Chapter Seven
"Well done!" Adam Hope said as he stopped to pick up Mandy and James on the lonely road by Syke Farm. Tess was nowhere to be seen. Snowflakes whirled around and settled on them, then melted into glittering drops on their hair and jackets as they climbed into the warm car. "I take it Ken said yes?"
Mandy nodded. She didn’t trust herself to say anything as they set off, the jeep’s thick, wide tires firmly gripping the snowy surface. The wipers worked hard to keep the windshield clear.
"I hope this weather doesn’t set in." Dr. Adam glanced at Mandy. "Snow may be pretty to look at and all that, but it makes a vet’s job twice as difficult, and the animals don’t like it much either."
"The forecast says it’ll clear later in the day," James reported.
From the flat conversation, Mandy could tell that they, too, were feeling the absence of Tess’s friendly face in the back of the car.
They drove on for a while in silence. Then, as Welford village came within sight and Dr. Adam turned to go down their street, he remembered a message for Mandy. "Oh, Grandma asks if you two can go and meet her at the village hall as soon as you get back. She wants to talk to you about decorations or something like that."
Mandy nodded.
Her dad braked and stopped. "Should I drop you here to save you a walk?" He looked closely at her. "It’s best to keep busy," he advised. "It’ll help keep your mind off Tess."
She smiled. Her dad always had a knack of knowing what was on her mind. "Thanks, Dad. Good idea. We’ll see you later."
"Could you call my mom and tell her where I am, please?" James jumped out into the cold air. Already the snow seemed to be lighter, the sky clearer.
Dr. Adam said he would, so together James and Mandy jogged back into the village, heading for the hall.
When they arrived, they stamped the snow off their boots and opened up the big oak door. Inside, Grandma greeted them cheerily from halfway up a stepladder. Rolls of colored paper streamers, glittering gold stars, and packages of balloons lay scattered over the floor. Grandpa was busy wedging a six-foot-high Christmas tree into a wooden barrel in the far corner of the big room, while Ernie Bell stood offering advice. "Left a bit, now right a bit; right, right, left a bit!" he barked, until at last the tree stood perfectly straight.
"See those balloons?" Grandma asked. She pointed to the packages on the floor. "Your young lungs are stronger than ours. See how many you can blow up, while I try hanging these streamers."
Mandy and James set to work, blowing with all their might. Soon their cheeks ached and they ran out of breath. One balloon burst with a hollow bang. But the floor came alive with floating red, yellow, blue, orange, and white balloons of all shapes and sizes.
Meanwhile, Grandma fought the streamers. She straightened out the tangles and pinned thumbtacks into hard, wooden rafters. Then she came down the ladder and draped the streamers across the room, from corner to corner, with James’s help. Grandpa and Ernie were by now busy with tinsel and lights, decorating the beautiful tree.
At last Mandy blew up the final balloon. James had collapsed on the floor, head propped against the wall, surrounded by the multicolored sea of balloons.
"Let’s gather them up and attach them to pieces of string," Mandy gasped. She began to crawl on her hands and knees, chasing after them as they floated out of reach.
"That’s the idea!" Grandma said. "We can hang them up around the walls."
But just then the outer door opened and a gust of wind whirled in and scattered the balloons. Mrs. Ponsonby’s voice "whoo-hoo"ed through the hall. Grandpa and Ernie cringed and carried on with their tree. Pandora came in, yapping excitedly. Toby stood at the door and growled in confusion. Soon both dogs pounced into the midst of the whirling balloons.
"Hello!" Mrs. Ponsonby slammed the door shut. "Dorothy? Mandy? Is anyone there?" She peered through her steamed-up glasses, putting a pointed heel firmly through a red balloon. It popped and the dogs ran in circles, barking loudly. "Oh!" Mrs. Ponsonby’s hand flew to her ample chest. "Oh, my!" Pandora yapped and charged at the balloons.
"Here I am!" Grandma called from the top of her ladder. Mandy could tell she was gritting her teeth. "What can I do for you?"
