Mrs Hall looked up at me. ‘Do you think she’ll forgive me?’
I stroked her hair. ‘Definitely.’
‘It’s Christmas and I don’t want to argue with her.’
‘It’s going to be okay, Mrs Hall.’ I thought about my argument with the family on WhatsApp.
‘Everything is so fraught at this time of year. I don’t know why Christmas does this to us all.’
‘You’re right. Everything is so stressful at Christmas.’
The phone began to ring at my side. ‘It could be the ambulance. Shall I answer it?’
Mrs Hall moved her head. ‘Yes please, dear.’
‘Hello.’
‘Who is this? Where’s my mother?’
‘Oh, your mum’s had an accident, my name is Rachel, and I am sat with her waiting for an ambulance.’
The female voice gasped. ‘Oh God, I’ll be over now.’
It wasn’t long before a lady pulled up in a black car and let herself in through the front door. I rose up from the floor so she could see her mother.
‘Mum – what’s happened?’ The woman crouched down beside her mother.
‘I fell over. I can’t feel my body on this side. Listen to me, this woman and her dog are angels. If it wasn’t for her dog, I don’t know what would have happened to me.’
The woman beamed at me. She was in her forties and once she’d removed her hood, I could see she had bushy blonde hair. ‘I can’t thank you enough.’
‘I told the lady how we argued last night,’ said Mrs Hall.
‘Mum, it’s over now,’ soothed the lady, ‘let’s concentrate on getting you better.’ She looked up at me. ‘I will stay with Mum. You can go.’
I grabbed Humphrey’s lead. ‘Nice to meet you, Mrs Hall. I did use the crate from your shed to climb onto the garage and get up to the bedroom window. I’m sorry about that.’
The woman smiled. ‘Don’t worry, thank you so much.’
Once Humphrey and I got outside, the snowfall had eased. Humphrey pulled on the lead which made me smile. ‘Oh, I see, you now want to rush home.’ A wave of happiness crashed over me. Humphrey wasn’t the little rascal we all thought him to be. He’d barked for help when Derek had his car accident, he’d stayed with Mrs Hall when she’d fallen, encouraged Dorothy to go to the Tea Dance and he’d found Rosie when she’d gone exploring.
I bent down and stroked his brown head. ‘You are my hero, Humphrey. Let’s go home.’
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
The following morning, I woke up feeling like I’d run a marathon in my sleep. My body ached and my limbs felt like they were made of lead. On the bedside table was my phone which had been charging overnight.
Once I’d returned from rescuing Mrs Hall, I’d made butternut squash and bacon soup for tea to warm us all up. I was also hoping Layla would join us for tea so I could ask her about my brother-in-law – but she stayed upstairs with Zac.
While I made the soup, Grandpa, and I sang along to Christmas songs and at one point we had a little dance together in the kitchen. We polished off the soup and after I’d washed up, I decided to plug in my phone to get it charged and turn it on. There were ten unread WhatsApp messages, two missed calls plus a voicemail from my mother waiting for me.
Remembering what Mrs Hall had said about everything being fraught at Christmas I went onto the family chat and wrote, ‘Grandpa and Humphrey are fine.’ Feeling exhausted I went to bed early with my phone and left it to charge by my bed.
Reaching over I grabbed the phone and saw that there had been no new WhatsApp notifications overnight. This was strange as I assumed the whole family would have piled in with their comments into the early hours. Opening WhatsApp I saw that Mum had sent me a message this morning to say:
Aunty Bev has agreed to come and sort you out. She’ll arrive this afternoon.
Sitting up in bed I stared at Mum’s message. Blimey, things must be bad if they were sending Aunty Bev to bring me into line. Also, had Mum not seen the weather reports? The snow in the south was bad and it would be a treacherous drive for Aunty Bev once she left the motorway.
