Beagle in a Basket

by Lucy Daniels

Animal Ark is the veterinary practice at the back of Mandy Hope and her parents Emily and Adam Hope’s house .In all the Animal Ark stories , the story always revolves around Mandy and her best friend James Hunter.Geraldine O ’Mera ,a newspaper reporter for all country newspapers ,has two pets who are best friends .A beagle named Robbie and an old cat named Martha. One day, Martha fell ill with F.I.V -Feline Immunodeficiency Virus and died the next day. Robbie is very sad of losing his friend. Mandy and her best friend James Hunter try to cheer Robbie up.

Mandy brings a duck to Wood Vale, Geraldine’s home ,whose leg has been tangled in a nylon fishing line so that the duck can stay in the pond there.Mrs.Hope takes out the line out of the duck’s leg.Mandy asked Geraldine if she would help her with a biology project at school,to which Geraldine agreed.Geraldine provided lots of information about bees.The next day at school Mandy forgot to hand in her project and so she got a detention for a day from Mr.Marsh,the substitute biology teacher.But later next day when he sees the project,he is very impressed by it.

Its very funny when at Mandy’s detention,Mandy sees a tiny white head poking out of Mr.Marsh’s pocket and then another tiny black head out of another pocket.Rats.She gets speechless and points to Mr.Marsh towards his pockets.They are Eenie and Meenie.Mr.Marsh gives Eenie to Mandy to hold but she wraps herself around Mandy’s neck.Then they take both Eenie and Meenie to Animal Ark to get them checked over by Mrs.Hope as they both were sneezing and wheezing.

After her detention when Mandy goes home ,her dad ,Adam,shows Mandy a Burmese cat with her litter.She has three big males and one tiny female who seemed to be the runt of the litter and needed to be kept an eye on.The next morning,Mandy went around the residential unit and found that her dad was feeding the little female cat as her mother had rejected her.

After school,James comes to see the kittens and their mom.Mandy and James name the rejected kitten as Kitty.They fed her with some milk.When they went inside ,they saw Robbie and Geraldine in the waiting room.Geraldine told them that how Robbie was not as lively as before and was staying in the basket all the time.Mrs.Hope saw Robbie and promised to test his blood for F.I.V.

Then Mandy thought that maybe Geraldine could raise Kitty ,to which Geraldine refused.But the idea of adopting Kitty sat in her mind and Mandy hoped that she would take Kitty home one day.

It was a very good idea at last for which Geraldine thanked Mandy later.What made Geraldine change her mind and how did little Kitty help Geraldine is the mystery of the story.

It is a very nice addition to the Animal Ark series.I still have some more to read and write about.