The 12 Dogs of Christmas (8 page)
As she got close to Norman's dog pound, she turned off the engine and coasted to a stop. She got out quietly and made her way into the old factory. There she saw Norman and bug-face Melvin loading a truck with dogs in cages. They loaded a Labrador, and then headed back into the main part of the building where all the dogs were. Why were they doing this? Where were they taking the dogs? It couldn't be anywhere good, Emma knew, not with Norman and Melvin involved.
Emma made a quick decision: the only way she was going to find out would be to ride along. So she took a deep breath and climbed into Norman's truck, hiding behind several dog cages.
“This dog stinks!” Emma heard Norman say as he and bug-face Melvin returned with another cage. “In fact, they all stink. Mangy, filthy mutts!” Emma ducked as a cage was pushed into the truck. Then the canvas flaps at the back of the truck were tied down, and Emma could hear Norman and Melvin climb into the cab.
It was not a long trip. The two men got out of the truck and walked away, Norman saying, “All right, let's go do some business.” Emma carefully made her way around the cages and out of the back of the truck. She saw that she was by an old, run-down barn in the middle of the woods. She heard lots of voices of men talking and cheering and booing coming from the barn, as well as the agitated barking of dogs. There was a campfire outside of the barn, and some men were warming themselves by it. There were lots of cars and trucks parked nearby. This must be the place in the woods she saw! Emma resolved to go inside and find out what was going on. But first, she had to figure out how to get around the men by the campfire. And, more importantly, she better have a plan of escape. Her adventure heroes always had a good plan of escape. She looked all around. On the side of the barn, close to where bug-face Melvin had parked, was a long chain. She had no idea what it was for, but one end was attached securely to the barn, and that gave her an idea.
After preparing her plan of escape, Emma, by sliding through the shadows, made her way into the barn. There were many cages inside: some with dogs, some empty. Coming from deep within the barn, the sound of men and dogs was intense. As she got closer to the sound, she could hear dogs not just barking but growling. It was harsh, hate-filled growling, and it made Emma's heart pump fast and loud. Soon she saw a crowd of men formed into a circle looking down at the ground before them. They were shouting and yelling and throwing their fists up in the air. Some seemed happy; some seemed angry. Emma wanted to find out what they were watching, but the only way to do that would be to get above them. But how?
Emma looked around the barn and discovered the answer: a hayloft! She found the ladder to it and climbed up. From that vantage point she could see that the men were actually standing around a low fence shaped into a square, making a pen. There were two men within the pen, each holding a dog on a leash. One was a vicious looking German Shepherd. And the otherâthe other was Yeti! She still couldn't quite tell what they were going to do with them. She noticed that off to the side Norman and Melvin were collecting a bunch of money from a mean-looking, long-haired, bearded man who could have been straight from one of the Charles Dickens novels she had read at the library. She looked back down at the Shepherd and Yeti. They were being yelled at; they were being goaded. All the while the men around the fence were drinking from jugs and exchanging money. Bets! They were making bets! On a dogfight! Yeti! They were going to make sweet, gentle Yeti fight that vicious Shepherd! Emma knew she had to do something fast. Then she saw a hay hook on a long rope, and she thought of Robin Hood and Tarzan. She could swing down on the rope into the pen and rescue Yeti.
But the German Shepherd, the vicious Shepherd,
what about him? Surprise . . . and luck,
she told herself.
I'm just going to have to depend on them.
She took a deep breath, grabbed the rope, and swung, and the betting men, the drinking and cheering and booing men, were truly surprised to see this hero in a cloth cap, her blonde braids flying behind her, land into the middle of the dogfight arena! “Give me that dog!” she demanded of the man holding Yeti's leash. The man looked at her as if she were not real, and certainly as if she were not a threat. He was corrected quickly in this assumption when Emma's foot slammed into his shin, causing him to buckle and drop the leash. Emma grabbed it and ran with Yeti out of the pen, crashing through all the men who were too busy laughing at the man, who was now hopping on one leg, to stop her.
