Hotel for Dogs by Lois Duncan ch 3
CHAPTER THREE At dinner that night Andi could not keep her attention on what was going on at the table. Conversation drifted around her, hardly touching her ears.
The food on her plate sat there getting colder and colder until her mother said, “Earth to Andi! Are you off somewhere in space, honey? Is something the matter? Don't you feel well?” “Oh, no — no — I feel fine.” Hurriedly, Andi picked up her fork and began to eat. “I was just thinking.” Actually she had not been thinking at all — she had been listening. The smell of roast beef on the serving platter rolled out in warm, mouthwatering waves through the lower part of the house. How long would it be, she wondered, before the odor floated up the stairs to where a hungry dog was hiding? When it did, how long could he resist it?
She could almost hear the click of toenails on the stairs as a bundle of wet hair came scurrying down to beg for some supper.
Stay there, she willed silently. Stay there and wait a little longer. Andi will bring some dinner up to you soon.
As though she were reading her daughter's thoughts, Mrs. Walker said, “Andi is upset because she found a little stray dog this afternoon and I wouldn't let her bring it into the house. She is so used to having her own dog around to play with that it is a little hard for her to understand that it's just not possible here.” “Oh, mercy, no!” Aunt Alice raised her napkin to her face as though waving away the very thought of such a disaster. “I cannot get anywhere near animal hair. Even bird hair — I mean, feathers — I can't have them in the house either. All my pillows are foam rubber.” “How about fish?” Bruce asked with interest. “Can you get near them?” “I don't know,” Aunt Alice admitted. “I've never been brave enough to try.” She turned to Andi. “If you miss your pet so much, dear, why don't you go next door to play? Jerry has a beautiful Irish setter. His parents just gave it to him recently.” “I don't think I'd like to play there,” Andi said. “Not like it at Jerry's!” Aunt Alice gave a gasp of astonishment. “Why, you should see how his parents have fixed up the whole basement floor for Jerry and his friends! It's just beautiful — all pine paneled, with Jerry's bedroom down there and a game room with a pool table and big-screen TV and, goodness, I don't know what all. I can't understand why you children aren't over there playing every day!” “Jerry and I didn't hit it off,” Bruce said shortly. The statement was so out of character coming from Bruce that the adults at the table turned to stare at him.
“That's not like you,” Mr. Walker said. “You've never had any problem making friends with other boys.” “I don't want Jerry Gordon for a friend,” Bruce said. “You should see the way he treats his poor dog.” “Oh, Bruce, I'm sure you're mistaken!” Aunt Alice exclaimed. “The Gordons are lovely people! I can't imagine a boy like Jerry mistreating a pet.” “You wouldn't think it to see him around grown-ups,” Bruce acknowledged. “They always give him his way, so he's real polite and nice. With his dog he's different. Red Rover's scared to death of him, isn't he, Andi?” He turned to his sister for support. “What?” Andi had not heard the question. Stuffing the last forkful of food into her mouth, she almost sighed aloud with relief. “Please, may I be excused?” “Not until the rest of us are finished,” her mother said. “Then you can help clear the table and load the dishwasher.” Andi started to object, and then an idea occurred to her. “I'll do the kitchen myself,” she said. “The rest of you can relax. I'll take care of everything.” “Why, Andi!” Her mother looked stunned. “Isn't that lovely!” Aunt Alice cried in delight. “What a helpful little girl you are!” Bruce, for his part, was staring at his sister as if she had gone crazy. Andi had just finished scrubbing the pans when her brother came into the kitchen. Closing the door behind him, he confronted her.
“Okay. Let's have it. What's the gimmick?” “What do you mean, ‘gimmick'?” Andi asked uneasily. “I just thought I'd save Mom and Aunt Alice some work and —” “Come off it,” Bruce said firmly. “Aunt Alice may think you're a ‘helpful little girl,' but I know better. What's that you're hiding under your sweatshirt? Come on, now —” “Nothing,” Andi insisted, trying to duck away from him, but he was too fast for her. He caught hold of the shirt and pulled it up.
