A Puppy Called Disaster Read online

  Adam Santos was the next one through the door. Every member of the Pet Rescue Club had had the same idea. This was their new case—not just one animal in need, but a whole bunch of them!

  Little Lost Puppy

  The Santos family had fared the worst of Janey’s friends. Adam explained that the roof of the house they rented was damaged when a tree fell, so he and his family had to evacuate to the emergency shelter. Adam described the shelter at the high school. Rows of cots were set up in the cafeteria and the gym. “I guess it’s sort of like a summer camp,” Adam said. “Only not.”

  “What about your house?” asked Lolli.

  “At night, you can see real stars in the sky instead of the glow-in-the dark stars on my ceiling,” said Adam. “There’s a big hole right over my bed!”

  “Cool!” said Zach.

  “Not cool,” said Dr. Goldman. “I’m sorry, Adam. Please ask your parents to let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “Thanks,” said Adam. “I’ll let them know. But right now, I’m really wanting to help out this man I talked to this morning at the emergency shelter.”

  Adam told them that the man had said, “ ‘I don’t care if I lose my house. My car. It’s just stuff. But my dog, Jojo, is missing! I have to find him. I’m lost without him.’ ”

  Adam adjusted his glasses on his nose. “You should have seen the sad look on this guy’s face,” he said.

  Janey could imagine it. Even though she didn’t have any pets of her own, she just knew how horrible she would feel if she had one who went missing. “We have to help him find Jojo!” she cried.

  “You kids better leave that to the professionals,” said a man walking in the door of the shelter. He was wearing the bright orange vest that all the emergency responders had put on.

  “Mr. Petersen!” exclaimed Kitty. “You’re back again so soon?”

  “Yep,” he said, with a grim smile. “And, look who I found this time.” Mr. Petersen opened his coat. Tucked inside was a wet, shivering puppy.

  “Oh, so cute!” squealed Lolli.

  Janey was practically breathless. The puppy titled his little head and looked at everyone with sad, dark eyes that stared out from his brown-and-white face. He sniffed the air with his big, dark, button of a nose and gave out a tired, little howl. It was as if the most adorable baby from Animal Baby Bingo had come to life.

  “Breathe, Janey,” said Zach.

  Mr. Petersen explained that as terrible as it was to find a puppy or any pet that has been separated from its family in an emergency situation, in a way he’s glad when he does. “It means that people followed the directions to evacuate their homes.” He scratched his head, “Some folks refuse to follow evacuation procedures if they can’t take their pets with them to an emergency shelter.” It was still sad, though, to find pets all alone in an empty house or wandering the streets, like this little, wet puppy. The animals were scared and sad, sometimes injured, and usually very hungry and thirsty.

  Dr. Goldman put out her hands to take the puppy from Mr. Petersen. “He looks to be somewhere around three to four months old,” she said. “And I think he’s got some beagle in him.” She checked the puppy all over. Then, she rubbed him dry with a towel that Kitty provided, using brisk but gentle movements.

  “This little guy needs to get his blood circulating again,” the veterinarian said. “He’ll be okay, but someone needs to hold him and keep him warm.” Dr. Goldman smiled at Janey. “You think you can handle a job like that, Janey?” she said.

  Janey let out the breath she’d been holding. “Oh, yes,” she said, reaching out her hands to take the tiny puppy. There was nothing in the world she would rather do.

  Kitty pointed at the door to the dog room. “Meanwhile, we’ve got lots of other dogs. Could someone clean out the cages in there?” she said.

  “Not me,” Janey said with a smile. “I already have an important job.”

  “Don’t look at me,” said Mr. Petersen, laughing.

  “Oh, sure,” Zach teased. “Let us do all the dirty work.”

  Zach rolled his eyes, but he knew Janey wouldn’t budge from the chair where she sat with the puppy in her arms. The other members of the club indulged her, too. After all, Lolli had Roscoe, and Zach had Mulberry, and Adam had his successful pet sitting business. They all knew that Janey was the one who needed to cuddle the little puppy almost as much as the tiny pup needed cuddling from her.

  Soon, the puppy was yipping happily and licking Janey’s face. A few minutes later, he fell fast asleep in her lap, with his head in the crook of her elbow.

