Dating : A Hole Lot of Trouble

Hi, I’m Jenny. Have I told you about my Labradoodle, Trixie? She’s A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. Aside from being the friendliest ball of fluff ever, my dog can do anything. Well OK, not anything. Trixie can’t whip up a batch of pancakes, or say her twelve times table out loud, but she can shake hands, walk on two paws and dribble a football. Awesome, right? You only have to show her a trick once and she nails it. Trixie is super-smart.

Unfortunately that’s also how she landed herself in a ‘hole’ lot of trouble.

That sentence is what my friend Dylan calls, “a play on words”. It should be a ‘whole’ lot of trouble of course, but ‘hole’ sounds the same and this story has a whole lot of ‘holes’. I better explain …

One day I was round at Ella’s. She lives next door to me, and we go to school together, too. We were in her back garden working out who could do the most cartwheels in a row (it was Ella, but her legs weren’t that straight on the last three goes, so I should have won, really). Anyway, we were just trying to have a little fun, but her brother Robbie kept getting in the way.

Robbie is only five, and he can be really annoying when you are trying to do something. He keeps coming over again and again, wanting you to play or to look at some beetle he has found crawling behind the shed. Usually we say things like, “cool” and smile politely, or we take turns to go and look just to keep him happy. This time, however, Ella had had enough.

‘ROBBIE!’ she yelled, after he had charged over and knocked her into a flowerbed. ‘Go away!’

I could see Ella’s point. There is a prickly bush in that flowerbed, and poor Ella had fallen onto her bottom right in the middle of it.

But when I looked at Robbie’s little face I felt bad. ‘Ella doesn’t mean that,’ I told him. ‘It’s just that we’re trying to do a gymnastics show.’

Robbie’s bottom lip stuck out a bit further.

I glanced around the garden and spotted the sandpit. ‘Why don’t you do some digging?’ I suggested.

Robbie crossed his arms and frowned. ‘Don’t want to.’

‘Really?’ I said, picking up a spade. ‘I wonder how deep you could go?’

‘It’s no fun on my own.’

I thought hard. ‘Trixie will keep you company.’

Trix had been lying in the sun like she always does round at Ella’s, but she came running over the minute she heard her name and dived into the sandpit.

‘Dig, Trix!’ I said, using my hands to show her how.

Sure enough, the clever pup began to burrow with all of her might. Sand flew across the lawn, sending Robbie into fits of delighted giggles.

‘Dig, doggy, dig!’ he repeated, grabbing his spade and taking my place.

It worked like a dream. Robbie didn’t bother us for the rest of the afternoon. Even when we went up to Ella’s bedroom, he stayed outside digging.

Over the next few weeks, any time I went to Ella’s all I had to do was bring Trixie along. She and Robbie would head off to the sandpit, leaving us to relax in peace.

One morning, when we were having breakfast, the doorbell rang.

And rang.

And rang.

‘What on earth?’ spluttered Dad, getting up and rushing to the front door.

‘Oh hello, Roy. Is our bell broken? Is is everything alright?’

It was old Mr McCarthy, who lives next door on the other side.

‘No everything is not alright,’ he grumbled loudly. ‘fed up of the little pests …’

He hobbled right into the kitchen without being asked. I could tell Dad wasn’t thrilled. He was ready to leave for work, but he is very polite and so he simply said, ‘What’s that, Roy?’

‘My garden! Dug up! Third time this week!’

‘Dug up?’

‘Moles!’ said Mr McCarthy, getting very red-faced. ‘I’ve got a mole infestation — or maybe even badgers. Have they invaded your garden, too?’ He peered out of the window at our flat, green back lawn.

‘Moles?’ Mum said. ‘Where?’

‘All over!’ Mr McCarthy cried. ‘I’m riddled. Look!’ He marched outside and pointed over our fence towards his lawn. We all followed.

‘Oh dear,’ said Mum, peering over.

‘I see what you mean,’ said Dad.

Mr McCarthy’s lawn was RUINED. The grass was covered with mounds of mud piled up beside dozens of gaping holes.

‘Told you!’ Mr McCarthy said. ‘I’ve had enough. I’ve spent the past three weeks filling those in. It’s no good. The blighters just come back and dig them all over again. I’ve had enough, I tell you!’

Mum and Dad “oohed” and “aahed”, then helped Mr McCarthy look up the number for a lawn specialist on the computer.

I peeped at Trixie’s paws. They were dirty. She had dirt on her muzzle, too.

Suspicious.

But Trixie couldn’t get out of our garden, could she? I went outside and looked around. And that’s when I spotted a small hole behind the treehouse, at the base of the fence.

A Trixie-sized hole.

I put some leaves and in the hole to fill the gap. I didn’t say anything though. I let the ‘moles’ take the blame. They didn’t exist, so there was no harm.

Mr McCarthy filled his holes again. But they came back.

The lawn specialist filled Mr McCarthy’s holes and reseeded his lawn. But the holes returned.

Every morning Trixie would look at me from her basket as if nothing was wrong, but her paws told a different story. Every morning I wiped them clean and then headed out to fill the hole up again. I kept quiet all through the summer.

Then something happened. A For Sale sign appeared outside Mr McCarthy’s house.

‘What’s that, Dad?’ I asked as we climbed into the car.

‘Old Roy is moving on,’ he said.

‘Oh.’

‘He doesn’t want to, he just can’t stand the mole holes.’

My mouth fell open. ‘He’s going to sell his house because of that? But he’s been here for years!’

‘Forty years,’ nodded Dad. ‘It is very sad, but the worry is starting to affect his health. He’s made up his mind to go.’

‘But they’re only HOLES!’ I gasped, feeling my heart pound.

‘Yes,’ Dad agreed, ‘but his wife loved that garden. Roy says he can’t bear the idea that he can’t keep it nice. He’s decided to move away.’

I couldn’t stand it any longer. Even if Trixie was in serious trouble, I couldn’t let Mr McCarthy leave. I had to speak out.

‘They’re not mole holes,’ I wailed. ‘They’re Trixie holes!’

‘What?’ Dad flipped the car radio off and turned to face me.

‘It’s my fault,’ I admitted. ‘I taught Trix to dig in Robbie’s sandpit and now she’s obsessed with digging up next door’s garden.’

‘But she’s shut in?’ Dad said. ‘And we’ve checked the fence. There’s no hole.’

Now came the really awkward part. ‘There is a hole,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s behind the treehouse by the fence. I didn’t want Trix to get in trouble. I hoped that she’d stop on her own! I’m sorry, Dad.’

Me and Trix were both in trouble. Not just for the holes that kept popping up, but for letting it go on for so long. Mum made me go up in my room and think about that. After me and Trix had sat on the bed crying a bit, I got out my best notepaper and wrote a long letter to Mr McCarthy explaining everything. I was going to put it through the letterbox, but Mum said we should own up face to face.

And so we did.

Mr McCarthy was cross at first. But after a while, his face creased up into a chuckle, and then a laugh. He was so relieved to have solved the mystery, he even gave Trixie a friendly pat on the head.

The fence is fixed now and there’s no digging allowed — even in Ella’s sandpit. Which is a shame, because Robbie is STILL really annoying.

It’s worth it though. At least Mr McCarthy didn’t have to sell his house because of a whole lot of holes!