Puppy Love by Nancy Krulik

Author:Nancy Krulik
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Published: 2008-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

Alana could feel her heart beating faster as she approached the Beresford on Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday was usually a tough day—all four dogs at once. But it was also a day when she could pick up Nicolette, which meant there was the possibility that she might bump into Connor. Not that he’d been on her mind all day or anything. Just when she got up in the morning, and during gym class. And that time she’d found herself scribbling his name on her math notebook. But other than that, she hadn’t thought of him once.

So why was it such a disappointment when she opened the door and there was no one in the Stanhopes’ apartment but Nicolette? Maybe because wet kisses from a French poodle with bad breath weren’t exactly what she’d been dreaming of the past few nights.

But it was all she was getting. That was for sure. And Alana figured she should be grateful for the affection. After all, the dogs were pretty much the only ones loving her these days. Not that she’d expected Connor to instantly fall in love with her like some fairy-tale prince or anything. Just a date would be nice. But since he didn’t have her number and all she knew about him was that he worked in one of the hugest apartment buildings on the Upper West Side and lived somewhere in the East Village, that didn’t seem too likely. Especially since she’d made such a big deal about having a boyfriend and trying to fix him up and all. Oh, man, she could kick herself for that. If only she had known that Sammy was about to set her free.

Alana stopped for a minute and thought about that. What a strange way to put it. Set her free. Almost as though she’d felt trapped by Sammy. But she hadn’t. Had she? Well, maybe a little bit, toward the end, anyhow. Alana sighed as she locked the gate to the dog run before unleashing Curly, Noodles, Nicolette, and Frisky. It didn’t matter now anyway. Twenty-twenty hindsight wasn’t going to change anything. And to make matters worse, Leo wasn’t even at the dog run. Alana would have to hang out with the owners. She was definitely not in the mood to hear them complaining about how there were no beef biscuits left at the Barkery that day or some other nonsense. Not when she had real problems.

“Okay, snap out of it,” Alana scolded herself. After all, she knew better than most people what a real problem was. And the lack of a boyfriend didn’t even come close to what the kids at Helping House faced. Besides, life was full of surprises. A new boyfriend could be waiting just around the corner.

“Hey, Alana!”

She jumped as a man’s voice echoed across the busy dog run. For a minute her heart jumped. Could it be?…

No. It was just Leo. Not that she wasn’t glad to see him. A good friend was exactly the medicine Alana needed right now to knock this self-pity right out of her.

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