"Oh, no, no! What can I do for you?" Mrs. Ponsonby swept off her heavy tweed coat and scattered more balloons. She flung it across the back of a wooden chair, then rolled up her sleeves. Then she spied Grandpa and Ernie hard at work on their tree. "Ah," she said, "it looks as if I arrived just in the nick of time!" She bustled across the room. "I always say men have no idea how to decorate a Christmas tree! They fling the tinsel on any old how. It has to be arranged, just so!" She pushed Ernie to one side and grabbed a piece of silver tinsel from Grandpa. "And these lights!" she said scornfully. "Just thrown on! Look, you have two pink ones together, and three blue ones! You need to rearrange them!"
Ernie and Grandpa looked at each other and retired, hurt. "Let her get on with it, if she’s so eager to," Ernie grumbled. He took his cap from his pocket and went off in a huff to the Fox and Goose.
Grandpa coughed and made his excuses. "I have to slip down to McFarlane’s for a roll of tape." He, too, shuffled off.
Mrs. Ponsonby nodded. "Men!" she said. She went on happily dismantling their tree.
While Dr. Emily stayed up her ladder, well out of reach, and James went on chasing stray balloons, Pandora fought on. Another balloon popped. Mandy lay flat on the floor, chin in her hands, staring Toby in the face. The scruffy mongrel had resigned himself to a long wait for his mistress. He stared back at Mandy, his mouth stretched wide in a patient, long-suffering smile. She giggled. Balloons drifted past. "Merry Christmas, Toby!" she laughed.
The dog lifted his head and gave one sharp bark.
"Ah, there you are, Mandy, my dear!" Mrs. Ponsonby sang out. "Yes, and a Merry Christmas to you, too. Oh, it’s so lucky that I came to help when I did. How would you ever have gotten everything ready for the party without me?"
By Thursday lunchtime, James had managed to escape to his house. "See you later," he told Mandy. Mrs. Ponsonby was still going strong, helping to arrange clusters of balloons along the walls. "I told my mom I’d be back by one. She wants me to go Christmas shopping with her in Walton."
"Lucky!" Mandy whispered back. She held up an armful of balloons to Mrs. Ponsonby. "I still have to stay here for a while."
It wasn’t until one-thirty that Mrs. Ponsonby was finally satisfied with the decoration of the hall. Mandy, her grandmother, and Mrs. Ponsonby stood back to admire their work, then Grandma showed them out and was able to lock the door and drive Mandy back to Animal Ark. "Don’t say a word!" she warned her granddaughter. "If you even mention that dreadful woman’s name, I shall explode like . . . Mount Vesuvius!"
Mandy sat beside her and laughed out loud. "But the hall does look great," she pointed out. "Looks really Christmassy!" She felt a flutter of excitement as the day for the party approached.
"Only two days to go!" Grandma said as she stopped the car and dropped her off.
Mandy nodded and dashed into the house in high spirits. She was starving and wanted to tell her mom and dad of the progress they’d made at the hall. "The party is going to be great!" she promised. She stopped in her tracks. "Hey, I just remembered – I’ve never given you an invitation!" She stood, poised over the cups of tea she’d just poured. "You will be able to come, won’t you?"
Her parents sat and laughed at her. "Try and stop us!" they chorused.
Mandy gave them their tea, smiling happily.
* * *
In spite of Christmas, business went on as usual that afternoon at Animal Ark. First, Emily Hope was called out by the Canine Defense League. One of their men needed help with a dog who had been left at home alone by its owners. Neighbors had called to help the animal, but it was too distressed for one person to handle. Willingly, she volunteered to go lend a hand.
Adam Hope shook his head. "Sometimes I think they should ban Christmas for owners like that," he said angrily. They listened as Dr. Emily drove off in her four-wheel-drive.
It made Mandy think of Tess. "I wonder how she’s doing with Ken?" she said out loud.
"Who, Tess?"
She nodded. "I hope she settles in okay."
"She will," Dad assured her. "I’d trust Ken with any animal of mine. He knows everything there is to know. And sometimes I think he prefers them to people."
Mandy sighed. "You’re right. Can I come and help you this afternoon?" She followed him from the kitchen into the empty reception area.
"I was about to ask if you had time," he confirmed. "Grab a white coat. Let’s help Simon clean out the residential unit before we start office hours. We only have half an hour. Let’s go!"
So Mandy went and said hello to Simon. She got engrossed in her favorite work, lifting cats out of their cages and putting them gently into baskets while she cleared trays and put in food, milk, and clean newspaper. Then there were dogs to exercise and groom, the floors to sweep and disinfect. They finished work with five minutes to spare before Jean was due in reception. The phone was ringing, and Mandy headed quickly back into the office.
