McTavish on the Move Read online

  Betty hugged McTavish.

  At last Ma Peachey stopped the car.

  Pa Peachey turned to the children. “Ta da!” he said.

  The Peacheys stepped out of the car. They saw trees and houses. They saw grass and birds. They saw children playing games. They saw squirrels chattering in trees.

  They saw a house with a For Sale sign in front of it.

  The house was mainly white. It had a blue front door. An apple tree grew in the garden. Tulips nodded by the path. The house looked friendly. McTavish jumped out of the car and ran straight up the path. He peed on the apple tree.

  “So,” said Pa Peachey, “what do you think of our new house?

  5

  The New House

  Ollie couldn’t help noticing that the new neighbourhood didn’t look very different from the old neighbourhood. He saw no blasted heath. He saw no piles of rubble or rolls of barbed wire. The grass looked green and the people looked friendly.

  Ava noticed that the new house looked a teensy bit like the old house.

  Except for the apple tree in the front garden.

  And the fact that her bedroom had its own bathroom, one she didn’t have to share with Ollie and Betty.

  The new house had a laundry chute that went from the first floor all the way down to the laundry room in the cellar.

  Ollie had found the top of the laundry chute and was peering down wondering whether he could jump in and slide down, when Ma Peachey’s face appeared at the bottom of the chute.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she said.

  “Maybe the new house is not so bad after all,” Ollie said, saving the chute for another day.

  “Maybe I could just about manage to live here,” said Ava, thinking about how nice it would be to have a bath with nobody pounding on the door asking how long she would be.

  McTavish looked at Betty. “Woof!” he said, and ran into the cupboard in Betty’s bedroom.

  “McTavish?” she called. But there was no sign of him.

  Betty crouched down and crawled to the back of her cupboard, where she found a small half‑open door.

  “McTavish?” she called again.

  “Woof!” came the answer from within.

  Betty squeezed through the door after McTavish and found herself in a tiny hidden box room with an even tinier round window overlooking the garden.

  What a perfect private clubhouse, Betty thought. She could sit here all day and nobody would know where she was or what she was doing. What a perfect secret place to read and think and hide and make plans.

  For the first time all day, she forgot to frown.

  After a while, Betty and McTavish crawled out of the little box room. Together they explored and sniffed every corner of the new bedroom. There were lots of shelves for Betty’s books and two big windows overlooking some trees. The room was sunny. It was painted a very boring shade of blue, but Betty thought she might repaint it a bright shade of yellow.

  If she agreed to move, that is.

  Betty and McTavish explored the rest of the house. Then they explored the front, side and back gardens. There was a wall at the bottom of the back garden with a gate that led directly into a large public park. The park was full of people and dogs. It looked just the perfect sort of park for a dog like McTavish.

  “I think McTavish might need a walk,” Ma Peachey said. “Betty, why don’t you and Ollie take him to the park?”

  Betty fetched McTavish’s lead and off they went. Betty and McTavish ran on ahead, while Ollie lagged behind, staring at his phone in what he hoped was the cool sort of way that made girls want to be your girlfriend.

  They’d only walked a short distance when a whippet raced up to McTavish and began running circles around him.

  When at last the whippet stopped, she had a conversation with McTavish that went like this:

  “Woooo,” said the whippet.

  “Ufff,” said McTavish.

  “Aroou‑ooo,” said the whippet.

  “Urrrufff!” said McTavish.

  Having discovered that they had much in common, the two dogs ran off together.

  McTavish and the whippet chased each other from one tree to the next and back again. It was an excellent game. The whippet was very fast, but McTavish was clever and cut corners to keep up. When at last they came to a halt, panting and happy, a girl ran up carrying a lead.

  “There you are, Jess, you bad dog!” she said. “Didn’t you hear me calling?”

  “She’s not really a bad dog,” Betty said. “I think she’s just excited to meet McTavish.”

  “McTavish is very cute,” said the girl, who looked about Betty’s age. “What breed is he?”

  “Well,” said Betty, “he is part Scottish terrier, part Bichon Frise, part poodle, part Jack Russell – and part Chinese Spaniel.”

  “Goodness,” said the girl. “I’m Jasmin, by the way. My dog is Jess. And that,” she said, pointing to a very cool‑looking person staring at her phone nearby, “is my older sister Jade.”

  “Nice to meet you, Jasmin. My name is Betty.”

  Ollie, who had been pretending not even to know Betty and McTavish, suddenly appeared at their side.

  “I’m Ollie,” said Ollie to Jasmin. “Is that your sister over there?”

  Jasmin giggled. “Yes, that’s my sister.”

  “She looks very cool,” said Ollie. “By the way, this is my dog, McTavish.”

  “Your dog?” said Jasmin.

  “Your dog?” said Betty.

  Your dog? thought McTavish.

  Ollie ignored them. “Do you live nearby?”

  Jasmin nodded.

  “Great! Our dogs can be friends,” Ollie said, wondering if Jade might agree to be his girlfriend.

  Jess ran off after a squirrel.

  “Bye for now,” shouted Jasmin, running after Jess.

