by Holly Webb
“Well done.” Lucy looked quite relieved. “Do you want to put them back in their pens, and then it’s almost time for you to go home.”
Emily stared at her disbelievingly. “It can’t be! We’ve hardly done anything!”
Lucy laughed. “It’s nearly twelve, honestly, and you’ve been here since eight.”
Emily and Maya had helped Lucy to feed everyone when they first arrived, and then they’d hosed down a couple of the dogs’ pens before they set off to walk Twinkle and Barney. The morning had just disappeared. Walking the dogs had definitely been the best bit, Emily thought. They’d stomped across a very muddy field (her wellies might never be the same again) to the little wood. She and Maya had chatted a bit, but not all the time, and it had been wonderful watching Twinkle skittering about. She was more like a butterfly than a dog, Emily reckoned. She definitely fluttered everywhere. And Barney plodded, but he was still a darling. She’d loved being with the dogs just as much as she’d hoped she would. She couldn’t wait for next week.
“Have you got a minute, before we have to go?” Emily asked, glancing at Maya.
Lucy looked worried. “Of course. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing! Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted me to come tomorrow as well,” Emily added hopefully. “But that wasn’t the main thing. We had an idea…”
Maya nodded. “For fundraising, for mending the roof.”
“We were thinking maybe the shelter could have a birthday party,” Emily suggested shyly. “A tenth birthday is quite special. We could make it a big thing, and sell tickets.”
Lucy looked at them doubtfully. “I don’t know. It is a lovely idea, but I just don’t have time to organise that sort of thing. It would take a lot of work.”
“We know!” Emily nodded. “We meant we’d do it. Honestly, we could. We organised a fashion show before.”
“And we got people to clean up part of the canal in Millford. We’re very good at running things,” Maya said, trying to sound confident. “We were thinking an animal-friendly party. So all the food would be from cruelty-free farms. And we’d use Fairtrade stuff too.”
Lucy nodded. “I like the idea a lot, if you can actually get people to buy the tickets… And we’d have to hire a hall, I suppose? Maybe you could make the food local, as well – you know, saving on food miles.”
“Oh yes! Mr Finlay talked about that at school,” Emily agreed. “Not buying potatoes flown in from South America when there’s a farm down the road that sells them. Good idea.” She beamed at Lucy. “So you think yes then? We can start planning the party? Maybe we could have it in the summer half-term, that’s about six weeks away.”
Lucy looked faintly worried, but she nodded. “Yes. I suppose that’s OK. If you’re really sure you can organise all this.”
Emily crossed her fingers behind her back. “Oh, we can…”
“You know, I’m sure we can sort out everything for a big party, it’s getting the people to buy tickets for it that’s going to be the problem,” Emily said thoughtfully to Maya, as they sat in the school bus on Monday morning.
Emily had gone to the shelter again on Sunday, but Maya’s dad had planned a trip to London to cheer her up while her mum was away, so they hadn’t had a chance to do any more party planning.
“Mmmm.” Maya stared out of the window. “People need to know that it’s happening. We need posters. Something really cute, with all the animals on…”
“We need Poppy,” Emily agreed. “She’d be able to draw something brilliant. We could take photos of the real animals at the shelter for her to work from.”
“Awww, she could draw the chickens with the jumpers on!” Maya laughed. “Or maybe Honey and her gorgeous puppies. Poppy would help out, wouldn’t she? We’d only have to tell her about all those homeless dogs.”
“Perhaps we shouldn’t – she’d try and persuade the rest of her family to adopt them all,” Emily pointed out. “Her mum might never speak to us again. Maya, do you think Izzy might like to help as well? I know she’s not as much of an animal person, but she’s so brilliant at organising things and doing lists. She’d be fantastic for a party planner.”
Maya nodded. “Definitely. You know, I think if me and Izzy went into partnership, we could be the best party planners ever. She could do all the actual organisey planning bits, and I could have the mad ideas.”
“What about me?” Emily asked indignantly.
Maya elbowed her. “You could shout at the clients when they change their minds and say they’ve decided on a Venetian banquet theme instead of the cool New York look they wanted yesterday.”
