Lily to the Rescue: Two Little Piggies

by W. Bruce Cameron

  The two animals understood me! They knew that bowing meant playtime. They surged out from underneath that shirt and leaped on me, squealing and then running around in tight circles. They wanted to play Chase-Me!

  I love Chase-Me whether there’s a ball involved or not. I decided that the pigs should run after me first. I turned and galloped down in front of some cold glass doors, my feet skittering a little bit on the slick floor.

  “Good dog, Lily!” I heard Mom call.

  The little creatures came after me. They were fast! I sped up around the corner, looking back over my shoulder. They were both scampering after me at top speed.

  I turned another corner, sliding precariously, almost falling, and found myself running right toward Mom and Maggie Rose and her brothers. They were all kneeling. I practically crashed into Craig, my claws scrabbling for purchase.

  A moment later, the two pigs came charging around the corner after me. When they spotted everyone on their knees, they tried to stop, but they were sliding just as I had done, and they couldn’t help but skid straight into the arms of Mom and Craig and Bryan.

  The pigs were not happy and were twisting and squealing, but the boys and Mom had their arms wrapped around them and hugged them tightly.

  “Good job!” the man said.

  “We’ll be right back to help you put your displays up,” Craig said.

  Maggie Rose grabbed my collar. We all went back out into the sunshine. Mom put the little creatures into a cage in the very back of the truck.

  “Good dog,” Maggie Rose praised. “You’re a good rescue dog today, Lily.”

  We sat in the truck with the pigs in the back while Craig and Bryan returned to the cool building again and came out a little while later with sweet-smelling candies in their hands. They gave one to Maggie Rose but did not offer any to me because dogs aren’t allowed to eat that kind of thing. My girl gave me a chicken treat, which is better, anyway.

  On the way home, the little animals were very anxious at first, darting back and forth in their cage. After a while, they collapsed in a heap in the corner of the cage, exhausted.

  “How old are the pigs, Mom?” Bryan asked.

  “It’s hard to say,” Mom replied. “But I doubt they can be on their own yet. We’ll have to bottle-feed them.”

  “Do we have pig’s milk to feed them?” Craig asked.

  “No,” Mom admitted, “but we have goat’s milk. Goat’s milk has a lot of fat in it, and that’s what these little girls need right now.”

  I twisted around to put my paws on the back of the seat, peering into the cage at the two little pigs sleeping in their heap, their small chests rising and falling together. I breathed their scents deeply, drinking them in, learning pig. From now on, this odor would be known to me as the smell of pigs.

  But there was more to them than that—there was another odor, a complex one, on their skin. I had first noticed this strong smell when I’d followed my family into the cool building.

  It was pig, just like the little sisters, but with a stronger, oily odor, one that was also touched with the faint smell of what was definitely milk. At some time not long ago, these two small pigs had been very close to a bigger, older, milky pig.

  The pigs were still asleep when Mom carried their cage into Work. Work is a place with a lot of animals inside it—other dogs, cats, birds, sometimes squirrels. Now Work had two pigs. That was exciting!

  I sat in the car with Maggie Rose and the boys, wagging hard and hoping I’d get to go into Work with the pigs and Mom. Lots of times I do get to go there, but not now. Mom came back into the car without the cage or the pigs, and we drove home.

  We got out of the car, and I saw Casey sitting on the fence, watching us.

  “Ree-ree,” Casey croaked. Casey can make noises that sound like talking, and Ree-ree is often what he says when he sees me, as if he is saying Lily. I wagged at him. He probably was wondering when we were going to play ball some more.

  I was, too.

  We didn’t do that, though. The boys rode off on their bicycles, and Maggie Rose sat on the living room floor to play with her Legos. Legos are not very interesting toys because I am not allowed to chew them. That isn’t to say I don’t try every so often, but it makes my girl sad, so I tried to remember to leave the Legos alone and attack one of my other toys instead.

  I decided to see what Mom was doing, so I went to the dining room. She was sitting at the table there, looking at her computer and tapping the keys. People like to do this a lot, even though computers do not smell interesting at all.

