The 12 Dogs of Christmas Read Online Free

to speak of, so she never did.
    â€œFaster, Mom, faster! Hurry!” Mike shouted. He had been watching the Fearsome Machine’s progress and was alarmed that it was getting closer. But then they came to the old South Creek bridge, and in passing over it they passed a sign that read: LEAVING DOVERVILLE CITY LIMITS.
    â€œHe-he-he! Good-bye, dogcatcher,” Cathy said as they headed off toward home.
    Bug-face Melvin stopped the Fearsome Machine just before the bridge, and Norman jumped down from his high seat and looked after the truck full of dogs with great disgust. And then he went over to the case containing his beloved cat. “Don’t worry, Scratch, we’ll get ’em next time.”
    Douglas O’Connor’s directions had been very clear, and Emma had no problems finding her Aunt Dolores’s house. It was a white clapboard two-story house, with an old Model T Ford sitting in the front drive. There was a big oval sign in the yard nailed to two tall two-by-fours that read: DOLORES’S BEAUTY SALON. The oval was fringed with Christmas lights. When Emma got up to the front door, there was another sign that welcomed visitors to just walk on in, so Emma did, entering a small room that was wonderfully warm. She saw no one, but heard voices coming from a room to her left. Emma walked in.
    The room, which had originally been the living room, had been outfitted with all the modern equipment of a beauty salon, including special chairs, two big dome hair dryers, a special sink to wash hair in, and several vanity tables with mirrors. Sitting at one of the vanity tables was a very large woman with the jolliest face Emma had ever seen. She could have been a young Mrs. Santa Claus. Standing behind the large lady, styling her hair, was a thin, middle-aged woman in a red dress. She might once have been very pretty, and was now still attractive, but had the kind of face that made it clear that she took nothing for granted and everything with a grain of salt.
    â€œI’m Emma,” Emma said quietly. “Are you Aunt Dolores?”
    Dolores looked at the child before her, a girl, she guessed, not looking for a new hairdo, but certainly in need of one.
    â€œWhatever you’re peddling, I am not interested. Now get on out of here.” Dolores waved her away with the comb she was using on the lady.
    â€œMy dad wrote to you that I was coming.”
    â€œWell, who’s your dad?” Dolores asked, unimpressed.
    Emma showed her the envelope. Dolores took it from her, seeing her name on the outside. She opened it, and the note inside flooded her with old memories, not all of them pleasant.
    â€œYou’re Douglas O’Connor’s girl?”
    Emma nodded.
    â€œThat rat! I am not your aunt, and I am not the dummy he takes me for. Did he send you here?”
    â€œHe wrote you a letter.”
    â€œWell, I never got it. And you can just go right back and tell your dear daddy that your Aunt Dolores is dead and buried as far as he is concerned!”
    Emma, of course, was now confused and scared, and anyone could see this if they were looking, which Dolores wasn’t. Luckily, though, the jolly lady, whose name was Mabel, was.
    â€œWhere you from, sweetheart?” Mabel asked.
    â€œ Pitts-burgh!” Dolores answered for Emma. “The grave of the world.”
    â€œWell, you can’t expect a child to find her way back to Pittsburgh.”
    â€œMy dad’s coming by Christmas,” Emma said, hoping that helped.
    And it may have, for Dolores stopped to think for a moment, and the thinking seemed to soften her a little. “He’s coming here?” Emma nodded, and there seemed a little more softening to be seen in Dolores’s eyes—but only for a very brief moment. “Well,” she said testily, waving Emma away, “go wait for him some place else.”
    To be told that she was worthless and then to be dismissed as a nuisance, all in one day, is