  “Bye, Jess! Bye, Jasmin!” Betty waved.

  “Bye, Jade,” Ollie called to Jade, who ignored him. “See you around!”

  Ollie and Betty walked together for a few minutes and then Ollie said, “Maybe I should be the one holding McTavish.”

  But Betty gripped the lead tight. “McTavish is my dog,” she said. “Not some kind of furry bait for catching girlfriends.”

  She glared at Ollie, but it was no good. She knew exactly what he was thinking. Once they moved house, he would take McTavish to the park as often as possible. As a kind of furry bait for catching girlfriends.

  They circled back to the car.

  “So?” Pa Peachey asked, chuckling happily. “What do you think of the new house?”

  “OK by me,” shrugged Ava.

  “Fine,” said Ollie.

  They all looked for Betty, but she was already sitting in the car with McTavish, windows and doors shut, waiting to go home.

  6

  Getting Ready to Move

  Ollie was excited about moving because Jade lived nearby and might agree to be his girlfriend. Once they met.

  Ava didn’t mind moving because she would no longer have to share a bathroom with Ollie or Betty.

  Ma Peachey didn’t mind moving (except for all the packing and unpacking) because the new house had a nice sunny office for her on the top floor, and also because she wanted Pa Peachey to be happy with his new job.

  McTavish didn’t mind moving because he liked the new park and he liked his new friend Jess.

  Pa Peachey continued to stroll around whistling like a demented canary, which made everyone edgy.

  But as the date for moving approached, Betty minded more and more.

  She liked her old house.

  She liked her old school.

  She didn’t want to be the new girl.

  She didn’t want to make new friends.

  What if no one at the new school liked her?

  What if her new teachers were horrible?

  What if her classmates knew more than she did about everything?

  What if she got lost on the first day?

&
nbsp; What if nobody helped her?

  What if nobody wanted to talk to her ever again?

  Meanwhile, the rest of the Peacheys packed, made lists and sorted through drawers. They cleared shelves, threw things away and put labels on boxes. They were so busy that nobody really noticed Betty.

  Even Ma Peachey forgot to notice Betty.

  But McTavish noticed, because McTavish was a very noticing sort of dog. In particular, he noticed everything that happened to Betty. When Betty was happy, McTavish was happy. When Betty was sad, McTavish was sad.

  At the moment, Betty was sad.

  McTavish lay on his bed with his head on his front paws and considered the facts.

  He had moved house many times. He had left his litter‑mates and moved to his first home on his own. He had moved from his first home to the Dog Home when his owner became too old to look after him. He had moved from the Dog Home to the Peacheys’ home. And now he was moving to another house with the Peacheys.

  Throughout all these moves, McTavish had noticed that the best way to make new friends was to be friendly and optimistic.

  Betty was convinced her new life would be a disaster, but McTavish had a feeling she might be wrong.

  He thought very hard about how to convince Betty to be optimistic.

  Thinking is very tiring, even for a dog as clever as McTavish.

  Which is why, after a short time, he fell asleep.

  7

  Great Movers

  At last it was moving day.

  Before anyone had even finished breakfast, six burly men began stomping through the house, taping boxes, lifting furniture, rolling up rugs and making a great racket.

  The movers arrived in a large green moving van with “Great Movers” written in large letters on the side. They all wore green shirts with “Great Movers” printed on the back.

  “It could either mean they’re great at moving furniture,” Ollie said, “or it could mean they look fantastic on the dance floor.”

  Ava shot him a withering look.

  “Watch out!” shouted Ma Peachey as two gigantic moving men bore down on them carrying a large chest of drawers. Ollie scooted out of the way just in time to avoid certain death.

  “That was scary,” Ollie said to no one in particular. “These are fast movers and frightening movers. But are they great movers? I think the jury is still out.”

  McTavish looked at Ollie, and Ollie looked back at McTavish.

  “If only dogs could speak,” said Ollie.

  If dogs could speak, McTavish thought, they’d tell humans to stop being so foolish.

  “Ho ho ho!” called Pa Peachey cheerily. “It’s moving day! The birds are singing, the sky is blue, the sun is shining. I am so happy I could burst!”

  “Oh, great,” muttered Ava, imagining Pa Peachey bursting like an overfilled balloon and the family having to peel bits of him off the walls. Ava wished (not for the first time) that Pa Peachey would go back to his normal gloomy self. Moving house was inconvenient, but having Pa Peachey act happy all the time was just plain disturbing.

  Ma Peachey directed the action like a sheepdog trying to herd geese.

  “This way!” she called loudly. And then a minute later, “No, not this way! That way!”

  McTavish scurried this way and that to avoid the moving men, careful to prevent his tail being stepped on or shut in a door. He didn’t even have time to eat breakfast before someone had wrapped up his bowl in brown paper and packed it in a box.

  Each box had a big label saying where it should go in the new house, but McTavish didn’t need labels. He could tell just by sniffing.

  Ava’s boxes smelled like roses and earth and complicated ideas.

  Ollie’s boxes smelled like trainers, idleness and no girlfriends at all.