Emma ran. The old man with the beard was angry and was ready to take it out on Norman. Norman gave him assurances that he would get the dog back, then he and bug-face Melvin ran after Emma, all in the blink of the hundred glinting eyes of the betting men who thought it was all great fun.
When Norman and bug-face Melvin got to the truck, they could see Emma and Yeti running into the woods. “Get in the truck! We'll get her quick!” Norman yelled. But when they backed the truck out as fast as bug-face Melvin could go, they suddenly came to a jerking, jolting stop as the chain Emma had hooked to their front bumper came to the end of its length. “Arrguh! I hate that girl!” Norman screamed out for all the world to hear.
Emma knew exactly where she was and what direction to go. It took her very little time to make it back to the buggy-whip factory. She got Yeti into the cab of Mrs. Stevens's truck, then climbed in herself. On the drive back to the farm, her heart was still racing. Being an adventure hero sure was exciting. But it was dangerous too. And as brave as it made her feel, she was thinking she would like to wait a long time before she tried something like this again.
Back at the farm, Emma got Yeti into the barn and to her usual pen. She was then going to go to the house and go to bed, but the hay Yeti had laid down in looked so comfortable and inviting that Emma lay down next to the dog, who gave her a big lick of thanks. Emma put her arms around Yeti, and then fell into a deep sleep.
The next morning when Mrs. Stevens and Mike went into the barn to feed the dogs, they were happily surprised to find Emma and Yeti asleep together on the hay. Mike gave Emma a big hug that, after a moment, they both found a little embarrassing.
As Emma explained her adventure, Mrs. Stevens and Mike were both awed and angered. “Dogfights?” Mrs. Stevens exclaimed. “Norman Doyle selling dogs to dogfights?!” Mrs. Stevens immediately called Coach Cullimore for advice. He came out to the farm and had a long talk with Emma. While Emma admitted that she had stretched the truth a bit in the past, she insisted that this time her story was true.
Coach Cullimore believed her. It was a talent he had: looking into the eyes of kids and knowing if they were telling the truth or not. He told Mrs. Stevens that they should report the dogfights and Norman's involvement to the mayor. Mrs. Stevens was skeptical.
“You just haven't lived here long enough to understand how it works,” Cathy told the coach. “They're brothers.”
“Look, did we come through on feeding the dogs or not?”
Cathy had to admit that they had.
“Come on, let's do it!”
The coach's enthusiasm was convincing, and Cathy had no choice but to agree. Coach gave Cathy a big kiss on the forehead, making her laugh.
They took Emma into town and into the mayor's office. It was big and paneled in wood and very brown with importance. Nobel Doyle sat at his desk behind a large brass nameplate that announced that he was the mayor of Doverville, which, of course, everyone already knew. But he loved that nameplate and had it polished every day.
“And you did all that to save a dog?” Mayor Doyle said with disbelief after Emma had explained about the dogfights.
“She was Mikey's dog. And I had promised him.”
“Tell the mayor about the other man you saw,” the coach said to Emma, “and about the money.”
“Hello, folks!” Norman Doyle entered the room all smiles tinged with venom, holding old Scratch. “Sorry I'm late.”
Late? Cathy and the coach and Emma had not even known he was invited.
“Norman!” Nobel happily greeted his brother, and then turned to Emma. “Well, who was this other man you say you saw, young lady?”
Emma felt something at the back of her neck, something cold and crawling. She turned and looked up at Norman, who was standing behind her. It had been his eyes, staring out of his malevolent face, which had bored into the back of her neck. And now they said silently: Don't talk; don't you dare talk.
“Well, who was it you saw, young lady?” the mayor asked again, impatient with this little girl.
Emma remembered her bravery of the night before, but also the danger. “It was pretty dark.”
“Too dark to see their faces?”
“It was night,” Emma said in a near mumble. She felt as if Norman had not just his eyes but his cold, clammy hands on the back of her neck.
“So,” the mayor suggested with a hint of triumph, “you really couldn't see the men at all?”
Concerned, the coach put an encouraging hand on Emma's left shoulder; Mrs. Stevens put her hand on
Emma's right and gave it a tender squeeze. There was warmth there, warmth enough to drive away the cold and clammy. Emma looked back up at Norman. His face was no longer malevolent, just dumb and mean. “The lanterns made it pretty bright; I could see their faces just fine.” Norman's face now was not just dumb but dumb
struck
. “Mr. Doyle, the dogcatcher, was the man who took the money.”
