Hotel For Dogs (8 page)

He was by himself. That was the first thing that Andi noticed. He did not look nearly as imposing when he was alone as he did when he was surrounded by his gang of followers.

Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any kids going in or out of his house for quite a while now,
she thought suddenly. She did not have time to take the thought further because Jerry had reached them.

“Well, what do we have here?” He stopped in front of them, blocking their way. Surprisingly he seemed almost glad to see them. “What are you doing with those dogs, Andi? Your aunt’s allergic to them. She told my father about that when he got me Red Rover.”

“They’re not my dogs,” Andi said, her arms tightening protectively around the puppies. “They belong to Tiffany. We’re hunting for homes for
them. We’re going to knock on doors up and down the street to see if anybody wants them.”

The moment she said it, she realized that it was not a bad idea. Why
not
knock on doors and see if anyone wanted a puppy? The fewer there were when they reached the hotel, the less food it would take to raise them.

“They’re funny looking,” Jerry said. He reached out a finger and poked at one of the puppies. “Nobody with any sense is going to want a mutt like this.”

“They are
not
mutts,” Andi said furiously. “These are purebred Bulldales! They’re the latest breed! All the movie stars have them! They’re winning all the prizes at dog shows these days!”

“They are?” Jerry looked skeptical, but there was a flicker of interest in his eyes. “If they’re that great, how come you haven’t been able to give any of them away?”

“We have,” Andi said, glad that Bruce was not there to hear her. “We’ve given away five of them just since school let out. See, there are only five left where there used to be ten.”

“They’re really going that fast?” Jerry tried not to show it, but his interest was increasing. He studied
the pups carefully. Suddenly he smiled. It was the bright, sweet smile he usually used with grown-ups.

“Well, I guess I’ll help you out. I’ll take that one,” and he pointed to the largest puppy, which was one of the two that Debbie was carrying.

For a moment there was silence. Everyone was too astonished to speak.

Then Andi said explosively, “You certainly will not!”

“Andi!” Tiffany turned to her in bewilderment. “What are you saying? Isn’t that what we want — to find the puppies homes?”

“Not with somebody like Jerry Gordon,” Andi said. “I wouldn’t send a mountain lion to live at the Gordons’ house.”

“Look here!” Jerry’s handsome face flushed with anger. “You just finished telling me these aren’t your puppies! They belong to this other girl. I want a dog, and she wants me to have one, and I don’t see why you should have anything to say about it.”

“Tiffany does
not
want you to have one!” Debbie exclaimed. She turned to Tiffany. “Don’t you dare give him a puppy! Jerry tortured his last dog until it ran away. Bruce and Tim told me all about it.”

“He didn’t run away,” Jerry said. “Somebody stole him. That somebody lives right in this neighborhood, too! The kid who delivers our newspaper saw Red the other morning. He said he looked like a ghost running through the fog, but he recognized him and was sure it was Red Rover.”

“You beat that poor dog and tied a rope around his neck that almost strangled him!” Andi cried. “It’s a wonder he didn’t break his back trying to run with that wagon behind him. In fact —” She forced herself to stop before she said too much.

Jerry was watching her intently.

“In fact, what?” he asked. “You seem to know a lot about my dog. What ‘fact’ were you going to tell me?”

“In fact —” Andi realized that she had gone too far. Frantically she searched her mind for some way to end her sentence. “In fact,” she said slowly, “I bet you
did
break his back. I bet he ran off someplace and dug a hole and climbed into it and died. I bet it
was
a ghost dog that newspaper kid saw.”

“That’s crazy.” Clearly Jerry had not been expecting anything like that. “Dogs can’t be ghosts. They don’t have souls.”

“How do you know they don’t?” Andi shot back
at him. “A dog like Red Rover has more of a soul than you’ll ever have. I bet he’s a ghost, and I hope he comes through your walls at night and haunts you!”

With that, she clutched the two puppies she was holding tightly against her chest and marched around Jerry and on down the street. At the corner the other two girls caught up with her. Debbie grabbed her arm and squeezed it triumphantly.

“Andi, you were great! How do you ever come up with such things? You should have seen his face after you walked off. He turned white as a sheet.”

“How could you lie like that?” Tiffany asked in a shocked voice. “You made all that up, Andi Walker, about there being ten puppies and all the movie stars having them — none of it was true!”

“I know,” Andi said. “Now, come on, let’s cut through our side yard and go to the hotel from the back so Jerry won’t see us.”