  Betty’s boxes smelled of books, woolly jumpers and peppermint – with a most delicious hint of dog.

  McTavish’s own box contained his bed, his food, his toys and his towel, and it smelled mainly of damp fur and meaty bones, which were two of the best smells in the world.

  The moving men rolled up their sleeves. They wrapped and carried. They grunted and groaned. They stamped in and out of the house, time after time after time, until all the Peacheys’ possessions were loaded onto the van.

  Then they all stopped and sat down at the edge of the road to rest while Ma and Pa Peachey, Ava, Ollie, Betty and McTavish spent a final few moments wandering through the house.

  Now that it was empty, it didn’t feel like home any more.

  All the rooms looked big and lonely. All the walls looked grubby, with outlines where pictures no longer hung and furniture no longer stood. Ollie ran from room to room shouting “Goodbye, goodbye!” because now that it was empty, the house had a very satisfying echo.

  Betty looked at the empty house and remembered all the birthday parties she’d had – with presents and games and chocolate cake, because that was her favourite. She remembered all her first days of school – getting dressed in her bedroom, admiring her new clothes in the mirror and feeling a little bit nervous and excited every year.

  She remembered the first day McTavish had come home to live with them – how she had sewed his bed out of an old blanket stuffed with a sleeping bag, and how he had made himself right at home from that very first day.

  She thought about Ma Peachey doing yoga and the weeks that Ollie, Ava and she had learned to cook. She thought of happy games they’d played as a family and times she’d felt lonely and gone to sleep in Ma and Pa Peachey’s bed.

  Betty had taken her first step in this house. She had said her first word and sung her first song. She had learned to read in this house, played with her first friend, fought with Ava and Ollie and made up again in this house. Nearly all the memories of her whole life had taken place here. And now she was leaving it behind.

  Ava flung out her arms. “Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck,” she announced.

  Everyone looked confused.

  “Those are the words of Immanuel Kant,” Ava said.

  “Shame Immanuel Kant can’t make any sense,” Ollie sniggered.

  “I shall never see these dear walls and floors and rooms and ceilings again,” Betty whispered sadly.

  In front of the house, the Great Movers all jumped aboard the van at once. Ollie had to admit that it was a pretty good move.

  The Peacheys waved goodbye to the movers. Then they turned and waved goodbye to the house.

  “Goodbye, house!” called Ollie.

  “Goodbye, house!” called Ava.

  “Goodbye, house,” Ma Peachey said softly.

  Pa Peachey just grinned, like a person who has won millions on the lottery.

  “Thank you, house,” whispered Betty. “You were the best house a person could ever want.”

  As they drove away, McTavish stuck his nose out the window, smelled all the smells of the old neighbourhood for the last time and woofed goodbye to his old life.

  8

  Fear and Trembling

  It seemed impossible, but by the end of the day, all the boxes had been unloaded into the new house, all the sheets had been found, all the beds had been made and most of the kitchen had been unpacked.

  Ma Peachey made pancakes for supper (the Peacheys loved pancakes). They all went to bed a bit grubby because nobody could find soap or towels, but they were too tired to care.

  Everyone woke up the next morning anxious to arrange all the things from the old house into the new house. They took books out of boxes and put them on shelves, they hung clothing up in closets and pinned posters to walls. Ava brought her own set of towels into her own bathroom and folded them neatly – knowing Ollie couldn’t come in and throw them on the floor. She sorted all her philosophy books into alphabetical order so she could find any one quickly in an emergency.

  Ollie arranged his bedroom so it looked like a man‑of‑the‑world lived there – with lots of pillows on his bed so it dou
bled as a couch, and posters of cool bands and racing cars and exotic faraway places on the walls. He stepped back at last and thought that all it was missing was a girlfriend.

  Betty put everything in her new bedroom exactly where it had been in her old bedroom. The picture of a horse painted by an old French artist, the portrait of McTavish she drew herself (which Ma Peachey said was good enough to be framed) and the poster from her school’s production of HMS Pinafore all went over her bed.

  How interesting, Betty thought, that “home” seemed to be a picture that hung on the wall over your bed, rows of your favourite books on shelves, a pink, green and yellow patchwork quilt that Ma Peachey had made and sheets that smelled just right.

  At the end of the second day, with all the books on shelves, all the pictures hung up, all the pots and pans in kitchen drawers and all the clothes put away, the new house felt almost like home.

  Betty felt a bit better with everything unpacked. If she squinted a little, she could almost pretend nothing had changed.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t like the new house.

  She liked her secret clubhouse. She liked the apple tree. She liked the fact that she could take McTavish to the park through a gate at the bottom of the garden.

  She felt happy putting McTavish’s water bowl in its proper place beside the fridge and hanging his lead on a hook by the front door. His bed could no longer fit under the stairs, but Betty had arranged it in a nice cosy corner with a good view of the family action.

  All these things, she liked.

  What she didn’t like was the fact that school started in less than a week and she would have no one to walk in with on the first day.

  No one to sit next to.

  No one to eat lunch with.

  No one to giggle with in PE.

  No one to help with her Maths homework.

  No one to walk home with.