Stay

by Bobbie Pyron

  I touch each of the pins and badges: Animal Lives, Drawing, Independence (not hard to earn when both your parents work), Cooking (my specialty is macaroni and cheese), First Aid (comes in handy when you have a little brother), Reading, and my favorite: Gourmet Brownie CEO. Mama says selling brownies is my superpower.

  I remember how proud I felt every time I earned a new badge or pin. Daddy gave me three dollars whenever I earned one, and Grandma Bess gave me a dollar. The money was nice, but mostly, I just loved that feeling of being good at something. Sometimes our family was a little bit like a roller coaster, what with jobs that came and went and Dylan’s asthma, and taking care of Grandma Bess before she passed, and always, always worrying about money. But these badges, they were mine. They showed what I could do. At least before Daddy and Mama lost their jobs and we found ourselves without a home.

  Dylan coughs. Mama murmurs something in her sleep.

  Carefully, I roll up the sash and slide it back into my pack. I climb into bed and burrow under the covers.

  I blink back tears, remembering my goal of earning two more badges by the end of the year. It seemed so possible then. Now it doesn’t.

  Then I remember: the flyer stapled to a pole announcing a Firefly Girls meeting. What troop was it? Did it say when they would meet, and where? Hope flickers in my heart like a firefly on a summer night.

  But now look where I am, who I am. How can I ever be part of a Firefly troop when I live in a homeless shelter?

  15

  Stay

  Later, much later

  Baby knows

  deep in his bones

  everything is wrong.

  Jewel shivers and shakes

  but her body is hot.

  Jewel sleeps but does not rest.

  Baby feels her legs twitch,

  her hands reach for things not there.

  Baby listens as she moans and mutters in her sleep.

  Baby has heard her do this before and yet

  everything was fine.

  The sun came up.

  Jewel awoke.

  The world was new.

  But the great, shuddering cough,

  the dark rattle when she breathes,

  these things fill Baby with worry.

  Baby sniffs Jewel’s breath.

  It is wrong. It is bitter

  rather than sweet.

  Baby licks her face, paws her chest.

  Nothing.

  Panic fills the little dog’s body.

  His Jewel,

  the Jewel who holds him and

  whispers in his soft ears

  that he is a good, good boy,

  is not there.

  She has gone somewhere far away

  inside herself.

  Baby barks and barks and barks and barks

  not his usual barks that celebrate the day,

  the barks that say, “Let’s go!”

  These are barks of fear,

  yips of panic,

  howls of despair.

  Footsteps come. Voices say, “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything!” Baby barks. “Everything is wrong!”

  Ree lifts the little dog from Jewel’s chest.

  She shakes Jewel by the shoulders.

  “Wake up, Jewel,” she says.

  “Let’s go!” Baby pleads.

  Jewel doesn’t.

  More footsteps. More voices.

  Soon

  flashing lights,

  a wailing into the just-beginning dawn.

  Baby wails and howls too as men lift

  Baby’s Jewel

  into the big car with flashing lights.

  “Baby!” Jewel cries. “Where’s my Baby?”

  Baby hurls himself toward

  his name.

  A man kicks the little dog away.

  Baby yelps in pain and frustration.

  Jewel pulls herself up.

  Her blue eyes lock onto the dog’s,

  on to his heart.

  “Baby,” she calls. “You stay, you hear me?”

  Baby shivers with fear, lays his ears flat against his

  sleek head.

  “You stay and be a good boy,” Jewel says as they slide

  her into

  the mouth of the big car

  with the flashing lights.

  “I’ll be back, Baby.”

  Baby stays, shaking

  from the effort of being a good boy even though

  every muscle and nerve in his little body says

  Go! Follow!

  Baby stays even when

  Ree and Ajax try to coax him away

  from where Jewel told him to stay

  even though he is hungry, so hungry!

  Baby stays even as

  the snow comes down and the wind blows

  and the day passes from morning

  to night

  without Jewel.

