Щенок Элли, или Долгая дорога домой / Ellie the Homesick Puppy

Megan laughed at her. ‘You’re such an actress, Ellie! You’re behaving like I never take you for walks. And it’s not fair, because you know I’d love to[21]. But we have to get everything into boxes.’ She sighed. ‘And Mum’s only given me these ones. She says if I can’t get all my stuff in here, I’m going to have to sort some of it out and get rid of[22] it.’ She looked round her room worriedly. It seemed an awful lot to fit into such a small stack of boxes.

Megan went over to the window sill and started to pack her collection of toy dogs into a box. She had loads, all different breeds, but more than half of them were Labradors, like Ellie. Officially, she was a Yellow Labrador, but Megan thought yellow wasn’t the right word at all. Ellie was really a rich honey-golden colour, with pale cream fur on her tummy. Her ears were a shade darker than everywhere else, and super-silky. Mum reckoned that Ellie might get darker as she got older, to match her ears, but Megan wasn’t sure. She would be growing for ages[23], anyway; she was just four months old at the moment. But even though Ellie was only a puppy, she was always bursting with energy.