by Anna Wilson
Molly looked up at me in total and utter shock and opened her mouth to protest again. But then she shut it and sighed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You’re right.’
Now it was my turn to look shocked. Molly never said anyone else was right!
‘The thing is,’ she said sheepishly, ‘I’ve sort of been a bit jealous of you lately. I mean, I know we won the Talent Contest together in the end and everything, but Honey is actually really your dog, and you get to have her at your house all the time. I’m not allowed a dog – you know that. That’s why my auntie gave me Puppy Power in the end. Mum apparently told her she thought it would stop me nagging her and Dad for a real dog.’
‘And has it?’ I asked, suddenly feeling really quite guilty. I had been spending so much time feeling sorry for myself that I hadn’t even noticed that my Bestest Friend in the entire universe had been pining after a pooch of her very own.
‘No,’ said Molly simply. ‘I mean, the game is fun and everything, but you can’t cuddle a piece of plastic, can you?’ I giggled a bit when she said this, as it made me think of Molly trying to snuggle up to her computer game or trying to take it out for a walk on the lead and it did seem quite a hilarious image.
We had a celebratory Best Friend hug and I promised to let Molly help in all things puppy-related from now on, and she promised not to go on and on about Puppy Power too much any more. Then Mum came in and we turned our attention to the food and DEMOLISHED it all, which means we gobbled our breakfast right down to the last crumb.
‘By the way, Nick’s coming with us to the breeder’s,’ Mum said as we cleared the table.
‘Hurrah!’ I shouted.
‘Oooh!’ said Molly, clasping her hands and scrunching up her face and shoulders in an all-over-body expression of excitableness. ‘I so can’t wait for Honey to have puppies!’
Mum smiled and said, ‘Well, you’ll have to, young lady! Come on – I think I heard Nick’s car. And be quiet – we don’t want April to break the habit of a lifetime and get up early. She might spot her ex-boyfriend waiting outside, and then we’ll have World War Three on our hands.’
I agreed with Mum. When we had told April the night before that we were going to see a breeder, April had just yawned and said, ‘Do I look interested?’ So hopefully this meant that she would not be getting up any time soon.
We went out with Honey to meet Nick.
‘Hi! All set?’ was all he said.
He didn’t look as excited as I personally thought he should have done, considering how marvellously magnificent it was that we were finally going to the breeder. In fact he looked a bit uncomfortable, like he had just smelt a pongy whiff or something. And he kept checking over his shoulder.
We were going in Nick’s car as he had met the breeder before and knew the way to his house.
Honey was going to have to sit in the back with me and Molly, as Nick did not have a very big car. She wasn’t very keen on that idea.
‘You are still a bouncy girl, aren’t you?’ said Nick, turning round and rubbing her head. ‘Poor old Honey – you don’t know what’s about to hit you, do you? You won’t be bouncing about like this for a while.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Being pregnant is quite tiring for the mum, you know,’ Nick explained, starting the engine.
‘How come?’ Molly asked.
Nick smiled. ‘Honey’s body will have to work hard to give her puppies all the nutrients they need while they are growing. She’ll be very sleepy and you’ll need to give her lots of TLC.’
I wondered what TLC was and hoped it wasn’t a very expensive medicine. Mum would freak if she thought we’d have to spend a lot of money.
Mum sighed and said to Nick, ‘You know, sometimes I wonder how Honey will be as a mum. I mean, she’s still a puppy herself really. What is she going to be like when she’s got six or eight babies to look after?’
‘Don’t worry. Honey will know what to do,’ Nick said.
‘What other things will happen to Honey once she’s expecting?’ I asked.
‘Well, she might go off her food a bit,’ Nick said.
Molly started rummaging in her pink bag with the purple flowers on, which she liked to carry around with her at that time.
‘Hold on a sec,’ she said. ‘I’ve brought a new notebook along so that we can keep track of all the things we need to know. Ah, there we are – go on, Nick. Give us some veterinary-type details of the Puppy Producing Procedure.’
