Fight for Life (10 page)

Sunita nudges me. I look out the window. The sheriff and the puppy mill owner are shaking hands. They are smiling at each other.

“He looks awfully happy for a guy who was just arrested,” remarks Zoe.

“Here, guys, help me,” I say. “Hold my puppies for a minute.” Brenna, David, and Sunita each take one of my puppies. I open the door and dash out into the storm. Lightning flashes. I count one, two, three, four, five. The thunder rumbles. That was close. I’m petrified, but I keep going.

“Excuse me!” I say to the sheriff as I tap him on the back. “Aren’t you going to arrest him?”

He turns to me. “That’s not necessary. The doc has the sick animals. Larry here, he tried his best.”

“I lost my job,” Larry says.

“He lost his job,” the sherifff repeats. “Then he hurt his back.”

“I couldn’t take care of them,” Larry says. He shakes his head from side to side, as if he really cared about the dogs. What a fake! What a total fake!

“I gave him a warning, and he promised to help out with your grandmother’s vet fees. You should get back in the van.”

The thunder booms again.

Now I’m shaking.

I’m furious.

I fumble in my pocket and pull out my notes from the library. “You have to charge him,” I tell the sheriff. I read slowly, “According to The Dog Purchaser Protection Act, Section 9.3, an amendment to the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law. He didn’t give customers a health record or a health certificate signed by a vet. Plus he isn’t taking care of the dogs out back. Half of them look . . .” My throat closes up.

Don’t cry
, I tell myself.
Don’t cry yet. Use the facts
. I stare Larry the Liar straight in the eye.

“Half of them look like they’re ready to die. You should be charged with neglect, abuse, and cruelty.” I hand my notes to the sheriff.

“Hang on,” says the sheriff. He uses his radio to contact his office and explain the situation. We wait a very long minute—the sheriff tapping his boot impatiently, me glaring at Larry, Larry trying to figure out if he should look sad, angry, or embarrassed.

The radio crackles, and the sheriff listens closely to his dispatcher. Then he looks up.

“The kid is right, Larry. I don’t have a choice. I have to charge you. Get in the car. We’ll do this down at the station.”

Yes!

I turn around. Gran is standing behind me. She must have been standing there the whole time in case something went wrong, but she let me do it on my own. Her hair is plastered to her head, and the rain has soaked her sweatshirt, but her eyes are warm and proud.

“You did it!” she shouts over the thunder. She gives me quick hug. “That’s my girl!”

I haven’t heard her say that in a really, really long time.

T
he clinic looks like a veterinarian’s version of
101 Dalmatians
. Dogs, dogs, dogs everywhere, big and small, and they all need a doctor. Thank goodness we have enough of those. Dr. Gabe put out the call for help while we were at the puppy mill. A couple of his friends from vet school are here to pitch in.

Gran directs traffic. “I want each dog to have a number, an ID tag, and a chart. Gabe, you hand out the numbers. We need to keep them straight. Use both of the exam rooms, the O.R., and the recovery room. If we need extra space, move the lab equipment into the kitchen.”

“Excuse me,” says a young vet with cornrows. She rushes past the five of us holding a panting terrier. “Where’s your X-ray machine?” she asks Gran. “I think this one has a punctured lung.”

“Down the hall to your right,” Gran says.

We’re in the way. David sits in a chair in the waiting room and puts his feet up so no one will trip over them. Zoe heads for the kitchen.

“I guess I should go home,” says Sunita. “Can I use your phone?”

“Yeah. Follow Zoe. Hang on, I’ll come with you.”

I open the door to the kitchen.

“Margaret MacKenzie, where are you going?” Gran shouts across the room.

I turn around.

“I need you in here,” Gran says.

My heart starts to beat faster. “You do?”

“Yes! I need all of you. Scrub up and get into the recovery room. We need all the hands and eyes we can get.”

While Gran, Gabe, and the visiting vets do the doctor work, Brenna, Sunita, David, Zoe, and I are responsible for everything else. This time we know what we’re doing.

