7

Visiting Emily

MIN WAS RIGHT about the nightmare. She woke to see the sun peering over the roof across the road. It took so long to come up, this close to the longest night of the year. It must be well after eight.

She remembered Emily a second later and scrambled into her clothes in less time than it took the sun to complete its rising.

“Good morning, Min,” Jess called as she appeared in the kitchen. “Come and eat. We have to rush. I have things to catch up on after lunch. Here you are.”

She put a bowl of cornflakes topped with milk and sliced bananas in front of Min.

“I’ll do some shovelling,” Toby said, banging out through the back door.

Min ignored him. She did not begin to eat. “Do you think Emily is … is …” she began, her voice shaking.

“I called Jack a few minutes ago to see how she was doing, and she’s still in the land of the living,” Jess said quietly. “They’ve cleaned her up and she’s on intravenous. She has a couple of cracked ribs and a crushed paw. Also, you will not be surprised to learn that over half of her teeth are rotten and will have to be extracted when she’s strong enough. He says she has been treated cruelly, and shamefully neglected. She only weighs six and a half pounds, Min. Jack says she ought to weigh twice that much.”

Min gulped. Her eyes smarted but she blinked away the threatening tears. Inside her head, she heard Enid Bangs’s voice saying, I tell you, the girl never cries. Well, good old Enid didn’t know everything. Min swiped the back of her hand across her eyes, to be on the safe side, and picked up her spoon.

“Can we bring her home today?” she asked.

“Not until after Christmas,” Jess told her.

Min began to gobble her breakfast, her body telling her she would need strengthening for what might lie ahead.

“That was quick work,” Jess said, removing the empty bowl. “Let’s go.”

Toby was the first one in the car, but Min was not wasting a thought on him now. All the way to the animal clinic, she fought down dread. What if Emily had died? What if something she had done had made her injuries worse? Or even killed her?

Don’t be dumb, she told herself sharply. I didn’t do anything but hold her. I did just what Jess told me.

They pulled up and Toby slid out of the back and swung Jess’s door open.

“Thank you, Tobias,” she said, grinning at him and reaching up as though she were going to rumple his hair.

“Don’t …” he yelped, ducking.

But Jess put on an innocent face. “Don’t what?” she asked.

“Call me Tobias,” Toby bellowed. But he was laughing.

Min knew, at once, that this was an old joke, a family tease. Envy bit at her again as she watched them.

Then she forgot them entirely. It was time to go in and see Emily.

“Well, you’ll notice a big change,” Dr. Miller said, coming into the waiting room. “I knew it would be you. Nobody else would drop in so early today. Your poor little dog lived through the night and seems a bit better, but she’s not out of the woods yet, I’m afraid. We had one unpleasant surprise I haven’t told you about yet. We found a shotgun pellet embedded in her flank.”

“You mean … someone shot her?” Min gasped.

“Maybe they just saw something moving and fired off a shot. We can be grateful they didn’t try again. They didn’t look for her though, although she must have yelped. Come this way and see how she is.”

As they walked through to the back room, they passed a huge lop-eared rabbit that wiggled its nose at them and a couple of very young kittens curled up together. Toby smiled at them, but Min had eyes only for a small sad dog. Where was she?

“Here we go,” Dr. Miller said, undoing one of the cages.

Min stared at the limp bundle lying absolutely still inside. Emily was facing away from them. All the burrs were gone and her raggedy coat was a different colour. A soft creamy white instead of a dingy beige. But the thistle-down fur was all different lengths. Her black nose looked surprisingly black now. An intravenous tube was dripping something into her paw, but she seemed unaware of it. Sharp bones were visible through her skin. Her hip bones looked like handles. If she had been a toy, you could easily have picked her up by one of them. Seeing how hurt she was, Min felt sick.

“My stepfather would say, ‘That isn’t a dog; that’s a mouse.’ He always says stuff like that about little dogs,” Toby said, but his voice cracked. “He’s wrong, of course.”

“Of course,” Dr. Miller echoed. “I’ve heard that line many times. But the very same men can turn to mush when they get a pup of their own. I think this little one of yours, Min, is asleep.”

