Yappy, the puppy

Anne and her family were moving to another house. They had finished packing. Their pet dog, Yappy was barking his head off in the excitement.

"Every one jump into the car," said Father. Mother had tears in her eyes. Anne had no reason to cry, but she felt sad. She had this spooky feeling that something will go wrong.

After taking one last look at her old house, she went to the car and sat in the back seat. They all got in and Father started driving fast to get to the new house as soon as possible. Anne closed her eyes and began to think about her life in the old house; the happy moments, the sad moments; she remembered everything. This was the house where she was born and bred. Now she was leaving her friends, school, neighbours and her flower beds. "The new life isn't going to be easy," she thought.

Then, she heard her father's voice announcing, "We are home". Excited, she swam back to the present. She jumped out of the car, ran inside and started looking around.

The place was so beautiful, very calm and quiet. Father took their suitcases out. They all went to the sitting room and found that it was well furnished.

It was night when they finished unpacking. Anne got a room of her own. She was admiring her room when Mother called her to dinner. "I'll come down in a minute, mom," Anne shouted. She finished folding her clothes and skipped down the staircase.

At the dinner table, Father announced that he had bought a new basket for Yappie. Suddenly, Anne remembered what they had done. "Oh Father! we have left Yappy behind," Anne shouted. Father also got a real shock, but said "calm down dear, I'll go back and get him," and then, he went in search of Yappy. However, after several hours, he came back empty-handed. "I'm so sorry Anne, but we have lost him," he said.

Meanwhile, poor Yappy was walking down the lanes. He was very sad that his mistress had left him. "How could she do so?" thought the starving puppy. Suddenly, he saw a heap of garbage by the side of the lane. He started sniffing around the garbage and thought "Oh, what a smell!" but he had to eat something as he was starving. So, he found an old bone of fish and started chewing it.

"Grrrrrrrrr, how dare you enter my premises," an ugly, strong, stray dog barked at Yappy.

"Please Uncle, I'm very hungry. I had nothing to eat for the whole day," yapped the puppy.

But the stray dog was cold hearted and growled ferociously; Yappy got scared and ran away.

The next day, Anne went to her new school and made friends there, but she was still unhappy as she was thinking of Yappy all the time.

After school, she started walking home. There, she saw many dogs all over the lane; thin and sick, they lay beside the road. Tears popped out of her eyes. She blinked them away.

Next, she passed a smelly heap of garbage. She covered her nose with a handkerchief and started walking fast.

Now Yappy, who was back at sniffing the garbage dump, suddenly smelt something familiar and started looking around for its source. Yes! It was indeed his mistress's scent and he started following it.

Suddenly, Anne felt that someone was following her and stopped and looked back to see two hungry brown eyes. "You are Yappy", she shouted. "Woof!" came the answer.She felt overjoyed and hugged the puppy to her chest. She was so happy to see Yappy again and Yappy's excited barks indicated that the feeling was mutual.

Sent by Thilangani Bandara, Rathnavali Balika Vidyalaya, Gampaha.