David is in charge of transporting stabilized patients back to recovery. He isn’t joking around. Instead he’s quiet and fast. Sunita and Brenna move Shelby and Inky in with the collie pups and the mutt, then use the empty puppy pen as a nursery. Sunita turns on the heat lamp so her patients won’t catch a chill.

“What can I do to help?” Zoe asks.

“Stand by the oxygen cage,” Gran says, pointing. “Watch the patients inside. If any of them starts breathing fast, count the number of breaths per minute. If more than fifty, you let me know ASAP—as soon as possible.”

I’m in charge of supplies. I drop off packages of clean instruments to each team and stock them with antibiotics and gloves. “We’re going to run out of Ringer’s solution,” I warn Gran.

The veterinarian with cornrows tosses me a set of car keys. “The VW bug outside is mine. You’ll find two boxes of supplies on the backseat. I like to come prepared.”

“A woman after my own heart,” says Gran. “Next!”

I dash out into the rain and come back with the boxes. As I drop off the extra I.V. bags, I watch David. He’s carrying a pair of young terriers on a stretcher and is headed straight for an instrument cart.

“Look out!”

He’s already seen it. He holds the stretcher steady and eases by the cart. He didn’t drop anything. Amazing.

The storm rolls around us, with plenty of lightning and window-rattling thunder. The dogs in the boarding kennels are terrified. They howl and scratch at their cage doors.

“Will somebody please calm those dogs down,” orders Gran.

“I’ll do it,” says Brenna. “Will you be all right alone?” she asks Sunita. Sunita nods, and Brenna jogs down the hall and around the corner.

I do a quick check of the puppies in the pen. They’re all breathing steadily. So far, so good. There are more fleas here than I have ever seen at one time, but things are under control.

Lightning strikes nearby. The lights flicker. The boarding dogs howl and moan again.

“Oh, that’s just what we need,” says Gabe. “More excitement.”

The lights stay on.

“Don’t worry,” Gran says. “If the power goes out, I have an emergency generator. Working by candlelight doesn’t appeal to me.”

“I don’t know,” Gabe shouts from the other room. “It could be kind of romantic.”

Gran rolls her eyes and laughs. The tension is fading. The recovery-room cages are nearly full. The vets in the exam rooms are cleaning up. It looks like we’re almost finished.

Suddenly Gran goes silent. The tiny yellow Lab in her hands is failing fast.

“Help me, Maggie. Get me oxygen.”

“One canister is empty, and Dr. Gabe is using the other,” I say.

The puppy stops breathing.

“Oh no you don’t,” Gran says. She bends down and blows into the pup’s nose, very gently so she doesn’t damage the lungs. After each puff, Gran listens to the heartbeat. Puff, listen, puff, listen.

“Breathe, breathe ...” Gran urges the puppy.

I run to the operating room. “Gran is doing artificial respiration on a Lab,” I tell Gabe. “She can’t do it all night, and you have the last canister of oxygen. What should we do?”

“Time for a little trip,” Dr. Gabe tells the puppy on the table. “I’ll carry the dog, you bring the canister.” He picks up the pup and steadies the oxygen mask on its face. I roll the canister of oxygen close by so the pup in Dr. Gabe’s arms can keep using it.

Dr. Gabe sets his puppy down next to Gran’s. “OK, fellas, it’s time to learn about sharing. My patient’s not in distress anymore,” he tells Gran. “Let’s try alternating the mask between the two of them.”

Gran takes the small oxygen mask off Dr. Gabe’s puppy and puts it on the one she’s helping. I cross my fingers.
Breathe, breathe.
Gran puts her stethoscope on the puppy again. All of a sudden, the little Lab wrinkles her nose and coughs. She takes a deep breath. She’s going to make it.

It’s past eleven o’clock when Gran drives the other kids home. They all left tired but satisfied knowing that they had helped save a lot of animals today. The puppies we rescued—all twenty-five of them—are asleep, but Zoe and I are too keyed up to go to bed.

