Hotel For Dogs (2 page)

For Andi, the hardest part about starting her new school was the fact that Bruce was not starting it with her. For as long as she could remember, Andi had depended on her brother to make friends for both of them.

Now Bruce was a whole mile away at Elmwood Middle School. It was a terrible, lonely feeling not to have him to lean on. Andi, who was never at ease with strangers, found herself acting stiffer than ever.

On her first day at the new school a blond, bright-faced girl named Debbie Austin had come up to her on the playground and asked if she wanted to play a game called “Double Trouble.” Andi, who had never heard of the game and was embarrassed to admit it, had responded, “No, thank you.”

“Oh, come on,” Debbie coaxed her. “It isn’t much harder than ‘Singles.’ You’ll catch on fast.”

“I’m really not interested,” Andi told her.

Debbie had walked off, looking hurt, and Andi had been furious with herself, especially when she saw the little group of girls playing double jump rope. It was a game that she had often played back in Albuquerque, and she’d actually been pretty good at it, but she’d never heard it referred to as “Double Trouble.” Now that she realized what it was, she was dying to rush over and say, “Oh, I do want to play after all!”

When she thought about doing that, though, something knotted up inside her and she simply couldn’t. Instead, when Debbie or any of the other girls glanced in her direction, she stared straight through them as though she didn’t see them.

Nobody ever asked her to play jump rope again.

So even though it was her own fault and she knew it, Andi found herself at the end of her first week at Elmwood Elementary School without a single friend.

At home, she pretended.

“We had such fun on the playground today,” she told the family at dinner, or, “You should
have heard the jokes the girls were telling me at lunch!”

Then she felt guilty when Aunt Alice turned to her mother and said, “Linda, you and John are fortunate to have such a popular daughter! Imagine making so many new friends so quickly!”

But the thing Andi missed the most in the entire world was Bebe. Bebe had been her dog for almost three years now. She had gotten her for Christmas the year she was eight, when Bebe was just a puppy, so tiny that it had hardly seemed possible that she was real.

She had been under the tree in a box all wrapped with Christmas paper, with little holes in the sides so that air could get through. Andi had unwrapped the paper and felt the box move. Then the lid had popped off, and there had been Bebe, pointed little face all bright and sparkling, nose wiggling, eyes shining, tail long and thin like a piece of black wire thumping against the bottom of the box.

“We got Bruce a digital camera, but we thought you would like this better,” Mr. Walker had said, laughing at the startled look on his daughter’s face.

Then, as though she had heard and understood the words, Bebe had jumped out of the box right
into Andi’s arms, and from then on there had been nobody else for either of them. Many people might like Bruce best, but not Bebe. Bebe thought there was nobody in the world as wonderful as Andi.

I wish she was here now,
Andi thought as she left the classroom and walked down the long hallway to the outside door. All around her, boys and girls rushed by with arms filled with books, laughing and chattering, calling to one another, “Wait up! Wait for me!” It seemed to Andi that she was the only one in the whole school who had no friends to walk with when the final bell rang.

I’ll pretend Bebe is out there,
she told herself.
I’ll pretend she’s waiting right outside the door.

That thought made her feel oddly better, and when she had walked out the door and there was no little dog standing there, she told herself,
She’s waiting a little farther on, down by the street.

When she reached the street, she thought,
No — she didn’t come this far. She’s still at home in the corner of the yard, keeping her eyes on the sidewalk, hoping I’ll be coming.

Andi thought about Bebe all the way home. She thought about her so hard that she found herself getting more and more homesick. By the time she
reached her own block, her eyes were swimming in tears and she could hardly keep from sobbing out loud.

She hurried along the sidewalk, staring straight ahead of her — past the rows of maple trees, already beginning to redden with the chill of autumn nights, past the overgrown brown house with its “FOR SALE” sign out front, past a vacant lot and a yellow house with curtains over its windows — and turned up the neat white path that led to Aunt Alice’s front door.

Then she stopped. She could not believe her eyes. There on the porch steps, sitting in a forlorn little heap as though he were waiting for someone, was a dog.