She picked up the phone, ready to slip in an appointment or arrange visits. She hardly expected the bad news that was about to break.
"Animal Ark. How can I help?" she said brightly.
"This is Dora Janeki here," the voice snapped back. "I need you to send someone up double-quick!"
"Yes, Mrs. Janeki." Mandy took up a pen, ready to scribble down the details.
"This is an emergency. I have a sheep here who’s in a bad way. There’s not a scratch on her as far as I can see. Only something’s scared her and she won’t let us near. She’s one of my pregnant ewes. I don’t like the look of it."
"Okay." Mandy jotted it down. "Do you want me to send someone straight to the house?"
"No. I’ll be up on the hill, waiting. She’s gone down just by the wall, past High Cross. Her legs have given way, and she may not last much longer. Can you come quickly?" Dora slammed down the phone.
Mandy thought quickly. She was just about to dial her mother’s car phone when she heard the car pull up in the yard. Mandy ran out and told Emily Hope the news face-to-face.
Dr. Emily leaned out of the window. She looked serious. "Want to hop in?" she asked Mandy as she revved the engine and turned the car around the way she’d just come.
Mandy jumped right in beside her mother. They were off again, headlights glaring, speeding up the narrow roads to Dora Janeki’s isolated farm.
"A pregnant ewe?" Dr. Emily swung the steering wheel to take a sharp bend. Mandy clung to the handhold.
"Yes. That’s bad, isn’t it?"
Her mom nodded. "It can be. It depends. If the shock’s great enough, it can cause the sheep to go into premature labor."
"So she’ll have the lamb too early?"
"Yes, and that can give problems to the mother, too. Internal hemorrhaging. In other words, she could bleed to death."
Mandy gripped the handle and swung from side to side. She searched the hillside for Dora Janeki. "There!" She spotted an old red four-wheel-drive van in the distance. Dr. Emily swung her car off the road, across a rough, open path toward the van.
As she saw them approach, Dora Janeki ran across the hill to meet them.
Dr. Emily and Mandy jumped down. "How bad is it?" Emily Hope asked.
"Come and see for yourself." Dora shook her head. She led them twenty yards uphill to a low, crumbling stone wall. In its lee, out of the harsh wind, lay a matted gray shape. It had a swollen belly and sticklike legs. It was lying there too weak to stand.
"Can you do anything for her?" Dora turned anxiously to Dr. Emily.
"I’m not sure yet. Let’s see if we can get her back on her feet, for a start."
The three of them gently tried to ease the ewe into a standing position. But her legs buckled, and her neck and head sank against the ground. They gave up and stood by to let Dr. Emily continue her work.
"It’s premature labor, all right." She swiftly examined the swollen abdomen. Then she opened her bag and worked quickly to help with the delivery. Mandy watched. She could see that the sheep was already too feeble to help herself. It was with a heavy heart that she watched her mom deliver the tiny, dead lamb.
"Stillborn," Dr. Emily murmured. "And it doesn’t look too good for the mother either." She used a stethoscope to listen for the heartbeat. It confirmed that the sheep was suffering from heart failure and probably from internal bleeding. Soon Dr. Emily packed away her instruments and stood up. The animal lay completely still. "I’m sorry, Dora," she said. "There was nothing I could do."
Mandy stared at her mom. They stood helpless on this bleak hillside, and she felt weighed down by their failure.
Dora Janeki nodded. "Thank you for coming. I knew from the start we’d be lucky to save her."
Emily Hope zipped up her bag. "We gave it a try. What happened to her, do you know?" She was walking Dora back to her van.
"I can’t say for sure. I brought Whistler up with me to drop off some winter feed. He was the one who found her. Something had terrified the poor beast. But by the time I got here, whatever it was was long gone."
"And do you know how long she’d been there?"
"Not really. Not overnight; I know that for sure. We were up here yesterday, rounding them up, and Whistler would’ve spotted her then." Dora opened the back door of her four-wheel-drive and let the dog jump down. "Wouldn’t you, boy?" Dora’s voice softened, and then she straightened up. "Well, that’s that, I suppose." She shook Dr. Emily’s hand and arranged to send a check for the bill.