“Want some hot chocolate?” I ask.

“Sure. But not that kind,” she says as I pull the packets of instant hot chocolate mix out of the pantry. “That stufff tastes like chemicals. We’ll make it from scratch. Ethel taught me how.”

I put the instant away and get out the real cocoa.

“I’m so psyched,” Zoe says. “Get out the sugar and the milk. It was just amazing. Well, not the puppy mill—that was disgusting. I thought I was going to vomit. But it was so cool how we went in there and saved all those dogs. Here, give that to me, you’re making a mess.”

She pours the milk into a pan.

“How can you do that without measuring?” I ask.

“Practice.” She turns on the burner and adds the sugar and cocoa. “Here.” She hands me a wooden spoon. “Don’t stop stirring.”

Sherlock trots into the room. He stops in his tracks, stunned by the sight of me cooking at the stove. “Give him a biscuit,” I say. “I don’t want him having a heart attack or anything.”

Zoe reaches into the cookie jar and tosses Sherlock his treat. Now he’s really confused. I’m the only one who gives him biscuits. The whole world is upside down tonight.

Zoe joins me at the stove and takes the spoon from me. “If you don’t stir it fast enough, you’ll scald it. And you don’t want it to boil.” She turns off the stove. “There, now taste this.”

I hate to admit it, but she’s right. Hot chocolate from scratch tastes much better. I pour the hot chocolate into two mugs and hand one over to her.

“Is it always like this around here?” she asks.

“It’s not usually quite so hectic, but we have our moments.”

“It reminded me of an emergency-room scene in my mom’s old show. There was an earthquake in the town and all these people kept rushing to the E.R. and my mom was trapped in a collapsed building.” She stops to blow on her hot chocolate. “But that was just pretend. This was real.”

“Isn’t it about time for bed?” Gran asks as she walks in from the clinic.

Zoe yawns. “I’m going to have terrible bags under my eyes in the morning.”

“You can sleep in,” Gran promises.

“Ciao!”
Zoe says with a little wave.

“Good night,” Gran and I call.

I wait until Zoe is out of earshot. “Bags under her eyes? Chow?”

“
Ciao
means good-bye in Italian. Give her a break, Maggie.”

“It would be easier if she talked like a normal kid. But she does make good hot chocolate.”

Gran pours the rest of the hot chocolate into a mug and sits down across from me.

“All our patients are doing great,” she reports.

I grin. “The MacKenzie clan rescues the day.”

“You were the one who got the whole ball rolling. You found the puppy mill and made sure the owner was arrested. You have a passion for helping animals, Maggie. You’re going to be a great vet someday.”

I swish the last of my hot chocolate around in the bottom of my mug. “I’ll never be a veterinarian unless my grades come up—especially math. I think you’re right, Gran.” I swallow what’s left. “I need that tutor.” I tell her about Mitzy and how I switched the numbers.

She takes a deep breath. “Well, I’m glad you told me. Just remember there’s nothing wrong with asking for help now and then. We could never have managed on our own tonight. I couldn’t have done it without the other vets, and your friends did a terrific job.”

“We’re a good team,” I agree. “David kept everyone’s spirits up, Sunita was like a pool of calmness in the middle of the confusion, and those poor dogs in the boarding kennels would have been terrified without Brenna.”

Gran gets up and carries our empty mugs to the sink. “Still, I made you a promise. As soon as things are back to normal, I’ll tell them that we don’t need their help anymore. I never thought I would say this, but I’m going to miss those kids.”

T
he following Saturday, Gran and Zoe chase me out of the house right after breakfast.

Something is up.

I hop on my bike and ride down to my tutor’s. She’s a retired teacher named Mrs. Shea who has a house filled with birds and a brain filled with tricks to help kids with their schoolwork. This is my second tutoring session. So far, so good.

“Tell me about the extra-credit report,” Mrs. Shea says, once we are settled in her living room.