She owns two dogs called Maisie, who is a Springer Spaniel and Flora, who is a very noisy and energetic brown terrier. They enjoy a life of luxury living with Granny in her lovely house with its big garden.
Each day they are taken for long walks in the woods and on the common, where they run free meeting up with all the wild animals or playing with a ball.
One fine morning in the late summer, Maisie was lying on the door step enjoying the late sunshine, her peace was broken when Flora appeared yapping loudly and turning round and round in circles.
Maisie raised her head and asked the terrier to be quiet, but the yapping continued and so did the running round in circles, although if the truth was known Flora was beginning to feel very giddy and sick.
Maisie was very used to Flora's hectic behaviour and waited until it stopped and silence had returned.
She then quietly asked what the problem was.
Still panting loudly Flora said" I've lost it"
" Well we already know that " replied the Maisie
"no, no,no I have lost my blue ball, you know my best one" said a much calmer Flora
" Firstly it is not your best ball as you put it, the ball was mine and you chose to take it and without asking, secondly it can't be lost you only had it this morning, the problem is you race around shout and yelling at everything that goes past the garden and you just drop things without a second thought. Go and have a proper look" retorted Maisie and laid down once again in the sun.
Flora could not believe it.
"Here am I in a terrible state worried about my precious ball and all she can do is lie there getting a tan, its not as if she was not already bright orange, there is only one thing for it"
So once again she started the go round and round in circles , yapping and panting.
"OK, OK what do you want me to do" asked an irritated Maisie.
"Please could you come round the garden with me and ask the animals and insects if they have seen my ball, after all they like you better than me" pleaded Flora.
Maisie was not in the least bit surprised that the garden creature preferred her to Flora, who seemed to spend a great deal of time either chasing them, rolling them around the garden in the case of Needles and Pins the hedgehogs, or trying to dig them out of there houses with her nose or paws.
The first stop was an old pile of clay flower pots by the door of the greenhouse, Granny left them there so the snails could have a nice cosy home. Maisie tapped lightly on the top pot and then pushed it up with her nose, sure enough she could see the shell of a snail. The snails were called Slow and Stop, although she has no idea which one this was as it was tightly tucked into its shell, not that it was very easy to tell them apart anyway.
"Excuse me, I am really sorry to bother you but Flora has lost her blue ball and we wondered if you had by any chance seen it." asked a very quietly spoken Maisie.
Nothing happened for a moment or two, then slowly from the bottom of the shell appeared two eye on the end of two long antenna, the eyes looked at Maisie and then spotted Flora and shot back in again.
" Go away Flora you are upsetting them" said a cross Maisie, so the terrier tail down went and sat in the middle of the lawn.
The eyes appeared again, checking once more for the terrier, seeing it was safe the snail stretched out further.
" Glad to see you got rid of the hairy mutt, now what do you want, I couldn't hear a word you were saying when I was inside the shell" said the snail.
" Flora has lost her blue ball and we were wondering if you might have seen it in your travels" replied the spaniel
