by Tina Nolan
Chapter Nine
Never make a promise you can’t keep! Annie’s words ran through Eva’s head as she went out to deliver more leaflets.
She thought of Grace Nicholls and her parents packing up all their stuff and moving away to New Zealand, and she worried about poor little Bella cowering in her cage and hiding from the world.
She had a day to try to keep her promise and about twenty more houses in the village to deliver to. With every click of a letter box, she prayed that the mystery of Bella’s real owner would be solved.
“OK?” Heidi asked when Eva at last walked back into the kitchen. It was one o’clock – time for a quick break from the busy routine at Animal Magic.
“I suppose.” Eva nodded.
“No luck with Bella’s original owners, I take it?”
A quick shake of the head was all Eva could manage.
“Well, look at it this way,” Heidi went on cheerfully. “If Bella is rehomed with George, at least you and Karl will be able to pop in and visit her as often as you like.”
“Mum, I don’t want to talk about it,” Eva muttered, glancing out of the kitchen window and seeing Ben Goodall carrying Bertie across the yard. “Is Joel in Reception?” she checked.
“I’m not sure, but you can go and see,” Heidi replied.
Eva sped across the yard and caught up with Ben. “What’s up with Bertie?” she asked as she held the door open and they went inside to find Joel manning the desk.
“He’s not eating properly,” Ben told her. “I tried him with puppy food, but he wasn’t interested.”
“Let me take a look at him,” Joel offered.
Little Bertie squirmed then wagged his tail at Joel.
“He seems lively enough. Let’s take his temperature and check him over… Yep, quite normal.”
Eva watched Ben Goodall closely. The boy’s attention didn’t seem to be on Bertie at all, she noticed. Instead, he sifted through the leaflets on the desk.
“Can I help?” she offered.
“No. Yes. Erm, have you got a leaflet on feeding puppies?” he mumbled.
Eva got him one from the rack.
“His temperature’s normal and there’s no tenderness around his stomach,” Joel reported. “Maybe Bertie is having a slight reaction to the jab we gave him, that’s all.”
Ben nodded. “Oh, and have you got one of those leaflets about the runaway rabbit?” he dropped in casually. But his face was bright red and his eyes were worried.
“No, sorry, I posted the last ones earlier this morning.” Wait a minute! Eva thought. Why are you so interested in Bella? How come you snuck a look at her through the window yesterday when you thought no one would be watching?
Ben frowned and mumbled. “OK, no problem.”
“While you’re here, let me finish putting Bertie’s information on file,” Joel suggested, turning to the computer. “We must have been too busy yesterday to take everything down.”
“Age – six and a half weeks, which means Bertie was born…”
“What do you know about Bella?” Eva hissed at Ben. This time she wasn’t going to let him sneak away.
“Nothing!” he said quickly. “I don’t know anything!”
“Are you sure?” Eva didn’t believe him. He’d answered too quickly and refused to meet her gaze.
“I said, nothing – OK!” Sulkily Ben picked Bertie up and made as if to leave.
But Joel had one more question. “Hang on a sec, Ben – where do you live? We didn’t take down your address.”
“We live on Riverview Road,” Ben answered in his usual mumble. “We’ve just moved in.”
“Riverview Road,” Joel typed on the keyboard. “What number?”
“Number 23,” Ben told him, escaping through the door as fast as he could.
Eva stood for a few moments gawping at the door.
“What is it?” Joel asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“23 Riverview Road,” Eva repeated under her breath. “That’s where Grace Nicholls lived. The Goodalls must have moved into her house!”
“So?” Joel didn’t get the point. He scratched his head and stared after Eva as she charged after Ben and overtook him at the gate.
“Wait!” she yelled.
“Leave me alone,” Ben said. He brushed past Eva. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“That’s because you’re feeling guilty,” Eva guessed. “You’re acting weird because of Bella, aren’t you?”
“No. Go away.” Ben marched up Main Street with Bertie on his lead. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Stop!” Eva ran in front of Ben and blocked his way. “I can’t quite make sense of this yet, but I’ve got a feeling that Bella belongs to you!”
Ben came to a sudden halt. “Don’t be stupid,” he argued feebly. “We only just moved in to our new house.”
“So you’ve never seen Bella before?”
He quickly shook his head and tried to barge past once more. But Eva stood her ground.
“Then how come you snuck a look at her yesterday. And why did you want a leaflet?” Eva ran through her list of suspicions. “Last of all, why pretend Bertie was ill and bring him into Animal Magic?”
“I wasn’t pretending,” Ben faltered. Then he changed his mind. “OK then, what if I was?”
Eva stared at him long and hard. “You’re either very weird, or you know something you’re not telling,” she accused.