“Bebe?” Andi spoke softly, almost afraid that the sound of her voice would make the dog disappear. Wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, she crept up the walk until she was only a few feet away.

Now that she was close, she could see that the dog was not Bebe, was not even a bit like Bebe, really, except for the color, which was brown, and the small size. This was a shaggy dog with long, dirty, uncombed hair hanging in all directions.

“Hi there, little dog,” Andi said softly. “Are you waiting for me?”

The bundle of hair turned so that what seemed to be the front of the head was facing Andi, and from somewhere at the back of the bundle something began to twitch in what Andi thought must be a wag.

Reaching out, she pushed aside the hair that covered the dog’s face, and there, gazing soulfully up at her, were two bright button eyes.

“What are you doing, waiting here?” Andi asked. “Are you hungry? Come on, you poor little thing. Andi will get you something to eat.”

Gathering the dog up in her arms, she carried him through the house to the kitchen.

Her mother was there peeling carrots. Mrs. Walker had fallen into the habit of doing the early part of the dinner preparations when she could have the kitchen to herself while Aunt Alice was upstairs taking her afternoon nap.

“Andi, no!” she exclaimed when she saw Andi standing in the doorway. “Take that dog right back outside!”

“But, Mom, he’s hungry,” Andi told her. “We can’t let a sweet thing like this starve to death
right on our front steps. Can’t I give him a bowl of milk?”

“No, you can’t,” Mrs. Walker said firmly. “If you do that you’ll be encouraging him to stay. When you feed a stray animal you’re inviting it to make itself at home.”

“Just a little milk, Mom?” Andi begged. “Please? Just think if this was Bebe, all hungry and nobody feeding her —” Her eyes began to get teary again at the thought.

“Well, he’s not Bebe,” Mrs. Walker said. “He probably has a perfectly good home around here and just wandered away from it. Now, take him back outside and give him a little shove to get him moving. Maybe he’ll take himself home in time for dinner.”

“He doesn’t have a home,” Andi said with certainty. “He doesn’t have a collar or tag or anything, and he’s so dirty and shabby and neglected —”

“Outside, Andi,” Mrs. Walker said. “Now! Before Aunt Alice comes down from her nap and gets a sneezing spell. This is her home, honey, and we are her houseguests. We have to live by Aunt Alice’s rules and fit into her way of doing things.”

“Oh, all right,” Andi said mournfully, and carried the dog outside.

“Poor baby,” she murmured, rocking him back and forth in her arms. “Poor little unwanted thing!”

Glancing up the street to the left, she said, “There’s no sense sending you off in that direction. The people who own the yellow house are off on vacation or something, and there’s the vacant lot and the empty brown house. The other direction’s worse.” She gave a shudder as she turned to the right. “That horrid Gordon boy lives there. He’d probably pull your legs off.”

Looking across the street, she noticed a pleasant gray house with a swing set in the side yard and bicycles parked out front.

“Maybe you’ll find a home there,” she said, trying to sound hopeful. “At least, it looks like your best bet.”

Carrying the dog gently, she crossed the street and set him down in front of the gray house and gave him a little push in the direction of the porch. Then, quickly so that he would not follow her, she ran back across the street.

A new thought struck her just as she ran up the steps.
What if Bebe ran away! What if she ran away from the Arquettes and set off to find me! What if she’s out wandering now, just like that poor dog, with nobody to feed or care for her!

It was such a dreadful thought that she felt sick to her stomach. Hurrying into the house, she rushed up the stairs to the room that was hers — it had been Aunt Alice’s sewing room, but it contained a couch that folded down into a bed — and flew inside and slammed the door.

On the table by the bed were a pencil and note pad. Snatching them up, Andi threw herself across the couch and began to compose a poem. “Bebe” was the title, and the words came pouring out, hurling themselves upon the paper:

Whenever she was upset, Andi wrote poetry, and by now she had a large collection of poems. She
wrote when she was happy, too, and sometimes when she was bored, but those poems never seemed to turn out as well as the ones she wrote when she was miserable.

