Megan Rix
EMMELINE AND THE PLUCKY PUP
Chapter 1
November 1910
The little Staffordshire bull terrier puppy’s shiny black nose sniffed at the delicious smells drifting on the cold November air. The puppy was very thin and its ribs were easy to see through its white, brown and black fur.
‘Jellied eels – get your jellied eels here!’
‘Baked potatoes! Hot baked potatoes!’
‘Oysters and whelks! Best oysters and whelks!’
It was after one o’clock and lots of hungry people were buying food from the stalls and handcarts in Parliament Square Garden, across the road from the Houses of Parliament. No one was taking much notice of the thin little puppy as it trotted round the stalls.
‘Meat pies!’ called a vendor.
‘I’ll have two pies,’ a man said.
As the man bit into the first pie the puppy looked up at him and gave a whine.
‘Get out of it, you,’ the man said, some gravy from the pie running down his chin.
A handbell clanged behind them. ‘Muffins! Freshly baked muffins!’
The puppy looked longingly at the tray of muffins balanced on the baker’s head. But none of the muffins fell off and the baker went on his way ringing his bell.
‘Sheep’s trotters – fresh sheep’s trotters!’ a red-faced stallholder shouted to passers-by.
The puppy drooled at the delicious meaty smell.
‘Are they really fresh?’ a woman asked.
‘Won’t find fresher,’ the stallholder replied.
Seizing its moment, the desperate puppy stood on its hind legs and bit into a cooked sheep’s trotter from the edge of the stall.
‘Hey, you! Come back here!’ the stallholder shouted as the tiny dog tore off with it. ‘Thief, thief!’
‘I’ll catch him,’ yelled one of the errand boys who was hanging around the stalls hoping for work.
‘Penny if you do,’ said the stallholder. ‘But be quick.’
‘I’ll be quicker than him,’ said a second boy.
‘Penny for whoever brings it back,’ the stallholder told them.
A third, fourth, fifth and sixth boy joined in the chase. Everyone wanted the penny. They sped across the grass after the puppy, who had the warm sheep’s trotter clamped in its jaws.
The puppy darted in and out of the legs of people. The boys followed, weaving in and out and trying not to trip or bump into anyone. The square was full of tourists marvelling at the majestic Houses of Parliament, where the laws of the land were made.
‘Hello, puppy, that looks tasty!’ Police Constable Tom Smith laughed as the small piebald dog ran between his legs. He and an elderly constable called Purvis were on their way to join the police officers lining the roads around Parliament Square Garden.
‘Don’t worry about that now,’ Constable Purvis said, as the puppy ran into a bush to devour its prize. ‘You don’t want to be late, not today. We’ve got important work to do.’
Tom nodded and they walked on. He’d barely been able to sleep last night, he’d been so excited. It was his first day on duty as a police constable and he was going to be protecting the Houses of Parliament, because there was going to be a suffragette march. The suffragettes were campaigning for women to have the right to vote, just like men, and Tom knew that they were willing to use force. A couple of years ago there’d been a mass rally in Hyde Park with over 300,000 suffrage supporters. That one had been peaceful because it had been led by the suffragists rather than the suffragettes. Suffragists wanted the same thing as the suffragettes but they went about trying to get it by peaceful campaigning. Suffragettes were more militant. They’d attacked a member of Parliament – Mr Churchill – and rang a muffin bell continually when he’d tried to make a speech. They’d smashed the windows of 10 Downing Street, where the prime minister lived, and two of them had even chained themselves to the railings outside, in protest at the government not giving them the vote.
Tom didn’t know how many women would be marching today. But the papers were full of the news that the prime minister, Mr Asquith, had gone back on his word that women who owned property and were over thirty years old would be given the vote, so there might be lots of protestors. The police had to be ready. Tom was feeling a little nervous, even though he was one of many officers: the Home Secretary, Mr Winston Churchill, had asked for six thousand policemen from all over the country to come to London and protect the Palace of Westminster. Most of them were on foot, but some looked very fierce mounted on huge police horses.
They all stood to attention as the police commissioner gave them his orders: ‘The job of the police is to keep everyone calm. Crowds need to be controlled or members of the public could easily be hurt if the protest gets out of control.’
‘There, it’s in that bush!’ Tom heard an errand boy shout as he and Constable Purvis moved to their positions across the road. He watched as the group of boys charged towards the little puppy, who ran out of the bush, across the grass and away.