them with ultra-dangerous and in fact positively TOXIC (i.e. poisonous) stuff. I bet you already have a lot of what we need in the cupboards, so we might not even have to spend as much from the budget as if we went out and got all those expensive doggy treats from the pet shop. In fact, let’s go through the cupboards now and check off what else we need to make those recipes. We will have to re-do the shopping list, but that is OK, as I have my notebook with me anyway, so it is no Big Deal to make a few AMENDMENTS.’

  I had been about to agree enthusiastically when I realized what it was Molly was IMPLYING. ‘Hang on a minute,’ I said slowly. ‘Did you just say that I would already have what we needed? As in “Let’s do the cooking at Summer’s house”?’

  ‘Ye-es,’ said Molly in a tone which suggested that I was rather stupid and Slow on the Uptake, in other words, not on the same length of wave as she was. ‘You don’t think we can do the cooking at my place, do you? For a start Mum would go bonkers doolally round the twist if she caught us mucking up her PRISTINE kitchen, and for a finish, it’s your sister’s party, so obviously it makes perfect sense to be doing the cooking here.’