Emily's Dream Read Free Page B

she does sometimes snap…” But she stopped as she came up behind Emily, and saw Twinkle tiptoe towards her, and let Emily rub her beautiful satiny ears.
    “Her nose tickles.” Emily giggled as Twinkle gently nosed at her hands, and licked her.
    “Well…” Lucy said quietly. “Wow. She doesn’t even do that for me. She’s the shyest little thing. We decided someone must have scared her quite badly.”
    Emily looked up at Lucy worriedly. “Oh! I hope it was OK to stroke her.” She started to pull her hand back through the wire door of the pen, but Twinkle was still sniffing and licking at her.
    “Don’t stop! She really likes you.” Lucy eyed her, frowning. “Look, I’d love for you to come and help out at the weekends, but you do realise we can’t pay you, don’t you? I’d like to be able to, but we’re desperately short of money, and the roof in here’s leaking.” She nodded towards a bucket in the corner.“It really needs mending before this winter comes. I just couldn’t afford to pay you.”
    “Oh, I don’t want to be paid,” Emily said in a surprised voice. Then she laughed. “I’d pay
you
if it meant I got to hang around with the dogs. And I meant to say, I brought a letter from my mum, with her phone number and everything, saying it’s OK for me to help.”
    Lucy nodded. “That’s a good idea. I’ll call her, just to say hello. So she knows who I am.” She smiled at Emily, and at Maya who’d come up behind them. “Well, if you’re going to help, you’d better come and meet everybody else.”
    “There’s more?” Maya said, surprised.
    Lucy laughed. “Oh yes. Another whole big area for cats – that’s the old stables. And we’ve got quite a lot of guinea pigs, a couple of rabbits, and even a pony. Oh, and the chickens.”
    “Chickens? At an animal shelter?” Emily stared at her in surprise as they started to cross the yard.
    “Mmm-hmm. They’re rescued battery hens.”
    “Wow,” Emily muttered. “I thought just dogs and cats. I never knew you had all these other animals.”
    Lucy shrugged. “Well, I never meant to have the chickens. Someone just rang up and said could wetake the first lot, and I couldn’t say no… They’re over there, you see?” She pointed across to a path that ran along the side of the farmhouse to a little garden, with a fenced chicken run. The girls could see a few black and red hens strutting about. Then Emily blinked.
    “Um… What sort of chicken’s that?”
    Lucy glanced round. “I’m not really sure. The battery hens tend to be a mixture.”
    “But she’s stripy! I didn’t know hens could look like that.” Emily pointed out the rainbow-striped chicken to Maya, and Lucy suddenly laughed.
    “Sorry! I’m so used to seeing them like that I forgot you wouldn’t know. She’s got a jumper on. Battery hens get their feathers pecked out sometimes, or they just lose them from being squashed up in the cages. The jumpers are to keep them warm until their feathers grow again. There’s a lady in the village who knits them for us.”
    Emily giggled. “You see, Maya, you should come and volunteer too. You could give the hens fashion advice.”
    Maya chuckled, but she was looking thoughtful.
    “These are the cat pens.” Lucy held the door open for the girls to look in, and Maya gasped.
    “Oh, he looks just like Henry!”
    Emily nodded. The large black and white cat in the pen nearest the door could have been Henry’s brother. He was lounging on a shelf attached to the side of the pen, with a fat, rather tatty-looking cushion on it. There were cat toys scattered around the floor, but the Henry lookalike didn’t seem very interested in them. He stared at Emily and Maya, and yawned hugely, showing needle-sharp teeth.
    “Definitely like Henry,” Maya giggled.
    “Only nine cats at the moment,” Lucy said. “Not too many. Most of them are in this big pen together over here, but Whiskers – the big black and white chap – isn’t the