Bad Bella Read online

  “But I thought we were going to the fair,” Bella said, puzzled.

  Hazel gave Bella an affectionate look. “This is the fair,” she replied. “Look around!”

  Bella looked. There were no tents, no rides, no games or burgers or candy. Just a few clumps of balloons strung up around the chain-link fence.

  In fact, the only thing this fair had in common with the one Bella had seen before was the humans of every shape and size milling around the yard.

  Lots of people looking for dogs to take home!

  But there were dogs of every shape and size, too: running, playing, jumping, and yipping. All competing for attention.

  Leslie took Hazel’s leash off first. Hazel picked a spot in the shade and lay politely with her paws crossed one atop the other.

  Bella did not think this was a very good strategy to get noticed.

  Leslie took Leo’s leash off next. Leo trotted around the yard and disappeared behind a tree. Bella thought this was probably so that no one would see him and think to adopt him.

  Leslie took Bella’s leash off last.

  Bella looked around. The blond puppies who lived in the cage across from hers were all being picked up and cuddled by different people.

  “They’re so tiny!” cooed a woman holding one.

  Bella, who was much too big to be picked up and cuddled, frowned.

  “Look at this one!” called a girl, pointing her mother toward a big gray dog. “It’s got the prettiest blue eyes!”

  Bella’s frown deepened. What’s wrong with brown eyes? she wondered.

  It seemed like every human had already chosen a dog to play with.

  But nobody’s choosing me.

  Bella had to do something, and fast. So she took off, galloping as gracefully as she could around the yard, her tail skimming the knees of onlookers, her ears flapping in the brisk winter air. Her heart fluttered up and down in her chest like one of the little yellow butterflies she used to chase through the McBrides’ backyard.

  She had seen humans running with dogs in her old neighborhood. Maybe someone here wants a dog who will run with them.

  “Look at that one!” she heard a child cry. “It’s running so fast!”

  Hope made Bella’s heart flutter higher and her legs move faster.

  “I hope it doesn’t knock somebody over,” replied someone else.

  Bella took no notice of this, because she knew she would not.

  When she grew tired of galloping, she found a toy and tossed it into the air. Then she jumped up and caught it between her teeth. This was a trick she had perfected with the fresh pairs of socks Mrs. McBride used to roll up and place in the clean laundry hamper for her to play with.

  “Did you see those teeth?” asked a woman beside Bella.

  “Yeah,” said a man. “She looks aggressive.”

  Bella considered this.

  She did not know what “aggressive” meant, but it sounded a lot like “impressive.” Pleased with herself, she shook the toy back and forth between her teeth, then threw it up in the air again.

  But the couple had moved away from her. Now they were admiring a little tiger-striped dog who, Bella knew for a fact, had never so much as caught a tennis ball in her life. The dog rolled over, and the couple squealed with pleasure. “She’s doing tricks!” said the woman. “She’s very talented.”

  Talented.

  Bella knew that word. She had heard it from Mrs. McBride, whose favorite TV show was a competition where humans sang songs and people clapped for them. Mrs. McBride sometimes clapped along and said how wonderful the singers were. How talented.

  Was that what humans wanted?

  Bella had never tried to sing before, but it didn’t look very hard. She tilted her nose up—just as the singers on the show did—opened her mouth, and tried her best to make a beautiful song come out.

  “What’s wrong with that dog?” she heard a voice ask. “Why is she howling like that?”

  “Maybe someone stepped on her tail.”

  Bella let out a sigh of frustration. I guess singing is harder than it looks, she thought.

  Then she saw something out of the corner of her eye and froze. A boy and a girl were huddled beside Hazel, taking turns petting her droopy head with their mittened hands. Their mother bent down between them.

  “Is this the one you want?” she asked.

  “Yes!” cried the children together.

  Leslie spied the family and jogged over to them. “Hazel is one of our sweetest dogs,” she said. “It’s been a long time since she had anyone to look after her.”

