The 12 Dogs of Christmas (3 page)

“Thank you, Nobel,” he said. Then he became very solemn as he raised his right hand as high as one could while hugging a cat, and said: “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to Doverville to keep dogs out of Doverville. Old Scratch here can smell a dog a mile away. And as for me, well, as you know, I hate dogs, I hate, hate, hate 'em.”

The audience again erupted in applause as Norman hugged old Scratch and grinned.

5
Aunt Dolores

Emma left the train station and started walking to her Aunt Dolores's house, following the directions her father had written down and put in the envelope along with the instructions of how to change trains at Grand Central Station. There was also a short note for Dolores that read: “Dear Dolores, Here's Emma as I wrote to you. Please make sure she goes to school. Thanking you in advance, Douglas O'Connor.”

Doverville was a small, pretty town of white clapboard houses and red brick buildings. Maybe it was especially charming now that it was covered with snow and decorated for Christmas, but Emma thought that even in the summer, the town would be beautiful. The Christmas decorations did seem a little meager, but that was probably, like so many things, due to the Depression. Still, there was the attempt to reflect the spirit of the season, and Emma liked that. And with the snow on the ground and the air so crisp and clean, Emma couldn't help but stop now and then and feel as if she were standing in the middle of a picture postcard.

Max ran and ran, but had no idea where to go, because
wherever this was it certainly was not New York City, for all
the buildings here were very small. And if it was not New
York City, how could he ever find Mr. Whiteside? This place
did, however, look a little bit like Central Park, where Mr.
Whiteside always took Max for walking and running and
playing with the ball. It had a lot of trees, and it was covered
with the white cold stuff just like Central Park.

Max was tired and wanted to stop, but that boy was chasing
him, and probably wanted to put him back in the wooden
cage. Then the boy shouted out, “Max!” That's what Mr.
Whiteside always called him. Maybe he knew Mr. Whiteside;
maybe the boy would take Max to him.

Max dashed across a road, but stopped on the other side,
turned around, and sat. The boy stopped. He was breathing
hard. Max had noticed that before—humans don't run as
well as dogs.

“Here, boy,” the boy said as he slowly approached Max.
“Come here, Max. It's okay.”

Max wasn't so sure about that, but he couldn't run forever.
He let the boy come up to him and put a leash around
his neck.

All of a sudden, there was the most awful sound. Max
looked up to see a monster coming down the road.

Oh, no!
Mike thought.
It's Mr. Doyle in that awful dog-catching
machine of his.

Coming down the road, heading straight toward Mike and Max was Norman Doyle and bug-face Melvin on a fearsome machine. It was basically an old motorcycle that Melvin had welded armor plating onto. He had also attached to it the most elaborate sidecar that wrapped around the back of the motorcycle. Bug-face Melvin was driving the Fearsome Machine, and Norman Doyle, the newly instated Town Dogcatcher, sat in the sidecar's strangely elevated seat. In back were a little truck-like flatbed on which was secured a cage for criminal dogs and a little case wherein old Scratch rode. Various dog-catching nets on the end of long poles flapped in the wind like pirate flags. Norman grabbed one to use on Max.

“Come on, Max, come on!” Mike yelled as he tried to pull the dog along. But Max was scared and didn't want to move. Norman was grinning in anticipation of his first official capture of a criminal dog, as they got closer and closer.

Norman's dog net was just swooping down when Mike's mother pulled up in her truck and slammed on the breaks, stopping right before Mike and Max, and blocking the path of the Fearsome Machine.

Cathy Stevens opened the passenger door of the truck and yelled to her son, “Mike, get in!” Mike lifted Max into the cab of the truck, then followed, slamming the door behind him. Cathy hit the gas just as Norman was running up to them.

“What are you doing?! Give me that dog!” Norman yelled as the truck sped away. He ran back to the Fearsome Machine and jumped on, ordering bug-face Melvin to “Catch that truck!”

Cathy Stevens drove as fast as she could, ever mindful of the snow-covered roads and the many dogs she had in the back. But she had to save them, for she had no idea what would happen to them if Norman Doyle got his dirty hands on them. She had known Norman since they were children, and she had never liked him. His personality was nothing to speak of, so she never did.

