The Dog, Ray

by Linda Coggin

  I watch the cat get up and make eye contact. Then, before I can stop myself, I have this incredible urge to chase it down the street.

  “I’ve got you, Jessica Warner!” I shout as I take off after her. “I bet that’s wiped that silly grin off your face!”

  The cat runs across the road and I run after it. Too late I hear a whirring noise and a loud clunk. Then the sound of bottles smashing on the road. I didn’t see the milk truck. I dodge a parked car and continue after the cat, which by now has run straight up a tree. It sits there, hissing at me.

  “I’ve never liked you, Jessica Warner! You’re mean, spreading those rumors about me. You shouldn’t have said those things to Owen Taylor. I don’t have a life-size cardboard cutout of him in my bedroom. I hardly even like him, and now he thinks I’m some sort of freak. And you look totally stupid with your skirt rolled up. Hasn’t anyone ever told you to tuck the label in?”

  The cat turns tail and climbs higher up the tree.

  “Ha! You’ll be stuck up there until someone calls the fire department,” I shout.

  I stand under the tree and continue shouting at her until a man comes out of a nearby house and throws a bucket of water over me. It’s so mean I wouldn’t be surprised if he is Jessica Warner’s dad.

  “Stop that barking!” he shouts.

  But I don’t care. I shake myself violently, sending an arc of water into the air, which catches the morning sun and makes rainbow patterns all along the sidewalk. Then I get moving.

  I can hear the traffic louder now, but I still can’t find it. All the roads look the same around here and most of them seem to be cul-de-sacs. Out of desperation I take what I think will be a shortcut through someone’s yard. As soon as I round the shed all hell breaks loose.

  “Get out! Get out! This is my yard,” shouts a dog when he sees me. He is huge. He must be four times my size and has the most enormous fangs.

  I’m backing off now.

  “Look, I’m sorry, OK? I took a wrong turn.”

  He takes a giant leap at me. His neck and his jaws are absolutely massive, and there’s clearly no reasoning with him. He’s backed me up against the barrels and I’ve got nowhere to run. He lands inches away from my nose, saliva dripping from his teeth. I don’t know why he’s not tearing me to pieces until I see that he is attached to a chain.

  I see a hole in the broken-down brick wall at the end of the yard. I dodge the heap of scrap metal and dash through the stinging nettles. I’m through the hole now and I look around. I’m in someone else’s yard.

  Compared to the yard I’ve just been in, this one is like an oasis. I stand still and listen. I am listening for the sound of another dog. There are other dogs barking now in the neighborhood, but this house doesn’t seem to have one. What it does have are guinea pigs in a hutch!

  I love guinea pigs. I always wanted some when I lived at home, but Mom would never let me have them.

  “I’ll end up having to take care of them, Daisy, and I’ve got enough work as it is.”

  I wasn’t convinced by this. Mom wore a locket around her neck and she always fiddled with it when she was anxious or unsure. I didn’t think she was totally convinced about not wanting me to have guinea pigs because she was playing with her locket when she said it.

  I go over and have a look at them. There is an orange one and a tortoiseshell one, and they are wrinkling their little noses at me, which makes their whiskers twitch, and making adorable little snuffling noises. I lie down to get on their level. I love guinea pigs, but not so much that I wouldn’t eat one. I’m absolutely starving, and apart from looking fun to play with, they look pretty delicious.

  They scuttle back into their hutch. I can’t reach them because they have a run made of chicken wire and it has a lid on it.

  “Hey! Come back. I only want to talk,” I tell them.

  The dog from the other yard must have woken up the people who live here, because they are very quick to get to the window.

  “Hey!” a woman shouts. “Leave them alone! Shoo!” She turns away slightly to talk to someone else in the room. “Darling, there’s a fox in the yard trying to eat your guinea pigs!”

  A fox? This woman clearly needs glasses, but I’m not staying to tell her that. I run around the side of the house and back into the cul-de-sac, practically knocking over the boy with the newspapers, who was just getting off his bike.