  I sat under the table. I couldn’t smell any food up there, but I’d had a lot of luck under that table in the past. I lay there patiently but got up when Dad opened the door and walked in. I wagged and pawed his leg, and he petted me.

  Getting a full dog greeting is probably one of the things humans like best about walking in the door, so I make sure everyone in the family knows they are loved as soon as they get home.

  “What are you looking at?” Dad asked as he gave Mom a kiss.

  Mom laughed softly. “I told you about those pigs we just rescued, remember?”

  “They’re so cute, Dad!” Maggie Rose called out from the living room.

  “So I asked the manager who’d called me to send over his surveillance tapes so I could figure out how the pigs wound up inside an interstate truck stop,” Mom went on. “Okay, watch this.”

  Maggie Rose went over to look at Mom’s computer, too. She giggled, and Dad laughed, so I wagged.

  “The two of them just walked up to the doors like they had an appointment!” Dad marveled. “That’s amazing! Where’d they come from?”

  “That’s the mystery,” Mom said. “Watch, here’s another angle showing the entire parking lot.”

  I yawned sleepily, wondering if we’d all play something more exciting soon. I gnawed on Maggie Rose’s shoelace, just to pass the time.

  “Okay, see,” Mom continued. “We’ve got the parking lot, plus just a little bit of the interstate on the other side. Now watch.”

  I looked up curiously when Maggie Rose gasped.

  “Wait, what just happened?” Dad said. “First there were no pigs, and then all of a sudden, there they are at the truck stop.”

  Mom turned and looked at him. “I know. It’s as if they appeared by magic. I don’t think they crossed that highway, but what else can explain it? And how would they have gotten onto the highway in the first place? I figured they must be from a farm in the area, but I checked and there are no hog farms anywhere nearby, so that’s not it. Yet these little girls are babies—no way they came from miles away.”

  “I’m stumped,” Dad admitted. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Well, either way, they’re here now. Those piglets are going to wake up very hungry. I’ve already told our supplier that we need a lot of goat milk.”

  “You’re telling me they eat like pigs,” Dad said with a chuckle. I wagged at the laughter.

  “I’m telling you every two hours, twenty-four hours a day, for at least the next several days,” Mom replied.

  “Every two hours? All night long? Are you serious?”

  “Welcome to animal rescue,” she said.

  “I’ll help!” Maggie Rose said eagerly.

  Mom smiled. “I know you will, sweetie. But we’re going to need the whole family to make this work.”

  “Huh. Actually,” Dad replied, “I was thinking of driving up to Evergreen to see if I can spot that black bear people have been talking about.”

  “Oh, really?” Mom said. “You’re going to do that and also help feed the pigs?”

  “Um,” Dad answered slowly. “I sort of thought if I wasn’t here, you’d be the one to feed them all night.”

  “Do you remember, James,” Mom responded lightly, “when I had to get up in the middle of the night to be with our newborn babies? You said you couldn’t do it because it was the ‘mom’s job.’”

  “Why do I get the feeling
you’re never going to let me forget that?” Dad replied.

  Maggie Rose giggled.

  Mom reached into a bag on the table next to her and pulled out two glass bottles. “Well,” she said cheerfully, “I’ve decided that feeding pigs is a dad’s job.”

  Dad picked up one of the glass bottles and held it with a funny look on his face while Maggie Rose laughed so hard she fell down, and I got to jump on her and lick her face and chew on her hair. At last, we were playing something fun!

  4

  That night was the best! Dad and Maggie Rose and I stayed overnight at Work. I had never done that before. I was so excited!

  At Work, most of the animals live in cages or kennels. I’m the only one who gets to be out, roaming around, sniffing and greeting all my old friends and any new arrivals. Most of the animals don’t stay at Work too long—they leave after a few days or weeks, usually when a happy person or a family full of happy people comes to get them.

  I’m sad to see my friends leave Work, but they and the people are so happy it makes up for it. Plus, there are always new friends to get to know.

  That night, Brewster, the old dog who mostly takes naps, came out to sleep with me on a blanket.