Emily sighed. “I can’t help it. I get a lot of practice shouting at Toby and James. I haven’t had a go at any of you for ages.”
“Actually, you’re right, you haven’t. I should think helping out at the shelter will make you feel less like arguing with people anyway,” Maya suggested. “Dogs are very … therapeutic. Which means they make you feel better. Like those dogs that go to hospitals just so people can stroke them.”
“Wouldn’t Barney be good at that?” Emily said, smiling. “He’d just sit there, and thump his tail and let his tongue hang out. He’s like a big black teddy bear. So – shall we ask Izzy and Poppy if they’ll help? It would be fun to do another big project together anyway. And we can tell Mr Finlay. He told me the other day that he thought we might be ill because we hadn’t asked him to arrange anything really tricky for ages.”
They hurried off the bus – after Emily had found both her little brothers, and sent them back to fetch all the stuff they’d left behind – and went to look for Izzy and Poppy.
“How was the animal shelter?” Poppy yelled excitedly, as she saw them coming. “Did you go? Did they say yes? Are you going to help out?”
“Yes.” Emily grinned at her. “To all the questions. It was brilliant, and Maya’s going to help too. Every Saturday morning, and maybe Sundays sometimes as well.”
“There’s Izzy!” Maya pointed across the playground, and they saw Izzy coming in the gate. Emily waved wildly at her. It would be easier only to explain about the party once, she thought.
“Did you go to the shelter?” Izzy demanded, as soon as she got close enough.
“Yes, you’re a total genius, and it was a brilliant idea.” Emily hugged her, and Izzy looked surprised, but pleased. She stood there a bit stiffly, and let herself be hugged. She and Emily hadn’t got on all that well when Izzy had first joined their group to work on the class’s Fairtrade project, and she sometimes wasn’t sure Emily liked her as much as the others did.
“But now,” Emily glared at her sternly, “we need you to help. You too, Poppy,” she added. “The shelter’s amazing, but it’s really short of money, and we were thinking we could have a sort of fundraising party. It’s the shelter’s tenth birthday this year.” She looked at them both hopefully. “So … please? Will you help organise it too? We’re brilliant when we all do things like this together.”
Izzy took off her backpack and reached into one of the pockets, bringing out a little notebook with a pencil on a string. She folded the cover over and looked at Emily in a businesslike way.
Emily laughed. “I knew you’d help organise us.”
“When are you thinking it should be?” Izzy asked.
“Sometime in the summer half-term,” Maya explained. “That gives us lots of time to plan everything, and to make sure that people know about it. That’s where you come in,” she told Poppy. “Posters!”
“Really cute, gorgeous fun posters for the best party day out ever!” Emily agreed.
“OK.” Poppy nodded.
“You’d be fantastic at designing any decorations too,” Maya added.
“Where’s it going to be?” Izzy asked, sitting down on one of the benches so that she could scribble in her notebook better. “What sort of decorations will will we be putting up?”
Maya and Emily looked at each other anxiously. “That’s the only thing,” Emi
ly admitted. “We don’t actually know where we’re going to have it.”
“If it was nice weather we could just use the yard at the shelter,” Maya explained. “But if it rains that would be useless. And there isn’t really anywhere else – just lots of pens, and the house, and that doesn’t have any big rooms for a party.”
Izzy frowned. “Hiring a hall would probably be really expensive.”
“Oh, no, we can’t do that!” Emily said. “We need to raise money, not spend it…”
“And we don’t have any money at all, until we’ve sold some tickets,” Maya sighed. “Anyone who owned a hall would want us to pay them when we book, I should think.”
“But then what are we going to do?” Emily asked. They couldn’t give up already. She thought of Twinkle, and Barney, and Honey and the puppies. They needed that money!
Izzy shook her head, and then slipped her notebook back into her bag as the bell rang for registration. “We’ll just have to find somewhere that doesn’t cost anything,” she said. “There must be places…”
Emily nodded, but she still felt miserable. She couldn’t think of anywhere at all.
