Emily's Dream (4 page)

“Wouldn’t Barney be good at that?” Emily said, smiling. “He’d just sit there, and thump his tail and let his tongue hang out. He’s like a big black teddy bear. So – shall we ask Izzy and Poppy if they’ll help? It would be fun to do another big project together anyway. And we can tell Mr Finlay. He told me the other day that he thought we might be ill because we hadn’t asked him to arrange anything really tricky for ages.”

They hurried off the bus – after Emily had found both her little brothers, and sent them back to fetch all the stuff they’d left behind – and went to look for Izzy and Poppy.

“How was the animal shelter?” Poppy yelled excitedly, as she saw them coming. “Did you go? Did they say yes? Are you going to help out?”

“Yes.” Emily grinned at her. “To all the questions.
It was brilliant, and Maya’s going to help too. Every Saturday morning, and maybe Sundays sometimes as well.”

“There’s Izzy!” Maya pointed across the playground, and they saw Izzy coming in the gate. Emily waved wildly at her. It would be easier only to explain about the party once, she thought.

“Did you go to the shelter?” Izzy demanded, as soon as she got close enough.

“Yes, you’re a total genius, and it was a brilliant idea.” Emily hugged her, and Izzy looked surprised, but pleased. She stood there a bit stiffly, and let herself be hugged. She and Emily hadn’t got on all that well when Izzy had first joined their group to work on the class’s Fairtrade project, and she sometimes wasn’t sure Emily liked her as much as the others did.

“But now,” Emily glared at her sternly, “we need you to help. You too, Poppy,” she added. “The shelter’s amazing, but it’s really short of money, and we were thinking we could have a sort of fundraising party. It’s the shelter’s tenth birthday this year.” She looked at them both hopefully. “So … please? Will you help organise it too? We’re brilliant when we all do things like this together.”

Izzy took off her backpack and reached into one
of the pockets, bringing out a little notebook with a pencil on a string. She folded the cover over and looked at Emily in a businesslike way.

Emily laughed. “I knew you’d help organise us.”

“When are you thinking it should be?” Izzy asked.

“Sometime in the summer half-term,” Maya explained. “That gives us lots of time to plan everything,
and
to make sure that people know about it. That’s where you come in,” she told Poppy. “Posters!”

“Really cute, gorgeous fun posters for the best party day out ever!” Emily agreed.

“OK.” Poppy nodded.

“You’d be fantastic at designing any decorations too,” Maya added.

“Where’s it going to be?” Izzy asked, sitting down on one of the benches so that she could scribble in her notebook better. “What sort of decorations will will we be putting up?”

Maya and Emily looked at each other anxiously. “That’s the only thing,” Emily admitted. “We don’t actually know where we’re going to have it.”

“If it was nice weather we could just use the yard at the shelter,” Maya explained. “But if it rains that would be useless. And there isn’t really anywhere else
– just lots of pens, and the house, and that doesn’t have any big rooms for a party.”

Izzy frowned. “Hiring a hall would probably be really expensive.”

“Oh, no, we can’t do that!” Emily said. “We need to raise money, not spend it…”

“And we don’t have any money at all, until we’ve sold some tickets,” Maya sighed. “Anyone who owned a hall would want us to pay them when we book, I should think.”

“But then what are we going to do?” Emily asked. They couldn’t give up already. She thought of Twinkle, and Barney, and Honey and the puppies. They needed that money!

Izzy shook her head, and then slipped her notebook back into her bag as the bell rang for registration. “We’ll just have to find somewhere that doesn’t cost anything,” she said. “There must be places…”

Emily nodded, but she still felt miserable. She couldn’t think of anywhere at all.

FOUR

“I nearly forgot! Look what I’ve made for you!” Poppy leaned over their table, and passed Emily a piece of card, carefully sealed in a plastic envelope. “I scanned it on Mum’s scanner too, so I’ll email it to you when I get home. But I just wanted you to see the real thing first.”

Emily took it, wondering what on earth it could be, and Maya and Izzy peered over to see too. Mr Finlay hadn’t arrived yet – he was always losing stuff in the staffroom, and he often turned up out of breath and trailing piles of paper.

“Oh, Poppy! You made me a logo!” Emily said delightedly, turning the envelope so that the others could look at it properly. “That’s so clever,
and
it actually looks like me.”

The little picture showed Emily with her trademark curly bunches, wearing a T-shirt with a heart on it,
and with her arms around a cat and a dog – the dog had curly ears and looked like Honey, the spaniel at the shelter.

