Good Dog, McTavish, page 4
“Ma Peachey has decided to seek inner peace in India,” Betty said. “And to cook no more. So perhaps we should just get on with cooking for ourselves, rather than night after night eating food we don’t like.”
The Peacheys all stared at Betty as if she had just discovered a cure for the common cold.
“Really?” said Ava. “Us cook? Is that even possible?”
“Us?” said Ollie. “Us cook? Is that even legal?”
“Yes,” said Betty. “I believe it is possible. And legal.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Ollie was already sprinting to the fridge.
That night, the Peacheys all helped with the cooking. They pan-fried chicken breasts in lemon juice and olive oil and served them on a bed of steamed spinach and rice, with a side of roasted sweet potato sprinkled with pumpkin seeds. It was the most delicious meal any of them could remember eating in as long as any of them could remember.
From his post under the stairs, McTavish observed the goings-on through half-closed eyes. If you hadn’t known he was a dog, you might have thought that the expression on his face was a teensy bit smug.
For the next ten days, the Peacheys all pitched in to do the shopping, the cooking, and the cleaning up.
They discovered that cooking is not difficult. It is simpler than learning to play professional billiards or becoming a ballerina or flying a jumbo jet. Ollie, in particular, was stunned at how easy it was to follow a recipe.
“Hey, this is a lot easier than studying for a chemistry exam,” he said with an air of astonishment. “And it’s even easier now than it was last week.”
Ava was chopping onions, wearing an old diving mask they had bought for a beach vacation many years ago.
“I kind of like chopping,” she said. “It’s a whole lot less difficult than reading French philosophy.”
Betty sat by the stove, stirring and tasting.
When the three Peachey children worked together, they could produce an excellent, healthy meal in not much more than half an hour.
They cooked sausages and mashed potatoes with steamed green beans in no time at all. It was so delicious, Ava felt like fainting.
They made spaghetti Bolognese in less time than it took to study a takeout menu and decide what to eat.
They made vegetable soup and roasted chicken.
They made pumpkin curry and rice.
They attempted to outdo one another with the ease and deliciousness of their recipes.
Each night Pa Peachey came home in a better mood than he had the night before. The meals that greeted him were tasty and tempting. They were beautifully prepared and presented.
“What’s this?” Pa Peachey demanded one night, about a meal so beautiful and tempting, he might have put it on his Facebook page. If he’d had one.
“It is fish pie,” said Betty. “I made the crust, which is far simpler than it looks. Then I added some fish, carrots, and frozen peas, plus a simple sauce, and voilà!” She held out the golden steaming pie so the whole family could say, “Ooh!”
The whole family said, “Ooh!”
Even Ma Peachey looked up from her flying dolphin pose to say, “Ooh!”
Betty served up her fish pie and smiled modestly as every member of the family clapped her on the back and told her that she was an amazing cook for a not-quite-nine-year-old, or even for an actual person, and that her fish pie tasted even better than it looked.
Only Ollie lowered the tone by saying that he wished they had made chocolate cake for dessert.
“Maybe tomorrow,” Betty said. And, still smiling, she scraped the leftovers (though there weren’t many) into McTavish’s bowl. McTavish tasted the fish pie and turned to Betty.
“Ooh!” he woofed.
Plan C, McTavish thought, had been an excellent plan. This was the best fish pie he’d ever eaten. Possibly the best fish pie of all time.
He licked his chops and toddled back to bed, feeling very satisfied with his life. And very proud of his Peacheys.
The day after the fish pie triumph, Ma Peachey woke up very early. She got out of bed, showered, dressed, and padded down to the kitchen.
“Hello, McTavish,” she said to McTavish.
McTavish heaved himself out of a peaceful slumber to greet her, stretching into a textbook example of the downward dog pose.
Ma Peachey bent down and gazed into his eyes. “You don’t think I’ve noticed,” she whispered. “But I have. You are quite an impressive dog, and I have a great deal to thank you for.”
McTavish smiled, in the way that dogs smile, with a soft little woof and a squirmy sort of wriggle.
Ma Peachey kissed McTavish on the top of the head and straightened up. But she didn’t unroll her yoga mat. She didn’t perform her salutation to the sun pose. She didn’t click Buy on the flights to India in her online shopping basket.
Instead, she went to the kitchen and began to take out the ingredients for chocolate cake.
Ma Peachey hummed as she beat the sugar and butter. She whistled as she folded in eggs, flour, baking powder, and melted chocolate. An hour later, she positively broke into song as she traced a large 9 on the finished cake along with the words Happy Birthday, Betty.
McTavish went back to bed with a contented sigh. Humans make excellent pets, he thought. When you took on a rescue family, it often took some weeks for them to settle, but he was glad he’d decided to adopt the Peacheys.
As with most humans, all they’d needed was training, combined with common sense and discipline. Despite their early lack of promise, McTavish felt certain that the Peacheys would turn out fine. With a little more work and a consistent routine, they would turn out to be a most satisfactory family after all.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2017 by Meg Rosoff
Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Grace Easton
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First published by Barrington Stoke, Ltd. (Great Britain) 2017
First U.S. electronic edition 2019
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2018961319
The illustrations in this book were done in mixed media and collage.
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Meg Rosoff, Good Dog, McTavish