When the girls reached the hotel, Bruce and Tim were there already. Tim saw them first. He was coming down the stairs, carrying MacTavish’s water bowl.

“Where have you been so long?” he asked irritably. “School’s been out for an hour. Bruce and I
have had to do all your housework, cleaning up after the dogs and filling the water bowls and —”

He broke off suddenly when he saw what Andi was carrying.

“Yikes! Bruce, come see what your crazy sister has brought with her!”

“It better not be another dog!” Bruce came in from the den with Red Rover at his heels. “One more bottomless pit like MacTavish to feed and we’ll be broke!” His eyes widened in disbelief. “I don’t believe it!
Five of them!
And who’s
that?”

“She’s Tiffany Tinkle,” Andi said. “Tiffany, this is my brother, Bruce, and that’s Tim Kelly.”

“You know we agreed not to bring in any more partners,” Bruce said. “And five new dogs —”

“I’ve found homes for Friday’s puppies,” Andi said quickly. “So, really, it’s just two more dogs than before, not five, and we have grand plans for these. We’re going to train them for the circus.”

“They look like circus dogs, that’s for sure.” Tim took Tiffany’s puppy from her and set it on the floor. “Here, Red, come meet a new friend!”

Red Rover began to wag his tail as he sniffed at the puppy. Bruce’s attention was still on his sister.

“What if somebody had seen you bringing those dogs in here? What if that person told Aunt Alice or Dad or Mom? How long do you think we could keep our hotel going if they found out about it? About two minutes, that’s how long.”

“Jerry Gordon did see us,” Debbie said. “You should have heard Andi take care of him! She scared him to death, Bruce.”

Delightedly she recited the story of Andi’s conversation with Jerry. When she had finished, Tim was grinning broadly, and even Bruce was beginning to smile a little.

“You couldn’t really have scared him,” Bruce said. “It was a good try, but nobody would believe that ghost-dog story. I’m sure he didn’t really turn pale.”

“I don’t know about that,” Tim said. His eyes were sparkling with laughter. “Jerry does believe in ghosts. I found that out when some of us guys were at his place for a sleepover. We had sleeping bags on the floor, except for Jerry, of course, who had a bed, and the rest of us started telling ghost stories like at a campout. Jerry went postal! He told us we’d better shut up. Then he got up and turned on the lights and the television.”

“Maybe you really did scare him, then,” Bruce said to his sister. “I wish I’d been there to hear it. Still, that doesn’t solve the problem of all these extra mouths to feed. We don’t have the money, and you know it.”

“We could advertise the pups in the paper,” Debbie suggested.

Bruce shook his head. “That costs money, too. Besides, you have to give an address so people can pick up the dogs. Whose address could we give? Not this one. Not Aunt Alice’s.”

“It’s the middle of November,” Andi said. “We get our allowances on December first. We can use those to buy dog food. This time I won’t spend a penny on anything else.”

“What about Christmas?” Bruce asked her. “Aren’t you going to buy any presents for anyone?”

“I’ll write everybody poems for presents,” Andi said recklessly. Then she paused. For a moment she had forgotten that she was through with writing poetry. “I’ll sew things,” she continued determinedly. “Pincushions and neckties and stuff like that.”

“You’ll have to buy material,” Bruce reminded her. He sighed. “Face it, guys, it just won’t work.
We’re getting in deeper and deeper. The leaves are finished falling now, and there isn’t any snow to shovel yet, and Tim and I are about through earning money. What are we going to do?”

A soft voice spoke. “What about charging room rent?”

Everyone turned to stare at Tiffany. They had almost forgotten she was there.

“Room rent!” Bruce said. “How can the dogs pay rent? The whole reason they’re here is that they don’t have owners.”

“But lots of dogs do,” Tiffany said. Her voice seemed to gather assurance as the idea took hold of her. “People go out of town and don’t have anywhere to leave their pets. I know when we went on a cruise last summer, we had to leave Ginger in a kennel. They charged thirty dollars a day.”

“Thirty dollars a day!” Tim let out a low whistle. “That’s over two hundred dollars a week. If we charged half that, it still would be a huge amount of money!”

“Think how many cases of dog food that would pay for!” Andi’s eyes were shining. “Oh, Tiffany, that’s a great idea!”

“And I know just who to get for the first guest,” Debbie said excitedly. “Delaney Belanger’s dog, Preston. The Belangers are going out of town for Thanksgiving. They’ll have to leave Preston somewhere. Why not with us?”