When her poems were completed, she copied them neatly onto clean paper and sent them off to
Good Housekeeping
and
The New Yorker,
which had been magazines on her parents’ coffee table at home. She had started doing that the year she turned nine. She had heard somewhere once that Shakespeare had written his first play by the time he was eleven, and she had made up her mind that if she reached the age of eleven without having had a poem published, she would give up writing and turn to something else.

Sometimes poems were hard to write, and sometimes they were easy, but because she was already so worked up and filled with feelings, Andi found that this poem was the easiest she had ever written. Words came spilling out onto the page without her even having to think about them.

She was just finishing the last line when there was a rap on the door.

“Andi?” It was Bruce’s voice. “Mom wants you to come down and set the table.”

“Is it that time already?” Andi glanced up in astonishment to see dusk hanging heavy outside the window. “I didn’t even know you were home.”

Sliding the paper into her notebook, she got up and stretched. She felt good, as though all the unhappiness that had been inside her had drained off onto that sheet of paper. Tossing the notebook back onto the table, she left the room and went downstairs.

It began to rain as she set the table for dinner. It started as just a sprinkle, the lightest, slightest sound, like a gentle tap-tap-tap on the roof. By the time she had the napkins and silverware on, however, the tapping had increased to a roar.

“I’d better check the upstairs windows,” Bruce said and went up to the second floor. “Dad’s coming,” he called down a moment later. “I can see his car.”

“I hope he took an umbrella with him,” Mrs. Walker called from the kitchen, where she was helping Aunt Alice with the mashed potatoes.

The drum of the rain drowned out the sound of the car in the driveway, but they all heard Mr. Walker’s feet as they thudded on the porch steps. Andi left the table and ran to open the door for him.

He came in dripping and shaking himself the way he would have in the brick hallway back home. Then he realized what he was doing and said, “Oh, my gosh, the rugs!”

“Quick — get newspapers! A bath mat! Bruce, run for some towels!” Aunt Alice came fluttering out of the kitchen to dab helplessly with the corner of a dish towel at the dampness on the snowy carpet.

Behind her father, Andi saw the water falling in a solid sheet as heavy and loud as a waterfall. Mr. Walker was shoving his wet hair back from his face. Bruce was rushing down the stairs, his arms filled with bath towels. Mrs. Walker was hurrying in from the kitchen with a roll of paper towels, her face creased with worry.

“Oh, dear,” she was saying. “I hope the carpet doesn’t stain!”

They were all so occupied that there was one thing they did not see. Andi saw it, and she opened her mouth to speak. Then, slowly, she closed it again.
I’m not going to say a word,
she thought, as the little brown dog with the long wet hair came scampering in the door between her father’s feet and scurried down the hall and up the stairs.

At dinner that night Andi could not keep her attention on what was going on at the table. Conversation drifted around her, hardly touching her ears.

The food on her plate sat there getting colder and colder until her mother said, “Earth to Andi! Are you off somewhere in space, honey? Is something the matter? Don’t you feel well?”

“Oh, no — no — I feel fine.” Hurriedly, Andi picked up her fork and began to eat. “I was just thinking.”

Actually she had not been thinking at all — she had been listening. The smell of roast beef on the serving platter rolled out in warm, mouthwatering waves through the lower part of the house.
How long would it be,
she wondered,
before the odor floated up the stairs to where a hungry dog was hiding? When it did, how long could he resist it?

She could almost hear the click of toenails on the stairs as a bundle of wet hair came scurrying down to beg for some supper.

Stay there,
she willed silently.
Stay there and wait a little longer. Andi will bring some dinner up to you soon.

As though she were reading her daughter’s thoughts, Mrs. Walker said, “Andi is upset because she found a little stray dog this afternoon and I wouldn’t let her bring it into the house. She is so used to having her own dog around to play with that it is a little hard for her to understand that it’s just not possible here.”

“Oh, mercy, no!” Aunt Alice raised her napkin to her face as though waving away the very thought of such a disaster. “I cannot get anywhere near animal hair. Even bird hair — I mean, feathers — I can’t have them in the house either. All my pillows are foam rubber.”

