Chapter 3
Jade had thought Stella and Everley might refuse a burger. Eating was difficult when you were half out of your mind with worry, but they didn’t, although Stella did ask Callum to cut hers in half and wrap it in a paper serviette so she could finish it later.
Everley ate a few bites of hers and then fed the remaining bits of it to Ben’s dog, Chocko. Jade loved the way she was still sticking close to Ben as if they were best friends, and he had risen magnificently to the challenge of helping out a young damsel in distress.
Jade gave Sarah an update on what was happening, as people started tucking into burgers, and her friend nodded seriously.
‘Bless them. I’m so sorry they’ve lost their dog but it’s great that Ben’s stepped up to the plate.’ Her voice sounded a little husky as she spoke about her son. ‘He can be a right handful sometimes. It’s fantastic to see him behaving himself.’
Jade, having already demolished a vegetarian sausage in a roll, went across to Stella.
‘If you like, I can print off some posters and we can start delivering them to the houses and communal areas around the campsite. The Red Lion for a start. Lots of people go in there, and there are two farms behind that.’
‘Thanks. That would be great.’
‘I can do that,’ Finn offered. ‘I’ll print – what? Fifty – a hundred?’
‘I’ll help you,’ Dawn interrupted. ‘A hundred won’t go far. Let’s do five hundred. The moderator of LostDog UK asked me earlier if we needed a poster because they had a template, and I said yes, please. So she did it. We can download that.’
They all disappeared out of the garden in the direction of reception and Ursula followed them.
Jade was itching to do something. It was a blow about that drone, but the poster printing had lifted Stella’s spirits again and given her some purpose. Jade glanced at her phone. There was a little bit of signal in the garden. She dialled Amit, the dog warden.
Amit’s mobile went straight to voicemail. Which wasn’t that surprising on a Sunday afternoon. Jade left him a message.
It was nearly four o’clock and the heat was starting to go from the day.
Which was a relief. She hoped that little Cooper, wherever he was, had found some water somewhere, and wasn’t getting too dehydrated.
Especially if he’d been running all day.
There would be water troughs in the fields around the farms. Hopefully he’d have found one of those.
That’s if he was in the fields. She tore her mind away from the image of him lying hurt somewhere, hit by a car, and tried to picture him in a field, or in the cool of a woodland.
She knew from experience how resourceful dogs were.
Even if they did rely on their humans for food.
It would be time to start the evening rounds of feeding in the sanctuary soon. Jade sighed. It would be great if they could find Cooper before dark. There were hours before dark, she reminded herself. It was 21 June. Literally the longest day of the year. Time was definitely on their side.
She’d just got back to reception, where the printer was churning out posters, when her phone beeped and she noticed she had a missed call from a number she didn’t recognise.
It had been followed by a text which said:
Jade, there’s a loose dog on the A338 by the animal feed place. I stopped but couldn’t catch it as no collar. I think it ran off into fields. Can you tell the owner.
The text was signed Billy, who was an occasional volunteer, Jade recalled. Bless him, he must have seen the details of the search on Facebook and come out to help.
But the A338 didn’t sound good at all. Shit!
Still, at least it was a sighting and that’s what they needed.
As she opened her mouth to tell Stella, her phone beeped with more missed calls. It was obviously on catch-up now it had some signal.
‘I’ve just had a text from one of our volunteers,’ she announced. ‘We’ve got a sighting.’
Her mobile beeped again with a flurry of messages. ‘And now a WhatsApp. It’s from Aiden.’
Everyone looked at her, and suddenly Jade wished she’d kept quiet until she’d read his message.
What if her vet was texting bad news? Stella certainly didn’t need it breaking like this.
She tapped on the notification and it whirled around impotently as the message was downloaded.
Even the Wi-Fi could be a little patchy in the office because it didn’t reach far enough from the house.
She must get round to ordering a booster for her router.
It was a job that never seemed to get to the top of her endless list.
Then suddenly the message had downloaded and Jade’s heart skipped several beats. Staring up at her was a picture of a beaming Aiden, holding a black and white spaniel in his arms with the caption:
FOUND HIM!
Wordlessly, Jade handed her phone over to Stella, who instantly burst into tears.
‘Oh my God, that’s him. That’s Cooper. Oh, thank God.’ She clutched the phone to her chest as if it were Cooper himself she was cuddling. ‘Where’s Everley? We’ve got to tell Everley!’
Almost as if she’d summoned her up telepathically, Everley appeared in the doorway with Ben close behind her.
‘Mum, why are you crying?’ Her little face was horrified. ‘What’s happened to Cooper? Is he dead?’ She promptly burst into tears too.
‘No, darling. No, it’s OK, darling. Cooper’s OK. These are happy tears. Look. Look, look!’
Amidst the joyful chaos and confusion in the reception, Finn said dryly, ‘Can someone tell me how to stop this flaming printer?’
‘Unplug it,’ Dawn advised. ‘Or take the paper out.’ Everyone had lost interest in the posters. ‘Where are they anyway? Did Aiden say?’
‘No, but I’m calling him now.’
Jade called Aiden from the landline and everyone waited expectantly as she fired questions at him.
‘Where are you? Is Cooper OK? Does Stella’s partner know?
We’re still here at Duck Pond Rescue with Stella.
Oh, my goodness, we’ll need to stop the drone man coming.
’ She put her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Ursula, can you stop him? Sorry, Aiden. I am listening. Say that bit again.’
She listened to Aiden’s answers and then repeated them back to the room.
‘Cooper’s fine. Aiden’s checked him over.
