Dad shook his head. “I don’t think we should move him more than we have to. His leg might be broken, or he might have other injuries we don’t know about. And if he’s really hurting, he might snap at you, Jasmine.”
Jasmine shook her head. “I’m sure he wouldn’t. He looks such a nice little dog.”
Max whined again, and stretched his neck to get closer to Jasmine. She wasn’t his Molly, but he could tell she was kind and friendly.
Very gently, trying not to frighten him, Jasmine put her hand out for Max to sniff.
Max licked her hand a little, then exhausted by even such a tiny effort, he slumped back.
“Oh, no. I wish Mum would hurry with the car.” Jasmine looked round anxiously, then spotted their car coming along the road.
“How’s he doing?” her mum asked as she jumped out, grabbing a pile of towels.
Jasmine’s eyes were full of tears as she answered. “He’s getting weaker. We have to hurry.”
The vet’s receptionist looked up as they barged through the door. “Oh, I’m sorry, we’re actually just about to close—” Then she caught sight of the puppy huddled in a towel in Jasmine’s arms, and the blood seeping through the pale pink fabric. “Bring him through! This way. Mike, we’ve got an emergency,” she called as she held open a door for Jasmine and her parents.
A tall, youngish man in a white jacket was looking at a computer screen inside the room, which was very clean and shiny, and smelled of disinfectant. He swung round quickly, his eyes going straight to the towel-wrapped bundle.
Jasmine just held Max out to him, not saying anything. She didn’t know what to say, and the relief of finally getting to the vet’s, where someone might be able to help the poor little dog, was making her feel choked with tears.
The vet took Max and laid him carefully on the table. His eyes were closed, and he wasn’t moving. Jasmine knew he was still alive, because she’d been watching him breathing, but even that seemed to have got weaker in the last few minutes.
The vet started gently checking Max over. “What happened?” he asked, without looking up.
“We don’t know,” Jasmine whispered. “We found him.”
“We’re here on holiday,” her dad explained. “We were out for a walk, and Jasmine heard him crying in the hedge. We guessed he’d been hit by a car.”
The vet nodded. “He’s very lucky. If he’d been out there much longer I don’t think he’d have made it. As it is,” he looked up at Jasmine, “I can’t promise that he will, but he’s got a fighting chance. His leg isn’t broken, just badly cut, but he’s lost a lot of blood, and he’s very weak. I’m going to sedate him and put him on a drip, then stitch up the cut. If he turns the corner in the next couple of hours, he should be OK. But he’s really young, and that amount of blood loss in such a small dog…” He tailed off, but they all knew what he meant.
Jasmine gulped. “Can we wait while you do it? That would be OK, wouldn’t it?” she asked her parents.
The vet smiled sympathetically at her. “Of course. You can stay in the waiting room.” He was already gently gathering Max up, to take him to the operating theatre. The puppy looked so small and helpless, and Jasmine just couldn’t hold back the tears that were starting to trickle down the side of her nose.
Her mum hugged her gently, and led her out to the waiting room – and that was all they could do, just wait.
When the vet came back out into the reception area he was looking cautiously pleased. Jasmine had been sitting leaning against her mum’s shoulder, feeling worn out from her excitement and panic at finding the hurt puppy. But she jumped up immediately. “Is he going to be OK?”
The vet nodded slowly. “I think so. He’s certainly got a good chance. The cut on his leg should heal well now it’s stitched, and apart from that he’s just badly bruised. Definitely no fractures. He really was lucky. He’s just sleeping off the anaesthetic now.” He smiled down at Jasmine. “Would you like to come and see him?”
“Oh, please!” Jasmine nodded, and they followed him through to a room at the back of the surgery that was lined with cages. Most were empty – Jasmine guessed they didn’t do that many operations at the weekend – but at one end, by the window, a small black and white shape was snuggled into a blue blanket. Jasmine peered in. The little puppy was fast asleep, but he seemed to be breathing more easily, and the horrible wound on his leg was clean and neatly stitched.
“He should be fine when he wakes up,” the vet said hopefully. “He’ll be dozy for the rest of the day, though. He’ll have to take some painkillers in his food for a few days, and in a week or so he’ll need the stitches out, but that’s all. We’re not open tomorrow, but I’ll be here anyway at about nine if you want to pop down and see how he is.”
Jasmine nodded eagerly, and then realized that her mum and dad might not want to. She gave them a pleading sort of look.
Her dad smiled. “It’s OK, Jasmine. I’d like to know how he’s doing too. Now that we’ve rescued him, it feels almost like he’s ours.”
Jasmine smiled wistfully. If only! She would so love to have a dog. But she could never be lucky enough to own a gorgeous puppy like this.
Chapter Five
Half-term was meant to be fun, Molly thought miserably. You weren’t supposed to spend all day holed up in your bedroom, because you were too sad even to phone up and ask a friend round. Molly just didn’t think she could face any of her mates at the moment. Max had been missing since Friday, and now it was Monday. Molly wasn’t giving up, of course she wasn’t, but her frantic searching was starting to seem hopeless. Listlessly, she heaved herself off her bed, and went downstairs to find her mum.
Molly was pretty certain that her mum had given up hope of ever finding Max. She kept gently trying to point out to Molly that there had been no sign of him for three days, and no one had even mentioned seeing a puppy. But she was clearly still feeling guilty about letting him get out that she agreed to go searching whenever Molly asked. They’d spent at least a couple of hours out looking every day so far, walking round the village, asking people if they’d seen a little black and white puppy.
When Molly opened her mum’s office door, her mum beckoned her over to the computer. “Look, I’ve been working on something for you,” she said in a pleased voice.
Molly gulped. Max’s face was staring at her from the screen, the word LOST shouting out at her. It was one of her favourite photos of him – you could just tell he was wagging his tail like mad, even though it was only his head showing. His tongue was hanging out a bit, and his eyes gazed brightly into hers.
Her mum scrolled down to show her their phone number and a note saying when Max had disappeared, and asking people to check their garages and sheds in case he’d got shut in. “I thought we could print them out and put them up round the village. I know we’ve asked most people already, but maybe the photo will jog people’s memories?”
Molly nodded, still feeling too choked to speak. It was so awful to think that she might only ever see Max again in photos like this one. She mustn’t think like that. But it was getting very hard not to…