“How about fish?” Bruce asked with interest. “Can you get near them?”

“I don’t know,” Aunt Alice admitted. “I’ve never been brave enough to try.” She turned to Andi. “If you miss your pet so much, dear, why don’t you go
next door to play? Jerry has a beautiful Irish setter. His parents just gave it to him recently.”

“I don’t think I’d like to play there,” Andi said.

“Not like it at Jerry’s!” Aunt Alice gave a gasp of astonishment. “Why, you should see how his parents have fixed up the whole basement floor for Jerry and his friends! It’s just beautiful — all pine paneled, with Jerry’s bedroom down there and a game room with a pool table and big-screen TV and, goodness, I don’t know what all. I can’t understand why you children aren’t over there playing every day!”

“Jerry and I didn’t hit it off,” Bruce said shortly.

The statement was so out of character coming from Bruce that the adults at the table turned to stare at him.

“That’s not like you,” Mr. Walker said. “You’ve never had any problem making friends with other boys.”

“I don’t want Jerry Gordon for a friend,” Bruce said. “You should see the way he treats his poor dog.”

“Oh, Bruce, I’m sure you’re mistaken!” Aunt Alice exclaimed. “The Gordons are lovely people! I can’t imagine a boy like Jerry mistreating a pet.”

“You wouldn’t think it to see him around grown-ups,” Bruce acknowledged. “They always give him his way, so he’s real polite and nice. With his dog he’s different. Red Rover’s scared to death of him, isn’t he, Andi?” He turned to his sister for support.

“What?” Andi had not heard the question. Stuffing the last forkful of food into her mouth, she almost sighed aloud with relief. “Please, may I be excused?”

“Not until the rest of us are finished,” her mother said. “Then you can help clear the table and load the dishwasher.”

Andi started to object, and then an idea occurred to her.

“I’ll do the kitchen myself,” she said. “The rest of you can relax. I’ll take care of everything.”

“Why, Andi!” Her mother looked stunned.

“Isn’t that lovely!” Aunt Alice cried in delight. “What a helpful little girl you are!”

Bruce, for his part, was staring at his sister as if she had gone crazy.

Andi had just finished scrubbing the pans when her brother came into the kitchen. Closing the door behind him, he confronted her.

“Okay. Let’s have it. What’s the gimmick?”

“What do you mean, ‘gimmick’?” Andi asked uneasily. “I just thought I’d save Mom and Aunt Alice some work and —”

“Come off it,” Bruce said firmly. “Aunt Alice may think you’re a ‘helpful little girl,’ but I know better. What’s that you’re hiding under your sweatshirt? Come on, now —”

“Nothing,” Andi insisted, trying to duck away from him, but he was too fast for her. He caught hold of the shirt and pulled it up.

“A dish of roast beef?”

“I — I thought —” Andi stumbled for an explanation. “I thought I might want a bedtime snack.”

“That’s a lie and you know it!” Bruce could always tell when she was lying. “What’s the beef for? You’d better tell me.”

“Oh, all right,” Andi said reluctantly. “You’ll have to promise, though, that you won’t tell.”

“Won’t tell who?”

“Anybody. Mom, Dad — especially Aunt Alice. This is a very deep secret. It’s a matter of life and death.”

“Okay, I promise.” Bruce’s curiosity could be contained no longer. “What is it?”

“I have a dog upstairs,” Andi whispered.

“That stray Mom said you found? You brought it in here, after all?” There was grudging respect in Bruce’s voice. “When did you manage to do that? Where do you have him?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Andi said. “He’s someplace upstairs. He ran up right before dinner. I haven’t had a chance to go up there. You should see him, Bruce — he’s so pitiful, all wet and hungry with nobody to love him.”

“Well, come on, then,” Bruce said. “Let’s take the food up to him now while they’re all in the den watching TV.”

Andi smiled at her brother gratefully. She was never certain how Bruce was going to react to things. Sometimes he was her closest friend, cooperating with anything she suggested, and other times he acted stuffy and self-righteous, almost like a grown-up. This time, thank heaven, he was going to be all right.