  “I think we might be able to change that,” said the children’s mother.

  “Yaaaay!” cried the children together.

  Hazel’s tail thumped in the dirt, but no one seemed to mind the dust cloud she was causing.

  Leslie handed Hazel’s new owner a thin leash.

  Bella let out a whimper. She wanted to be happy for Hazel. Hazel deserved another family.

  But there were hardly any humans left now.

  No one’s going to take me home. And I’ll have to live at the pound without Hazel.

  Her whimpering grew louder.

  “Don’t cry, Bella!” Hazel called. “Your family is coming. I know it!”

  Hazel’s new humans let her lead them toward Bella so that she could kiss Bella on the nose with her droopy pink tongue. Bella kissed her back.

  “Any family would be lucky to have you,” Hazel said.

  Bella watched as Hazel’s new family filled out some papers and led her to their shiny car.

  “I’ll miss you,” she called, too late for Hazel to hear.

  Then she collapsed onto the cold dirt, not caring that it would making her clean white coat look brown and filthy.

  And she stayed there. Watching as other dogs were led away from the pound and into the Land of Being Wanted.

  The fair was almost over.

  It shouldn’t even be called the fair, Bella thought miserably. It should be called the not fair.

  When finally someone was interested in her, it wasn’t a human at all but a large black fly that began buzzing around her head.

  It buzzed.

  And buzzed.

  And buzzed some more.

  Then it landed on her little black nose.

  Finally Bella understood what “the last straw” meant. This fly was the last straw.

  She peered down at the end of her snout, where the winged culprit sat. She huffed out her mightiest huff. And when the fly tried to buzz off, she jumped up and snapped it out of midair.

  And then she swallowed it.

  Serves it right, thought Bella, trying to ignore the sick feeling in her stomach. Flies did not taste nearly as good as popcorn.

  Suddenly she heard a woman start to laugh.

  “Did you see that, Andy?” the woman said. “I think that dog just caught a fly in midair!”

  “I think so, too,” a man replied. “And I think she ate it!”

  Bella turned to her left, where a man and woman were standing just a few feet away. They were looking at her. And they were smiling.

  “You’re a funny thing,” said the woman, who had dark hair and hazel eyes and smelled like a bowl of fruit. She knelt down beside Bella and began to scratch behind her ears.

  Bella had not been scratched behind her ears since her last night with the McBrides. It was a most wonderful feeling.

  She allowed her eyes to close and her tongue to flop from her mouth.

  “I think she likes you, Alice,” the man called Andy said. When Bella opened one eye, she saw that he had knelt down in front of her, too.

  Mr. and Mrs. McBride would never have done such a thing. They did not like to get their clothes dirty.

  Even though he was kneeling, Bella could see that Andy was tall and lean. He had crinkly eyes and smelled like french fries.

  There was not a whiff of dirty diapers, or baby powder, or milk bottles.

  “She’s beautiful,”
Andy said.

  “Leslie was right,” the woman called Alice replied. “There’s something very special about this dog. Very special indeed.”

  Six

  The Land of Being Wanted

  Bella thought she must have misheard.

  What was so special about catching a fly? Any dog worth its own tail could catch a fly.

  I don’t think I’ll ever understand humans, she thought. But she also thought it didn’t matter very much why these humans had noticed her. The important thing was they liked her! They think I’m beautiful, even though my coat is dirty. They think I’m special, even though they didn’t see any of my amazing tricks!

  Leslie appeared suddenly behind Alice and Andy. She slung an arm over Alice’s shoulder.

  “I see you’ve met the Roses,” she said to Bella. “They’re two of my oldest friends.”

  Bella liked the way Leslie spoke to her like she was a human, too.

  “What’s her name?” Alice Rose asked.

  “This is Bella,” said Leslie.

  “That’s a perfect name for her,” said Andy Rose.

