The 12 Dogs of Christmas by Emma Kragen Read Free Book Online Page A

Norman said. Emma held the puppy tight and her breath still, hoping Norman would not think to look in the culverts. Unfortunately she could not stop scent, and soon old Scratch found them out. Norman’s shaggy head appeared at the end of the culvert, grinning in triumph. “Look what I have, puppy,” he said, holding out his cat as a tempting treat. Emma tried to keep the puppy from running, but a cat is a cat, and puppies chase cats, and that’s all there is to it. The puppy broke Emma’s grip and soon found himself in Norman’s welcoming, though not very loving, arms.
    By the time Emma got herself out of the culvert and out of the shack, the Fearsome Machine was driving away, with Yeti locked into the dog cage and the puppy bouncing around in a dog net hanging off the back.
    â€œEmma,” came a plea from behind her. She turned around and saw Mike hanging by his coat high on a hook on the wall inside the shack. “Get me down,” he said as he struggled like a worm. Had they not just lost their dogs to bug-face Melvin and Dogcatcher Doyle, it might have been a very funny sight.

11

Emma Undercover
    Coach Cullimore had moved to Doverville several months before when he had gotten his job at the school, a job he knew he was lucky to have. Of the one hundred schools he had applied to, eighty-nine wrote back that they were no longer hiring due to the Depression, and ten wrote that they had already given their jobs to teachers with more experience. He had grown rather discouraged when he got the letter from Mrs. Walsh offering him the coaching job if he could also teach math. Although Maine was a state he had never thought he would want to live in, he snapped up the job, and now was very glad he did. Maine was beautiful, and he realized after a couple of months that he just might want to live there for the rest of his life. He was thinking that very thought as he was driving his car along the Old River Road looking for the Stevens farm.
    â€œExcuse me,” he said to an attractive woman standing by a group of mailboxes on the road. “Can you tell me where 209 is?”
    As that was her address, Cathy Stevens was a little suspicious of this stranger. “Who you looking for?”
    â€œMike Stevens. I’m Denton Cullimore from the school. Actually I’m looking for his mother, the, uh, the Dog Lady,” he said, trying to be an “in the know” member of the community.
    Cathy, who had been in town getting newly arrived dogs from the train station and had just stopped to pick up her mail, said, “The Dog Lady? Now why would a respectable teacher want to meet that crazy woman?” “So it’s true what they say about her in town?”
    â€œOh,” Cathy answered with a very serious look on her face, “much worse, I’m afraid.” She enjoyed “warning” the coach, whom Mike talked about incessantly. But since he said he wanted to meet Mrs. Stevens, she pointed out her farm, which was just behind him. The coach thanked this kind “stranger” and drove to the farm. Cathy waited a few minutes, and then followed him in her truck.
    â€œSo you’re . . . ,” Coach began when Cathy got out of her truck and started to unload the dogs.
    â€œCathy Stevens, the ‘Crazy Dog Lady,’” she finished his sentence with a smile.
    â€œHey, I’m so sorry. I didn’t . . .”
    â€œYou’re not the first to think I lost my marbles. However, you are the first to want to meet me,” Cathy said, remembering back to the days when she flirted with boys.
    â€œSee, they put me in charge of the Christmas program, and—”
    â€œYou want me to play the piano.” Coach dropped his jaw a little. “Mikey mentioned it,” Cathy continued. “But I’m afraid I can’t. As you can see,” she said, pointing to all the dogs, old and newly arrived, “this is a lot more than I bargained for.