"I really am sorry," Mandy’s mom frowned. "I know you could do without this just before Christmas. And it’s bound to set everyone else wondering."
Dora nodded. "There’ll be a scare now," she admitted. "And who can blame them? Something frightened this sheep to death, and no farmer around here will rest easy until we find out what did it!"
"I’ll keep my ears open," Dr. Emily promised.
She and Mandy watched Dora start up the engine. "Ken will come back up with me when he gets home," Dora said. "He’ll help me tidy things up." She sighed. "Let’s hope it’s a one-time thing. We don’t want any more of these in the days before Christmas!"
There was nothing they could say. She eased away over the farm track, leaving them to walk back to their own car.
"Well, that’s that, as Dora says," Emily Hope said sadly. She glanced once more up the hillside.
Mandy knew that her mom hated to admit defeat. "Would it have made any difference if we’d gotten here sooner?"
"Who knows? But it didn’t look to me as if that sheep would have survived the shock in any case. Her heart was affected. And the lamb was too little to have any chance at all. No, I don’t think anything could have saved them."
Mandy felt cold and shaky as she climbed into the car. "But what could have done this?" she asked. "What sort of thing could it be?"
"A dog, most probably. That’s the usual thing. That’s why the farmers will all be up in arms. They’ll say it’s a dog from the village, or even from Walton. They’ll blame someone from town for not keeping his dog under control. When word gets around, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re all out with their guns, scouring the countryside for the culprit."
"A dog?" Mandy found it hard to believe that a tame pet could do this amount of damage.
"Yes." Dr. Emily slung her bag into the back and set off down the hill. The car bumped and swayed. "It doesn’t even have to be a very big dog to worry a sheep to death."
Mandy sighed. "Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again, then."
"It’s Dora Janeki I feel sorry for. She can’t afford to lose livestock like this. She has a struggle to make ends meet as it is."
Mandy sat in silence. In her mind, she saw a picture of men with shotguns fanning out across the wintry hillside, scouring the fields and rocky outcrops for the rogue dog that had killed Dora Janeki’s ewe. She went to bed that night with the image still clear. She dreamed of a dark shape hurtling at the defenseless sheep, fangs bared, springing out of nowhere. When she woke up in the morning, the telephone was ringing and she feared the worst.
Sure enough, there was another possible incident. Adam Hope had taken the call and hung up before Mandy had clambered into her robe and raced downstairs.
"That was Ken Hudson on the phone," he reported. His face looked worried. "He says a sheep from Jack Spiller’s farm has just been brought in suffering from shock. Like before, there was no visible damage, but the poor thing was scared half to death. Jack managed to revive it by himself, and the sheep’s out of danger. But the word’s out. There’s not a farm in the area that’s not on alert."
"But why did Ken call you?" Mandy asked. "If it wasn’t one of their sheep?"
Dr. Adam shook his head. "Can you take some bad news, love?" He led Mandy to a chair by the kitchen table. "Now sit down and listen to this."
"What is it, Dad?" Mandy felt her throat go dry. She looked up into his face. "Tell me, quick!"
"Ken called me because in a way he’s involved. Or at least he thinks he might be, and he thought we should know." He paused. "The fact is, Dora has been putting two and two together. She’s worked out that this sheep-worrying only began yesterday when Ken agreed to keep Tess at the farm. She’s come to the conclusion that the dog might not be reliable; they know nothing about where it came from or how it might have been mistreated in the past. She says a dog like Tess could easily turn."
Mandy shook her head. She looked up in disbelief. "Not Tess!" she said. She just knew in her heart that Tess couldn’t possibly be responsible.
"No, but you can see how Dora might see it that way," Dr. Adam pointed out. "Ken himself doesn’t know what to think. He just called us to warn us what was going on."
"It can’t be Tess! It can’t be!" Mandy would not believe it. "Tess wouldn’t do that!"
Adam Hope sighed. "It’s not me you have to convince, honey!" He went slowly off to tell his wife the latest development.
"I have to talk to Dora!" Mandy said to herself as soon as he’d gone. She jumped up. "Dora has to understand that Tess would never do this! She has to stop spreading rumors about her!"
She ran upstairs to scramble into her clothes. She called James and met him in the village. By nine o’clock they were on their bikes and pedaling toward the farm. The mission was to save Tess from the farmers and their guns!