“A dish of roast beef?” “I — I thought —” Andi stumbled for an explanation. “I thought I might want a bedtime snack.” “That's a lie and you know it!” Bruce could always tell when she was lying. “What's the beef for? You'd better tell me.” “Oh, all right,” Andi said reluctantly. “You'll have to promise, though, that you won't tell.” “Won't tell who?” “Anybody. Mom, Dad — especially Aunt Alice. This is a very deep secret. It's a matter of life and death.” “Okay, I promise.” Bruce's curiosity could be contained no longer. “What is it?” “I have a dog upstairs,” Andi whispered. “That stray Mom said you found? You brought it in here, after all?” There was grudging respect in Bruce's voice. “When did you manage to do that? Where do you have him?” “I don't know exactly,” Andi said. “He's someplace upstairs. He ran up right before dinner. I haven't had a chance to go up there. You should see him, Bruce — he's so pitiful, all wet and hungry with nobody to love him.” “Well, come on, then,” Bruce said. “Let's take the food up to him now while they're all in the den watching TV.” Andi smiled at her brother gratefully. She was never certain how Bruce was going to react to things. Sometimes he was her closest friend, cooperating with anything she suggested, and other times he acted stuffy and self-righteous, almost like a grown-up. This time, thank heaven, he was going to be all right.
“Let's go,” she said, pulling her shirt down over the plate again. The noise from the dishwasher and the television set in the den drowned out the sound of their footsteps as they mounted the stairs. In the second-floor hallway Andi stopped and set down the dish of beef.
“Here, doggie!” she called softly. “Come here, dear! Andi has something nice for you!” Only silence greeted her voice. “That's weird,” Bruce said. “If he's as hungry as you say, you'd think he'd come running. Dogs have good noses. They can tell when you have food.” “Maybe he's asleep,” Andi said. “He's done a lot of running around today, poor thing, and he's probably exhausted. You start at this end, and I'll start on the other, and we'll find him.” Systematically, they began a search of the second floor. Bruce's area consisted of Aunt Alice's big bedroom and a storage closet and bathroom. Andi's included the guest room, which was now being used by their parents, and the sewing room. They met at last in the center of the hallway with blank faces.
“No sign of any dog that I can see,” Bruce said. “I checked under beds and behind curtains and everywhere.” “He doesn't seem to be at this end of the hall.” Andi frowned. “Let's switch. I'll look through all the rooms you looked through, and you look through mine. One of us must have missed him.” “I'm sure I didn't,” Bruce said, but he began a search of their parents' bedroom while Andi started on Aunt Alice's. She went through it carefully, looking inside and behind things, slithering on her stomach to look under the bed, parting the curtains of the fluffy pink dressing table that looked like something out of an old-fashioned movie.
As she moved about, she kept calling in a soft voice, “Here, doggie! Come out, little doggie!” By the time she had gone through the bathroom, looking in the tub, in the dirty clothes hamper, and behind the toilet, she was beginning to wonder if the dog was some kind of magician and had vanished into thin air. Bruce seemed to be feeling the same way.
“Are you sure he's here?” he asked. “Maybe he ran down again when you weren't looking.” “I don't see how he could have,” Andi told him. “From where I was sitting at the table, I could see down the hall to the foot of the stairs. Besides, if he'd come down, it would have been straight into the dining room. That's where the food was.” “Well, he doesn't seem to be around now,” Bruce said. “Maybe you daydreamed him. Maybe you wanted to see a dog so much that you made yourself think you saw one.” “That's stupid,” Andi said. This was the kind of grown-up comment Bruce sometimes made that caused her to want to slap him. “I didn't daydream anything. That dog is up here somewhere.” “I don't see how —” Bruce began, when their mother's voice rang from downstairs. “Children? Have you taken your showers yet?” “No,” they called back in unison. “Then go ahead and take them. It's almost bedtime.” “Okay!” Bruce dropped his voice again. “I've done all the hunting I'm going to do. I don't believe there is any dog. Dibs on the first shower.” “No, you don't. You took the first one last night and used up all the hot water.” Andi picked up the plate of food from the floor and hurried to the sewing room. Once inside, she flicked on the light and got out her nightshirt. Then she glanced around for a place to hide the dish. It would not do to have it sitting out when her mother came up to say good night.
The door to the sewing closet on the far side of the room gaped open a crack. This closet was the place where Aunt Alice kept her patterns and materials. Crossing the room, Andi pulled the door wide open and set the dish down on top of a pile of patterns. She was just turning away when her eye was caught by a movement in the corner.
“So, there you are!” Andi dropped to her knees on the closet floor. “No wonder we couldn't find you! You've got yourself hidden under a pile of material!” Reaching over, she began to pull the cloth aside. “Why, you've made it into a kind of nest. What do you think you are, you silly thing, a bird? Don't you know that Aunt Alice is allergic to feathers just like dog hair, and she —” Andi stopped short. Then she caught her breath in a startled gasp. There in the soft bed she had made for herself was not only the shaggy brown dog, but three tiny brown-and-white puppies.