“You’ll have to make it sound as though it’s just with
you,”
Andi said. “They can’t know that Preston is going to be staying at a hotel.”

“Of course not. But I know the Belangers,” Debbie said confidently. “I’ve been to Delaney’s house lots of times. I know they’d rather leave Preston with me than at a kennel where he’d have to stay in a cage and wouldn’t have anybody to play with him.”

Tiffany was standing quietly with her hands clasped in front of her, but there was an expression of pride on her face.

Bruce smiled at her and then at his sister. For the first time in weeks the worry lines had smoothed out of his forehead, and he looked like the brother Andi had always known.

“You know, this just might work,” he said. “Our new partner, Tiffany, might have come up with a plan that will keep us from going out of business.”

Delaney Belanger’s dog, Preston, was a beagle.

Debbie brought him over on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. School had let out at noon as a prelude to the holiday, and the rest of the hotel staff was waiting to greet their first paying guest.

Preston was a lively dog and terribly strong for his size. He raced up the ramp so fast that Debbie, who was holding his leash, nearly fell on her face.

“He’s a hunting beagle,” she explained, handing the leash to Bruce with obvious relief. “I guess there are two kinds of beagles, the hunters and the stay-at-homes. Delaney’s father is training Preston to hunt rabbits. That must be why his legs are so strong.”

Preston was so excited at the sight and smell of so many other dogs that he tore around in circles. He ran from one room to another, giving shrill yelps,
and bounded up the stairs and came tearing down like a wild thing.

“He sure is a lively one,” Tim commented. He looked a little worried. “I hope he doesn’t upset the others.”

“The other dogs are used to each other,” Andi said. “Friday and Red have been friends for a long time now, and MacTavish is so fat and easygoing that he likes everybody. The pups are too young to get upset about anything except not eating on time.”

“Still,” Tim said, frowning, “I don’t much like the idea of leaving Preston free to roam around the hotel. Let’s put him in his room until he calms down a little.”

They had decided to let Preston have MacTavish’s room on the second floor and to move MacTavish in with Friday, who was lonely now that Tom, Dick, and Hairy had gone. Tim had objected at first (he always tended to favor MacTavish), but since Preston was a paying guest, Andi insisted that it was only right that he have his own accommodations.

It took some time to get Preston settled into his room, as the smell of MacTavish was still very much
in it. Preston evidently had not had much experience with other dogs, and he rushed about sniffing everything excitedly.

“Perhaps he’s looking for rabbits to chase,” Tiffany suggested.

It was past one o’clock by the time Preston finally settled down on his bed for a nap, and Bruce felt that they could go off and leave him. As they walked toward home, they noticed that the drapes were open behind the windows of the yellow house next to Aunt Alice’s and a car was parked in the driveway.

“I guess that means we won’t be able to cut through their yard anymore,” Andi said regretfully. “I wonder where they’ve been for so long.”

“Aunt Alice was saying something to Mom about how they’re retired people who travel a lot.” Bruce looked worried. “I wish they’d kept on traveling a while longer. They might start wondering why we’re going back and forth all the time, and if the dogs start barking —”

“They don’t bark much,” Andi said. “They’re really very well behaved.” The hotel was earning money, and the problem of supporting the dogs was solved at last. She didn’t intend to ruin things
by starting right in worrying about something new.

Lunch was on the table when they got home to Aunt Alice’s.

“We expected you before this,” their mother said. “I was under the impression that school let out at noon today.”

Aunt Alice’s nose began to twitch as she fought off a sneeze.

“Goodness,” she said, “if I didn’t know better, I would say there was dog hair in this room. I think I’m going to — going to — going to —
atchooooo!”

“Bless you,” Andi said, and hurriedly brushed at the hairs on her sweater. The other dogs at the hotel were kept carefully brushed, but Preston had been shedding.

They had just sat down to their sandwiches when the phone rang. Mrs. Walker answered. When she came back to the table, she was smiling.

“That was Dad calling from work,” she said. “Guess what? His training program will be over at the beginning of December, and he’s been assigned to his new office.”

“You mean you’ll be moving that soon?” Aunt Alice’s round face grew sober. “I’ve been looking
forward so much to having you here for Christmas. Life gets lonely for an old lady when the holidays come around. There have been many times lately when I’ve wished that Peter and I had had children. Of course, at the time we were so involved in our work —”

Bruce and Andi, who had their mouths open to cheer, let them drop closed in astonishment. For months now all they had thought about was how wonderful it would be to move out of this crowded house where all the rules were so different from the ones they were used to. It hadn’t occurred to either of them that their presence might mean something special to Aunt Alice.