“Go ahead and stroke her, child,” Jess said softly. “Just be very gentle. Say her name.”

“Hello, Emily,” Min crooned, touching the tiny dog with the tips of her fingers. The fur was so soft it was unbelievable. Emily’s head came up for a moment and her tail lifted and trembled ever so slightly before it collapsed again. “Hi, there.”

“Min named her this morning, Jack. What’s the prognosis?” Jess asked. “I know she’s had a bad time, but you seem to think she might make it.”

“I wish I was sure. I hope she’ll pull through. But she’s terribly weak. She’s lost a lot of blood and these kinds of injuries take their toll. We can’t tell if she’s hurt inside, but I suspect she is. We’ll certainly do our best for her, but she may well have internal injuries we can’t spot.”

“Who knows how long she’d been in the shed where we found her,” Jess said.

“Not too long or she’d have frozen. It’s been pretty cold at night this week. If you can figure out where she came from, I’d like to know. They should be reported to the authorities.”

“Yes,” Min and Toby said in unison. They shot a swift glance at each other and then quickly looked away.

“I don’t see how we can,” Jess said, catching the glance and speaking sternly. “We certainly aren’t going out there to ask around. My friend Mabel spoke of a place not all that far away where guard dogs are raised and trained. The place also has puppies for sale. Apparently, two women breed the small dogs and the brother of one of them trains the big dogs — they’re really vicious. At least, that’s the gossip. But Mabel doesn’t know exactly where this place is and her neighbours claim the man prowls about with a shotgun and has put up No Trespassing signs. Mabel is upset about the gun, but then, people do hunt out that way. Since we have no proof that Emily came from there, we’re not going anywhere near the place. Did you kids hear me?”

They nodded but did not meet her eyes.

“Good thinking, Jess. Come on out to the desk and we’ll discuss her treatment,” the veterinarian said.

They walked away. Min and Toby stayed staring at Emily. When the adults were out of sight, Emily raised her tired head again and licked Min’s hand with a tongue soft as a rose petal. Her eyes did not focus on them, though, but gazed into the distance. Then she put her head down again.

“Can she see? She can’t be blind, can she?” Min whispered.

“I don’t think so. Just too sick to care,” Toby said.

Emily’s small head was resting on her paws again and her eyes were shut, but her tail quivered once more, as though she were trying to wag it, yet lacked the strength.

“There’s not much wrong with your tail anyway,” Min told her, choking over the words. Her chest ached with love and pity for the dog who, through no fault of her own, had already suffered so much.

Toby reached out and gently shut the door of the cage. “I’d like to shoot them,” he said, under his breath.

Min stared at him. “Would you go with me later to that place in the country?” she whispered. “I want to know what they’re doing. I bet that stuff about the shotgun is just talk. But if they’re hurting other little animals …”

Toby’s answer, when it came, sounded jagged, as though slivers of glass were stuck to each word. “I vote we find out,” he growled. “If it’s true, we can report them. It’ll take some planning, but we can do it. Jess would want to know too. She just doesn’t want us to get hurt. But we’d be careful. We might even be able to find out what we need to know, without them seeing us,” he said, keeping his voice down to a whisper. “I might be able to get us a ride with my cousin next week sometime. Her best friend lives out that way and Martha drives over to visit her all the time. She’s at home for the holidays right now. I’ll check it out.”

Min felt breathless. She was astonished at how quickly he had got it all planned. Seeing poor Emily lying there must be what had done it. She nodded and hung back to let him go ahead of her. She looked back once at the tiny, too-quiet dog, and was shocked to find her eyes filling with tears again.

Was she, cold-hearted Min, becoming a Moaning Myrtle? Why now?

Was it maybe because nobody here would jeer at her? Was it their trust that made her feel like bawling? Even so, she scrubbed all traces of tears away with her knuckles, thankful Toby was facing away from her.

“We’ll be back and we’ll find out who hurt you, Em,” she promised under her breath.

Then she followed the boy she had been so sure she would hate.