  Baby stays,

  curled tight

  on top of Jewel’s bag, a bag that holds

  her scent that has been his whole world

  forever.

  Ree and Ajax bring the little dog food but

  hunger has passed.

  Linda and Duke bring him an extra blanket but

  it does not smell like Jewel and Baby together.

  Instead, he curls up inside the bag with Jewel’s smell,

  listens to his own steadfast heart, not hers,

  and waits.

  16

  Ree and Ajax

  The weather is crazy here. For two days, it snowed and blew like a hurricane and was so cold we had to wear our hats to bed.

  Today, it’s sunny and so warm all the snow is gone and we’ve put our coats away.

  “Now remember what I said,” Mama says for the sixtieth time as she reties Dylan’s shoes for the hundredth time, “you mind Miss Alvarez the same way you’d mind me. I don’t want any reports of you disrespecting her, you hear?”

  Dylan nods. Mama gently takes his thumb out of his mouth and kisses it. Which I think is gross.

  Mama looks up at me. “Piper?”

  “Yes, Mama,” I say. I’m really glad I don’t have to hang around all day in lines with Mama and Daddy. It’ll be fun to spend time with someone my own age.

  Dylan asks for probably the 110th time, “You’ll come back, won’t you?” The thumb goes back in his mouth.

  “Of course we’ll come back, baby,” she says. “We’ll only be gone a few hours.”

  “But . . .”

  Mama glances out the front doors of the lobby. Daddy’s out front, waiting.

  “Come on,” Mama says, taking her purse and Dylan’s hand. “We need to get going.”

  “You’re coming, aren’t you, Piper?” Dylan asks.

  I ruffle his still-wet hair. “Course I am.”

  Gabby and her brothers, Ricky and Luke, and their mom wait for us in the lobby. Luke is just a little thing. Gabby grins and Ricky jumps up and down. Luke hides behind his mama’s legs. He’s at that shy age.

  “Thanks again,” Mama says, touching Miss Alvarez’s arm. “I promise to return the favor.”

  Gabby’s mom nods. “You better believe it. It’s hard to interview for jobs when you’ve got kids tagging along.”

  Mama gives us each a quick hug and, before Dylan can pitch a royal fit, she’s out the door.

  “Let’s go, kids,” Miss Alvarez says.

  We hustle out into the bright sunshine. I hear the door to the shelter lock behind us. I look back. Miss Jean waves and mouths, “See you later.” We’ve been here six days and I still feel a little panic when I hear that door lock.

  I trot along beside Gabby as we head away from the shelter. “I don’t get why they make everyone leave all day,” I say.

  Miss Alvarez looks back at me and shakes her head. “They think if they don’t, no one will go out and look for jobs. No one will try to ‘improve their situation,’” she says, crooking her fingers into quotation marks. “We’ll just hang a
round there all day and watch TV, eat bonbons, and paint our toenails.”

  Gabby giggles. “We paint our toenails at night.”

  We turn down one street and then another. A man walks past us pushing a shopping cart with a wobbly wheel. The cart is filled with all kinds of stuff: shoes, aluminum cans, a doll missing most of its hair, big sheets of plastic, and sitting right there on top of a rolled-up blanket, a big yellow and white cat. I stop and watch them make their way through the slush on the sidewalk.

  Dylan skips back to me. “Did you see that, Piper? That was a cat riding in that man’s shopping cart!”

  “That’s Jerry and his cat, Lucky,” Gabby says. “They’re nice.”

  “Oh, okay.” Dylan runs to catch up with Ricky and Luke.

  We stop at the traffic light, waiting for it to change. I wonder where Baby and the woman are.

  Then something catches my eye: a tall, skinny man in striped pants and a bright-yellow shirt is dancing—dancing!—at the corner across the street. He twirls and dips and glides and struts. His eyes are closed but he has the biggest smile on his face. People flow past him and around him like water. Some people drop coins in a can by his feet. Car horns honk. Some people wave, others yell out things that aren’t very nice. I don’t think it matters to him which they do. He just keeps dancing.

