Hotel For Dogs Read Free

wire thumping against the bottom of the box.
    “We got Bruce a digital camera, but we thought you would like this better,” Mr. Walker had said, laughing at the startled look on his daughter’s face.
    Then, as though she had heard and understood the words, Bebe had jumped out of the box rightinto Andi’s arms, and from then on there had been nobody else for either of them. Many people might like Bruce best, but not Bebe. Bebe thought there was nobody in the world as wonderful as Andi.
    I wish she was here now,
Andi thought as she left the classroom and walked down the long hallway to the outside door. All around her, boys and girls rushed by with arms filled with books, laughing and chattering, calling to one another, “Wait up! Wait for me!” It seemed to Andi that she was the only one in the whole school who had no friends to walk with when the final bell rang.
    I’ll pretend Bebe is out there,
she told herself.
I’ll pretend she’s waiting right outside the door.
    That thought made her feel oddly better, and when she had walked out the door and there was no little dog standing there, she told herself,
She’s waiting a little farther on, down by the street.
    When she reached the street, she thought,
No — she didn’t come this far. She’s still at home in the corner of the yard, keeping her eyes on the sidewalk, hoping I’ll be coming.
    Andi thought about Bebe all the way home. She thought about her so hard that she found herself getting more and more homesick. By the time shereached her own block, her eyes were swimming in tears and she could hardly keep from sobbing out loud.
    She hurried along the sidewalk, staring straight ahead of her — past the rows of maple trees, already beginning to redden with the chill of autumn nights, past the overgrown brown house with its “FOR SALE” sign out front, past a vacant lot and a yellow house with curtains over its windows — and turned up the neat white path that led to Aunt Alice’s front door.
    Then she stopped. She could not believe her eyes. There on the porch steps, sitting in a forlorn little heap as though he were waiting for someone, was a dog.
    “Bebe?” Andi spoke softly, almost afraid that the sound of her voice would make the dog disappear. Wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, she crept up the walk until she was only a few feet away.
    Now that she was close, she could see that the dog was not Bebe, was not even a bit like Bebe, really, except for the color, which was brown, and the small size. This was a shaggy dog with long, dirty, uncombed hair hanging in all directions.
    “Hi there, little dog,” Andi said softly. “Are you waiting for me?”
    The bundle of hair turned so that what seemed to be the front of the head was facing Andi, and from somewhere at the back of the bundle something began to twitch in what Andi thought must be a wag.
    Reaching out, she pushed aside the hair that covered the dog’s face, and there, gazing soulfully up at her, were two bright button eyes.
    “What are you doing, waiting here?” Andi asked. “Are you hungry? Come on, you poor little thing. Andi will get you something to eat.”
    Gathering the dog up in her arms, she carried him through the house to the kitchen.
    Her mother was there peeling carrots. Mrs. Walker had fallen into the habit of doing the early part of the dinner preparations when she could have the kitchen to herself while Aunt Alice was upstairs taking her afternoon nap.
    “Andi, no!” she exclaimed when she saw Andi standing in the doorway. “Take that dog right back outside!”
    “But, Mom, he’s hungry,” Andi told her. “We can’t let a sweet thing like this starve to deathright on our front steps. Can’t I give him a bowl of milk?”
    “No, you can’t,” Mrs. Walker said firmly. “If you do that you’ll be encouraging him to stay. When you feed a stray animal you’re inviting it to make itself at home.”
    “Just a little milk, Mom?” Andi begged.