Bella made a little snorting noise, and lay down next to her puppies again, but she was still eyeing Lauren and her mum.
“Look how fat its tummy is,” Mum pointed out. “This puppy’s absolutely stuffed.”
“I think we should put it back,” Lauren said. “Bella looks a bit worried. But she hasn’t growled or anything. She’s such a good dog.”
“And a good mother too,” Dad said, from over by the cooker. “She’s taken to it so well.”
Lauren’s mum gently slipped the puppy back into the pen next to Bella, who licked it all over. The puppy made a squeaking noise as Bella’s big tongue licked its head, but it didn’t wake up.
“Where’s the tiny one?” Lauren asked, trying to count the puppies.
Mum frowned. “I’m sure I saw it just a moment ago, and I think it had some more milk, which is really good. Apparently Bella’s milk is full of all sorts of good stuff on the day they’re born. The puppies get all the benefit of the vaccinations she’s had, that kind of thing.”
“I can’t see the little puppy now,” Lauren muttered anxiously. “What if it’s under all the others and they squash it?”
Mum knelt down next to her. “Isn’t that it?” she asked, pointing to a puppy.
Lauren shook her head. “No, brown eyebrows, remember? That one’s just black and white.”
“Oh yes.” Mum edged round to the other side of the pen. “It’s here, look, behind Bella. It must have got pushed out of the way by the others.”
Lauren followed her, moving slowly so as not to disturb Bella. “Is it OK?”
Bella was watching carefully, and as soon as she realized what had happened, she wriggled round and tried to nudge the puppy over with her nose. But the puppy was fast asleep and didn’t move. Bella glanced up at Lauren and her mum, almost as though she wasn’t quite sure what to do.
“Should we move the puppy for her?” Lauren asked, frowning.
Mum was starting to say, “Maybe we should…” when Bella leaned down and picked up the tiny puppy in her mouth.
“Mum, what’s Bella doing?” Lauren whispered in horror.
“Don’t worry,” Mum soothed her. “It’s fine. Dogs do that, Lauren, she won’t hurt the puppy.”
But it didn’t look at all comfortable. The puppy’s legs dangled out on either side of Bella’s mouth, and it wheezed and squeaked unhappily. Bella swiftly tucked it in along the row of teats on her tummy, and watched hopefully.
Lauren and Mum watched too, and Dad left the pasta sauce he was stirring and came to peer over their shoulders, holding a tomatoey wooden spoon.
“It’s feeding,” Lauren whispered excitedly, seeing the little shoulders moving.
Mum nodded. “And as all the others are asleep, hopefully it’ll be able to keep feeding for a while.”
“Oh, that’s good.” Dad sighed with relief. “And good timing. Dinner’s ready.”
Lauren went to bed that night very reluctantly. She wanted to stay and watch the puppies, especially the tiniest one. She was still worried that it wasn’t getting enough milk. Because it wasn’t as big as the others, it couldn’t wriggle its way back to Bella’s teats when it got pushed away, like the others could. Instead of barging past its brothers and sisters, the littlest puppy would just whine miserably and go back to sleep.
“Can’t I stay up a bit longer? It’s the first day of the holidays tomorrow,” Lauren begged.
“It’s already an hour later than bedtime!” Mum pointed out. “You can come down early in the morning to see them. But now you need to go to bed.”
Lauren sighed, recognizing Mum’s no-argument voice. Still, she was sure she wouldn’t ever sleep.
Lauren woke up suddenly, to find her bedroom in darkness. So she had fallen asleep after all.
She sat up, hugging her knees. What time was it? It felt like the middle of the night. She glanced at her luminous clock. Two o’clock in the morning. Lauren shuddered. No wonder it was so dark. She lay down again, but she didn’t feel sleepy any more. Something was worrying her, and she wasn’t sure what it was. Then she realized – the puppies! Of course, how could she have forgotten about them?
She couldn’t hear any noise from downstairs. Bella and the puppies were probably fast asleep. But she couldn’t stop worrying that something was wrong, and that was why she had woken up.
It wouldn’t hurt to go and have a look, would it? Lauren smiled to herself – Mum had said she could come down early to see the puppies, after all. She probably hadn’t meant quite this early, but still…
She got out of bed and crept over to her door, quickly pulling on her dressing gown. As she ran across the landing to the stairs, she could hear her dad snoring. She hurried down the stairs, and into the kitchen. She could make out little squeaks and sucking noises – the puppies were awake and feeding, but that wasn’t really surprising. Lauren had been reading Mum’s puppy books, and it said that for the first couple of weeks they would need to feed every two hours.
Mum had left a small lamp from the living room plugged in on the counter, so Bella had a bit of light for feeding the puppies. Bella was lying on her side looking sleepy, but she thumped her tail gently on the floor of the pen as she saw Lauren.
“Hey, Bella. I just came to see how you all are,” Lauren whispered, kneeling beside the pen.
Bella closed her eyes wearily, as Lauren patted her head and leaned over to count the puppies. Then she counted them again. Only nine!
Where was the little puppy with the brown eyebrows?
“Oh, Bella, where’s it gone?” Lauren whispered, but Bella was half-asleep, and she only twitched her tail.
Lauren checked behind Bella, where the puppy had ended up before, but there was nothing there. She was sure the other puppies weren’t lying on the little one, and it couldn’t possibly have climbed out. Frantically, Lauren started to feel around the shadowy edges of the box.
“Oh!” Lauren gasped, as she touched something little and soft, pushed away in the corner. “There you are!” She picked up the puppy, waiting for it to squeak and complain, but it didn’t make a sound. “Oh, no, I didn’t wash my hands – I suppose it’s too late now.” Lauren lifted the puppy up to see better, and realized that it was saggy and cold in her hands.
“Oh no, please…” she murmured, and snuggled the puppy in a fold of her dressing gown. “Mum! Dad!” she yelled, as she raced back up the stairs. “We need to call the vet!”
Chapter Four
“It woke up a little bit while I was holding it,” Lauren explained to Mark, the vet. “Is it going to be all right?”
Mark put away his stethoscope and looked at the puppy thoughtfully. “You did really well to catch her when you did, Lauren. She’s a she, by the way.”
Lauren smiled, just a little. She had thought the puppy was a she – it was something about those cute brown eyebrows.
“It looks to me like she was slipping away,” Mark went on, gently stroking the puppy’s head. “Puppies can’t control how warm or cold they are, they need their mum to keep them warm. You cuddling her warmed her up again. The real problem is that she’s not strong enough to feed properly by herself. But you could hand-rear her.” He glanced up at Lauren, and her mum and dad. “I can’t promise she’ll make it. But it’s worth a try. It’s a lot of work, though.”