  I nudge Gabby and nod toward the dancing man. “Who’s that?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know, but he’s almost always at that corner.”

  The light changes. I grab Dylan’s hand as we cross the street heading straight toward the dancing man. “Stay by me,” I say, pulling him close.

  I try not to look at the man as we step onto the sidewalk. Mama always says when you’re scared, it’s best to look confident and like you know where you’re going. I hold my head up and try my best to put purpose in my stride.

  And then it’s there: the park. So many trees right in the middle of this big city!

  Dylan lets go of my hand and races to catch Ricky, who’s running toward the swings.

  Miss Alvarez finds a picnic table close by. She sits down and takes out her phone. Luke sticks to her like a sandbur. She looks at the screen and frowns, then sighs. I feel Gabby tense up next to me.

  “You girls don’t wander off,” Miss Alvarez says. “I have some phone calls to make.”

  Gabby and I walk over to the swings.

  “Where do you go to school?” I ask, pushing off with the toe of my tennis shoe.

  “I don’t,” she says. “At least not yet. My mom says she’ll get me enrolled as soon as we find a permanent place.” She tucks a long lock of hair behind her ear. “I miss my old school, though.”

  I gaze at the mountains standing so straight and white and solid far away. “Have you ever been up in those mountains?” I ask her, changing to a less sad subject.

  She looks up and follows my gaze. “No,” she says. “My dad always said one day we’d go up there, but we never did.”

  “That’s too bad,” I say.

  Gabby shrugs. “I don’t really care. They’re no big deal.”

  I can’t believe she thinks those mountains are no big deal. “Well, I’m going up there one day,” I say. “Just you watch.”

  This makes Gabby smile.

  Dylan jumps off his swing and runs over. “I have to go to the bathroom,” he says, hopping from one foot to the other. “Bad.”

  I sigh. Gabby points to a gray concrete building. “They’re over there.”

  I take Dylan’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  We trot over to the bathroom and there, tucked way back in a corner by a garbage can, is a little dog curled up on top of a duffel bag.

  “It’s Toto!” Dylan whispers with excitement.

  The dog lays his ears back and wags his stumpy tail. His brown eyes lock onto mine. I know him.

  My heart breaks into a big smile. “It’s Baby!” At the sound of his name, Baby wiggles all over.

  “That’s that woman’s dog, the one we’ve seen at the place where we eat, remember?”

  “Oh yeah,” Dylan says. “That man wouldn’t let her in because she had a dog.” He frowns. “It wasn’t fair, was it, Piper?”

  Before I can answer, Dylan jumps like a piece of popcorn. “I have to pee!” he says, and races into the bathroom.

  I turn back to Baby. “Hey,” I say, and squat down. “Hey, you.”

  Slowly, I hold my hand out for him to sniff like Grandpa Bill taught me to do. “Let him read your skin first before you pet a dog you don’t know,” he always said. “Your smell will tell him everything he needs to know.”

  The little dog must have liked what he read on my skin because he licks the tips of my fingers.

  I’ve always wanted a dog, but we never lived anywhere that allowed them.

  I reach out and touch the white patch on the top of his head. It looks like a snowflake.

  I feel something inside me I didn’t know was frozen, melt.

  His eyes are just like the color of chocolate. I swear, when he looks into my eyes, I think he knows me too.

  “What are you doing?” a gravelly voice asks.

  A woman stands behind me, one hand on her hip, the other resting on the big square head of a very large dog. Her hard eyes squint down at me.

  I pull my hand back and stand up. “Just saying hi to this little dog.” She’s really tall and the dog is really big. I don’t know which to be more worried about.

  The woman pushes past me and kneels down. “Hey, Baby,” she says in a sweet kind of voice I’d never in a million years ever expect to come out of her mouth. “I brought you some food.” She reaches into her coat and pulls out a plastic bag. The little dog whimpers and wags his tail so hard it’s just a blur.