“I nearly forgot! Look what I’ve made for you!” Poppy leaned over their table, and passed Emily a piece of card, carefully sealed in a plastic envelope. “I scanned it on Mum’s scanner too, so I’ll email it to you when I get home. But I just wanted you to see the real thing first.”
Emily took it, wondering what on earth it could be, and Maya and Izzy peered over to see too. Mr Finlay hadn’t arrived yet – he was always losing stuff in the staffroom, and he often turned up out of breath and trailing piles of paper.
“Oh, Poppy! You made me a logo!” Emily said delightedly, turning the envelope so that the others could look at it properly. “That’s so clever, and it actually looks like me.”
The little picture showed Emily with her trademark curly bunches, wearing a T-shirt with a heart on it, and with her arms around a cat and a dog – the dog had curly ears and looked like Honey, the spaniel at the shelter.
Poppy nodded, pleased. “I was thinking last night that you really ought to try out Maya’s idea, and be a petsitter. You’d be so good. So I thought you’d need a leaflet, with a cute logo. If you get really successful, you could even have business cards,” she added.
“This is brilliant… What else do you think I should put on the leaflet?” Emily asked. “Normally when we get stuff like that through the door they say they’ve got twenty years’ experience at gardening, or whatever it is. And I haven’t got any.”
Izzy nodded. “Mmmm. My dad’s leaflet says that. And, um, All types of garden work undertaken. No job too small. References available on request.”
“What does that mean?” Emily asked, wide-eyed.
“It means that if you want he can give you my auntie’s phone number and she’ll tell you he’s brilliant.” Izzy giggled.
“Oooh, you should definitely say that. You could put Billy as a reference!” Poppy said excitedly. “He’d say you were fab. Well, I mean, I would for him.”
“And maybe if you asked Lucy, she’d let you give her name, or the shelter’s,” Maya suggested. “She was really pleased with you at the weekend, wasn’t she?”
Emily nodded. “Yes. She seemed to be, anyway. I might leave it till I’ve done a couple more weekends before I ask her, though. Poppy, do you think your mum would mind if people rang you up to ask if I was a good petsitter?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” Poppy said, frowning. “You came over and fed him for us when we went away for the weekend, didn’t you? That counts as petsitting. And you’ve walked him lots with me. I’ll ask Mum, maybe she’ll agree to say it, if anyone rings. It would probably sound better coming from a grown-up. She can definitely say nice things about you. Anyway, she’s known you for what, five years? She can say you’re honest and reliable and um, clean, and stuff.”
“Clean?” Emily rolled her eyes.
Poppy shrugged. “Well, people might want to know that you won’t take their dogs out and then stomp mud all over their carpets.”
Emily nodded, looking worried. “I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose there’s all sorts of things that might go wrong. I mean, what if I take someone’s dog to the woods, and he slips his lead? And I never find him again!”
“Ems! You haven’t even got a dog-walking job yet!” Maya elbowed her. “Stop being such a drama queen. Just concentrate on making a smart leaflet first.”
“I suppose I am getting a bit over the top…” Emily murmured. “It’s just such a big responsibility.” Then she smiled. “But it would be so nice if I actually did get some customers. I could easily walk a couple of dogs after school. Maybe even before school if I got up really early.” She glanced over at the door to check Mr Finlay still wasn’t coming, and then hopped up and ran round the table to hug Poppy. “You’re totally, utterly brilliant. I’m going to go home and design the nicest leaflets. And a business card as well, just in case.” She grinned, imagining handing out her card to sweet-looking dogs she met in the street, and then scooted back to her seat as Mr Finlay finally arrived, looking harassed.
“Mum, please! It’s my turn, it’s been my turn for ages, and Toby and James won’t get off the Lego website.”
Emily’s mum put her head round the door of the tiny room where the computer lived, and sighed. “All right. You two. Off. Emily’s right, it’s her turn. And you need to go and have a bath, anyway.”
“But we’re in the middle of a level!” Toby howled furiously. “You can’t make us stop now! That’s just so mean!”
