Eva Ibbotson: One Dog and His Boy

There was one extra cage in Room A which at present was empty.

It had stopped raining and Otto, whose cage faced the window, saw people shutting up their umbrellas, which meant that a borrower would come soon. He sat up very straight in his cage and the other dogs followed his example.

At ten o’clock Kayley brought in a lady dressed in a very elegant black skirt with a purple blouse, and heels so high that she could only totter.

“I think Francine will suit you,” Kayley said, going over to the poodle’s cage. “She’s an extremely intelligent dog and used to restaurants.”

“She’ll certainly go with my outfit,” said the lady. “You see, it’s a bit tricky – I met this man at a party last night and he said he adored dogs so I said I adored dogs too and he asked me out to lunch. So I thought I would take a dog along and pretend it was mine – don’t you think it’s a good idea?”

Kayley didn’t. She thought it was a perfectly ridiculous idea, but she was used to the batty ideas of the hirers, so she just smiled and went on stroking Francine’s head through the bars of the cage.

“I suppose I could have something smaller, but then it would have to sit on my lap and it might leave hairs on my skirt. Or it would get stepped on by the waiters.”

“I think you will find Francine just right,” said Kayley again. “She’s used to lying under tables. The only thing is, she’s very musical – if it’s the kind of place with an orchestra playing, she might start to join in. Especially if they were to play a waltz.”

But the lady said no, it wasn’t that kind of place, it was a very expensive, quiet restaurant, the kind where people talked in low voices, usually about the food.

So Francine was taken away to be fitted with a rhinestone collar and have her ribbon changed for one that would match the blouse of the lady who was going to pretend that Francine was her own dog, and they went away.

When the poodle had been gone for an hour, a thin, worried-looking woman came and said she wanted a very large dog to protect her for the afternoon, because she was going to visit her son, who lived in a district where there were a lot of foreigners and people who were very poor and she was afraid of being attacked.

Kayley wanted to say that people who were poor and foreign did not attack old ladies any more than anybody else – she knew this because the people she lived among were poor, and many of them came from other countries – but she wanted Otto to have an outing so she said nothing and went to fetch Otto’s collar and lead.

Some dogs from the other rooms were borrowed, but not Honey or Li-Chee, who spent a boring afternoon dozing in their cages, while Queen Tilly went off to have her body massaged with olive oil because her skin was flaking.

On the following day an elderly woman came for the Pekinese because she had to go and see a friend who was even older, but the visit was not a success.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with old ladies but when your ancestors have been bred to ride on the saddle of the emperor when he gallops off to war, you do not feel like being told that you are an itsy-bitsy little doggie aren’t you – and though no dog from Easy Pets ever bit people, Li-Chee growled and showed his teeth and was brought back early.

Honey was hired by a man who had seen all the Lassie films when he was a boy and wanted to be photographed with her on the towpath near his house, and Francine was borrowed again by the woman who had told the man she had met at a party that the poodle was hers.

But on the day after that something unexpected happened.

Kayley arrived early, and came to the compound with her buckets of food and said good morning to the dogs as she always did. But this morning she was not alone. Trotting beside her, a piece of string round its makeshift collar, was a dog.

It was not a make of dog that any of the others recognized. It was white with a brown splodge over one ear and another brown splodge above its tail, and smallish like a fox terrier, and it had bat ears like a corgi whereas its violently wagging tail was a bit like the flagpole tail of a beagle. But it was not any of those things. It was something that had never before been seen in Easy Pets – a mongrel.

Kayley let the mongrel off the lead and he hurled himself joyfully at the nearest dog, which fortunately was Otto. As far as he could see he had been given a present of thirty or so new friends and he didn’t know whether to bark ecstatically, roll over, or lie on his back and wave his legs in the air, so he tried to do all these things at the same time.

Kayley took Otto and Francine aside.

“I want you to be very nice to him,” she said. Kayley always spoke to the dogs as though they were people and of course they understood her perfectly. “He’s a stray. I found him last night outside my house and no one seems to want him.”

Kayley lived in a small house in Tottenham with her family. They were very poor and their landlord was a horrible man who wouldn’t allow them to keep pets and didn’t do their repairs either. The night before she had gone out to the takeaway for the family’s supper and found this small white creature, wet through and shivering on her doorstep.

The dogs clustered round, sniffing the newcomer. He smelled of dog and not the nasty scents they had sprayed on them, and though he was a bit enthusiastic and puppyish they were happy to welcome him. Only Li-Chee growled a little because Otto was being very nice to the new arrival and he was jealous.

“I’ve got a plan,” Kayley told the dogs. “I don’t know if it’ll work, but in the meantime if you could just play with him and make it seem as though he belongs.”

She let them out into the yard and ran round with them while they had their exercise, and with such a crowd of dogs the little stray did not stand out.

When it was time for the dogs to go to their cages, Kayley slipped the mongrel into the empty cage in Room A. There was nothing to do now except wait for Mr Carker to come on his daily inspection, and hope for the best.

He came as soon as the dogs were settled, wearing the white overall he wore to impress the clients, and carrying a clipboard, on which were his notes. For Mr Carker kept notes on everything: how often a particular dog had been borrowed, whether the client had been pleased with him, and the exact profit the firm had made. Dogs to Mr Carker were just machines for making money and any animal that did not look like it was earning its keep was sent away at once.

“Well, how are we doing this morning?” asked Mr Carker, and Kayley said that everything was fine, and that the headmistress of a primary school had rung up and wanted to rent Otto for a whole day as an end-of-term treat for the children.

Then he stopped at the cage with the little white stray which Kayley had brought in.

His face darkened. “What on earth is going on here? Are you mad, girl? This is a mongrel. Who brought him in and what is he doing here?”

“Please, sir, I brought him in but he’s not a mongrel.” Kayley was a truthful girl but if a life could be saved by telling lies, then one just had to go ahead. “He’s a new breed. They’re just going to register him at the Kennel Club. I got him for my birthday but our landlord won’t let us keep dogs.”

Mr Carker scowled at the newcomer who was wagging his tail and giving little barks of greeting.

“It’s true,” said Kayley. “Honestly. He’s a … Tottenham terrier. They’re becoming quite fashionable. I saw one at a dog show in Brighton.”

Mr Carker hesitated. Kayley was very knowledgeable about dogs, and it wouldn’t do to be ignorant of a new breed, but he was suspicious.

“I’ve got his pedigree at home,” said Kayley. “Couldn’t we try him? Maybe we could charge a bit less as he’s new.”