“Let’s go,” she said, pulling her shirt down over the plate again.

The noise from the dishwasher and the television set in the den drowned out the sound of their footsteps as they mounted the stairs. In the second-floor
hallway Andi stopped and set down the dish of beef.

“Here, doggie!” she called softly. “Come here, dear! Andi has something nice for you!”

Only silence greeted her voice.

“That’s weird,” Bruce said. “If he’s as hungry as you say, you’d think he’d come running. Dogs have good noses. They can tell when you have food.”

“Maybe he’s asleep,” Andi said. “He’s done a lot of running around today, poor thing, and he’s probably exhausted. You start at this end, and I’ll start on the other, and we’ll find him.”

Systematically, they began a search of the second floor. Bruce’s area consisted of Aunt Alice’s big bedroom and a storage closet and bathroom. Andi’s included the guest room, which was now being used by their parents, and the sewing room. They met at last in the center of the hallway with blank faces.

“No sign of any dog that I can see,” Bruce said. “I checked under beds and behind curtains and everywhere.”

“He doesn’t seem to be at this end of the hall.” Andi frowned. “Let’s switch. I’ll look through all
the rooms you looked through, and you look through mine. One of us must have missed him.”

“I’m sure I didn’t,” Bruce said, but he began a search of their parents’ bedroom while Andi started on Aunt Alice’s.

She went through it carefully, looking inside and behind things, slithering on her stomach to look under the bed, parting the curtains of the fluffy pink dressing table that looked like something out of an old-fashioned movie.

As she moved about, she kept calling in a soft voice, “Here, doggie! Come out, little doggie!”

By the time she had gone through the bathroom, looking in the tub, in the dirty clothes hamper, and behind the toilet, she was beginning to wonder if the dog was some kind of magician and had vanished into thin air.

Bruce seemed to be feeling the same way.

“Are you sure he’s here?” he asked. “Maybe he ran down again when you weren’t looking.”

“I don’t see how he could have,” Andi told him. “From where I was sitting at the table, I could see down the hall to the foot of the stairs. Besides, if he’d come down, it would have been straight into the dining room. That’s where the food was.”

“Well, he doesn’t seem to be around now,” Bruce said. “Maybe you daydreamed him. Maybe you wanted to see a dog so much that you made yourself think you saw one.”

“That’s stupid,” Andi said. This was the kind of grown-up comment Bruce sometimes made that caused her to want to slap him. “I didn’t daydream anything. That dog is up here somewhere.”

“I don’t see how —” Bruce began, when their mother’s voice rang from downstairs.

“Children? Have you taken your showers yet?”

“No,” they called back in unison.

“Then go ahead and take them. It’s almost bedtime.”

“Okay!” Bruce dropped his voice again. “I’ve done all the hunting I’m going to do. I don’t believe there is any dog. Dibs on the first shower.”

“No, you don’t. You took the first one last night and used up all the hot water.” Andi picked up the plate of food from the floor and hurried to the sewing room. Once inside, she flicked on the light and got out her nightshirt. Then she glanced around for a place to hide the dish. It would not do to have it sitting out when her mother came up to say good night.

The door to the sewing closet on the far side of the room gaped open a crack. This closet was the place where Aunt Alice kept her patterns and materials. Crossing the room, Andi pulled the door wide open and set the dish down on top of a pile of patterns. She was just turning away when her eye was caught by a movement in the corner.

“So, there you are!” Andi dropped to her knees on the closet floor. “No wonder we couldn’t find you! You’ve got yourself hidden under a pile of material!”

Reaching over, she began to pull the cloth aside. “Why, you’ve made it into a kind of nest. What do you think you are, you silly thing, a bird? Don’t you know that Aunt Alice is allergic to feathers just like dog hair, and she —”

Andi stopped short. Then she caught her breath in a startled gasp. There in the soft bed she had made for herself was not only the shaggy brown dog, but three tiny brown-and-white puppies.