Nick laughed. ‘You are organized,’ he said. ‘Actually, it’s a good idea to keep a notebook or a diary of Honey’s pregnancy. OK – so what else do you want to know?’
‘Erm, how long do we have to wait for the pups to be born?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ said Nick, ‘once Honey has mated you need to count ahead nine weeks, or sixty-four days actually, to get the date that the pups will hopefully be born.’
As Molly scribbled away I was busily counting ahead on my fingers, which was quite difficult as I kept losing track, but eventually I said, ‘Oh my heavens above! I have just worked out that if everything goes according to plan, Honey will have her pups—’
‘—around Christmas time,’ Mum finished. ‘Well, that would make it a special holiday wouldn’t it?’
Molly had stopped scribbling and gone unusually quiet. I wondered if she was already making a Masterly Plan to ask her Mum for an extra-special Christmas present.
Honey sighed a loud and grunty doggy-sigh and flopped on the floor of the car.
‘Hang on a minute,’ said Mum. ‘I don’t want to be boring, but we’re jumping the gun a bit here, aren’t we? There’s no telling when – or if – Honey will become pregnant. Let’s just see how today goes.’
I must admit I was not that chuffed about the breeder when we first saw him. He looked a bit like a grown-up version of Mr Frank Stink-i-verse Gritter – in other words, dirty and grimy. And his house was rather messy too, but it was so full of dogs that luckily I got distractivated quite quickly from the pongs.
Even though the breeder was a man of few words, Nick was super-brilliant at asking him all the right questions. Molly scribbled away the whole time, taking notes on everything. Mum found the whole thing RIVETING, which means that she was glued to every word – in other words, fascinated.
At long last the grown-ups said we could take Honey to see the kennels.
There were four very huge outdoor kennels, which were really just like cages, and only two of them had dogs in.
‘The stud dogs are round the back, out of the way – we’ll see them in a mo. The mothers and the new litters are here where it’s quieter,’ Nick said, pointing at the nearest cages. ‘They have to stay enclosed,’ he went on. ‘Pups aren’t allowed out until they’ve been weaned and had all their jabs.’
I felt actually very proud as I knew all this already. ‘Yes, I remember that from when we first had Honey,’ I said. ‘She had to come off her mum’s milk first and be weaned on to real dog food, and then she had injections to stop her getting diseases.’
We went right up to the cage. I could not believe my eyes when I saw how tiny some of the pups were.
‘They are titchical!’ I squealed. ‘How old are those ones?’ I pointed to the kennel on the left, where there was literally a pile of pups heaped one on top of the other, all snoozing next to their mum, who looked totally exhaustified by the whole thing. Honey strained on her lead to get close to the cage.
Nick took Honey’s lead from me. ‘I’ll hold on to Honey so you can take a closer look,’ he said. ‘I tell you what – is it OK if I take her to meet the stud dogs?’
‘Sure,’ I said.
‘Do you want to come with us, Angela?’ Nick asked her. ‘Or do you want to hold one of the new pups?’
Mum’s face said the answer before her mouth did. She was fixated on the heap of squidgy puppies and had got that crumply, soppy look that she had when she first saw Honey.
‘I guess that’s a done
deal then!’ Nick laughed. ‘Honey, you’re coming with me.’
Mum, Molly and I each picked up a puppy. The breeder had said they were only two weeks’ old, so they were exactly the same age as Honey had been the first time I had laid my eyes on her. ‘Can you believe that Honey was once this size?’ I asked Mum.
She shook her head but didn’t say anything. Oh no! She had gone all teary again!
‘You babies grow up so quickly,’ she said quietly as she stroked the teeny creature in her hand.
I looked at Molly and rolled my eyes, but Molly hissed, ‘Don’t say anything! She is soooo On Side! She couldn’t be more On Side – unless you waved a red card at her and blew a whistle in her face.’
What on earth was Molly talking about red cards and whistles for? I wondered vaguely. However, she was right about one thing: there was no chance Mum would say ‘no’ now.
She was hooked.