There, done,
Emma thought, relieved,
this should be
the end of it.
But instead of the mayor immediately ordering the arrest of Norman, he sat there in disbelief.
“You say it was Norman?”
Not my baby brother,
the mayor thought.
She must be mistaken.
But Emma confirmed it. “Yes, sir.”
Mayor Doyle placed two hands on his desk and rose up from his chair to look down at the accuser of his beloved little brother. “I can assure you, young lady, that none of the scalawags you say you saw were civil servants of this town, and it certainly wasn't my brother.”
“She is telling the truth, your honor.” The coach came to Emma's defense.
“Well, let us be honest with one another now. We are at great odds over the issue of dogs. Why, you might even say that Mrs. Stevens and I are commanders of opposing forces. Any tactic you may use, including this farfetched accusation of my brother, is understandable. But really, Mrs. Stevens, getting a child to lie for you!”
Mrs. Stevens tried to protest, but the mayor was in a speech-making mood.
“It will surprise you, my dear Mrs. Stevens, but I am not personally
against
dogs. I am only
for
the law. I ran on a dogless platform, and dogless Doverville shall be! Unless and until the Town Council changes the law, I am duty-bound. And so is my brother, Norman.”
Cathy, the coach, and Emma left the mayor's office more troubled than when they had arrived.
Is there anything more wonderful than a Christmas tree? It is not just that it is a treeâa pretty wonderful thing in itselfâit is that people have decorated it with things bright and shiny, or things, as Mrs. Stevens might say, “fraught with meaning,” things that bring back memories, or things that spur on hope. To stare, not just at a Christmas tree, but into a Christmas tree, in and among the branches where a beautiful ribbon or a bright green light or a strand of tinsel or an ornament made by hand by a loved one can all say to you: there
is
hope, there
is
goodness, there
is
kindness, and there
is
joy. Is there anything more comforting than this on a cold winter's night when the spirit has been dampened?
On the way home from the mayor's office, driving through the woods, Mrs. Stevens suddenly pulled over and stopped. “Let's go cut ourselves a Christmas tree,” she said to Mike who had waited in the truck during the meeting.
“But we never get our tree until Christmas Eve,” Mike said.
“I know,” his mother answered, “but we
need
it now.” So they marched through the woods and found just the right tree, cut it down, put it into the back of the truck, and took it home.
Emma was thrilled. It was the first Christmas tree she had had in years. As they decorated it, and moment by moment it became more than just a tree, they all began to feel better. They were still sad, and they were still worried, but hope brightened with the glow of the colorful lights.
When Mrs. Stevens went to the kitchen to make dinner, Mike asked Emma if she believed in miracles. “No,” Emma told him honestly.
“That's sad.” Mike was equally honest. “Mom says that if you have faith, good things will happen. Even miracles. Getting Yeti back was a miracle.”
But what was the use of that miracle?
Emma wondered.
I was the one who got Yeti back. But to what good? Dogcatcher
Doyle will soon take Yeti away again, won't he?
Emma wanted to be an adventure hero again. She wanted to be able to walk into the mayor's office and beat him and his dumb brother to a pulp! But she knew she couldn't do that. No matter what they had done or were going to do to the dogs, that wouldn't be right. Maybe what they needed was a real miracle to change the town of Doverville. “How do you know when something is a miracle,” she wondered aloud, “or just something that would have happened anyway?”
“You just believe,” Mike said. “You have faith. You know it in your heart.”
Suddenly Emma clearly understood. Changes don't happen with fists; changes happen in the heart.
“Did you make a Christmas wish, Emma?” Mrs. Stevens asked when she returned.
“She wishes her dad would come and get her,” Mike answered for her.
It was the wrong answer. Emma did not have to wish for her father to come. She had faith; she knew he would come. As she looked at her puppy tangled in Christmas lights, she knew the miracle she really hoped for: “I wish we could save the dogs.”
