Free Sam the Stolen Puppy by Holly Webb Page B

asked, frowning.
    “You’re a little bit young for your own puppy, darling,” Mum explained. “Father Christmas brought you a remote control train.”
    Jack looked unconvinced. “I’d like a dog more,” he muttered.
    Emily sat down on the very edge of a chair with the puppy in her lap. “He’s so lovely,” she murmured. “I can’t believe you really gave me a dog!” Suddenly she sat up a little straighter, clutching at the puppy to stop him falling. “What about that TV ad?” she said worriedly. “I saw it after I wrote my Christmas letter. It said you shouldn’t give dogs as presents.”
    Mum and Dad exchanged looks. “It’strue, Emily, it’s not really the best idea,” Mum said. “People often think a cute little puppy would be a lovely present, and then when the puppy gets bigger, they don’t want the work of looking after it properly.”
    “Because it is a lot of work, Emily, you’re going to need to be really responsible,” Dad put in.
    Emily nodded seriously. She would be super-responsible!
    “But we were planning to get you a dog anyway,” Mum went on. “We’d already contacted the people who bred your puppy, and we were waiting for the next litter of pups to come along. This little one just happened to arrive at the right time to be the perfect Christmas present.”

    Emily hardly ate any Christmas lunch. She kept disappearing from the table to check on the puppy. He had a little bit of turkey, and some carrots, but Dad said he couldn’t have any Christmas pudding.
    “And Emily, you really mustn’t give him anything from the table. We don’t want him learning to jump up and steal food!” Mum got up to start clearing the plates. “Have you thought of a name for him yet?” she asked, as she went over to the sink.
    Emily looked thoughtfully at the puppy, who was having a fight with a piece of wrapping paper, rolling over with it and growling. “I think I’m goingto call him Sam,” she decided. “He looks like a Sam.”
    “That’s a nice sensible name,” Dad agreed. “We don’t want to be yelling, ‘Here, Fluffikins!’ across the park, do we?”
    Emily giggled. “Actually, I think Fluffikins is a cool name, Dad, thanks!” She knelt down next to the puppy. “You’d like to be called Fluffikins, wouldn’t you?”
    The puppy made a disgusted noise, and spat out a small ball of wrapping paper at her.
    Emily grinned. “OK, Sam it is, then.” She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand, watching the puppy nosing around her feet, sniffing and snorting quietly to himself. Then heclimbed on to her foot and looked up at her hopefully, one paw in the air. Emily giggled. “Hey, Sam,” she said, reaching down to pick him up.
    Sam gave a delighted sigh, and firmly stamped up and down on Emily’s lap until it was just right. Then he flopped down and fell fast asleep in seconds.
    Emily watched his tiny body twitching as he slept. She still couldn’t believe he was hers. How could anyone be so lucky?

Chapter Two
    The Christmas holidays seemed to race past even faster than usual with Sam to play with. In no time at all, Emily was back at school. She spent the first day worrying about what he might be doing, and whether he was lonely without her. When Mum and Jack came to pick her up, Emily raced ahead. Mum had to keep callingto her to slow down.
    “Come on, Jack!” Emily called crossly, as he stopped again. He was counting snails, and it took ages to get anywhere. Emily was desperate to get home and see Sam, she’d really missed him. It didn’t help that Jack had spent most of the walk so far chatting away about what a fun time he’d had playing with Sam while Emily was at school. It wasn’t fair. Sam was her puppy! But Emily supposed she couldn’t really say Jack wasn’t allowed to play with him. Actually, in a way she was glad that Jack had been there, because otherwise Sam might have been lonely. She just hoped that Sam had missed her a little bit!

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