“Really mean!” James chimed in, agreeing with his big brother for once. “I had a bath yesterday, anyway.”
“You didn’t.” Toby turned round and smirked at him. “You just stuck your head under the tap and told Mum you got in the bath.” Then he groaned. “Oh, look, now we died! Mu-uuum! You made us die! We’ll have to start again now.” He settled back on the chair, darting a smug little glance at Emily. Toby always went with possession being nine-tenths of the law – it would be much easier for Mum just to say, Oh, you don’t mind, do you, Emily? than it would be to make him move…
“No!” Emily dug her nails into her palms to stop herself yelling at Toby – or grabbing him and pulling him away from the computer, which was what she really felt like doing. If Mum took his side, she was going to scream.
Emily glanced round at Mum anxiously. Sometimes she just didn’t notice how Emily was feeling, and that made Emily crosser than anything – knowing that Mum was worrying about whether Sukie had eaten any tea, or if Toby had got into trouble with his teacher again, or what time Dad was getting home from work. Emily knew that Mum did have a lot to worry about, but she got sick of being the one that Mum didn’t have to fuss over. It would be nice if all Mum’s attention was on her for once.
Mum patted her shoulder, and glared at Toby, and Emily took a deep breath of relief.
“Toby, get off the computer now and go and get in the bath! If you argue with me about it again you won’t be playing on it tomorrow, either.”
Toby stomped away growling, and James looked thoughtfully at the screen, and then at Mum, and decided it would be sensible to follow him.
“Thanks, Mum.” Emily smiled at her gratefully.
“Sorry you had to wait, sweetheart. Are you trying to do some homework?”
“Ummm, not quite,” Emily murmured. “I think Poppy sent me an email, that’s all.” It was all very well having Mum’s attention, but actually, Emily didn’t really want to tell her about the petsitting and dog-walking plan just yet. She glanced around, trying to think of some way to distract her. Then she frowned, and looked up at the ceiling.
“What is it?” her mum asked worriedly. “Can you hear something upstairs? Oh no, Toby and James are probably splashing water all over the bathroom. Sorry, Ems, we’ll talk about your homework later.”
Emily hadn’t actually heard anything, but she didn’t feel guilty about getting
her brothers into trouble. They almost certainly were splashing water all over the bathroom. They couldn’t even look at water without splashing it.
Happily, she clicked on the attachment from Poppy, and started trying to make up her leaflet. Poppy had sent her a photo too, one she’d taken of Emily and Billy a couple of months before. She’d called the file A Satisfied Customer. Emily grinned. That was a great idea.
Emily had borrowed a couple of leaflets from the board in the kitchen where Mum pinned up the numbers for the plumber and other useful stuff, and she was planning to look on petsitters’ websites too, to get some more ideas.
No one had a logo as nice as hers, she decided, a few minutes later. But there were an awful lot of petsitters, and they all seemed to have years and years of experience. Still, at least there didn’t seem to be anyone else very close by, although there was one lady in Millford who said she could do calming massage and aromatherapy for cats who were missing their owners. Emily wondered if she knew Poppy. She thought they might get on.
Carefully, she checked all her spelling, and then twirled a strand of her dark, curly hair round her finger. Was she really ready to do this? It sounded such a good idea, but a bit scary too. Then she remembered how much fun it had been walking Twinkle and Barney with Maya at the weekend. She’d loved it, and Twinkle had too. Lucy had said that Twinkle hadn’t had a proper walk in ages. What if there was another dog out there like Twinkle, with an owner who couldn’t manage to exercise her properly? It would be brilliant to be able to help out dogs like that. She really wanted to.
Maybe she should take out the petsitting bits in her leaflet, and just concentrate on the dog-walking, Emily mused. No matter what the others said, Emily wasn’t sure that people would really want to give their door keys to a ten-year-old while they were on holiday. And holidays only happened once or twice a year, too. If she had a couple of regular dogs to walk, that would be much better. Almost like having her own dog. Twinkle was gorgeous – but so gorgeous that surely she would be adopted soon. Lucy had already warned Emily not to get too attached to any of the animals.