He’s a vet,’ she said in an aside to Everley, who was now in her mother’s arms, sucking her thumb in a reversion to babyhood.
She had Jade’s mobile in her hand and wouldn’t let go.
She kept refreshing so she could look at the picture of Cooper, as if she couldn’t quite believe it was him.
‘They found him in a field of sheep about quarter of a mile from the Red Lion,’ Jade told everyone.
‘Oh, my good God.’ Stella clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘He hadn’t bitten one, had he?’
Jade repeated the question back to Aiden and listened to the answer. ‘He said don’t worry, everything’s fine and they’ll tell us the rest of the story when they get back. They’ll be here in about six minutes.’
It was a jubilant six minutes with everyone talking at once.
They’d reported back to the remaining people in the garden too, and there was a huge welcoming party waiting when Aiden’s distinctive sunshine-yellow Jeep drew into the main gates, which someone swiftly dragged shut behind them for safety.
Several people rushed to greet the Jeep as it halted. Everley and Stella led the charge and Ben was a very close second.
Aiden jumped down from the driver’s seat, a huge beam on his ruddy face. ‘He’s safely in the back,’ he told Stella. ‘He’s in a crate so we’re good to open the doors.’
Kate, Aiden’s redheaded fiancée, got out of the passenger side of the Jeep smiling broadly too and joined them as they went to open the back.
Sarah put a hand on Ben’s arm as he ran forward to help and Jade heard her say gently, ‘Let them have their reunion first, love. Imagine how you’d feel if it was Chocko who’d been missing.’
Ben nodded in understanding, and Jade thought not for the first time how mature Ben had got lately. It wasn’t just Finn who’d had a rollercoaster couple of years emotionally. Ben, as his son, had been going through the same thing.
Everyone else hung back too as Aiden gently released Cooper from the crate, having already clipped on a lead for safety and then passed the handle of it to Everley.
When Cooper saw his humans he gave several little yelps of joy, and his tail wagged so hard it swept a swirl of dust off the ground and dancing up into the air.
Everley wrapped her arms around her dog and buried her head in his silky black and white coat. He’d obviously been rolling in something smelly, but she clearly didn’t care as she hugged him close.
‘Cooper, Cooper, my precious, precious boy. Where did you go? I’ve been so scared. I can’t live without you, Cooper.’
Jade felt tears in her eyes but she didn’t bother brushing them away.
It was a Richard Curtis moment. The love between the little girl and her dog was so blazingly obvious and their reunion so joyfully triumphant that she wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to have heard the swell of an orchestra starting up somewhere behind them.
Or see a conductor dressed in a white tuxedo and tails, swinging his hands about as he urged the musicians on into the rising final crescendo of some big love song to accompany this final, breathtaking scene.
As she blinked rapidly and swallowed a huge ache in her throat, Jade saw that several other people were holding back tears too, and shuffling their feet and searching their pockets for hankies and tissues. It was a happy ending. The most beautiful of happy endings.
A few minutes later, when Everley had finally stopped hugging Cooper long enough to stand up and Stella had updated her husband with the happy news, and the lost dog posts had been updated to say ‘found’, Ursula suggested she made everyone a cuppa.
‘It’s good for shock,’ she told Stella, who was still shaking her head in bemusement.
‘Apparently the whole campsite’s been out looking for Cooper,’ Stella said. ‘And a load of people from the Red Lion, along with the landlord – Mike, is it? He said people have been amazing.’
‘People are amazing,’ Jade said as Stella turned back to Aiden.
‘So the sheep were OK then? I’m not in trouble with any farmers?’
‘The sheep were fine. In fact, the sheep were chasing her.’ He chuckled. ‘If I hadn’t been so intent on catching her I’d have taken a video. It would definitely have gone viral.’
‘It would,’ Kate said. ‘It’s surprising how fast sheep can run.’
Stella laughed. ‘Oh, I’d love to have seen that. But I’m so glad you caught her. I can’t thank you guys enough.’ She encompassed the room with her hand. ‘All of you.’
‘We haven’t really done anything,’ Jade said. ‘Aiden’s the hero of the hour.’
‘Nonsense.’ The vet blushed, but was clearly pleased.
‘You were there when I was desperate,’ Stella said. ‘That’s not nothing. That’s everything. I’m so very grateful. We’ll be having a celebration drink tonight, for sure.’
Mr Spock burst into song at the mention of one of his favourite trigger words. ‘Congratulations and celebrations!’
‘You should get back and celebrate properly with your husband,’ Sarah said, smiling.
‘But have some cheesecake first,’ Ben said to Everley. ‘It’s strawberry. Bring Cooper too.’
They disappeared off towards the cottage and Stella looked after them consideringly. ‘It would be good if those two stayed in touch. They’ve struck up quite a friendship, haven’t they?’
‘I expect they’ve already got each other’s social media details,’ Sarah said. ‘But we should exchange details too. If ever you and your family are in the area again pop by and see us.’
‘And come and visit Duck Pond Rescue any time you like,’ Jade added.
Mr Spock burst into song again and Stella looked across at him with affection. ‘Is that parrot up for rehoming because if he is, I think my Uncle Malcolm would love him. He’s the one with the swearing female. It’s a match made in heaven, surely!’
‘In that case, ask your uncle to give me a call,’ Jade said, smiling. ‘And we can take it from there. You’ve got my number, haven’t you?’
Much as Jade loved having the reprobate parrot around, it would be wonderful if he had some proper parrot company. Stella’s Uncle Malcolm and his swearing female parrot sounded absolutely perfect.
It would be brilliant if there could be a happy ending for Mr Spock too.