  Dr. Goldman squeezed Janey’s shoulder. “That little guy seems much improved, thanks to you,” she said.

  Janey smiled. “Prodigious!” she said. Janey loved to find special words to use, and prodigious was just the right one to describe the puppy’s quick recovery. It certainly seemed wonderful, remarkable, and marvelous to Janey. “I’ve thought of the perfect name for him,” she said.

  “I’ll call him Disaster. Dizzy, for short.”

  “Well, I’d best be on my way,” said Mr. Petersen, putting on his baseball cap. “Duty calls.”

  “Where are you off to now?” asked Dr. Goldman.

  “An elderly couple out on River Road has no power or water, and it’s getting colder,” Mr. Petersen said. “They won’t leave their house even though there’s water hip-deep in the basement. Mr. and Mrs. Witherspoon won’t go to the high school and get the food and warmth they need because they don’t know what to do with their old dog, Rizzo,” he explained.

  Kitty pulled on her lip. “I wish we could offer to take care of Rizzo, but we’re at full capacity,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder at the storage cupboards. “We’re also starting to run low on food and supplies because we didn’t expect to take in so many pets,” she added. “If only we had more room. . . .”

  Janey straightened in her chair. The puppy in her arms woke up and blinked. “I have an idea!” Janey said. “And it’s totally prodigious!”

  Janey’s Prodigious Idea

  “We could set up an emergency pet shelter!” said Janey. “The pets would have a safe place to be until everything got back to normal. I bet that would make people feel better about getting themselves to safe places, too.” Janey turned to Mr. Petersen. “If we could tell Mr. and Mrs. Witherspoon that Rizzo would be safe, do you think they would leave their house and go to the emergency shelter at the high school?”

  “I bet they would!” he said. “I think you are on to something, young lady!”

  “But where could we open an emergency pet shelter?” Lolli wondered out loud. She, Zach, and Adam had finished cleaning out some of the cages.

  “And how would it run?” asked Adam.

  “And who would run it?” Zach chimed in with the next question. But he grinned when he said it, because he already knew the answer. “I know, I know,” he said. “This is definitely a job for the Pet Rescue Club!”

  “Is there a way we can get more food for the pets?” asked Lolli, tugging worriedly on a coil of her hair.

  “And what about all the missing pets, like little Dizzy, here,” said Janey, rubbing her cheek against the puppy’s soft fur. “Can we help find them?”

  “Maybe we can use Janey’s blog to reunite people with their pets!” said Lolli.

  “Whoa, kids,” Dr. Goldman finally interrupted, holding up a hand. “We have a saying in veterinary school: one step at a time!”

  Zach rolled his eyes. “Mom,” he said, “that’s not a saying from vet school!”

  “It’s good, all-purpose advice,” said Dr. Goldman, smiling. “Now, what do you need to do first?”

  “The first thing we need to do is find a place,” said Adam. “It needs to be plenty big, so there’s an area where each pet can have its own space. But it also has to have room enough for friendly pets to play together.” Adam knew a lot about caring for and keeping pets happy.

  “I wish we had room at our fa
rm to take in a lot more pets,” said Lolli. But with Roscoe, two pet goats, a sheep, and a flock of chickens, they didn’t have much room to spare.

  That got Janey thinking, though. The tornado had gone straight through town. It had just skirted the outlying farmland where Lolli lived. The farms and homes out there were not badly damaged at all. Lola, the pony the Pet Rescue Club had helped, lived on a horse farm just outside of town. Maybe Lola’s new owner, Mrs. Jamison, could help the town’s pets by letting the Pet Rescue Club set up an emergency animal shelter there!

  Janey could hardly get the words out her mouth quickly enough, she was so excited by the idea.

  “That’s good thinking, Janey,” said Kitty, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear that had escaped her ponytail. “But we have no way to call her, since phone service is still out.”

  “I can take you there in my truck,” said Mr. Petersen. “My big rig gets around better than smaller cars.” He settled his baseball cap on his head. “Like I said, duty calls. Let’s go!”