  Bella knew what roses were. Mrs. McBride used to cut them from the neighbor’s prizewinning bushes at night and put them in a vase on the table. It made Bella happy to stare at the colorful layers of petals, to sniff their sweet, sunny smell.

  Rose was the perfect name for these humans.

  “I told you that you two would like her,” Leslie said. “Are you thinking about taking her home?”

  “I don’t know,” Alice said, peering into Bella’s face.

  Bella’s heart fell. Had Alice decided that she was not so special after all?

  “It depends if she wants to come home with us,” Alice continued. “What do you think, Bella?”

  For a moment, Bella didn’t understand. Was Alice joking? What dog wouldn’t want to go home with her and Andy?

  Then, before she could stop herself, Bella lunged toward Alice and began to lap kisses all over her ears and cheeks and nose.

  Yes, said her tongue. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

  Andy laughed a booming laugh. “I think that’s a yes,” he said.

  Already these humans understood her so very well.

  Leslie took a thin braided leash and fixed it to Bella’s collar. Bella followed at Andy’s heels as he led her toward the gate.

  Andy and Alice each took a pen and a clipboard and signed a stack of papers.

  Bella hoped they weren’t reading them too closely. What if Mr. McBride had written somewhere that she was a Bad Bella, and her new parents decided they didn’t want her after all?

  No, not parents, she reminded herself. Her new owners.

  Bella paced in nervous circles around the humans’ feet until the leash was pulled tight around their legs.

  She didn’t mean to do it, and she tried to walk backward to untie them, but her paws didn’t seem to want to move in that direction.

  “I think she’s claiming us,” said Alice.

  She and Andy laughed. Just like Leslie had laughed at Leo during bath time.

  Leo!

  When Alice had untangled Bella’s leash, Bella looked around the yard. She couldn’t see Leo anywhere. She sniffed and sniffed with all her might. But there was no trace of him in the air.

  Had he been adopted without Bella noticing? Had Leslie already taken him back into the pound? Or was he still hiding somewhere, out of sight?

  When Andy and Alice were done signing the papers, Leslie opened the gate for them to go.

  “You’ll come see me soon?” Leslie asked. “At the house?”

  “Of course we will,” said Alice.

  “Definitely,” said Andy.

  Leslie leaned down and planted a kiss on Bella’s head. Then Andy gave Bella’s leash a gentle tug and led her out of the yard.

  Bella was leaving the pound!

  Although she felt very happy about this, she was a little bit sad, too.

  I wish I could say goodbye to Leo.

  Bella trotted behind her new humans as they walked her into the parking lot. She chanced one last glance back at the yard, hoping to catch a glimpse of Leo’s big furry face.

  But she did not see Leo. Instead, she noticed a hole in the fence beyond the tree she had seen him disappear behind.

  Bella considered this.

  “Psh!” someone hissed.

  Bella turned her head to the little grove beside the parking lot.

  A big furry grin peered out at her from behind one of the tree trunks.

  “Why do you think she’s wagging her tail?” Bella heard Alice ask.

  “She’s probably just so happy to be leaving the pound,” Andy said.

  That was true. But it was also true that she was very happy that Leo was leaving the pound, too.

  “Good luck with your new family!” called Leo.

  “I hope you find your pack!” Bella replied.

  “Is there some kind of animal in those trees?” asked Andy. “I thought I saw something move.”

  But Leo had already disappeared once more.

  Bella followed Andy and Alice to a silver car parked at the end of the lot.

  Andy opened the door for her and scooped her up to put her on the back seat. She felt nervous, remembering the last time she had ridden in a car.

  Then Alice rolled Bella’s window down, even though it was cold, so that she could poke her head out into the fresh air.

  “Goodbye!” she called, to no one in particular, as the pound became smaller and smaller, until finally it disappeared around a bend.

  As the car started to go faster, the wind rushed against Bella’s nose, and she thought this must be what it was like to fly. She pretended to soar through the forests and over the fields and across the rivers.