  “Sorry!” I say as I take off up the street.

  After a few more wrong turns I hit a highway. By now it is full of trucks and cars. There are complicated signs telling you things you must not do. No stopping. No passing. No driving over 65 mph. I search for an exit sign. There it is. Just after the sign telling you to buckle up. Greenville. Next exit. I knew it!

  We spent a weekend at school doing orienteering and I was in charge of the map. I knew just how to follow the roads. I got an A for leading my team from Main Street in Greenville back to the playground by way of the bus station.

  The only trouble is — how to cross to the other side? Most of the vehicles don’t seem to be obeying the sign telling them to travel no faster than 65 mph. I wait by the side of the road for a gap in the traffic and shout at them.

  “Slow down! Can’t you read? No faster than 65 mph! Are you blind or what? I’m trying to cross the road here!”

  There is no point in looking left and right until it is safe. I would have looked like one of those bobbleheads people have in the back of their cars. As it is I am beginning to feel dizzy. So I just make a run for it. I run into the road, dodging cars left and right. I can hear the squeal of brakes. The sound of horns being blasted. I think I even hear the noise of bumper hitting bumper. But I just keep running and I am across, under the guardrail and into the fields on the other side. I am running toward Greenville and Mom and Dad. Running toward my cool bedroom with the bed that was a mattress on the floor and the SAVE THE PLANET posters and the pink mosquito net and the window overlooking the backyard.

  I keep running for the rest of the day, across fields and through woods. I keep off the roads and, apart from some people on horses in the distance, I don’t come across anyone. When night draws in, I make myself another bed in some long grass at the edge of a field and sleep a dreamless sleep.

  I wake up to a bright light. At first I think it’s morning. Then I see the light is coming from a truck, which is moving across the field toward me. It has three or four headlights attached to the roof as well as the ones in the front, and it lights up the whole field. I can hear the murmur of men talking. I shrink back into the undergrowth. The light picks up a couple of dogs sniffing the ground. They are huge and have an awful lot of face on them. I wonder what they are doing out here. I feel sure that whatever it is, it’s against the law. And I don’t intend to hang around and find out.

  I turn to sneak away, but the white tip of my tail is caught in the beam.

  “Fox!” cries one of the men. “Sic ’em, boys.”

  What’s with this fox stuff? I think. Can’t they see I’m just a dog?

  The dogs quicken their pace, barking from deep down inside their bellies. If I weren’t so scared I’d be impressed by the noise they are making. I think my own bark hasn’t really broken yet. It sounds a bit small and high-pitched. But I am terrified. Imagine being set upon by my own kind. Shouldn’t us dogs stick together?

  The headlights show only open fields with nowhere to hide, but I take off, the hounds close on my heels and the trundling truck not far behind. This is worse than that dream of being chased by Cyril’s mom. I’m fast, but I think those other dogs probably have stamina. Something Ms. Roberts always told me I didn’t have.

  I look around for a hole I can get into. Surely a real fox must have made a den somewhere? Or a badger? I’m not fussy. But there is nothing. In spite of the fact that I have been running all the previous day, my legs just keep going. I don’t even have to think about it. They just keep working while my head is busy thinking of something to do that will throw them o
ff my track.

  Suddenly, something rears up in front of me. I stop for a moment, wondering what it is. We both stare at each other in horror and disbelief. It is a young deer. She seems frozen to the spot, and it looks as if her big brown eyes are going to fill up with tears. She looks past my shoulder, sees the other dogs, and she’s off. Jumping and bounding across the field in the opposite direction. I start to run the other way, and the bloodhounds quickly change scents. With more barking, they take off after her.

  The men in the truck lose interest in me too when they see the deer. I think this is what they’ve been after all along. But I don’t stop running till I get to the outskirts of a wood. Then I flop down, my tongue hanging out and my whole body panting.

  I hope she gets away, that poor deer. I can’t bear to think of her being torn to pieces by those huge dogs. I don’t think she was expecting death when she lay down to sleep in that patch of field. I know, because I wasn’t either, and if that deer hadn’t been there it would have been me.