  Since there was no way to contact the other parents quickly, Dr. Goldman gave Janey, Lolli, Adam, and Zach permission to go to Mrs. Jamison’s horse farm with Mr. Petersen. “I know all your parents well, and I’m sure they’ll be on board with the idea,” she said. They all piled into Mr. Petersen’s truck. Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Petersen was pulling up in front of Mrs. Jamison’s big red barn. She came out of her house and greeted them warmly.

  “It’s always good to see my friends from the Pet Rescue Club,” she said. “What brings you out my way? I understand the damage in town is quite severe.”

  Janey tapped her foot impatiently as Mr. Petersen described the scene in town, the downed trees and power lines. “As tornados go, it wasn’t a big one, but it still managed to cause some damage,” he said.

  “My goodness,” said Mrs. Jamison. “How awful! I remember when I was a little girl, there was a terrible storm. My cat Meow-Meow went missing for about two weeks. We were worried sick! I wandered around calling her name, Meow-Meow here and Meow-Meow there! Eventually she did come back.”

  “That’s the kind of happy ending I like to hear,” said Mr. Petersen.

  Janey couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m glad Meow-Meow came back,” she said. “And I don’t mean to interrupt. But that’s kind of why we’re here, Mrs. Jamison.”

  “Oh?” Mrs. Jamison raised an eyebrow.

  “The Third Street Animal Shelter is totally full,” Adam explained. He glanced at Mrs. Jamison’s barn.

  “And there are lots of pets who were separated from their people during the storm,” said Lolli. She, too, looked at the big red barn.

  “Just like you and Meow-Meow,” said Zach, sizing up the barn as he spoke.

  Janey took a deep breath. “We were hoping that you would let us set up a temporary pet shelter here in your barn,” she said all in a rush. It made her a little bit nervous to ask such an important question.

  Janey need not have been so nervous.

  Mrs. Jamison smiled warmly. “After all you kids have done? I’d be happy to help in any way I can,” she said.

  “Prodigious!” said Janey.

  “Just so you know, though, the power is out here, too,” said Mrs. Jamison. “But if it’s room you need, the barn’s got plenty. Red and Lola will be glad of the company.”

  Red was a retired racehorse that Mrs. Jamison had taken in. Lola the pony was Red’s long-lost companion. The Pet Rescue Club had helped reunite the old friends, and that’s when Mrs. Jamison had decided to adopt Lola, too.

  “And there’s a wood stove in there,” Mrs. Jamison went on. “The barn will be nice and warm for the dogs and cats.”

  “And turtles,” said Zach.

  Adam gave Zach a funny look.

  “You never know,” said Zach with a shrug. “There might be turtles.”

  Mrs. Jamison opened her arms wide. “It’ll be fun, and a bit wild. It’ll be like Noah’s ark, or the circus! I officially agree to open my barn to all the pets in need,” she said. “Even turtles.”

  Everyone laughed.

  A thoughtful look crossed Mrs. Jamison’s face. “But I have one condition,” she said.

  “What’s that?” asked Lolli. She and Janey exchanged a worried look. What if Mrs. Jamison wanted money, or something else they didn’t have?

  “You kids and at least one adult must be here at all times to take care of the animals,” said Mrs. Jamison. “I certainly can’t handle running a temporary pet shelter myself.”

  Janey breathed a sigh of relief. “The Pet Rescue Club will take care of everything,” Janey promised. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

  Knocking on Doors

  A half hour later, Janey, Lolli, Zach, and Adam were back at the Third Street Animal Shelter. Janey had gone straight to check on Dizzy, and had found him snoozing comfortably in a small crate. She wanted nothing more than to pick up Dizzy and hold him, but there was work to be done.

  Kitty was running around frazzled. In the short time they’d been gone, first to Mrs. Jamison’s, and then to get permission from their parents to stay on the horse farm overnight, several more animals had come in to the shelter. There just wasn’t space for them. “The dog room’s full of dogs,” Kitty said. “The cat room’s full of cats. Even the Meet-and-Greet room is full of animals, and some of them aren’t on their best behavior at the moment.” She shook her head. Her ponytail drooped. “I don’t blame them. These poor pets have been through a lot! I’m trying to follow quarantine protocol, but I can’t keep up with the demand.”

  Janey quickly shared the good news: The Pet Rescue Club had found a place to set up a temporary emergency pet shelter.

