Short Story: Meet Miss Molly

by Barbara Conrey

It happened like this: Big Mom and Little Mom wanted a beagle puppy. They had decided to buy one from some fancy-schmancy beagle-breeder in Kentucky. And then Big Mom saw a picture of three little beagle puppies at a rescue center right down the road from where they lived.

“Let’s go look at them,” said Big Mom.

“But why?” asked Little Mom. “We already decided we were going to put our order in at the breeders.”

“It won’t hurt to look,” said Big Mom.

“Fine.”

‘Fine’ was a pretty standard reply for Little Mom. She said it mostly when she was humoring Big Mom and sometimes when she just couldn’t be bothered arguing with her.

So off they went, to the rescue center, which, interestingly enough, was named Molly’s Place.

The little beagle puppies were behind a glass window to protect them from all the other dogs who pretty much had the run of the place, and Big Mom and Little Mom stood outside the window and looked at them (one of them was me!).

Big Mom didn’t say anything; she just let Little Mom look and look until finally Little Mom dragged an attendant over and asked to hold each of us. Again, Big Mom said nothing.

One by one, the attendant pulled us out and handed us over to Little Mom. Little Mom carefully held each of us in her arms, touched our ears and the tip of our nose, kissed our little head, and handed us back to the attendant. Big Mom kept mum. She didn’t even ask to hold us.

Eventually, Big Mom and Little Mom left, and my sisters and I watched them go.

“Do you think they’ll come back?” I asked the attendant in my little puppy-whine. “Nah, they’re gone. Better luck next time. Practice looking a little more pathetic.” Which made my sisters and me very sad.

But the next day, they were back! We saw them looking in the window, and we all jumped up and wagged our tails and smiled best as we could, and Little Mom again asked to hold us, but this time the attendant told her she could only hold two of us because someone had already bought one of us.

Little Mom drew in her breath. “Already?”

The attendant had no sympathy. “What do you think, lady? When people want a puppy, they pick out a puppy. Puppies don’t stay little forever, you know.”

Little Mom gave him a look that probably meant she didn’t think so much of him, and then she asked to hold us again, and we went through the whole routine. Again. First, she held my sister. Then she held me. And when she picked me up, I really, really had to pee, but I didn’t because I didn’t think she would be too happy if I peed all over her. And I already had a couple of strikes against me: I was the runt of the litter – why does there always have to be a runt of the litter? And I also had weepy eyes that involved a special medicine that might make a potential puppy-buyer think I wasn’t the healthiest puppy on the block.

So I held my breath, and I held my pee and Little Mom went back and forth between my sister and me, and again Big Mom said nothing, and I was beginning to think this was just a big game until Little Mom looked at Big Mom and said, “Maybe we should rescue one of these cute puppies instead of buying a purebred beagle. And Big Mom just smiled and smiled.

And finally, when all the smiling was done, Big Mom said to Little Mom, “Which one do you want?”

By now, my sister and I were back behind the window and we both sidled up to the glass trying to look big and healthy and strong and kind and dependable, and I looked at my sister, and I thought, ‘What’s the use? She’s never going to pick me.’ So I stepped away from the window so that Little Mom would have a clear view of my sister, but when Little Mom pointed, she pointed at me. And I looked at her in confusion. “Me?” So I turned around to see if another puppy was miraculously standing behind me, but there was only me. Little Mom was pointing at me!

And that’s how I came to live with Big Mom and Little Mom.