“Faster, Mom, faster! Hurry!” Mike shouted. He had been watching the Fearsome Machine's progress and was alarmed that it was getting closer. But then they came to the old South Creek bridge, and in passing over it they passed a sign that read: LEAVING DOVERVILLE CITY LIMITS.

“He-he-he! Good-bye, dogcatcher,” Cathy said as they headed off toward home.

Bug-face Melvin stopped the Fearsome Machine just before the bridge, and Norman jumped down from his high seat and looked after the truck full of dogs with great disgust. And then he went over to the case containing his beloved cat. “Don't worry, Scratch, we'll get 'em next time.”

Douglas O'Connor's directions had been very clear, and Emma had no problems finding her Aunt Dolores's house. It was a white clapboard two-story house, with an old Model T Ford sitting in the front drive. There was a big oval sign in the yard nailed to two tall two-by-fours that read: DOLORES'S BEAUTY SALON. The oval was fringed with Christmas lights. When Emma got up to the front door, there was another sign that welcomed visitors to just walk on in, so Emma did, entering a small room that was wonderfully warm. She saw no one, but heard voices coming from a room to her left. Emma walked in.

The room, which had originally been the living room, had been outfitted with all the modern equipment of a beauty salon, including special chairs, two big dome hair dryers, a special sink to wash hair in, and several vanity tables with mirrors. Sitting at one of the vanity tables was a very large woman with the jolliest face Emma had ever seen. She could have been a young Mrs. Santa Claus. Standing behind the large lady, styling her hair, was a thin, middle-aged woman in a red dress. She might once have been very pretty, and was now still attractive, but had the kind of face that made it clear that she took nothing for granted and everything with a grain of salt.

“I'm Emma,” Emma said quietly. “Are you Aunt Dolores?”

Dolores looked at the child before her, a girl, she guessed, not looking for a new hairdo, but certainly in need of one.

“Whatever you're peddling, I am not interested. Now get on out of here.” Dolores waved her away with the comb she was using on the lady.

“My dad wrote to you that I was coming.”

“Well, who's your dad?” Dolores asked, unimpressed.

Emma showed her the envelope. Dolores took it from her, seeing her name on the outside. She opened it, and the note inside flooded her with old memories, not all of them pleasant.

“You're Douglas O'Connor's girl?”

Emma nodded.

“That rat! I am
not
your aunt, and I am not the dummy he takes me for. Did he send you here?”

“He wrote you a letter.”

“Well, I never got it. And you can just go right back and tell your dear daddy that your
Aunt
Dolores is dead and buried as far as he is concerned!”

Emma, of course, was now confused and scared, and anyone could see this if they were looking, which Dolores wasn't. Luckily, though, the jolly lady, whose name was Mabel, was.

“Where you from, sweetheart?” Mabel asked.

“
Pitts-burgh!”
Dolores answered for Emma. “The grave of the world.”

“Well, you can't expect a child to find her way back to Pittsburgh.”

“My dad's coming by Christmas,” Emma said, hoping that helped.

And it may have, for Dolores stopped to think for a moment, and the thinking seemed to soften her a little. “He's coming here?” Emma nodded, and there seemed a little more softening to be seen in Dolores's eyes—but only for a very brief moment. “Well,” she said testily, waving Emma away, “go wait for him some place else.”

To be told that she was worthless and then to be dismissed as a nuisance, all in one day, is not something that would make any child feel good, and Emma, at this moment certainly didn't. She slowly turned to go.

“Dolores!” Mabel admonished as she got out of her chair and walked toward Emma, holding out a hand. “For goodness' sake, you come back here, child.” Mabel retrieved—and rescued—Emma just as she was leaving the room, then turned to glare at Dolores, her friend of many years, whom she knew for a fact was not as hard-hearted as she was pretending to be. Dolores looked at Emma, whose eyes were sad, and then back to Mabel, whose eyes were pleading. She lightly tapped her foot, thinking she would not budge, but found herself saying instead, “Okay,” which delighted Mabel. “But look,” Dolores now addressed Emma, “you need to get something real straight: I am not your aunt, and I did not get a letter. Your good-for-nothing father and I may . . . have . . . been . . . well, never mind. But don't you think for one minute you and I are family.”

