Bad Bella by Ali Standish

Author:Ali Standish
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-07-21T16:00:00+00:00

Eleven

The Nursery

As the days grew longer, Bella became even more contented with her new family.

Andy took Bella for long runs each morning, before the sun became too hot. Once or twice, Bella even let Alice coax her onto the foot of the bed for her after-running nap, though she still always slept on her own bed at night.

Bella found that she thought less and less of the McBrides, though she still sometimes dreamed of a giant tree toppling down on her, and hearing their voices yell out “BAD BELLA!”

It was just a nightmare, she would tell herself in the morning. You live with the Roses now, and everything is wonderful.

One day, when the sun was just beginning to set, Andy took Bella out to the park to play. Zoey was nowhere to be seen, and neither were any other dogs. The only other people there were two children throwing a Frisbee back and forth.

Luckily, Andy had brought a tennis ball.

“Ready, girl?” he said. “Go get it!”

The tennis ball soared from his hand to the far corner of the park.

Bella pumped her legs as hard as she could and flew after the ball.

When she ran like that, she was sure she was the fastest dog who had ever lived. Faster, even, than the wind.

But when she got to the fence, there was no ball to be found.

There was, however, a hole in the chain link.

Bella’s heart sank. If her ball had rolled through it, she couldn’t bring it back to Andy. Going outside the fence on her own was against the rules.

“Looking for this?” called a gruff voice.

Except it sounded like “Ookinordis?”

A huge shadow stepped out from behind a tree on the other side of the chain-link fence.

Leo!

Her old friend wagged his tail. He dropped Bella’s tennis ball from his mouth and grinned.

Bella stepped closer to the fence so that she could kiss him hello.

“Leo!” she cried. “What are you doing here?”

“I move around a lot,” Leo said. “My whole pack does. Otherwise, the dogcatchers will find us and take us to the pound. What are you doing here?”

“I’m with one of my new humans,” Bella replied. “He’s on the other side of the park.”

Bella looked over her shoulder. Andy was standing with a hand on his hip, looking curiously at her.

“How are you?” Bella asked.

“Great!” Leo said.

Bella considered this. Leo did not, in fact, look very good at all. He had a long scratch across one of his cheeks, and his left eye was swollen. He was so skinny, she could see the shape of his ribs through his fur.

And he smells like a dumpster.

Bella did not say this, of course. She wouldn’t want to hurt Leo’s feelings.

“Bella!” Andy called. “What are you doing over there? Come, girl!”

Bella didn’t like ignoring Andy, but she suddenly had a very good idea indeed.

“Leo,” she said, “my humans and I live in that tall building over there. Why don’t you come back with me to meet Andy? I’m sure he would take you home with us.

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