And Aunt Alice’s reference to her “work” came as a surprise to both of them. Had she actually held a job when she was younger? It was hard to imagine this fluttery, unimpressive little woman as anything other than a housewife. Had she been a secretary, maybe, or a bookkeeper, or a saleslady? She did have a sewing room, so maybe she’d done alterations. But she’d said
“our
work,” as if she and her husband had worked together. Surely their father’s uncle Peter hadn’t been a dressmaker?

Mrs. Walker’s face grew gentle. “Why, Aunt Alice,” she said, “I’m glad you feel that way. We wouldn’t want to have Christmas without you, either, and we won’t have to. We won’t be moving very far. John’s new office is going to be right here in Elmwood! That means I may end up teaching at Andi’s school.”

It was then that they heard the sound. It started low and rose slowly, note by note, into a long, wretched wail.

The smile faded from Mrs. Walker’s face. “What on earth is that?”

“It’s a siren!” Aunt Alice’s plump face grew pale. “Another air-raid warning just like the one we heard last month. Oh, dear, oh, dear, this time it must really mean war!”

“It isn’t the same, though.” Mrs. Walker was listening intently. “That sound we heard in the night was like an alarm going off. This is more of a — a sort of — howl. It sounds almost like a hound on the trail of a rabbit.”

Bruce and Andi exchanged helpless glances as the deep, mournful voice of the beagle rose again, longer and louder this time.

“It
is
a hound!” their mother exclaimed. “I’d know that sound anywhere. My father used to have one when I was a little girl. That’s the way they howl when they’re hunting or when they’re cooped up somewhere and want to get out.”

“But nobody in this neighborhood owns a hound,” Aunt Alice said. “At least, I’ve never heard of one. Do you children know of anyone who has a hunting dog?”

“No,” Andi said weakly.

Bruce thought desperately. “Maybe it’s in a car parked someplace,” he said. “I could go look.”

He was out of his seat and halfway across the room before his mother could stop him.

“Don’t be silly!” she exclaimed. “Come back here and finish your lunch. If someone has left a dog in a car, it’s none of our business. If that noise keeps up long enough the police will investigate.”

“The police!” Bruce exclaimed in horror.

“Disturbing the peace,” Aunt Alice said. “They have fines for that.”

“I’m through eating.” Andi laid her napkin on the table beside her plate. Without ever having met the elderly couple in the yellow house, she could picture them clearly, standing by their
telephone, looking up the number of the police station. If Preston’s howls were this loud here at Aunt Alice’s, what must they be like one house closer!

“Please,” she said, “may I be excused?”

The beagle’s voice rose, wavered, fell, and rose, wavered, and fell again. Then, suddenly, the sound stopped.

“Well,” Mrs. Walker said, “someone must have investigated and let the poor thing out.”

“Please,” Andi repeated frantically, “may I be excused? Please, Mom, Aunt Alice — I’m really finished.”

“I am, too,” Bruce said. “I couldn’t eat another bite.”

“Oh, all right,” their mother said with a little laugh. “After all, it’s Thanksgiving vacation. Run along and play, and tomorrow you can stuff yourselves on turkey and —”

They did not stay to hear the end of the sentence. Her first words had hardly been uttered before both children were out of the house and running wildly down the street toward the hotel.

They had almost reached the ramp when they saw the figure of the boy standing near it. He had his head cocked to one side and was listening
intently. Bruce stopped short, and Andi, who was right behind him, nearly ran into him.

“Not him again!” she breathed. “Not here! Not now!”

Jerry Gordon turned to face them. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“We’re — we’re —” Bruce began haltingly. Then he stopped himself. Why should he make excuses? This wasn’t Jerry’s property, either. “We’ve got as much right to be here as you do,” he said.

“I heard a dog howling,” Jerry said. “It sounded like Red. Somebody in this neighborhood’s stolen my dog, and I’m going to find out who it is.”

“Well, you certainly can’t think we took him,” Andi said. “Where would we keep him? You know Aunt Alice is allergic to animals.”

“I do know that,” Jerry said. “If it wasn’t for that, I
would
think it was you. Things have been going funny ever since you two moved into this neighborhood.”

