Fight for Life (5 page)

Sunita can see how confusing this is to me. “I told them that I took ballet, and then David had to prove he could dance. He pirouetted right into the plant.”

“At least I missed the window.”

“You still have to clean it up,” says Brenna.

“It wasn’t my fault! You were standing in the way.”

“Somebody better do something quickly,” Sunita warns. “Dr. Mac’s next patient is coming up the walk.”

David grabs the plant, Brenna pushes the pot under a chair, and I scoop up the dirt with my hands just as Mrs. Cooper walks through the front door with a yowling cat carrier.

“Hello, Mrs. Cooper! How is Ling Ling today?” I ask, holding a handful of dirt.

“Meerow.” A light brown paw pushes through the wire door of the cat carrier. Sunita melts.

“A Siamese! Oh, how beautiful! I love Siamese cats.” She touches the paw with the tip of her finger.

“Meerow! Meerow!” Ling Ling cries. Siamese are the most talkative kind of cat.

“Sunita, why don’t you take Mrs. Cooper and Ling Ling into the Herriot Room, over there on the left. I’ll tell Gran that you’re here, Mrs. Cooper.”

“Thank you, Margaret,” says Mrs. Cooper. Sunita grins. She escorts cat and owner to the exam room.

“Margaret? I thought you flattened people who call you Margaret,” David says as soon as Sunita closes the door to the Herriot Room.

“I’ll flatten you if you don’t fix that plant.”

He plops the plant back in the pot. “There, all fixed. Happy?”

I dump the dirt I’m holding back into the pot. “Happy.” I buzz Gran on the intercom to let her know that Ling Ling is here.

“Now who do I pay to get a tour around here?” asks David.

“A tour?”

“Why not? It was so busy when the collies came in, I never got to see behind the scenes.”

“OK, but it’ll be a short tour, and no ballet moves. This is obviously the waiting room. Sunita just went into the Herriot Room. Across from that is the Doolittle Room. That’s where we usually examine dogs.”

“I know who Dr. Doolittle is. I read a book about him. But what does Herriot mean?” asks Brenna.

“James Herriot was the pen name of an English veterinarian, Dr. James Alfred Wight. Gran loves his books.
All Creatures Great and Small
is one of her favorites. Next stop, the receptionist’s desk.” I flip up the counter. “There’s a computer under this mess somewhere. We’re having a hard time finding an animal-friendly receptionist. They always leave after a day or two.”

“I know. I was on my bike when one of them ran out of the clinic screaming,” says David. “What was she so afraid of?”

“A skunk. A pet skunk. He couldn’t spray anymore, but she took one look and never returned. Follow me.”

Past the desk is the hallway that leads to the hospital part of the clinic. I open the door to the operating room. “This is where surgery takes place. Notice the shiny equipment. Don’t touch, David.” We walk through the operating room to the recovery room.

“Hi, Dr. Gabe. How are the puppies?”

“Sleeping soundly. No problems. Dr. Mac told me what a great job you kids did,” he says.

“Dr. Mac and Maggie did all the work,” says Brenna. “We just did what they told us to do.”

“Well, you listened. That’s more than a lot of people do.”

“I’m giving them a tour,” I tell Gabe, then turn back to David and Brenna. “This is the recovery room, where we watch animals recovering from surgery or sickness. Those cages on the back wall”—I point—“usually have an assortment of critters in them, rabbits, ferrets, dogs—”

“Cows,” Dr. Gabe teases.

“No, we don’t keep cows in here. Ignore him. Now to our left, you’ll see a real live veterinarian. We call this creature Dr. Gabriel Donovan. Don’t be afraid. He’s scruffy looking, but he doesn’t bite.”

Dr. Gabe snaps his teeth at us and barks. Brenna giggles. He is cute, but I can’t have a crush on him because he’s way too old, like twenty-eight or something. Dr. Gabe’s been working here for years. He started volunteering when he was in high school and came back to be Gran’s associate when he graduated from veterinary school. I better move on before Brenna falls under the spell of his ice blue eyes.

“Let’s go. Take good care of the pups, Gabe.”

“Mooooo,” he replies.

We leave the recovery room and move on to the lab. “This is where we analyze blood, urine, and fecal specimens.”

“Don’t let David touch the microscope,” Brenna suggests.

“Good idea. The next room is X-ray, followed by . . . the Beauty Shop. Gran has talked about hiring a groomer to work here, but she hasn’t had time to set it up yet. Sometimes I groom a boarder in here.”

“I had no idea this place was so big,” Brenna says. “You can’t tell from the front, can you?”

“A vet clinic is kind of like a small version of a hospital. You need everything from labs to laundry machines.”

“Oh, sure,” David says. “Next you’ll tell me you have a cafeteria.”

“Of course. Animals with different illnesses require special diets. We provide those, too,” I explain. “And guess who’s the head waitress?”

“OK, so the next time a kitty wants dessert, can you bring her a three-
mouse
keteer bar?” David doubles over with laughter.

Brenna and I groan.

“Gran has the latest equipment and supplies so she can give our patients the care they deserve,” I say, getting back to the subject.

“Jeez! This place must have cost a fortune.” That’s David’s way of asking where the money is coming from. I think we’re lucky to have the setup we do. Gran has worked really hard for it all.

“Gran writes a column about animals that appears in newspapers all over the country, and she’s published a bunch of books. A few years ago, she invented a couple of surgical tools. She gets extra money from that, too. Come on. Tour’s almost over.”

I lead them through the door to the boarding kennels. “Gran keeps the boarders separate from the sick animals in the recovery room so the boarders won’t be exposed to germs.”