Poppy nodded, pleased. “I was thinking last night that you really ought to try out Maya’s idea, and be a petsitter. You’d be so good. So I thought you’d need a leaflet, with a cute logo. If you get really successful, you could even have business cards,” she added.

“This is brilliant… What else do you think I should put on the leaflet?” Emily asked. “Normally when we get stuff like that through the door they say they’ve got twenty years’ experience at gardening, or whatever it is. And I haven’t got any.”

Izzy nodded. “Mmmm. My dad’s leaflet says that. And, um,
All types of garden work undertaken. No job too small. References available on request.
”

“What does
that
mean?” Emily asked, wide-eyed.

“It means that if you want he can give you my auntie’s phone number and she’ll tell you he’s brilliant.” Izzy giggled.

“Oooh, you should definitely say that. You could put Billy as a reference!” Poppy said excitedly. “He’d say you were fab. Well, I mean, I would for him.”

“And maybe if you asked Lucy, she’d let you give her name, or the shelter’s,” Maya suggested. “She
was really pleased with you at the weekend, wasn’t she?”

Emily nodded. “Yes. She seemed to be, anyway. I might leave it till I’ve done a couple more weekends before I ask her, though. Poppy, do you think your mum would mind if people rang you up to ask if I was a good petsitter?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” Poppy said, frowning. “You came over and fed him for us when we went away for the weekend, didn’t you? That counts as petsitting. And you’ve walked him lots with me. I’ll ask Mum, maybe she’ll agree to say it, if anyone rings. It would probably sound better coming from a grown-up. She can definitely say nice things about you. Anyway, she’s known you for what, five years? She can say you’re honest and reliable and um, clean, and stuff.”

“Clean?” Emily rolled her eyes.

Poppy shrugged. “Well, people might want to know that you won’t take their dogs out and then stomp mud all over their carpets.”

Emily nodded, looking worried. “I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose there’s all sorts of things that might go wrong. I mean, what if I take someone’s dog to the woods, and he slips his lead? And I never find him again!”

“Ems! You haven’t even got a dog-walking job yet!” Maya elbowed her. “Stop being such a drama queen. Just concentrate on making a smart leaflet first.”

“I suppose I am getting a bit over the top…” Emily murmured. “It’s just such a big responsibility.” Then she smiled. “But it would be so nice if I actually did get some customers. I could easily walk a couple of dogs after school. Maybe even before school if I got up really early.” She glanced over at the door to check Mr Finlay still wasn’t coming, and then hopped up and ran round the table to hug Poppy. “You’re totally, utterly brilliant. I’m going to go home and design the nicest leaflets. And a business card as well, just in case.” She grinned, imagining handing out her card to sweet-looking dogs she met in the street, and then scooted back to her seat as Mr Finlay finally arrived, looking harassed.

“Mum, please! It’s my turn, it’s been my turn for ages, and Toby and James won’t get off the Lego website.”

Emily’s mum put her head round the door of the tiny room where the computer lived, and sighed. “All right. You two. Off. Emily’s right, it’s her turn. And you need to go and have a bath, anyway.”

“But we’re in the middle of a level!” Toby howled
furiously. “You can’t make us stop now! That’s just so mean!”

“Really mean!” James chimed in, agreeing with his big brother for once. “I had a bath yesterday, anyway.”

“You didn’t.” Toby turned round and smirked at him. “You just stuck your head under the tap and told Mum you got in the bath.” Then he groaned. “Oh, look, now we died! Mu-uuum! You made us die! We’ll have to start again now.” He settled back on the chair, darting a smug little glance at Emily. Toby always went with possession being nine-tenths of the law – it would be much easier for Mum just to say,
Oh, you don’t mind, do you, Emily?
than it would be to make him move…

“No!” Emily dug her nails into her palms to stop herself yelling at Toby – or grabbing him and pulling him away from the computer, which was what she really felt like doing. If Mum took his side, she was going to scream.

Emily glanced round at Mum anxiously. Sometimes she just didn’t notice how Emily was feeling, and that made Emily crosser than anything – knowing that Mum was worrying about whether Sukie had eaten any tea, or if Toby had got into trouble with his
teacher again, or what time Dad was getting home from work. Emily knew that Mum did have a lot to worry about, but she got sick of being the one that Mum
didn’t
have to fuss over. It would be nice if all Mum’s attention was on her for once.

Mum patted her shoulder, and glared at Toby, and Emily took a deep breath of relief.

“Toby, get off the computer now and go and get in the bath! If you argue with me about it again you won’t be playing on it tomorrow, either.”