  Maggie Rose stretched out on a mat on the floor, while Dad lay down on the narrow bed where Maggie Rose sometimes lies down to read her books when she comes to Work.

  The pigs, however, hardly slept at all. They squealed and snorted, and when Dad picked up one of them and pushed a bottle into her mouth, the delicious aroma of warm milk filled the air. Brewster and I would look at each other with bewildered expressions. Why did pigs get milk while there was none for dogs? What was going on here?

  While one pig was being fed, the other one raced around on the floor, diving under Dad’s bed, leaping up on top of me and Brewster, making Maggie Rose laugh, and just generally going completely pig.

  They were fantastic playmates. They loved to play Chase-Me, whether they were tearing after me or each other or running away from me when it was my turn to chase.

  Dad would lie back on his bed, and the pigs would dart over to him and squeal to make sure he was paying attention to them. They were locked out of the big room where most of the animals slept in their cages, so they ran around and around the room where we were playing and tipped over a small table and bashed into a shelf and crashed into some chairs.

  Brewster slept through most of this and was very grumpy when one of the pigs jumped on him. This happened many times. Brewster kept staring at me as if he thought I should do something to make the pigs behave.

  Why would I, when we were all having so much fun?

  Dad never took a bottle and gave me milk, but he sure enjoyed doing that with the pigs. Maggie Rose did it, too. After a while, though, she lay down on her mat and closed her eyes and stayed there, and Dad fed both of the pigs.

  Again and again, I’d look over to see him holding one or the other in his lap, feeding them, his eyes half-closed.

  “I can’t believe I have to do this again so soon, Lily,” Dad said with a sigh. I wondered if he was telling me how much fun we were having at Work all night long. “How can they eat so much?”

  I heard the question and did Sit. What else could I do under the circumstances?

  At one point, the two wiggly pigs curled up against Brewster’s warm side.

  I lay down with Maggie Rose, and Dad flopped back on his bed, and I thought we were all going to sleep for a good long time.

  I was wrong, though, because pretty soon, the pigs started squealing again. Maggie Rose didn’t stir, but Brewster picked up his head and snorted, and Dad had both hands over his eyes. “No. No, please,” he begged.

  I wagged. Dad fed the pigs some more. It seemed to be his new favorite thing to do.

  Mom arrived early the next morning. “How did it go?” she asked Dad.

  Dad shook his head. “If they slept more than ten minutes apiece, I missed it, but I stayed on schedule and they’ve been fed. Thank God for Lily. She keeps them occupied.”

  I wagged because he’d said my name.

  “I’ll take over feeding them. Will you go home and get the kids some breakfast?” Mom asked.

  “Sure,” Dad agreed. “And then I’m going to bed. Today, Dad’s job is to take a nap.”

  I woke up Maggie Rose by licking her ears, and we left Work and went home. The rest of my family was seated at the table. Craig fed me some eggs, and Maggie Rose told me I was a good dog.

  After we ate, Craig and Bryan went outside, Maggie Rose lay down with a book, and Dad did something very curious—he climbed into his bed. I had never seen him go back to bed in the middle of the day before!

  I was tired from chasing pigs all night and wondered if he would let me climb up to be with him.

  He did.

  Everything was different now that I had two pig friends at Work. Maggie Rose gave them names; the fast one was called Scamper, and the really fast one was called Dash. Scamper and Dash spent all of their time either lying in people’s laps being given milk from bottles, skittering around Work like crazy playing Chase-Me, getting me to play Chase-Me-I’m-a-Pig, or sleeping.

  They went into their naps like they did everything else: with a crash. One moment they would be careening around, sliding and squealing, and the next they would be collapsed in a pile of pig, eyes shut, noses twitching.

  When I wanted to nap, I usually went to find Brewster. I like the way Brewster settles down for a doze. He paws at his bed, getting it properly rumpled up, turns around a few times, and then lies heavily down.

