‘I wanted to send a text message.’
‘Oh?’ £1.50, Daisy’s mind calculated automatically, apparently channelling Oliver. ‘Who to?’
Bella’s eyes slid away, back down to the black screen.
‘Bell? Who were you texting?’ Daisy pressed, feeling the first prickles of panic. Just when she was slightly reassured that Claude would be okay, now she was fretting about Bella. Obviously she was texting someone she didn’t want her to know about. Which meant a boy, surely. Or a man. Bella was fourteen now, and Daisy actively shuddered to remember all the things she’d got up to at that age and never told her parents about.
God, what if it was some thirty-something she’d met on the internet? What if Bella was being groomed right under her nose and she never noticed because she was knee deep in dirty nappies and dog poo. And, really, why was her life all about poo these days anyway?
Back to the more important issue.
‘You can tell me, you know,’ she said, as calmly as she could manage. ‘You can tell me anything. You know it will never make me love you any less.’
Another eye roll. ‘I know that, Mum.’
‘Well, good. Then, who was it?’
‘It’s private.’
Definitely something funky going on. Perhaps she should call Oliver out here too. Maybe they could get a private detective to seize her phone records. And her computer. And watch her after school.
‘Oh God, you’re freaking out, aren’t you?’ Bella dropped her feet to the floor either side of the bench and sat up.
‘No,’ Daisy lied. ‘I’m just considering rational next steps.’
‘Fine. I’ll tell you.’
Daisy blinked. That was easier than she’d expected. Maybe this wasn’t such a disaster after all. ‘Great. So, who?’
‘Zach.’
She’d been right! It was a boy. One point to motherly instinct. Except …
‘Wait. Who’s Zach?’
‘You know. Zach Templeton.’ She said it with the complete lack of patience she always had when Daisy couldn’t quite keep up with her rapidly changing friends list. But it didn’t matter; Daisy still couldn’t place him in the running class list she tried to keep in her head. There was Zachary Rubinstein, who’d moved away when Bella was five, but she doubted that was who Bella meant.
‘Zach … wait, Mrs Templeton’s grandson?’ Daisy tried to picture him, but all she got was an image of weirdly shaped hair peeking out from under a Santa hat. Mrs Templeton’s son and daughter-in-law only visited briefly at Christmas and Easter – for which Daisy couldn’t blame them at all. ‘When did you even get to know him?’
Bella shrugged. ‘He was at that lame Easter egg hunt you made me take Jay to. He had to take his little sister. We talked.’
‘That was nine months ago!’
‘So? We connected. We chat online sometimes, that sort of thing. And I was going to be seeing him this week, until you decided to drag us all the way across Europe.’
‘We crossed the English Channel,’ Daisy pointed out. ‘It’s about three hundred miles. The north of Scotland is further. We’re hardly on the other side of the world.’
‘It’s not Maple Drive, though.’
And there, Daisy had to admit, she had a point.
‘If it makes you feel any better, I’m still trying to get us home tomorrow.’ She shuffled closer, stretching an arm out around Bella’s rigid shoulders.
‘Because of Claude. Not me.’ Bella’s knees came back up, and she wrapped her arms around them, folding herself like an origami person. ‘You care more about what the dog wants than what I want.’
‘Be fair, Bella. I didn’t know about Zach.’ Although she should have. How could her daughter have been carrying on an online flirtation with the neighbour’s grandson for nine months, without her noticing? Maybe they should hire than private detective after all.
‘You knew I didn’t want to come here, though,’ Bella said, accusingly.
Daisy sighed. ‘Bell, none of us wanted to come here. We all think this is utterly crazy.’
‘Then why did we?’
‘Because we love your grandparents,’ Daisy said simply. ‘And because Christmas is a time to be with the people you love.’ Oh God, please don’t say you’re in love with Zach Templeton. She wasn’t sure her heart could take it.
‘I suppose,’ Bella said, not sounding entirely convinced. ‘So, what are we going to do when we go home, then? Take Granny and Grandad with us?’
‘That’s the plan,’ Daisy said.
‘That could be nice.’
Bella twisted around on the bench, so her back was against Daisy, and rested her head on her shoulder. Daisy kissed the top of her head and wrapped her arms tighter around her daughter.
One crisis averted.
She glanced down at Bella’s phone on the table, flashing the time. Nearly midnight, French time. Nearly Christmas Eve.
How many more crises could there be before Christmas Day?
By the time the sun came up the next morning, I was freezing cold, lonelier than ever and, most importantly, starving. My poor tummy felt hollow, and I was starting to think that my tiny tail might never wag again.
I shook the dirt and grass from my body and trotted out from my shelter under the tree, looking for a patch of sunlight that might warm me even a little. Then, I knew, it was time to find some food.
Once upon a time, my ancestors might have been natural hunters, but I suspected it must have been a very long time ago. Why hunt, when you can adopt a human to provide food for you, after all? We dogs have always been the smartest of creatures, and my breed was smarter than most. Hunting was a thing of the past.
Except all of a sudden, it was a very necessary part of my present. And I had no idea how to go about it.
I decided to start by doing what I always did: follow my nose. My nose had led me to gingerbread yesterday, and my cunning had got me through Perdita’s cat flap and fed by Holly. It might not be hunting in the most classic of senses – and I was fairly sure that Perdita would turn up her tail at it and scoff – but it worked for me.
Maple Drive was waking up, and there were all sorts of interesting smells starting to rise out of the houses. Curtains were open, and I could see Christmas trees behind the windows. I frowned as I plodded along the pavement. The problem was, few of the people inside the houses would welcome me in to share their
food, even if I could find a way inside. I needed something more accessible.
I started with the bins, round the back of number 10, but they were too high up for me to climb into, and the cat from number 8 sat above me laughing at my every attempt, so I quickly moved on. There was another bird table at number 8, but I skipped that, remembering how awful the bird seed at Mrs Templeton’s had tasted. At number 6, I found a small wooden structure with a bowl of what smelled like Perdita’s cat food inside it, and tried to force my head through the tiny opening to get to it – until a man came out of the house waving his arms and shouting.
‘Oi! That’s for the hedgehogs!’
As if hedgehogs needed it more than me, I grumbled, as I hurried back round to the front of the house, and carried on along the pavement, trotting as fast as my little legs would carry me.
Eventually, I reached the end of Maple Drive, and found myself at the gates of Jay’s school. The gates were locked, (they’d broken up for holidays the week before, and Jay had been around all the time since. It had been brilliant) but the bars were widely spaced, and it didn’t take too much wiggling for me to squeeze through. At least if there was any food hiding here, it was unlikely that anyone would be there to chase me away from it.
The playground where Daisy left Jay in the mornings, while I was tied up by the gate, was quiet and deserted, and felt like a different place altogether. I padded past the main school buildings, enjoying for a moment the experience of being somewhere I was never allowed before. It was interesting to see where Jay spent his days, when he couldn’t be with me. But really, the place seemed kind of boring. No wonder he always begged to stay home and play instead.
Eventually, I found myself in a big field, open and perfect for running. Why on earth weren’t dogs allowed here? It was ideal for us.
The grass was white and frosty under my paws, crunching with every step, and I leapt along to try to stay warm. And then I smelt it.
It was faint, but then I do have a hunter’s nose, even if it hadn’t been used for a few generations. It smelt hidden, and deep, and just a little bit like gingerbread.