LITMIR.BIZ

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      I scampered after the car, but being a dog of little legs, I stood about as much chance of catching it as I did of catching Perdita. Although, cars couldn’t climb fences, so maybe a slightly better chance …

      Either way, by the time I got home, the car – and my family – were gone. Off to ferry, France and chateau. Leaving me behind.

      Alone.

      This, I decided, was simply not how things were meant to be. Ever since I was a tiny, squirming puppy, I’d always been with people. To start with, there were my litter mates, my mum, and my mum’s people. Then, soon enough, there was Daisy and Oliver and Bella, and tiny Jay in his buggy. They took me home to Maple Drive, and I knew I’d never be really alone again. Oh, maybe a couple of hours when they were all out but, to be honest, in a house with so many people the occasional hour to doze away by myself wasn’t a hardship. And most of the time, there was always someone around to scratch my ears, rub my belly, or refill my food bowl.

      But not now. They’d packed up everything – even the box of interesting smells – and taken it with them. That meant they weren’t coming back, not for a while, anyway. It was just like when we went away camping (even my fluffy dog bed couldn’t keep me warm that week. Jay ended up sleeping in it with me) or when we used to visit Granny and Grandad down by the seaside. They’d meant to take me with them, I knew. But how had they not noticed I wasn’t there?

      How could they have left me behind?

      Me! Claude! Their beloved pet!

      I hunkered down beside the bush at the end of our driveway, feeling mightily sorry for myself. I was cold and lonely and I wanted Jay. Even the twins would be welcome company right now.

      Then my tummy rumbled, and I realised the situation was even more dire than I’d first thought.

      I wasn’t just alone, I was hungry. And since I wasn’t meant to be there, Daisy and Oliver wouldn’t have left me any food out!

      I jumped to my paws and scampered up the driveway, bouncing up the three steps to the front door. I pawed at the wood and whimpered, hoping against hope that Daisy might have forgotten to lock it again and it might swing open under my paws.

      No such luck.

      Maybe the back door, though … I rushed around the side of the house, but the solid wood back door wouldn’t budge either. The patio doors were locked tight too and, even if I could see an open window, I couldn’t jump high enough to get through them.

      The house might as well have been a fortress, like the big wooden one Jay played with sometimes in his room. (I was usually cast as his noble, handsome steed. I wasn’t sure what a steed was, but the noble and handsome part sounded about right.)

      I sat on the back step and looked out at the garden. There was the treehouse, if I could climb the ladder. I’d tried once or twice before, when Perdita had hidden up there, but hadn’t had much luck.

      Wait. Perdita.

      This was all her fault. I would never have left the car if she hadn’t been snooping around, trying to get into the box of interesting smells. Everything was definitely Perdita’s fault.

      Which meant it was up to Perdita to put it right. Or at least get me some food.

      Daisy and Oliver and the others would be back soon, I was sure. The moment they noticed I was missing they would rush back to find me. We were family, after all, and that’s what you did for family. They wouldn’t leave me alone for Christmas. They’d be back in no time, probably with extra treats to make it up to me. Like the stocking they gave me last Christmas, filled with chewy treats. Yes, of course they’d be back.

      I just had to be patient. And find something to eat to keep me going in the meantime.

      I padded back round to the street, shivering a little in the winter air. Times like this, I almost thought Daisy had a point when she’d bought me that tartan coat. Oliver had laughed, though, so she only got it out of the coat cupboard when he wasn’t looking.

      Across the road stood number 12 – home of my furry nemesis. I’d never been there before, but I knew a little bit about it from previous encounters with Perdita. For instance, she’d bragged once that she had a special little door, around the back, through which she could come and go as she pleased. No waiting around to be let in or out when she needed to find a nice patch of dirt to take care of business. No waiting for her person to take her for a walk, or to tell her she had to stay inside.

      Cats had the sort of freedom us dogs could only dream of. But I couldn’t help thinking that they missed out on the connection we had with our people. What human really wanted a pet that didn’t need them, anyway?

      Usually, the fact that Perdita could come and go as she pleased, even into my garden, annoyed me. But today I was glad of Perdita’s independence. Today, I intended to turn it to my advantage, by using her little door myself. I wasn’t all that much bigger than her, and I was sure I could squeeze through if I tried. And once I made it inside …

      Well, how different from dog food could cat food really be?

      

      Daisy let out a long breath of relief as the official gave a sharp nod, after too many minutes considering their paperwork, and let her drive through onto the ferry. Really, they were only a few seconds late. Well, maybe minutes. Certainly less than half an hour.

      Oh, who was she kidding? She’d never been on time for anything since the moment Bella was born. It was as if having kids had robbed her of the ability to tell the time. Or at least to accurately estimate how long anything took. Although, to be fair, it was hard to predict exactly how many times the twins would need their nappies changing, or how long it would take to find whichever toy Jay had lost and desperately needed to take with him, or even how much time Bella would spend arguing about having to go out at all. She could estimate based on past experience, but somehow, whenever she thought she had a handle on it, the kids upped their game.

      ‘Well, we made it,’ Oliver said. Why did he always have to state the obvious? They could all see they’d made it. They were on the bloody boat. Funny to think that when they’d met, back at university, he’d been the one to open her eyes to all sorts of things, with his unusual way of seeing the world. The way he spotted things around them that other people would have missed. But these days … ‘We’re on the ferry.’

      More deep breaths, Daisy. Peace and joy for the season would be a lot easier if the M25 hadn’t been such a nightmare. Of course, it always was, and she’d known, somewhere at the back of her mind, that it would be worse today, so close to Christmas. She’d even realised, a few weeks ago, that they’d need to allow extra time for the journey because of it. But somewhere during the preparations for their trip that information had got lost in a fog of present wrapping, the scramble to write cards for all the people she’d forgotten, and the late night piecing together of a shepherd’s outfit for Jay’s Nativity play the following day.

      Peace and joy had been in sadly short supply at number 11 Maple Drive for the last month.

      ‘Can I have my phone back now?’ Bella asked from the back seat – the first thing she’d said since losing at Twenty Questions forty minutes earlier.

      ‘No.’ Daisy didn’t even think before she answered, and regretted it when the inevitable follow-up question came.

      ‘Why not?’

       Yes, Daisy. Why? Why on earth are you making this even more difficult on yourself?

      She sighed. Because she wanted it to be perfect. She wanted her family to enjoy being around each other. Just for once, she wanted the stress and the constant merry-go-round of school and activities and work

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