  But soaring, it turned out, was very hard work. Soon she was curled up into a neat ball on the seat, her eyes shut tight.

  When Bella awoke, she heard a car door slam and wished with all her might that the Roses hadn’t been a dream.

  Which, as it turned out, they hadn’t.

  Bella peered up to see Alice opening the back-seat door. Then she helped Bella down onto the sidewalk.

  Bella looked around, blinking. This place was not like any she had ever been before. It wasn’t a forest, like the ones they had passed in the car. It wasn’t a street with little square houses, like where the McBrides lived.

  The smell of squirrels and trees had been replaced by the smell of concrete and hot cheesy pizza. A car honked, and music spilled out from a nearby window. Tall buildings rose from every street corner like silver giants.

  A city, Bella thought. That’s what this place is. She had seen such places on the McBrides’ TV, but she’d never realized how very big they could be.

  “Are you ready to see your new apartment?” Alice asked, patting Bella on the head.

  Bella did not know what an apartment was, but she decided she was ready anyway.

  Andy started to close the car door behind her.

  “Uh-oh,” he said. “Look at all this hair Bella shed!”

  Bella lowered her tail between her legs. She knew “Uh-oh” meant she had done something wrong.

  But Alice peered into the car and shrugged.

  “Guess we’ll have to get a lint roller,” she said.

  Alice led Bella in the direction of a tall building with rows and rows of windows.

  “Come on, baby Bella,” she said. “It’s time to go home.”

  Bella had never been called a baby before.

  Maybe the Roses were confused about the difference between dogs and children, too.

  But Bella didn’t mind this. Not one little bit.

  Seven

  The New Dog on the Block

  As it turned out, Bella did like her new apartment.

  It was smaller than the McBrides’ house, but it was cozier, too.

  There was no backyard. Instead, a little balcony looked out over a busy street.

  Best of all, Bella still
could not detect a whiff of children.

  Maybe that explained why the Roses were being so kind to her, and why Alice had called her “baby.” They had no children of their own. It was just as Runt had said.

  The Roses poured Bella a bowlful of dinner, which she ate as politely as she could, careful not to spill crumbs on the kitchen floor.

  “Look how fast she gulped it down,” Andy said. “Let’s fix her another bowl.”

  Another bowl? Bella had never had two bowlfuls of dinner. She backed away as Alice poured more food. What if this was a test, or a trick, like the Christmas tree had been?

  “What’s wrong with you, silly?” Alice asked, patting Bella’s head. “Eat up.”

  Bella did not want Alice to think she was silly. Or that there was something wrong with her. And also, she was still hungry. So she ate.

  That night, after the Roses climbed into bed and turned off the lights, Bella padded out to the living room to find a comfy spot to sleep. At the McBrides’ house, she had always slept on the small, shabby hallway rug between the living room and the bedrooms.

  “Bella?” Alice called.

  A light clicked on, and Alice appeared in the doorway.

  “What are you doing, funny? Come to bed!”

  Bella sighed. She was trying to go to bed! What’s so funny about that?

  Still, she followed Alice into the bedroom. Then Alice patted the blanket by Andy’s feet as if to signal for Bella to jump up.

  But Bella would not jump up onto the bed.

  She knew she could stay on her best behavior when she was awake. But how could she control herself when she was asleep?

  What if she snored? Or made the Roses too hot? Or took up too much space?

  What if I’m so nervous, I wet the bed?

  Then the Roses would look at each other the way the McBrides had done when she had had her accident on Mrs. McBride’s best rug.

  “BAD BELLA!” they would shout.

  No, sleeping on the Roses’ bed was a very bad idea indeed.

  Bella settled for a compromise. She found a soft spot of carpet by the bed and circled around it until she had the perfect angle. Then she settled with her nose tucked neatly into her tail and closed her eyes.