Lucky Charm

by Sonja Tomanovits, Mt Stromlo High School

Rain trickled down the windowpane and Holly wished that she was somewhere else. It was such a terribly dreary, doleful day that could be spent doing something so much more exciting. Holly drummed her fingers on the desk. Nothing to do … Actually, there was something to do. But frankly, Holly was about as interested in her creative writing essay as she was in nuclear physics. So, she had to occupy herself with staring blankly at the clock.

Holly gazed across the room at her classmates, deeply absorbed in their essays. Nerds. It was amazing, Holly thought, how ten minutes can seem to last forever, yet sometimes it takes no time at all.

* * *

Splash! Holly dragged her sopping sneakers through the ankle-deep street gutters which today were raging like a river. The sky seemed to be bucketing down on her from above. Heaven knows how, by some miracle, she managed to hear something over the deafening howling of the wind and the moaning of the old trees. But there it was, piercing through the frigid air like a knife, a faint whimpering coming from the gutter. Holly cocked her head to one side. There it was again. A hopeless and pathetic cry for help. Holly dropped to her knees scrambling around in the mud, searching for the source of the sound. It was closer now. Struggling to see a metre in front of her face through the storm, Holly held her breath. The whole world around her seemed to freeze for a second. There, no more than thirty centimeters from the girl’s nose, was an equally cold and wet, slightly furrier, face of a tiny puppy. Holly gasped. Her heart started thumping in her chest. Gazing into the eyes of this puppy, something clicked. Somehow, Holly knew that this puppy would be the last piece of the puzzle that was her crazy 11-year-old life.

The puppy wearily closed its eyes and Holly snapped back into reality. She was on a mission now. With shaking hands, the girl reached out and wrapped the puppy with the warmth that was radiating from her skin. She bit her lip. The puppy was icy, cold. It did not resist as she picked it up and cradled it in her arms. It was far too weak for that, and as light as a feather.

Holly unzipped her school jacket and gently wrapped the limp, bedraggled figure in the soft material, warm and dry. Holly could feel the beating of the puppy’s heart as it pressed against her skin, penetrating through her chest and forcing her heart to beat at the same slow rhythm. Numb with cold, Holly flew home like the wind.

* * *

“Please?” Holly tried desperately to bite back the tears that threatened to gush down her cheeks.

“No,” said her Mum. “We just don’t have room for a dog in the house.”

“Mum?”

“And with no one home all day it wouldn’t be fair on the dog either.”

“His name is Lucky.” Holly crossed her arms defiantly and glared into her Mum’s eyes. The name had written itself down in her mind almost as the words came out of her mouth, and it was perfect. Lucky had been the name of her favourite toy dog when she was younger. Holly glanced over to where Lucky lay in front of the kitchen heater, wrapped in blankets and fast asleep. After Lucky had eaten as much as he could and had a spa bath under the tap, his fur was as shiny and golden as a copper coin.

“We’ll work something out,” Mum said, though both knew that none of the possible outcomes was likely to involve keeping Lucky for good. Holly dropped her gaze and stared miserably at the ground. She reminded herself that whatever happened next, at least Lucky wasn’t still in the gutter, in the rain.

* * *

The next morning, Holly sauntered down the corridor to the kitchen, avoiding her Mum’s gaze. She had spent a restless night thinking about what could have happened if she hadn’t stumbled across Lucky on the way home from school. Lucky gobbled up his breakfast without a care in the world. Holly smiled at the little dog’s appetite.

“Holly, come here!” Mum called from the other end of the house. Holly picked herself up and ambled over. “Good news,” Mum said. “My colleague at work is interested in adopting golden retriever puppies to train into guide dogs. What do you think?”

Holly didn’t know what to think. At first, relief overcame her and a smile broke through. If he was taken on as a guide dog, Lucky would be cared for and never abandoned again. Possibly even loved. But then a tinge of disappointment nagged at the back of her chest. Maybe, without even knowing it, she still had just an ounce of hope inside of her that Lucky would be a new addition to the family. “Okay,” she said blankly. Mum looked taken aback.

“I thought you’d be more excited,” she said slowly.

“No, right. Yeah, it’s cool Mum,” Holly shrugged. “You know what, it’s…it’s great.”

Mum smiled, doubtfully. “Well, I’ll give Mark a call and we’ll see if he’s interested.”

Two years later…

Holly Cooper sat in her room reading a comic and eating crisps. It is a known fact that any child who comes home to an empty house and waits for their parents to arrive has the fundamental right to junk food. She really should have been doing homework, but something died inside of Holly’s soul whenever she picked up a pen and tried to focus her mind on fractions. And something was reborn again whenever she shoved her crumpled up worksheets back into the bottom of her bag so they could spend the night with crushed cookie crumbs and banana peel, and a whole assortment of other overdue essays and uninteresting permission notes.

So there Holly sat, absorbed in the adventures of Tintin and Snowy, when she heard the door swing open. Early. Cautiously, she sat up and slipped out of bed. Holding her breath, Holly listened as hard as she could for any sign of noise downstairs. Relief flooded her system as she recognised the soft clip-clopping of mum’s shoes on the kitchen tiles. Holly flung open her door and dashed downstairs. “You scared me to death,” she said.

“Sorry, Holl,” Mum was out of breath. “I came home as fast as I could.”

“Why?” Holly’s smile faded. “Is there something wrong?”

“Oh no, not at all,” Mum answered. “But there’s something I wanted you to see.”

Carefully, Mum fished out a cutting from the daily paper from her handbag. Interested, Holly glanced at the slip of slightly crumpled paper. “Hero guide dog saves blind owner from burning building” the headline blared. Now that wasn’t something you saw everyday. But why did Mum rush home from work to show her this? Curiously, Holly stared at the black and white photo beneath. There sitting between a beaming child and a middle-aged man with a cane, was the grinning face of Lucky, now a few months older, but there was no mistaking him.

Holly clapped a hand over her mouth and tears of joy sprung into her eyes. “I – I can’t believe it,” she gasped. “Lucky saved someone’s life.”

Holly thought back to when she had first found the little puppy in a drain two years ago. She remembered how she knew that her life would never be the same again. Somehow, Holly had been right. And guess what? That night at dinner, Mum said they should go down to the animal shelter on the weekend to look for a golden retriever rescue puppy that might like the job of being their pet. Yes!

After that, life seemed less boring. It seemed as if miracles were possible and dreams could come true. At the very least, Holly certainly had something to write about in her next creative writing essay!