On the way home, Mum, Molly and I could not stop nattering about how we were going to plan for the pups’ arrival. Nick said that Honey seemed to get on especially well with one of the male dogs called Poplar.
‘I must admit I preferred Poplar to the other dog too,’ he went on. ‘The other one was really bouncy, but Poplar was more relaxed and cuddly.’
‘Is that important?’ Molly asked, scribbling away again.
‘Oh yes,’ said Nick. ‘You have to know the dad’s character as well as the mum’s, because it gives you some idea about the kind of pups you’ll be getting. You don’t want aggressive or over-energetic pups, believe me!’
Mum laughed. ‘Yes – Honey’s bouncy enough on her own!’
Poplar was a black Labrador who had already been a dad a few times. The breeder had been very proud of him and said he came from a good pedigree. He had shown Nick all the paperwork, and Nick was happy for Honey to stay with Poplar in a couple of weeks’ time.
‘A couple of weeks’ time!’ I had groaned. ‘Why not now?’
It was going to take nine weeks for the puppies to grow inside her as it was – why did we have to wait two more until Honey could stay with Poplar?
Mum and Nick looked at each other.
‘Honey’s not ready yet,’ Nick said simply. And that was that.
At last, after two weeks of Hell at school with Mrs Wotherspoon throwing herself at me like a whole ton of bricks for every single thing I did (and didn’t do), and two weeks of crossing the days off the calendar, Honey went to stay with Poplar. She was only gone for a couple of days, but the house felt very empty and strange without her around. When we got her back again, Nick told us in a most cryptical way that everything had ‘gone very well’ and that we should generally Keep An Eye on Honey and tell him if we noticed Anything Unusual. Whatever that meant. Nick promised that he would be On Hand for us and that I could call him whenever I wanted.
And so Molly and I went into Planning for Puppies Mode.
Frank also came round to see how Things Had Gone. Mum thought it was ‘sweet’ that Frank wanted to get involved, which slightly set my teeth on their edges, but I was so grateful to him for finding a way to get Mum to change her mind that I didn’t really mind him being there.
We left Honey to relax in her basket and took some drinks and snacks into the Den so that we could start our Planning Session.
Frank was being quite a laugh and kept saying things like, ‘Do you think Honey and Poplar are in luuuuuuurve like Romeo and Juliet?’
Then he put on a dramatical over-the-top Shakespeare accent and said, ‘Honey-o, Honey-o, wherefore art thou, Honey-o?’
Molly, however, did not find it one iota of a fraction amusing.
‘Frank,’ she said, ‘instead of acting like the fool that you are, could you please go away and leave us in peace?’
‘OOOOOOOH!’ Frank replied. ‘Well, if that’s your attitude—’
‘STOP!’ I yelled at the pair of them. ‘Listen, Frank, instead of arguing with Molly, why don’t you give me some proper advice on how to get ready for the pups’ arrival?’
Molly did her shocked and surprised face when I said this, which nearly almost made her choke as she was crunching on a mouthful of double-choc-chip cookie at the time.
‘No Way Ho-Zay!’ she shouted, her eyes all big and round like they were going to pop out of their sockets right there and then. ‘We didn’t need HIS help last time with Honey, so I don’t see one little bit why we need HIS help now.’
I gave Molly a long look to show her that she did not know what she was talking about. ‘Molly,’ I said slowly, ‘getting one eight-week-old puppy and bringing it home is quite a different matter from having seven or eight newborn pups to look after.’
‘But Honey will do most of the looking after, won’t she?’ Molly asked, a bit puzzled.
‘She will to start with, but she will need lots of help, Nick said,’ I explained.
‘Yeah,’ said Frank, grinning his head off. ‘And the thing is, Miss Know-It-All Molly Cook, my dog Meatball has actually had puppies, and I was there, so I know all about it.’
‘He’s right,’ I said, not letting Molly’s SCARY AND FLARY look put me off for once.
Molly frowned and did a grimacey thing with her mouth. ‘All right,’ she said when she saw that I had no Intention of Backing Down. ‘Please could you after all give us some advice, Frank?’ she asked, not looking at him as she spoke.
