In the first cage on my left, a German shepherd was lying on his pillow in the back corner. He just blinked at us sadly, like he was too used to disappointment to have any hope anymore. It made my chest hurt looking at his mournful face.
“Maybe we should take him,” I said, tugging on my dad’s sleeve.
“Miss Hameed says he’s quite old,” Dad said sympathetically. “He wouldn’t be able to play with you very much. But we’ll keep him in mind — don’t set your heart on the first dog you see, honey.”
Another cage held a rotund pit bull mix, who just stood at the door panting at us with her long pink tongue hanging out.
“Aww, she looks like she’s smiling,” I said, smiling back at her. She wagged her tail at me.
“Her owners gave her up because she wasn’t aggressive enough,” Miss Hameed said. “Can you imagine? Poor girl. She’s a big teddy bear, but nobody wants her because she looks like a pit bull, and they have a terrible reputation.”
“I want her!” I said.
Dad laughed. “We can’t take all of them, Michelle.”
“She’s on a very strict diet right now,” Miss Hameed said. She started telling my parents about the diet, but I stopped listening because I saw the dog in the next cage.
He was up on his hind legs with his front paws hooked on the wire mesh. His squashy, floppy face was pressed against the front of the cage like he was trying desperately to see us. When he spotted me, his whole butt started wagging so hard he knocked himself to all fours, and then he started bouncing his front paws up and down. He kept making these sweet whimper-yelp noises like, Let me out! Please save me! I want to love you SO MUCH!
“Oh, wow,” I said, crouching so our eyes were level with each other. “Hello.”
“Ooooorrrrrrrooo,” he whimpered, squirming happily.
“That’s a boxer,” Deandre said from behind me.
“I know,” I said, although I’d only been guessing. He was a warm brown color all over except for a swathe of white down his chest and a little stripe of white between his eyes. He had long, slender legs and a sturdy solid body with really short fur. His ears were floppy and his nose was a bit squashed and he had the most enormous sweet brown eyes. There were these adorable wrinkles on his forehead, as if he was tremendously worried that I wouldn’t like him.
He wasn’t small and fluffy like Rosie’s dog. He was more like ten times the size of her poodle puppy, Buttons. But his whole face radiated how much he wanted to be loved. I was good at loving things. I was sure I could make him happy.
Behind him in the cage was a strange mess. Bits of white fluff were scattered from one wall to the other next to the remains of disemboweled toys. His dog bed looked like it had been nibbled around the edges. His metal water bowl was upside down in a puddle in the middle of the floor.
Of course, I didn’t recognize the warning signs at the time. I didn’t even think about them until later. All I noticed right then were the dog’s big, hopeful brown eyes.
“He’s pretty cool,” Deandre said. “I mean … that’d be OK with me. If you like him.”
The boxer pressed his face against the mesh again, gazing out at me. Please please please please PLEASE love me, said his eyes.
“I don’t just like him,” I said. “I love him.”
The dog’s butt started wagging frantically again, as if he’d understood me. I knew my parents would want me to look at all the other dogs in the shelter before I made up my mind. But it wouldn’t make any difference.
I’d found my dog.
In addition to the New York Times- and USA Today-bestselling Wings of Fire series, Tui T. Sutherland is the author of several books for young readers, including the Menagerie trilogy, the Pet Trouble series, and three books in the bestselling Seekers series (as part of the Erin Hunter team). In 2009, she was a two-day champion on Jeopardy! She lives in Massachusetts with her wonderful husband, two adorable sons, and one very patient dog. To learn more about Tui’s books, visit her online at www.tuibooks.com.
Copyright © 2010 by Tui T. Sutherland
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.
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First printing, March 2010
Cover photo by Michael Frost
Cover design by Yaffa Jaskoll
e-ISBN 978-0-545-35694-7
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