  It is late afternoon and I turn the corner onto Alexander Avenue. How many times have I come around that corner, swinging my bag after school or pedaling my bike or running breathless because I’m late for dinner? I can’t see our house because there is a huge truck parked out front. I stop to get my breath and lick my paw. I cut my pad on some stones as I went across the field and now that I’ve stopped running it begins to hurt.

  I limp along the sidewalk toward number twelve. There are two men carrying something out of the truck into our house. Mom and Dad must have bought a new sofa. Though I don’t think much of the color. Maybe they’ve lost their sense of style since my death. Never mind, it looks comfy enough, and I’ll enjoy curling up on those big soft cushions. But there is more. There are chairs and tables and toys! Heavens — they aren’t having another baby, are they? To replace me? How could they? Surely they are a bit old to have more kids?

  It is then that I see the sign. It is a big square sign stuck on a post in the yard. It says SOLD.

  I sit on the sidewalk and stare at the letters. However hard I try to rearrange them in my mind to say something different — like a message to me — I can’t. They’re gone. Mom and Dad are gone and haven’t left a single clue for me. No note. No phone number.

  I watch a woman coming out of the house and walk toward the truck.

  “Yes — that box is for the living room. I’ve put colored stickers on each box so you can tell. Yellow — living room; green is kitchen.”

  She sees me and stops.

  “Hello!” she says, bending down. “Are you friendly?”

  I lower my head and wag my tail.

  “I used to live here,” I tell her. “With Mom and Dad. But now they’re gone. Have they left you a note for me or a forwarding address, by any chance?”

  She strokes my head.

  “You’ve got no collar on. I wonder who you belong to.”

  “Mom and Dad,” I say.

  She stops stroking me and goes into the house. I think she’s coming back with a piece of paper with their new address on it, but instead she has one of those bone-shaped biscuits in her hand.

  “You poor thing. It doesn’t look as if anyone looks after you.”

  At that moment a small girl comes out of our house.

  “Mom — are we getting a new dog?”

  The woman shakes her head.

  “’Fraid not, darling. Moss wouldn’t like it, would he? Two dogs are one too many in this house. Now run up and find your bedroom. It’s the one with the window looking over the backyard.”

  “That’s my bedroom,” I say after I’ve eaten the biscuit. Mom always warned me about talking with my mouth full. “Is there still a mattress on the floor and a pink mosquito net?”

  But somehow I know there won’t be.

  “Now, you’d better move on, before Moss sees you. He’s a very jealous dog,” the woman says, and she goes to talk to the movers. Then she goes back into the house and shuts the door.

  I lie down with my head on my paws. I want to cry but I can’t. I see a lifetime stretch out in front of me, scavenging in trash barrels. What is going to happen to me? As hard as I try, there is nobody who understands me. Nobody who can comfort me and tell me it’ll be all right.

  All my hopes and disappointments and realizations of what I now am get stuck in the back of my throat.

  Out comes an extraordinary noise. I lie on the sidewalk and howl.

  It begins to get dark. The woman in my old house draws the curtains. Hundreds and thousands of stars are twinkling in the galaxy. I try to see Orion’s Belt. And it is there. Three bright stars in a row and then, surrounding the belt, four more bright stars that are supposed to be Orion’s body. Orion was a hunter in Greek mythology. I wish now I’d concentrated more in class. When Mr. Pearce was talking about constellations, Jake Harris was distracting me with his ruler.

  And then I see another star. It is the brightest star in the night sky. It is my star. Sirius. The Dog Star. Somehow, looking up at that bright light, I feel comforted. I imagine it is someone watching over me. And it fills me with hope.

  The movers have left. The lights in the house are turned off, and I know it is time to move on. But now I don’t know where to go. I decide to go down to the train station. It is a place I was never allowed to go alone. It was considered unsuitable and dangerous. But I am free now. I don’t belong to anyone, so I can do what I like. Besides, I’m curious. I want to know what it is about a place that makes it unsuitable.