Ben had run out of arguments. “What if I do?” he said huffily. “It’s none of your business.”
Eva seized her chance. “It is my business,” she insisted.
“Right, OK, Miss Clever! How would you feel if you had a pet and you did something you shouldn’t, and it meant that everything went wrong and you didn’t know any way of putting it right?”
“Slow down!” Eva begged. “What did you do?”
“If I tell you, you mustn’t tell anybody else!” Ben pleaded.
Eva nodded. “I won’t.”
“Mum and Dad gave me a pet rabbit when we lived at our old house on Cannon Street, in town.”
“It’s near where I go to school,” Eva said quickly.
“I hadn’t had her very long. I called her Maisie. She was only a baby and I hated leaving her on her own. And what I did, which I should never have done, was to sneak her into my dad’s car one day without my parents knowing.”
“Why?” Eva wanted to know.
“Because I thought she’d be lonely if I left her behind in her hutch and I knew Mum and Dad would say no if I asked if we could bring her along.”
“OK. Then what?”
“Then my dad drove us out here to Okeham to see the house we were moving to,” Ben explained.
“Number 23 Riverview Road!”
“Right,” Ben said glumly. “Anyway, Mum and Dad went into the house to measure windows for curtains and stuff, and I stayed in the car with Maisie. I was playing with her and I didn’t notice Mum and Dad come back.”
“So Maisie was loose in the car?” Eva prompted.
Ben nodded. “Mum opened the car door and frightened Maisie and she jumped out, but Mum was too busy to notice.”
“Maisie ran away?”
“Yes. And I couldn’t get out and chase her because I wasn’t supposed to have her with me in the first place. Anyway, before I knew it, Dad had started the car and we were on our way.”
“Then it was too late.” Eva got a clear picture of what had happened. “And when you got back home, your mum and dad found the hutch was empty and believed Maisie had escaped from your garden in Cannon Street. You went along with it, so as not to get into trouble?”
Miserably, Ben nodded again. “Yes, what else could I do? But then we moved here and yesterday I saw those rabbit leaflets on your counter.”
“And now you want to know if Bella is the same rabbit as the one you lost?” Eva asked, her eyes sparkling eagerly.
“Yeah. I mean, could it be Maisie? Sh
e looks the same.”
“And she’s a runaway. She was found in the garden shed at number 23.” The story fitted. Eva held her breath.
“I never knew that. So you think there’s a good chance?” Ben asked.
“That Maisie is Bella? Yes, I do!” She felt sorry and nervous – sorry for Ben, who had got himself into this mess, and nervous in case she was wrong. “Come on,” she said, turning Ben and Bertie around and heading back to Animal Magic. “There’s only one way to find out. Let’s go and take a closer look!”
Chapter Ten
“Owen Grey said yes!” Karl stood in the rescue centre doorway with bad-boy Billy. He greeted Eva and Ben with a broad smile. “I talked to him on the phone. His girlfriend says yes, he can adopt Billy.”
“Great news!” Eva said. She patted Billy, who wagged his stumpy tail.
“Owen’s mum says she’ll train Billy out of chewing stuff he shouldn’t,” Karl went on. “She did it once before with Lennox, so she reckons she can do it again.”
“Sounds perfect,” Eva said, hurrying on with Ben and Bertie.
“Poppety-pop! Where’s Neville?” Buddy the budgie chirped from his perch.
“And we’ve got a woman called Emma Dibb coming in to see Sasha this afternoon,” Joel reported from his seat at the computer. “She already owns a brown Labrador and she lives in a house overlooking a park where she can walk the dog, so she sounds promising.”
“Good. Cool. Great,” Eva gabbled. “Come on, Ben, what are you waiting for?”
Ben hung back in Reception. “I-I’ve changed my mind,” Ben stammered.
Eva’s jaw dropped. She noticed that Joel was watching Ben closely, as if he was about to step in and say something.
So she grabbed Ben by the arm and marched him through the door into the small animals unit. “Are you crazy?” she hissed. “You can’t change your mind about stuff as important as this!”
Ben shook his head. “I’m going to be in big trouble with Mum and Dad if they find out,” he muttered. “I mean, if Bella turns out to be Maisie like you think – well, what am I going to tell them?”
Eva studied his frowning face. “Try the truth,” she said matter-of-factly. “Tell them you made a mistake.”
Leaving Ben to work through his problem, she approached Bella’s cage. “Hi there!” she murmured to the shy creature huddled in the folds of her favourite blue blanket. “Someone’s come to see you!”
Warily, Bella edged forward, responding as usual to Eva’s gentle voice. She twitched her soft pink nose and flicked her ears.
