Howl by Karen Hood-Caddy

her camera. That night, a photo of Robin and her ketchup-stained clothes was posted on the Internet for all the school to see.



Chapter
Seven
    Robin sat with Griff on the straw floor of the barn. The puppies had their eyes open now and were crawling all over each other, stepping on each other’s backs and heads and anything else that was in the way.
    “You’d think someone gave them beer for breakfast,” Griff said, chuckling at the drunken way the puppies lost their balance and continually fell over.
    Robin laughed. Here in the barn with the puppies was where she was happiest. She loved watching them wiggle and wag their way around, yipping at each other’s tails, ears, and noses and biting anything they could get into their mouths. At the moment, one of them was biting Griff’s finger.
    “Yikes,” Griff said, pulling her hand away. “They’re getting teeth!”
    Robin laughed. “I know!”
    It was good to sit down. She and Griff and Squirm had spent the morning moving Relentless and the puppies from Griff’s to the barn so they could have more room. Ari was supposed to help, too, but so far she hadn’t shown up. Neither had her father. But then he had work as an excuse.
    “You sure the puppies will be warm enough out here?” Robin rubbed a puppy’s stomach. The skin there was as soft as velvet.
    “We’ll put the heater on at night,” Griff said. “If we need it. Last night it was so warm, it rained instead of snowed. Did you hear it?”
    Robin nodded. She remembered waking up to the sound of it drumming on the tin roof of the shed. She looked around the barn. Something inside her still felt uneasy about the puppies being out here. “What if wolves get in?”
    “We’ll keep the barn door latched. Besides,” Griff said, pointing up at the rafters, “don’t forget, we’ve got the protection of our killer owl up there.”
    Robin tilted her head back and looked at Owlie. She didn’t understand how a stuffed bird could keep an eye on anything, but she didn’t say that. Besides, she had to admit, she kind of liked the idea of Owlie keeping watch.
    Relentless nudged her sleek head against Robin’s shoulder.
    “I know, you’ll take care of them too,” Robin said, running her palm along her dog’s back. She did this over and over until Relentless shivered with pleasure.
    “Where’s your sister?” Griff asked. “Wasn’t she supposed to help?”
    Robin shrugged. “On the phone. With one of her five million new friends.”
    Griff nodded pensively. “I never made friends easily. Always took me awhile. She got a boyfriend yet?”
    “Nope. But there’s tons interested — so she says!” Robin sighed. “I guess all that make-up is paying off.”
    Griff raised an eyebrow but did not speak.
    “No!” Griff pulled a puppy they’d nicknamed Tugger away from her bootlaces.
    They’d given some of the puppies names. Tugger because he was always pulling on things, Snooze because he fell asleep so easily, and Greedy Guts because she bullied others at the food tray.
    “I’m going to get some more clean straw,” Griff said. “Be right back.”
    Robin watched as Tugger yanked Snooze’s tail. “Hey!” she said, prodding him away, but he simply turned his attentions to the frayed bottoms of her jeans. She picked him up and tapped his nose with her finger. “Stop being such a troublemaker. I have enough of those in my life as it is.”
    Of course, she was thinking about Brittany. The incident in the cafeteria had been a while ago now, but, like a broken DVD, it kept replaying on the screen of her mind. Had Brittany meant to flip her lunch tray like that? Robin was convinced she had. She just wished she’d smacked Brittany, right there on the spot. Or at least told her off. But had she? Oh no! She’d just stood there and done nothing. Like some pathetic wuss.
    Since then, she’d washed her green shirt five times but hadn’t been able to get out the ketchup stains. She couldn’t get the sound of