  The woman folds the plastic back in such a way that it makes a bowl. She places the food on top of the duffel bag. I’ve never seen a dog eat so fast.

  She hands me an empty yogurt container and nods toward the bathroom. “Go fill this up with water for him.” Before I can point out that it’s a boys’ bathroom, she’s turned back to the dog.

  I rinse out the yogurt cup. The toilet flushes. Dylan skips out. I’d forgotten all about Dylan being in here.

  “You can’t be in here,” he says like he’s the king of the world. “This is a boys’ bathroom.”

  “I know that,” I say. “I’m getting water for that little dog out there.”

  “The dog!” he squeals with excitement. I grab the back of his shirt before he can bolt out the door. “Hey!” he yelps.

  “Listen, Dylan, there’s a woman out there with her dog and they’re both a little, well, scary.”

  His eyes widen. “Really?”

  “Really,” I say, “so I don’t want you coming out until I come get you, okay?”

  He frowns and sticks out his bottom lip.

  I start back out the door, then stop. “I mean it, Dylan.”

  For once, he listens to me.

  I set the cup of water down. The dog laps it up with his pink little tongue. The woman stands off to the side, smoking a cigarette. Her dog lies beside the duffel bag watching Baby drink.

  “A dog can go a lot longer without food than water,” the woman says through a cloud of smoke.

  I don’t know what to say to that, so instead I ask, “Where’s the old lady he’s always with?”

  The woman tosses her cigarette to the ground and stubs it out with the toe of her boot. “Got really sick the other night. Burning up with fever. I called an ambulance and they took her to the hospital.”

  I remember the last time I saw her. I remember the man who turned her away saying, “Jewel, you don’t sound too good.”

  “Jewel?” I say.

  The woman nods. She points to the dog. “And that’s Baby.” The dog wags his tail at the sound of his name.

  I don’t know why I do it but I say, “I’m Piper.”

  The woman cracks a smile. “Cool name. My name is Ree, and that”—she nods toward the big dog—“i
s Ajax.”

  We watch as Baby scratches at an old blue blanket on top of the duffel bag, then curls up with a sigh.

  “What about Baby?” I ask. “Who’ll take care of him?”

  Ree doesn’t ask what I mean, like most adults would. She tosses her long dreadlocks back. “We’ll all look after him,” she says. “Jewel will come back for him when she gets out of the hospital.”

  Gabby calls my name. She’s waving to me from the swings, motioning me to come back. Her mother looks like she’s wanting to leave.

  “I’ve got to go,” I say, more to Baby than to Ree.

  “I gotta go too,” Ree says. “Gotta fly my sign.”

  She scratches Baby under the chin. “You stay,” she says. “I’ll be back soon.”

  I stroke Baby’s head as I watch Ree stride across the park, her dreadlocks swinging back and forth across the pack on her back. Ajax trots along beside her, his tail held high, his hip bumping her leg. The farther away they get, the more they look like one being, one strange animal with four legs.

  17

  Baby Knows

  Baby remembers this girl

  from her soft smell of kindness

  and her eyes that hug him and stroke him.

  This girl makes Baby feel warm

  even though he is cold at night now,

  and alone.

  Baby knows by the way the girl holds him close

  and whispers in his ear

  that this girl needs him.

  Her hands that stroke his ears and scratch that

  special place

  under his chin

  tremble just the tiniest bit

  with worry.

  He feels sorrow beating in her heart.

  Baby knows humans carry too much.

  He does not understand why humans need

  so much.

  There is food. There is shelter. There is play!

  There is love.

  Baby knows the job of a dog

  is to teach their human

  what is important.

  The happiness

  of a full belly.

  The joy

  of playing, leaping,

  running with abandon

  with friends.

  The richness

  of a delicious smell.

  The comfort

  of warm sun on your belly.

  And the world complete

  and whole

  when there is