‘What’s it worth?’ Frank asked, picking his nose in the most unattractive way possible by scraping his finger round and round his nostril to get the hugest and stickiest bogey he could find. He eventually extractivated it and examined it close up. Goodness knows what he thought he would find in it – the Crown Jewels?
‘Listen, there is no need to be disgustivating,’ I said, becoming quite severely stern. ‘And anyway, if you really want to know what it is worth, I think it is worth you not flicking that bogey at us,’ I said firmly.
‘Don’t worry, I wouldn’t waste it on you,’ said Frank, popping it into his actual mouth right in front of us! Honestly, just as I think I can bear his company, he goes and ruins it by being Mr Gross-o-vator.
I took a deep breath and ignored his grim and inhuman behaviour. ‘What do we need to do first, Frank?’ I asked.
‘Let’s see – first of all you need a notebook to record all the important dates and things,’ he said.
‘Check!’ said Molly, waving her pink notebook at him in a very pleased-with-herself way.
‘Then you must make a list of everything you’ll need for the birth and then, you have to note down everything about the dog during the pregnancy – her weight and stuff – and then, when the pups are born, there is loads of information that you have to keep track of, like how much each pup weighs and so on.’
This was absolutely the Way To Molly’s Heart as she is the Queen of Lists.
‘Sounds dudey,’ said Molly. ‘What else?’
‘Then you need to prepare a den to put the whelping bed in,’ he said.
‘Whoooa!’ said Molly. ‘Stop right there. What’s a whelping bed? It sounds like an instrument of torture.’
Frank and I rolled our eyes at each other. ‘The whelping bed is the bed the puppies are born in and where they spend the first few weeks of their life,’ I said.
‘Oh that – I knew that,’ said Molly.
Frank spluttered a bit with laughter, but Pulled Himself Together when he caught sight of Molly’s glare and told us that we would also need a thermometer and lots of newspapers.
‘Then you must make a list and go shopping for the things you’ll need,’ he added.
I was secretly vastly impressed with that. Surely even Molly would agree that a boy who suggests a shopping trip is a pretty amazing sort of person.
‘Hurrah!’ I said.
‘Yahooo!’ said Molly. ‘Shopping! It’ll be a faberoony way to pass the time and stop us from going bonkers-crazy with Excitement!’
We had just over half a term to get ready. A whole nine weeks. How would we cope? And it
was coming up to Christmas too. How much could the human brain deal with before it simply popped with an overload of ultra-excitable activity, I wondered?
By the end of the first week alone we had made a Comprehensive List of What to Have to Hand for the Big Event:
‘Hey, listen to this!’ Molly said one Friday night when she was sleeping over. ‘You know Nick said he would have to check Honey at twenty-one-ish days to see how she was getting on? Well, in Monica Sitstill’s book it says that by then he will be able to FEEL THE PUPPIES!’
‘Show me!’ I cried, scrabbling to get a closer look.
At about five weeks it is possible to feel the fetuses. Your vet will gently prod the mother’s belly to see how many puppies there are.
Oh. My. Goodness.
I was actually getting too excited to breathe, just thinking about Nick feeling lots of ting pups inside Honey’s tummy! It was a bit science-fictiony and freaky, but mega-exciting at the same time!
How was I going to wait until Day 21?
As it turned out, Mrs Wotherspoon kept us busy with extra homework and practices for the Christmas play (which, thank the high heavens, was NOT Romeo and Juliet, or anything else Shakespearical or romantic-ish) and so the first month went more quickly than I had thought it would.
Also I was distractivated by Honey, whose behaviour was not entirely what I would describe as ‘normal’ in an everyday kind of fashion.
she said, ‘I’ve been a mum twice you know –’ Er, yes, I did know that actually, thanks Mum for treating me like a complete Fruit Loop. ‘– so I understand how Honey’s feeling, that’s all’
Hmmm. I was not one bit sure that I liked the way Mum was Bonding with Honey over this Mummy Thing.
