43 pages 1 hour read

McCall Hoyle

Stella

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2021

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Chapters 1-4

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

Stella, a beagle, wakes up in a metal crate eager to check out all the smells in the world. She wants to be with her old handler, Connie, whom she worked with at an airport. One day when she was working with Connie, Stella smelled a chemical and then an ambulance took Connie away. Stella knows Connie would never voluntarily leave her, but she doesn’t know that Connie died. Stella lives with a new human now, Diana. Stella tries to be a good dog for Diana, but she starts to panic when a storm rolls in. She begins digging and panting and eventually using her teeth to tear the pad at the bottom of her crate. Stella remembers Connie telling her that she is a good dog, and she still believes that. Diana wakes up and tells Stella that she is a bad dog. This does not make sense to Stella because Connie yelled at her once for running in front of a truck, but ripping a pad is not as bad as that. Diana takes her outside, and Stella thinks that Diana must have made a mistake because she left her with no food.