“You know,” Mabel said to Emma with a jolly smile, “I'll bet you're hungry.”

And she was. So Dolores fed her, telling her she was going to account for everything she cost, which Mabel thought was outrageous, and telling her she expected her to get a job, which Mabel thought was even more outrageous. But Dolores was determined, and Emma didn't mind, as she was used to working. That night, lying in bed in Dolores's spare bedroom, Emma forced herself not to cry.
Adventure
heroes don't cry
, she thought,
and this is certainly becoming
an adventure.

Max was glad that the boy had held him so tightly as they
sped and bumped and turned sharp curves in the truck. It
helped him to be less scared. When the truck finally stopped
and the boy let him out, Max was hoping he was going to find
Mr. Whiteside, but he could see him nowhere. There was a big
building that the woman and the boy took Max and the other
dogs to. Inside were several rows of pens where dogs were sleeping
or eating or just scratching themselves. The woman and
the boy started moving the new dogs to various pens, talking
to them in sweet voices that made all the dogs feel good. But
Max did not want to go to one of the pens. He had never
shared a space with another dog before. The boy tried to pull
him on his leash to one of the pens, but Max stood his ground.
Then Max saw in a corner of the big building a big wooden
doghouse, almost like the one he had had at Mr. Whiteside's.
Now he pulled the boy, trying to get to the doghouse.

“Let him go,” the woman said.

“But, Mom, that's Yeti's.”

“And Yeti hasn't used it since the other dogs arrived. So
if Max wants to go there, let him.”

Mike took Max off the leash, and Max dashed to the doghouse.
Inside he looked and sniffed and turned around several
times. It was not as large as his old doghouse, but he
liked it still, and he decided that he would just stay in this
doghouse until Mr. Whiteside came and got him!

6
A Double Rescue

The next morning Dolores gave Emma directions to the schoolhouse, and a note for the principal, Mrs. Walsh, explaining that Emma was a visitor from out of town, and rather than have her sit around and be idle, she might as well be put in school.

As she was walking to school, Emma came upon two beautiful Cocker Spaniels. One was an adult with a black and white coat, and the other, although brown and white, Emma guessed was her pup. Emma had just stopped to admire them when suddenly an unkempt man with long, unwashed hair swooped down on the mother like a banshee from the Irish stories her father told her and captured the larger dog in a net. Then he picked up the dog and took her away. Fearing the Banshee Man would come back for the pup, Emma grabbed it and looked for a place to hide. Luckily there was an open shed nearby, and Emma ran into it, closing the door behind her.
Safe,
Emma thought, as she breathed hard, trying to shush the puppy who wanted to bark—and so did. Suddenly, the doors flew open, and the Banshee Man stood there silhouetted by the sun, a frightening figure. But that did not stop Emma from running hard into him, pushing him aside, and running fast with the puppy in her arms to escape.

The Banshee Man was, of course, Norman Doyle, and he was not happy to have been thwarted. He gestured off to the distance, and that gesture brought forth bug-face Melvin on the Fearsome Machine; Norman jumped on board and ordered Melvin to give chase. Emma had looked back and seen all this and, with the puppy snug in her coat, ran even harder down the road and into some woods until she found a tree to hide behind. But she could hear the Fearsome Machine come close and stop, and then she could hear the
CRUNCH-CRUNCH-CRUNCH
of the Banshee Man walking in the snowy woods looking for her. When the crunches got very close, Emma bolted and ran, constantly looking behind her to see how close the Banshee Man might be getting.

“Oomph!” Emma ran right into a big, bundled-up old man in a fur cap with cold eyes and a gray beard. Was he another Banshee Man? The old man grabbed Emma and spirited her away!

Norman, who thought he knew which way the pesky girl had gone, now realized he had no idea where she was. He looked in front of him, and to the right. He looked to the left, and behind him. But nowhere could he see the girl. Suddenly he heard the infernal howling of hounds. He twisted around and flashing before him was a dogsled being pulled by seven powerful Huskies. On the runner sticking out behind the sled stood the big man with the gray beard. And in the bed of the sled lay Emma, holding the puppy tight and close, covered in a nice, warm blanket.