was so…elongated that the basset’s nose came straight out of the neck of Amy’s sweater. Amy gave a little giggle of pure pleasure and wrapped her arms around Phoebe.
If ever there was a case of kid needing dog, this was it.
But… Amy’s jumbled emotions were letting in an awful thought. ‘Mum won’t let me keep it,’ Amy whispered, the beginnings of joy fading almost as soon as they’d appeared. ‘Mum says she couldn’t bear a puppy. Scott wanted a puppy. Before…before…’
The principal spoke up then, a stern-looking lady in her sixties. ‘I think you’ll find your parents approve of the idea,’ she told Amy. She looked down the hall for confirmation, to where Mr and Mrs Dunstan were standing beside Harry.
Lizzie hadn’t thought of involving them. She’d asked their permission-of course-but to bring them here…
It had been a masterstroke. Mr and Mrs Dunstan were staring up at their daughter as if they hadn’t seen her for years and, even from the stage, Lizzie could see the beginnings of tears on Amy’s mother’s face. And for the first time since Scott had died, she suspected, these tears weren’t for her son.
‘Of course you can have a puppy,’ the woman called in a choked voice. ‘And if anything happens to Phoebe’s puppies, we’ll get you another.’
Something happen to Phoebe’s puppies? The thought was almost unthinkable.
Everyone was looking at Phoebe now. Horrified at the thought. But prenatal nerves were obviously for pansies. Not for bassets. Phoebe wriggled free of Amy’s sweater and waved her tail like a windscreen wiper. Something happen to her puppies? No way!
Great.
But they hadn’t counted on Amy’s detractors. There were a couple of kids who really had it in for Amy, Miss Morrison had told Lizzie. They were the school toughs and they were here. The two tough little girls were sitting at the end of one of the front rows, and as the proceedings had unfolded they’d been watching with increasing displeasure.
Now, as Phoebe stared out into the audience in dopey confusion, one of them found her voice.
‘Yeah, so she gets one of the puppies. So what? No one else would want them. That dog’s really, really stupid.’
‘She’s not.’ Amy gasped back her dismay. Lizzie moved to the child’s side and noticed with approval that Lillian did the same on the other side.
This much at least was good. Lillian was seeing Amy’s plight more clearly than her own at the moment. It was medication for Lillian all on its own.
But not for Amy. Lizzie had set this up wanting the entire school to be jealous of Amy’s puppy-of the prospect of the puppy, and then the puppy when it eventuated. This was far better than just handing an eight-week-old pup to the child. But the prospect of a pup… No, it’d extend the anticipation. Extend the pleasure. Extend the sensation of Amy being the luckiest kid in the school instead of the unluckiest.
And here were these two horrible children trying their best to undermine it.
Maybe she should go back to emergency medicine, Lizzie thought ruefully. That’s what she was good at.
The principal was opening her mouth to speak, about to attempt to undo the damage. Could she?
She didn’t have to.
‘If anyone else wants a puppy, I’m afraid they need to join a queue,’ Harry called, and Lizzie whirled to face him.
What?
‘They’ve been bespoken as band mascots,’ Harry said, limping forward on his crutches so he had the whole audience in his sights. He grinned, that wide lazy grin that had her heart almost stopping within her. ‘They’re going to be groupies. Basset groupies.’
This was crazy. The entire population of Birrini Elementary School was staring, fascinated, as Lizzie and Harry conducted a conversation over their heads.
Lizzie was so far out of her depth here that she felt she was drowning. She didn’t get involved. She never got involved!
She was standing on a school stage with an emotionally damaged eight-year-old clutching one hand and an anorexic teenager clutching her sleeve. Her great fat dog was sitting on her feet, the whole school was watching…
And what had Harry said? Basset groupies?
Harry was motioning to the boys at the back of the hall, who were grinning self-consciously back at him. ‘As everyone here knows except you, Dr Darling, these boys are the Birrini Punk Squirrels.’
‘The Birrini Punk Squirrels…’
‘They look pretty ordinary in their school clothes,’ Harry called. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat, thoroughly enjoying himself. ‘But you should see them in leathers.’
‘Or bare-chested,’ one of the boys yelled, and the kids in the hall dropped their collective jaws to their ankles.
‘I know them,’ Lillian breathed in Lizzie’s ear. ‘They’re the best band. The best. They get gigs all over the state…’
‘They’re adopting your pups,’ Harry called. ‘Until such time as they go to nice family homes, Phoebe’s puppies will be the band mascots. The boys want a pup apiece.’
‘But-’
‘The boys don’t mind if Amy has one puppy,’ Harry called. ‘But the rest are taken. Now…if the principal’s agreeable…We’re celebrating a few things here. No one’s made a public announcement about Lillian’s brilliant art win and it needs to be celebrated. Amy’s done a fantastic painting, too, and there’s a puppy coming her way. And the boys want to celebrate the impending birth of Phoebe’s pups. In honour of all of that-do you mind if the boys take centre stage, Mrs Hill?’
‘Go right ahead.’ The principal looked even more out of her depth than Lizzie. Which was clearly impossible. ‘Go right ahead, Dr McKay,’ she repeated weakly.
‘Fantastic.’
So the stunned group on stage stood to one side and the four boys surged forward with whoops of delight and enthusiasm, bringing their guitars and drums along with them. They hauled out their shirts, loosened their school ties, fixed their young audience with grins that only eighteen-year-old boys knew how to produce-and proceeded to transfix every single member of the audience.
‘You realise they can’t have the puppies.’
They were in Lizzie’s car, heading back to the hospital. Phoebe was sound asleep in the back, worn out by all the excitement.
Lillian was being taken back to the hospital via a coffee-shop-‘Because maybe we need to talk,’ Lillian’s mother had said, fixing Lillian’s father with a look that said if he knew what was good for him he’d shut up about doctors and lawyers and start saying good things about artists.
Amy had been soundly hugged by both her parents, assured they really meant what they’d said about keeping a puppy and was now surrounded by a group of envious little girls who really, really wanted to be her friend.
The Punk Squirrels were walking back to the senior school, probably taking the longest route they could think of.
‘Of course they can’t keep them,’ Harry agreed. ‘That’d be counter-productive. I can’t really see those lads being saddled with the responsibility of puppies for many a year yet.’
‘But you said-’
‘I said the puppies would be the boys’ mascots until they were ready to be family pets. That means the puppies can be mascots for about eight weeks. Being mascots doesn’t necessarily mean they have to travel with the band. Maybe a small silver basset shape to hang from their navel piercings will do the trick.’
‘I don’t believe this,’ Lizzie said faintly. ‘How on earth did you manage it?’
‘I thought this was a great idea,’ he said, looking sideways at her in the car. ‘When May told me what you intended I just extrapolated your theme.’
‘Extrapolated…’
‘Expanded.’