“I think you’ll remember this person,” Eva whispered. Slowly she opened the cage door and let Bella sniff her hand. Then gently she picked her up and lifted her out.
Ben stared at Eva and Bella. His frown disappeared and he came closer. “It’s Maisie!” he said, unable to take his eyes off the tiny rabbit. “Definitely her. I’m totally sure!”
“I knew it was,” Eva smiled.
The baby rabbit snuggled close against her, blinking her big dark eyes.
“Can I hold her?” Ben asked.
“Of course you can – she’s your rabbit!” Taking Bertie from Ben, she handed Bella over.
“Hey, Maisie!” Ben whispered, his eyes filling with tears. “It’s me – Ben!”
The rabbit sniffed his hand and T-shirt. She didn’t struggle or try to hide.
“She remembers you!” Eva told him. “She’s not the least bit shy.”
“I can’t believe it,” Ben murmured, holding his pet rabbit close to his chest. Then he took a big decision. “Don’t worry, Maisie – whatever Mum and Dad say, I’m never going to let you go ever again!”
“So you all had a busy day,” Mark Harrison said over supper that evening.
“Karl successfully rehomed Billy,” Heidi reported. “Joel thinks he found a new owner for Sasha, and George Stevens agreed to take Lucky, the black and white Dutch rabbit.”
“Huh?” Mark paused, fork in hand. “When I spoke to you earlier, didn’t you say that George wanted to offer a home to the little white one – what’s her name?”
“Bella,” Karl told him.
“Maisie!” Eva cut in. “Her real name’s Maisie, and we did what I wanted to do – we found her first owner!”
“Not so much of the ‘we’,” Karl corrected. “Eva went solo on this one.” He tried to sound casual, but secretly he was well impressed with his little sister.
“Eva did really well,” Heidi said with a smile. “The way she tracked down all the clues, I’m convinced she’s going to be a private detective when she’s older!”
Eva glowed with pride. “The real owner’s name is Ben Goodall,” she told her dad. “He lives at the Nicholls’s old house. It’s a long story.”
“Lo-ong!” Karl broke in with a pantomime yawn. “So, Dad, you want to know how come George took Lucky?” he asked Mark.
“I’ve a feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“OK, so he comes to Animal Magic with his mum to say, yes they can give Bella a home. They arrive at the same time as Mr Goodall. It turns out Joel has phoned him and asked him to come across to Animal Magic.”
“Because Joel was worried about Ben coming in with Bertie when there was obviously nothing wrong with the puppy,” Eva cut in. This was her story and she wanted to tell it her way. “So Ben walks out of the small pets section with Bella, whose real name is Maisie, like I said. He sees his dad and he’s shaking from head to foot.”
“But it turns out Mr Goodall is happy that Ben found his pet rabbit at long last,” Karl explained. “And when he finds out the whole truth, he doesn’t throw a wobbler, like Ben expected.”
“Whoa!” Mark put up his hands to ward off the flood of facts. “I take it that’s why George offered Lucky a home – because Bella, whose real name is Maisie, had been reunited with Ben?”
Karl and Eva nodded.
“You should’ve seen Ben’s face when I first handed Maisie over to him,” Eva sighed. “He was so-o-o happy!”
“And Mr Goodall said he’d buy a hutch before the pet shop in town closed, and Ben could take his long-lost baby rabbit away right then and there,” Karl said. He polished off his plate of fish pie. “Happy ending. Then Eva nearly goes and spoils it all by blubbing.”
“I never did!” Eva objected. Sure, she’d been sorry to say goodbye to Bella and there had been tears in her eyes, but mainly she was happy for Bella – and Lucky – and Billy – and Sasha! Everything had worked out. “We had such a cool day!” she sighed.
“Dear Grace,” Eva wrote in her email. “This is a picture of Bella in her new hutch. And guess what? She’s living with Ben Goodall at your old house.”
Clicking the mouse to move Bella’s image on to an email attachment, Eva blew the image up to fill the screen.
Bella–Maisie had been staring right at the camera when Eva took the shot. The photo had captured all of her best points – her little round face, her furry body and those long silky soft ears.
“Cute!” she breathed.
“Bella is back where she belongs like I promised,” Eva wrote to Grace. “What do you think? How cool is that!”
Copyright
STRIPES PUBLISHING
An imprint of Little Tiger Press
1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road,
London SW6 6AW
Text copyright © Jenny Oldfield, 2007
Illustrations copyright © Sharon Rentta, 2007
Cover illustration copyright © Simon Mendez, 2007
First published as an ebook by Stripes Publishing in 2012.
eISBN: 978–1–84715–296–1
The right of Jenny Oldfield and Sharon Rentta to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved.
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ny forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
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