“What do you mean by ‘funny’?” Bruce asked uncomfortably.

From where he stood he could see the ramp leaning up to the window. It was half hidden by bushes,
and the shadows of the trees fell across it, but it was still there, perfectly evident to anyone who knew where to look for it. Jerry’s back was toward it now, but if he should turn around —

“All kinds of things are funny,” Jerry said. “First Red disappears. Then Tim quits the gang. Then I see you guys walking across the street carrying lumber, the same boards Tim was going to contribute toward a clubhouse. Then your dorky sister comes by with five purebred Bulldales, and where are they now? She said she was giving them away. I can’t see that anybody in the neighborhood has one. And then the rest of the gang quits —”

“The rest of the gang?” Bruce repeated.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know about that. After Tim quit the gang, the rest of the guys, one by one, started falling out, too. What have you and Tim been bribing them with? Neither of you has anywhere near the cool stuff I have.”

“Bruce doesn’t bribe people!” Andi leapt to her brother’s defense. “He doesn’t need to. People like Bruce just because he’s
Bruce.
Did you ever think that maybe your gang just got sick of the way you treat people?”

“That dog howling —” Jerry began.

“You think it’s Red Rover?” Now that she had started, Andi could no more have stopped talking than she could have turned off a waterfall. All the anger she ever had felt at Jerry Gordon came pouring out. “Well, I think so, too. It
is
Red Rover. It’s his poor beaten-up ghost howling for revenge, that’s what it is. If I were you, I’d run home and hide in a closet and lock all the doors and windows, because the very worst ghosts in the whole wide world are dogs.”

Jerry’s face grew ashen.

“That’s a lie,” he said shakily. “Dogs don’t have ghosts. I wish you’d never come to Elmwood, you Walkers! Everything was great until you crashed in here. Why didn’t you stay out West where you belonged?”

“We belong in Elmwood,” Bruce said. “We like it here.”

To his amazement, he realized that what he was saying was true. He turned to Andi, and he could see by her face that it was true for her, too.

“Bruce is right,” she said. “We have friends here. It’s home. Even if you’re not born in a place, it starts being home as soon as you have friends.”

“You’re going to need every friend you’ve got,” Jerry said. “I got rid of one kid in this neighborhood that I didn’t like. I can get rid of two more just as easily. You wait and see.” Turning on his heel, he stalked away.

Bruce and Andi stood anchored in place until he had disappeared from view. Then, with one accord, they rushed for the ramp. A moment later, they were inside the hotel, hurrying down the hall toward the stairway.

Tim was sitting on the steps with MacTavish on one side of him and Preston on the other.

“Hi,” he said. “I see you finally got here.”

“So, you’re the reason that idiot beagle stopped howling.” Bruce drew a long breath of relief. “We ran into Jerry out behind the hotel and got hung up talking to him. I was scared that dog would let out another blast right then.”

“And the people in the yellow house are back,” Andi added. “I was afraid
they
might have come over here and found Preston.”

“You mean the Smiths?” Tim grinned. “Don’t worry about them. They’re a nice old couple, but they’re both deaf as posts. They wouldn’t know if Preston was howling right in their bedroom.” Then
his face sobered. “Other people would know, though. I could hear him all the way over at my house. Beagles don’t like being cooped up. We can’t risk this happening again. One of us is going to have to stay here all the time until we get him back to his owner.”

“At night, too?” Andi exclaimed. “How can we do that?”

“Bruce and I can trade off,” Tim said. “One night I’ll tell my parents that I’m sleeping over at Bruce’s house, and the next night he can tell yours that he’s spending the night with me. During the daytime you girls can take turns dog-sitting.”

“I don’t like to lie to my parents,” Bruce said worriedly. “Still, with Jerry snooping around like this —”

“I have an idea,” Andi said.

The boys turned to look at her.

“What kind of idea?” Bruce asked warily.

“An idea that will keep him from bothering us forever. An idea that will keep him from ever hurting any helpless animal again.” Andi’s face was aglow with delight. “It’s the best idea I’ve ever had in my life! Bruce, that picture you took of Red the
day we arrived in Elmwood — did you get it made into a slide?”

“Sure,” Bruce said. “I do that with all my best digitals. I like to look at them blown up big with a projector. What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with it,” Andi said. “Tim said the Smiths wouldn’t know it if a dog howled right in their bedroom. But Jerry would know it. There’s nothing deaf about Jerry.”

Her voice was squeaking with excitement.