“Rrrouf!” Mitzy stands by the door to her kennel and barks for attention.

“Hi, Mitzy.” I reach in and pet my student. “We have room for ten dogs. Each one gets an inside cage like this, and they have their own runs—long, fenced-in areas where they can romp around. We don’t have too many right now, but you should see this place in the summer.” I stand up and brush my hands on my jeans. “OK. That’s it. Tour’s over.”

“No, it’s not,” David says. “We passed a couple of doors that you didn’t open.”

“We want to see everything,” Brenna says.

“Follow me.” I sigh. We leave Mitzy behind and go back to the main hall. I put my hand on the doorknob of one of the “mystery” doors. “This is the supply closet. To open it is to take your life in your hands. It is so messy, it makes my room look neat, and that is saying something.”

David scoots ahead of me and opens the last door. “What’s in here? Yikes!”

“What is it?” asks Brenna.

I peek in. “This is Gran’s office. The extremely large creature on Gran’s desk is Socrates.”

“Wow!” exclaims Brenna.

Socrates looks at Brenna and closes his eyes once. He is pleased with her admiration.

“He rules the roost. He thinks that we are his pets, or maybe his servants. Our job is to feed him.”

“You make it sound like he’s a snob,” says Brenna.

“Well, he’s not cuddly, that’s for sure. And if he’s guarding Gran’s office, I’m not going in there. Come on, let’s go back up front.”

By the time we make our way to the waiting room, Ling Ling is yowling on her way to the car. Gran and Sunita are standing at the door.

“You did an amazing job keeping her calm,” Gran tells Sunita. “Ling Ling needed eardrops,” she explains to us.

“So how many scratches did you get?” I ask. Ling Ling does not like eyedrops.

“No scratches. Sunita has a real gift with cats.”

“Well,” I say, “I guess you guys have to get home for dinner.”

“Oh, my goodness,” Sunita says, looking at her watch. “My parents don’t like me to be late. Thank you very much, Dr. MacKenzie. This was the best day I’ve had in ... in ... in a very long time.” She heads out the door.

“Hey guys. Wait,” David says. “We didn’t ask about tomorrow.”

“What about tomorrow?” Gran asks.

“Can Sunita and I come back? To help?”

There’s a long pause. I look at Gran. I can see she’s thinking it over.

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. We have Brenna here to help, and we’re over the real crisis. We just need to monitor the pups from here on out. But I couldn’t have done without you today. You were all great.”

Brenna buckles on her bike helmet and hops on her bike. David shuffles out the door and cuts through the hedge without looking back. Sunita walks down the driveway. At the sidewalk, she turns and waves to us with a faint smile. I wave back.

Gran looks like she’s a thousand miles away. She sure is acting strange.

“Is something wrong?” I ask. “You know I’ll pull my grades up. Pretty soon, you won’t even need Brenna to do my work.”

Gran leans against the doorframe and crosses her arms over her chest. “It’s not just that. It’s your aunt Rose. Remember her phone call? Her daughter, Zoe, is coming tomorrow.” She picks some cat hair off her sleeve. “She’ll be staying with us for a while.”

The pickles twist in my stomach. “What? How long is a while?” The last time I saw Zoe was a year ago. We didn’t get along so well.

“Maybe a couple of weeks until her mom gets settled in L.A. I insisted we enroll her in school. And I’m counting on you to show her around and make her feel comfortable. We’ll talk more about it after I finish up in the clinic. Now, don’t you have a test to study for?”

I
studied for the social studies test. Honest. But it was a waste of time. I got a miserable, rotten 57 percent. D minus. My teacher graded it right in front of me. I hate social studies. I hate tests. I hate school. Now I have to go home and tell Gran. She’s going to explode when she sees it. How can I make her believe I really tried?

David sits next to me on the bus and asks all kinds of questions about the puppies. Great. Now, on top of having to break the news to Gran, I start worrying about the puppy mill again.

As we step off the bus, it starts to rain. “Say hi to the pups,” shouts David, crossing the street. “You know where to find me if you need any help over there.”

Everyone else runs for home holding their backpacks over their heads to keep dry. I walk slowly through the downpour.

When I open the back door to the clinic, the dogs in the kennel start yipping. Now that’s a warm sound. I hang up my dripping jacket and go straight to the recovery room to check on our patients. The collies and the mutt are out of the oxygen cage. That’s great. It means they are breathing better on their own. They are in a puppy pen next to the one with the black Labs. Shelby and Inky look stronger, but I’m worried about Dinky, the smallest Lab. I check his chart. He has lost weight.

I hold Dinky up to my face. He opens his sleepy eyes. “What’s wrong with you, little guy? You need to get big and strong, or your brother is going to get all the attention. You probably have more brothers and sisters at the puppy mill, don’t you? Are they cold and hungry, too?” I get goose bumps.

Dinky doesn’t answer—not even a wag of the tail. I’d love to hold him the rest of the afternoon, but he needs quiet to recover. I give him a kiss on the top of his head and settle him back in with Shelby and Inky.

I stop to count. Three Labs, five collies ... Wait—where did the mutt go? My heart pounds.

I get on my hands and knees to search.

I look under the instrument cart. Not there.

I check behind the trash can. Nope.

There he is, crawling toward the door!

“You! You are sneaky,” I scold as I scoop him up gently and carry him back to his pen. “Now don’t you disappear on me again.”

“Maggie?” Gran calls from down the hall.

“I’ll be right there.”

I put the mutt in the pen with the collies, then carefully close the door behind me on my way out.