  A small van is parked at the back of the parking lot, and someone is dishing out soup and bread rolls. There is a shuffling line of people. They don’t look dangerous. Just tired and hungry. Like me. I think I might have a chance of getting a roll. I am starving again. That little bone-shaped biscuit, although nice, has not filled me up.

  I creep slowly toward the van. Before I ran away from Cyril I never crept anywhere. I would trot — my head held high, my tail up. Now my head is down and my tail clamped firmly between my legs. There is a warm smell coming from the van. It smells a bit like Mom’s carrot and coriander soup. I lick my lips.

  “I recognize you!” says a voice. “You’re that spirit dog.”

  A rough hand strokes the top of my head and I look up. It is the old man from the park.

  “What’s happened to you?”

  I’m so pleased to see him I forget my manners and jump up.

  “I ran away. It was after what you said about spirit dogs and such, and I thought I’d try to find Mom and Dad and be their guide dog. My dad’s paralyzed, you know. I’m actually a girl. Daisy Fellows.”

  “People can be very careless with their animals, can’t they? But old Jack’ll make sure you’re all right. You look cold and hungry. Come and sit with us.”

  Well, yes, I think. It would be nice to go and sit with him, but it’s food and water I’m after. It’s all very well being patted, but my stomach’s rumbling and I’m going to dry up like a prune unless I get a drink.

  The old man shuffles over to some sleeping bags piled up in a disused doorway.

  “Pip! Wake up! We’ve got a visitor!”

  The tousled head of a boy, a little older than me, appears from the pile of sleeping bags. He has dark hair and a mouth that looks as if he is always smiling. He rubs his eyes, yawns, and stretches.

  “What time is it? Is it morning?”

  I like the look of him and go over and put my nose by him. You can tell most things you want to know about someone when you give them a sniff. He smells warm and kind and funny and sad. I don’t know why people bother with all that handshaking and small talk. Why don’t they just give each other a good sniff?

  “Where’d you find him?” The boy sits up.

  “Looking for something to eat by the soup wagon.”

  “He must be hungry. He can have my roll, and I’ve still got an apple core in my bag.” Pip rummages in his bag and gives me the piece of apple. Then he does the best thing in the world. He takes a s
mall plastic bowl and a bottle of water out of his bag and offers me a drink.

  “Hey! Have you seen his eyes? They’re different colors,” he says, watching me drink. “He’s a lovely boy, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not a boy, actually,” I tell him in between laps of the water. “I’m a girl.”

  “She’s not a boy. She’s a girl,” the old man says. “I remember her from when I was sleeping in some park or other. She had some sort of name that made me think of the weather. But I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.”

  Oh, please don’t remember, I think. I really don’t want to be stuck with Misty for the rest of my life.

  “Does she belong to anyone?” Pip asks.

  “Not by the looks of it. Not anymore. She’s got no collar. No name tag. She can be yours now, Pip. Everyone needs a companion sometimes. Especially you, right now.”

  The boy, Pip, ruffles my ears just how I like it, and I creep nearer his side. He has very brown eyes. But I feel torn. I feel a loyalty to Jack. After all, he was kind to me in the park, and gave me the idea about escaping, and now he’s giving me his roll to eat as well.

  I go back to Jack’s side.

  “I think you should look after Pip, old girl. He’s new to the streets and I’m an old hand at it. Go on, Pip — give her a name.”

  “Now, let me think. Weather . . .”

  Pip thinks for a while and then he begins to smile, and it lights up his face like the morning sun.

  “Ray! I’m going to call her Ray!”

  I spend my first night as the dog, Ray, as close to Pip as I can get. I don’t think anyone sleeps much. It is noisy. There is some shouting and some arguing.

  “Don’t take any notice of that, old girl,” says Jack, rolling up his trouser leg. “They’re always at each other. They drink so much they usually can’t remember what they’re arguing about. It always starts with the same thing, though. Who owns the sleeping bag?”