  And when he wakes up, he does it properly, yawning and stretching and scratching himself and then lying around getting used to the idea of being awake. The pigs, on the other hand, woke up on the run. They would be completely still one moment and doing Chase-Me an instant later.

  I got to go to Work most nights, which was amazing! Sometimes I’d be there with Mom, sometimes with Dad. Every now and then, Bryan or Craig or Maggie Rose would come, too. I loved that!

  The people didn’t seem as happy as I was, though.

  “When is this going to end?” Craig groaned at one point.

  “I’m tired,” Bryan agreed, holding Dash in his lap. “This is boring.”

  “I’ll do it,” Maggie Rose said. Bryan gave Dash to her.

  “Animal rescue isn’t always about cuddling puppies and kittens,” Mom told us. “It’s hard work. But think what we’ve done. These little girl piggies wouldn’t survive if it weren’t for us.”

  “And Lily!” my girl chimed.

  “And Lily,” Mom agreed.

  I wagged, though no treats resulted from all this talk about me.

  Now, I loved my new pig friends. They were fun to play with. But I did not see why no one thought that a good dog should be given milk from a bottle, since that was what we were doing with Scamper and Dash.

  Brewster wasn’t fed any milk, either, but he didn’t seem to care about that. What he did care about was how the pigs would run over and jump on him. He did not seem to like it. He didn’t growl, but he did groan a lot. I tried to herd the pigs away from Brewster when I could.

  “This is killing me,” Dad complained one day.

  We had been at Work all day. Now Brewster was deep into a nap, and I was watching jealously as Mom and Dad sat in chairs and gave the little pigs a meal.

  “It’s killing us,” Mom corrected tiredly. “They have so much energy!”

  “I think we need to get these little girls feeding on their own,” Dad said. “I can’t do this much longer, and you’ve got other animals to take care of at the rescue.”

  “You’re right,” Mom replied resignedly. “They’re for sure old enough to feed themselves, but I don’t know what to do. I put goat milk in a bowl, but they weren’t at all interested. I think they prefer being bottle-fed. It makes them feel loved.”

  Mom’s phone jangled in her pocket, and she reached in awkwardly and held it up to her ear. “Hello?” she said sleepily.


  Then she sat bolt upright and didn’t seem to notice as the bottle slipped out of Dash’s mouth.

  “Oh no,” she said. “Oh, goodness! I’ll be right there.” She got up and dumped Dash in Dad’s lap.

  “What happened?” Dad asked. He looked worried. I sat up, watching both of their faces intently in case they needed my help.

  “That was the school,” Mom said. “Maggie Rose fell asleep in class, and she slid right out of her chair onto the floor.”

  I heard my girl’s name and gazed around alertly for her, but I didn’t see or smell her anywhere near.

  Dad and Mom looked at each other.

  “You’d better go get her,” Dad said with a sigh. He looked down at the pigs in his lap. “When you’re back, we’ll figure out something to do.”

  5

  Mom left, and Dad finished feeding Scamper and Dash. We all played Chase-Me until Mom came back again. She had my girl with her! Maggie Rose!

  I ran to my girl and greeted her with my tail wiggling back and forth. I licked her knees and her hands when she reached down to scratch me.

  Mom and Dad seemed to think that Maggie Rose needed a lot of attention, too. They fussed over her until they got her settled on the long, narrow bed where Dad sometimes lay down when we were doing Work at night, feeding the pigs and playing Chase-Me.

  “But I’m not sick or anything!” Maggie Rose said. “I just got sleepy.”

  “Lie right there and close your eyes,” Mom said. “You’re going to take a nice long nap. And no more overnights at the rescue for you. That’s final.”

  “But who’s going to help feed the pigs?” Maggie Rose asked. She sounded worried. I jumped up onto the skinny bed with her and snuggled up against her so she’d know I’d always take care of her.

  Mom sighed. “We’ll figure it out. Right now, rest.”

  “Can I have my snack from school first?” Maggie Rose asked. “I’m hungry.”

  Maggie Rose had put down her backpack next to the bed. Mom unzipped it and reached in and pulled out a crinkly bag and handed it to Maggie Rose.