Toby stomped away growling, and James looked thoughtfully at the screen, and then at Mum, and decided it would be sensible to follow him.

“Thanks, Mum.” Emily smiled at her gratefully.

“Sorry you had to wait, sweetheart. Are you trying to do some homework?”

“Ummm, not quite,” Emily murmured. “I think Poppy sent me an email, that’s all.” It was all very well having Mum’s attention, but actually, Emily didn’t really want to tell her about the petsitting and dog-walking plan just yet. She glanced around, trying to think of some way to distract her. Then she frowned, and looked up at the ceiling.

“What is it?” her mum asked worriedly. “Can you hear something upstairs? Oh no, Toby and James
are probably splashing water all over the bathroom. Sorry, Ems, we’ll talk about your homework later.”

Emily hadn’t actually heard anything, but she didn’t feel guilty about getting her brothers into trouble. They almost certainly were splashing water all over the bathroom. They couldn’t even
look
at water without splashing it.

Happily, she clicked on the attachment from Poppy, and started trying to make up her leaflet. Poppy had sent her a photo too, one she’d taken of Emily and Billy a couple of months before. She’d called the file
A Satisfied Customer
. Emily grinned. That was a great idea.

Emily had borrowed a couple of leaflets from the board in the kitchen where Mum pinned up the numbers for the plumber and other useful stuff, and she was planning to look on petsitters’ websites too, to get some more ideas.

No one had a logo as nice as hers, she decided, a few minutes later. But there were an awful lot of petsitters, and they all seemed to have years and years of experience. Still, at least there didn’t seem to be anyone else very close by, although there was one lady in Millford who said she could do calming massage and aromatherapy for cats who were missing
their owners. Emily wondered if she knew Poppy. She thought they might get on.

Carefully, she checked all her spelling, and then twirled a strand of her dark, curly hair round her finger. Was she really ready to do this? It sounded such a good idea, but a bit scary too. Then she remembered how much fun it had been walking Twinkle and Barney with Maya at the weekend. She’d loved it, and Twinkle had too. Lucy had said that Twinkle hadn’t had a proper walk in ages. What if there was another dog out there like Twinkle, with an owner who couldn’t manage to exercise her properly? It would be brilliant to be able to help out dogs like that. She really wanted to.

Maybe she should take out the petsitting bits in her leaflet, and just concentrate on the dog-walking, Emily mused. No matter what the others said, Emily wasn’t sure that people would really want to give their door keys to a ten-year-old while they were on holiday. And holidays only happened once or twice a year, too. If she had a couple of regular dogs to walk, that would be much better. Almost like having her own dog. Twinkle was gorgeous – but so gorgeous that surely she would be adopted soon. Lucy had already warned Emily not to get too attached to
any of the animals.

Emily smiled to herself, imagining taking a dog on some of her favourite walks – along by the edge of the stream that ran past Maya’s house would be great. It would be even better going on her own, without Toby and James fighting and splashing and trying to push each other in, and Mum panicking about Sukie’s pushchair getting stuck in the mud.

And a regular walking job would earn her some money, too, Emily realised suddenly. She’d put how much she would charge down on the leaflet, of course, but she hadn’t really imagined having the money. She could save up for a dog of her own, perhaps. Surely one day she’d be able to persuade Mum?

Quickly Emily took out the bits she didn’t need, and made the photo of her and Billy a bit bigger to fill up some of the space. Then she hit print, and crossed all her fingers together into complicated knots…

Emily had been hoping that as soon as she had delivered her leaflets (Maya came with her, and they counted the number of houses where they could hear barking, which was quite a lot), that there would be phone calls and emails. Lots of calls would be nice, but she’d get at least one or two, surely?

But there weren’t any, and Emily gloomily supposed that her leaflets had been thrown away, or maybe pinned up on a board like her mother’s, just in case. It was very depressing, especially as Maya and the others kept asking if she’d heard anything and she had to say no.

At least she still had the shelter to go to. Maya and Emily arrived early on Saturday, and Lucy beamed at them.

“I’m really glad you two are here already! Twinkle’s desperate for a walk. She’s whining like mad. Some of the other volunteers have been taking the dogs out during the week, but I think she really loved those long walks she had last weekend.” She eyed them hopefully. “Do you think you’d be up for taking two dogs each? If we make sure they’re ones who’ll get along?”

Emily glanced at Maya and they both nodded. “Definitely,” Emily said. And Lucy was right – she could hear whining from the dog pens even out by the gate. She was pretty sure that Twinkle was making the squeaky, grumpy noise.