Lost and Found on Foxglove Street (The Foxglove Street #9)

Chapter 8

8

STANLEY

The wonderful new bed that Ryan purchased for me was bliss!

Cosy and plush and so, so comfortable, I was ecstatic with joy from the moment he set it down on the floor in the dining area of his house and I snuggled down into the deep warmth of it. I couldn’t help chuntering with joy, which Ryan and his grandmother both found very amusing.

Plus, I was treated to gravy bones—my favourite treats! The nice lady in the pet shop gave me a gravy bone when we arrived there to do our shopping, and Ryan bought a box to bring home with us, too.

A new cosy bed and a boxful of gravy bones—life doesn’t get much better than that.

I needed those treats and comforts after the anxious morning I’d spent. In the excitement of waking up at Grace’s house, and getting ready to go out, and seeing Ryan again, and setting off in the car, I failed to realise where we were going.

We were going to the vet! I hate the vet! No dog wants to go there, ever. There was no need to take me there. I felt perfectly well!

Despite my best efforts to resist entering the building, and then resist entering the consulting room, Grace and Ryan lured me inside with their gentle reassurances that all would be well. And once I met the vet, Joe, and got a good look at his kind aura and saw how much he loved animals, I realised that maybe there was nothing to fear after all.

Once the vet began scanning me with some sort of fancy electronic device, I listened more closely to what everyone in the room was saying in an effort to understand what on earth was going on, and soon realised they were trying to find out who my owner was.

That was something I wanted to find out, too. The mystery of who I was and where I came from was still unsolved, after all. In the interests of finding answers, I consented to the vet’s investigations.

However, it proved to be a dead end. I contained no microchip, which would apparently reveal all, and so the mystery therefore remained.

I assumed that would be the end of the matter and Grace would simply take me home with her. When our next stop turned out to be boarding kennels where my fellow canines were locked up in cages and howling their heads off, I almost collapsed in horror.

At first, the racket those dogs were making made me think they were being tortured. What sort of evil could possibly be being perpetrated on those poor creatures to provoke such a dreadful noise?

But once I paid closer attention to what the canine inmates were saying as they yapped and barked, it turned out they weren’t being hurt or abused at all.

The boarding kennels simply weren’t a very nice place to spend time, they assured me. They were fed and watered, and more or less looked after. The staff weren’t particularly warm people, but the dogs explained that the boss who owned the business took on too many dogs and didn’t employ enough staff, and that made the work hard for those charged with their care.

Still, every single dog wanted out of there. No wonder.

So quite why Grace and Ryan and I found ourselves inside the boarding kennels office, while apparently getting ready to hand me over, was both shocking and baffling!

In the end, Grace left quickly and took me with her, thank heavens. Only once we were back in the car did I realise she never seriously considered leaving me there, not once she’d got the measure of the place.

Leaving the kennels behind, I breathed a sigh of relief at my narrow escape. But no sooner were we back in Hamblehurst than Grace was leaving me with Ryan and driving off by herself.

Panic!

I loved Grace and didn’t want to lose her, and if Ryan hadn’t been holding my lead so tightly, I might have raced along the road after her.

Ryan’s gentle reassurances convinced me she would be back later. I had no choice but to take his word for it.

In the end, I got to spend a lovely day with Ryan, who is a fine young fellow, and with his wonderful grandmother, Miriam. The trip to the butcher’s shop was a particular highlight— Sausages! So many sausages! —topped only by the visit to the pet shop where I was greeted like royalty by the staff, who dispensed delicious gravy bones and many pats on my head.

Back at Ryan’s house—or should I say mansion? This young man has clearly done well for himself—I got to luxuriate on my new cosy bed and then we had lunch together. In the afternoon, Miriam set to work cooking in the kitchen and the smells emanating from the casserole dish in the oven were so fantastic that I might have drooled quite a bit on my nice new bed.

Oops. Well, I am a dog, after all. Drooling is what we do.

I just hoped that I’d be invited to stay and eat whatever it was that Miriam was cooking for dinner, and that Grace would be invited, too.

What a fun meal that would be!