Emma was changing and I didn't like it. She still played with me in the garden and she still chatted with me every day on the way to school, but she just wasn't the same. Sometimes, when we were playing out, she would say she needed to go inside and then she'd go hide in her bedroom for hours. If I asked her why she was leaving, she'd just say "I'm off to play with Tod now." It was quite annoying, to be honest. And, if I ever asked her if I could go with her, the answer was always "no." She never explained why.
Before, it wouldn't have been so bad, because I could've just played with Barney instead, but now he had been gone nearly a week (I counted every single day) and that meant he might not be coming back.
"I'm sure he'll be found soon," Mummy had assured me the first day.
"He's probably at a rescue centre," she said the second day.
On the third day, Daddy told me "Hopefully we'll get a ring soon from somebody who has taken him in."
"His microchip might not be working, which is probably why we've heard nothing," Mummy said the fourth day.
"I'm really not sure what's going to happen," she said on the fifth day.
"We may have to accept that he's been adopted by another loving family," was her answer on the sixth day.
Today was the seventh day and there was still no news. I missed my dog so much.
Emma had missed him as much as I had on the first few days, but then she'd seemed more interested in "Tod". I was still missing Barney – more and more every day – but she couldn't really understand this. She seemed to have accepted already that he wasn't coming back, whereas I knew he had to be found. Barney had been there since the day I was born. He couldn't be gone. He just couldn't.
On the day we lost him, I had cried and cried and cried until I felt as if I had used up all my tears. But they had kept coming until I felt sick and had to make myself stop to be able to fall asleep. I had no appetite, no energy and no happiness. And, most of all, no Barney.
He had always cheered me up when I was sad, played with me when I was lonely and sat by my side when I was poorly. Barney was my best friend. Barney would still be my best friend, when somebody found him, because I couldn't imagine a life without him. I didn't think I could live without him.
I had spent nearly every day in the past week making "lost pet" posters. It had made me feel a tiny bit better to see them everywhere, knowing that other people would read them and hopefully help us find him. Mummy had printed off a big picture of me hugging Barney, when I was little, to stick on the posters and whenever I walked down any street I saw it and it made me cry. I wanted to give him a hug so badly that it hurt.
I was sitting outside, by myself, in the garden on a bench when mummy found me in the morning. She crossed the garden, strolling across the grass to sit down beside me, pulling me into her warm arms as she held me close. I sobbed into her hair.
"Have you packed your bag for school tomorrow?" she asked when I had finished crying, dabbing the tears from my eyes with a crumpled tissue.
I shook my head. "No." School was the last thing I wanted to think about now.
"Why don't we go get everything ready now?" She got ready to stand up, but I wouldn't budge.
"I want Barney," I whimpered, clinging to her like a baby. "Have you still not heard anything about him yet?"
"No, sweetie," she smiled sadly. "There hasn't been any good news yet today."
It was only then that it hit me. I hadn't noticed until that moment, when I studied her face closely for the first time, that her eyes were red. And they only went like that when she had been crying, which wasn't very often.
Bad news was coming.
All of a sudden, it felt as if the world had ended, because I knew for sure that Barney would not be coming back home.
Ever.
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