Read Online The Puppy That Came for Christmas by Megan Rix - Free Book Online Page B

joke was.
    â€œIt’s not you,” he managed before composing himself. “It’s the little princess.”
    He pointed to Emma, who was sitting on her new car seat, resplendent in her new harness. We’d got frustrated with always putting her in her crate for car journeys. It was cumbersome and it didn’t allow her the freedom to enjoy the view, which seemed to me like a bad idea when she was supposed to be experiencing as much as possible. First, we found her a car harness in the pet shop, so she’d be safe; then, in a motoring shop, we saw a pink bolster seat with a crown and “Little Princess on Board” written on the cover—and so we’d bought that too.
    â€œOnly you could get her something like that!” laughed Jamie.
    I didn’t see what was so funny. The car seat seemed perfect to me. Now Emma could sit in the passenger seat and look out of the window.

    Jamie came up to me after the class as I finished chatting with Liz.
    â€œAbout the blog you and Ian have been doing . . .” he said. “Well, I had a look at it and I think it’s great. Do you think you might be able to write it up as a column in the local newspaper?”
    Why not? We were writing about puppy life from Emma’s point of view, and the blog had become a hit with our friends. I was sure other people would like to read about all the trouble she had training her wayward puppy parents.
    A chorus of oooh s and ahhh s and isn’t it sweet s greeted us as we walked across the tatty carpet tiles in the newsroom foyer. We went up to the front desk.
    â€œHi, I’m here to see Jill Bryson—for the animal page,” I told the receptionist.
    She rang through as we sat down.
    â€œShe’s lovely,” the receptionist said, coming out from behind her desk as Jill and some other journalists from the newspaper came down. Everyone made a big fuss of Emma, who looked gorgeous, behaved impeccably and managed not to pee anywhere or on anyone in all the excitement.
    â€œWe’d love you to do a newspaper column about her,” Jill said.
    â€œI was thinking of doing the column from Emma’s point of view—what it’s like living with us and that sort of thing,” I explained.
    â€œSounds good—look forward to reading it.”
    â€œHow long? How long do you want it to be?”
    â€œOh, about five hundred words, maybe eight hundred.”
    Every week? I hoped I’d have enough to write about.
    â€œAnd photos—we’ll need a photo with her column each week.” That wasn’t a problem. The first one would be of Emma sitting at the keyboard, tapping the keys and getting her dispatch to the editor, eager to start the presses on the next day’s edition.
    Â 
    Ian came home to champagne.
    â€œOur little girl’s got her own newspaper column. She’s going to be famous!” I said as we clinked glasses. “But we need to have a new photo of her every week. We’ll need to take her to some interesting places.”
    Emma really seemed to have brought lots of reasons to celebrate into our lives. I phoned Jamie and he was delighted.
    â€œMaybe it’ll help recruit some more volunteers,” he said. Helper Dogs always needed more volunteers.
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    For the first week I wrote about how I felt when I first met her, alongside Emma’s diary, which recounted the events from the eyes of a seven-week-old pup. Ian helped with the writing and we took hundreds of photos of Emma doing lots of things, which the newspaper used to accompany the articles each week.
    WEDNESDAY: FIRST DAY
    Still a little sleepy today. I’ve just arrived at my new parents’ house after a very long journey. They are a nice couple called Meg and Ian. They gave me lots of toys to play with and luckily don’t seem to mind if I make a little mess in the house. They keep putting me on some bark chips in the garden. I like chewing