  “We’ll call it the Big Red Pet Shelter,” said Lolli.

  Kitty was so relieved that she dropped into a chair and blew back a lock of blond hair that had fallen onto her face.

  “That’s fantastic,” Kitty said, beaming. “And not a minute too soon!”

  The four friends got busy making a list of everything in the shelter—they would need to get everything they saw for the Big Red Pet Shelter.

  “We need animal crates . . . and food . . . and bedding . . . ” said Janey, reading off the list they had made. She made a doodle next to each item.

  Zach tossed a rubber ball pet toy in the air and caught it. “And we need all of it in a hurry,” said Zach. “Why are you wasting time prettying up the list?”

  Janey scowled at Zach. “Doodling helps me think,” she said. Janey hadn’t been sure about Zach joining the Pet Rescue Club at first. He was always joking around, even when they had serious things to do. But he was a whiz with computers, and he had helped a lot with setting up and managing the blog. And, she had to admit, he’d worked really hard to solve the problem of Hall Cat, a senior, indoor cat whose people kept trying to turn into an outdoor cat. Hall Cat had finally been adopted, thanks to the Pet Rescue Club, by the grandmother of a schoolmate.

  “If only we could plug in your laptop,” Zach said, tossing the ball between his hands. “Everything would go faster with a keyboard. We could post a message on the blog and also send out e-mails to local businesses, asking for donations. We could get things done.”

  “If we had power, we wouldn’t have a lot of these problems to begin with!” said Janey. She eyed Zach’s rubber ball. “Pet toys,” she said, adding another important item to the growing list of things they needed.

  “How are we going to get all this stuff?” asked Lolli.

  Zach sighed. “With no Internet, I guess we’ll have to do things the old-fashioned way,” he said.

  Just then, the door opened.

  “Hi, Mrs. Simpson!” said Janey. Lolli’s mother walked in, brushing some pieces of hay from her coat sleeves. “Ready to head back to the farm, Lolli?” she asked.

  “Well, do you have time to help us with something, Mom?” Lolli asked her mother.

  Mrs. Simpson checked her watch. “Sure! My errands took less time than I expected, and the roads have m
ostly been cleared. What did you have in mind?”

  Lolli smiled at her friends. “A little old-fashioned knocking on doors.”

  They started at the local hardware store. Ms. Winkins gladly lent them several folding crates. “Keep those crates for as long as you need them,” she said. “I stocked way too many of them back when the potbellied pig craze was in full swing. I haven’t sold any in ages.”

  Then they stopped at the grocery store, where they were given several cases of canned dog and cat food, some bags of dry food, kitty litter, and cat litter boxes. After that, they visited the butcher, who gave them a sack of bones.

  At each business, one of the members of the Pet Rescue Club explained their urgent mission. “We are setting up an emergency pet shelter for pets displaced by the tornado. Will you help us help the pets? We are asking for donations of food, crates, toys, and other supplies.”

  “How about blankets?” asked Mr. Teaberry at the furniture shop. “I have a pile of moving blankets out back. You’re welcome to those, if they’d be useful.”

  “Prodigious!” said Janey. “Thank you!”

  While Janey and Lolli visited businesses, accompanied by Mrs. Simpson, Adam and Zach and Zach’s mother went from house to house, knocking on doors and asking for small donations.

  People were eager and happy to help in any way they could. Soon the Pet Rescue Club had collected plenty of supplies. It was heartwarming to find out that everyone was more than willing to help pets—and their people—in need.

  The kids brought all the generous donations to the Third Street shelter. But now they had another problem. “How are we going to get all this stuff from here to Mrs. Jamison’s place?” asked Adam, looking at the boxes and bags and crates piled high by the shelter door. “We’ll have to ask for more help.”

  “Ask, and you shall receive!” said Mr. Petersen. He’d come back to the shelter with a pet corn snake in a shoebox labeled Mango. “I have to head out that way, and would be glad to drop off the supplies.” He took off his baseball cap and scratched his head. “In fact, why don’t I make a couple of trips?” he suggested. “I’ll deliver all the animals, too. We’ll call my truck the official Pet Emergency Transport System.”