“Don’t worry, Mr. Thomas,” repeated Raymond, staring at the three dogs through his hard, blue eyes. “It’s natural for dogs to be afraid of strangers.”
Mr. Thomas nodded, though Mutt heard him say under his breath that this wasn’t always true; the dogs hadn’t reacted to any other human like this.
“What are their names?” Raymond asked in a quiet voice.
It hadn’t been long since Mutt had heard the little girl Lisa ask the same question. But coming from Raymond, the words became ominous.
“That big guy is called Chief,” said Mr. Thomas with fondness in his voice. “He’s a strong fellow. And that little one, with the mark on her eye, she’s Luna. You should see her dance.”
Without comment, Raymond turned to the dogs and said, “C’mon, Chief and Luna, say hello to Raymond.”
He had reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of dog biscuits. None of the dogs had ever had treats like that before, and the smell was irresistible. The puppies and their mother ran over to Raymond, barking with excitement. Mutt couldn’t help it, even as she told herself to keep her distance from this stranger.
Holding his hand out of reach, Raymond said, “Sit.”
The dogs ignored him, staring up at the hand holding the treats.
His voice got even quieter.
“Sit,” he whispered.
Mr. Thomas shook his head. “I don’t think that’s going to work with this group,” he said.
Raymond turned to stare at him with a disdainful look that silenced the farmer.
Mutt felt uneasy, but she obeyed the stranger’s command. The puppies did too. One by one they sat. One by one Raymond gave them a treat.
Mutt chewed and swallowed with reluctant pleasure. She couldn’t resist this man’s offerings, but she still didn’t like him.
The puppies began barking for another treat.
This time, when Raymond said, “Sit,” they immediately obeyed. Mutt tried to walk away but couldn’t. The smell of the biscuits was too powerful. Growling, she returned to Raymond and sat next to her puppies, waiting for her turn.
But this time he didn’t deliver the biscuits to their mouths. He tossed them into the cage on the wagon.
The puppies hesitated.
“Are we supposed to sit or go for them?” Luna asked her mother.
Before Mutt could answer, Raymond did. “Go on,” he said. “Get ’em.”
As the puppies scrambled into the cage, Mutt was overcome by fear and anger. She began to run after them, to pull them to safety. But before she reached them, Raymond slammed the door shut.
“Sorry, big Mama,” he said in a flat tone. “I don’t want you.”
Mutt ran up to the cage and began to bark. Luna and Chief yelped back as they pressed their faces against the wire.
Without saying a word, Raymond grabbed the skin on the back of Mutt’s neck and flipped her onto the ground.
“Stay,” he commanded. Mutt lay there, panting in terror.
Mr. Thomas looked shocked. “Hey there, is that necessary?” he asked.
Raymond put his hand on the latch, securing the cage.
“She isn’t hurt, just startled,” he said. “Obviously no one has trained her.” Then he added calmly, “I’m happy to leave the puppies here.”
Mutt looked at Mr. Thomas, hoping he would summon the courage to reclaim the pups. But she realized immediately that Raymond was a bully who used fear as a weapon.
“Go on,” Mr. Thomas said, shaking his head sadly. “Take the puppies. You make sure they find a good home like you said, understand?”
“I understand,” Raymond said in an even tone. “It’s hard to say good-bye.”
Mutt’s instincts kicked in. She ran up to Raymond and began to bark furiously. But instead of leaping on him, the way she pounced on the fisher cat, she stood still, trapped by a feeling of helplessness. Later, she would ask herself over and over why she didn’t attack him. But she had no answer. This man had some deep power she didn’t comprehend.
She saw that Mr. Thomas shared her sense of helplessness. He turned his back while Raymond rolled the wagon toward his truck, parked out by the road.
As the truck disappeared from view, Mutt heard the sounds of Luna and Chief calling out to her, and then they grew fainter and fainter, until the air was still. She couldn’t stop shaking as Mr. Thomas knelt beside her, stroking her neck.
The farmer pulled himself to his feet and began to walk back to the house. His shoulders were more stooped than usual.
“C’mon, Mutt,” he said. “It’s just you and me and Butch now.”
chapter eleven
A TERRIBLE JOURNEY
Luna howled in fury as Raymond loaded the cage holding her and Chief onto the back of the truck. Through her dread and anger she saw Raymond studying them without emotion, unimpressed by the noise they made.
She stared directly at him, her shyness overcome by her fierce desire to break free and run back to Mutt.
The man stared right back, and spoke with chilling authority. “Quiet,” he said. “Quiet. You’ll see your mother soon. We’re just going for a ride.” Then he climbed into the cab of the truck and turned on the engine.
Luna quieted from howls to whimpers, and as the truck began to move, she whispered to Chief, “Do you think he was telling the truth? About seeing our mother soon?”
Chief hesitated only a second, but to Luna it seemed like it took him forever to answer.
“Why would he bother to lie to us?” he replied. “He doesn’t care about us.”
Luna was willing to believe him. Chief’s words were easier to accept than the alternative, that they would never see their mother again.
As the truck bumped along, Luna lay next to her brother on the hard floor of the cage. Through the wire mesh she could see the sky, changing colors as day melted into night. Despite the terrifying, jarring events of the day, and the uncertainty ahead, she curled up next to Chief and fell asleep. She was very tired.
It was dark when she and Chief were jolted awake. The truck had turned onto a rocky road.
“Whoa,” called out Luna, after a big bump sent her flying to the top of the cage. The puppies were flopping all over each other, the way they did when they were wrestling. Only this wasn’t fun.
They were too tired and scared to bark—until the truck stopped.
Disoriented, Luna and her brother opened their mouths and yapped loudly. Somehow Luna thought that Mutt might hear them.
A door slammed, and then came that now-familiar voice, barely audible, drowning her hopes like a dreary drizzle of rain.
“Quiet,” Raymond grunted. “You’ll get the whole place in an uproar.”
He dragged the cage to the edge of the truck and yanked it onto the same wagon he had brought with him to Mr. Thomas’s farm.
The puppies couldn’t see that well in the dark, but they could smell. Luna’s nose filled with a terrible stench.
This insult to her senses was quickly overwhelmed by something much worse.
“Ouch!” cried Luna as she felt a sting. “What’s that?”
“Oh, no!” cried Chief. “Ouch!”
A swarm of fleas had descended. But Luna didn’t know that this was what was happening to them. She didn’t realize that back on their farm, Penny and her chicks had protected the dogs from attacks like this. When the birds were clucking and chirping and running around, they were also eating little pests like the ones that were nipping at the puppies right now.
“Stop that noise,” Raymond said, and he sprayed them with something from a can.
Then he walked away from them, and Luna heard a door open.
“Welcome to your new home,” said Raymond, with a voice so cold that she and her brother both shivered. He wheeled them inside, into utter darkness.
chapte
r twelve
PUPPY PARADISE
Luna felt a big thump as Raymond dropped them on the ground. He walked away without a word, leaving them on the other side of the door, trapped inside the cage.
Mutt had taught them early to keep the area where they slept nice and clean. That was impossible now. They couldn’t hold their pee and poop forever.
“This is humiliating,” whispered Luna, unable to hold it in any longer.
“More like disgusting,” grumbled Chief.
Then he reassured his sister, as if he’d remembered he had to be strong.
“C’mon, Luna,” he said, “let’s make the best of this for now. We’ll figure it out in the morning.” He drew an imaginary line across the middle of the cage with his paw. His sister couldn’t see it, but she stayed close enough to Chief to get what he was doing.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll sleep on this side of the line. Everything else happens on the other side.”
Before she could reply, a thin, snarly voice piped up in the dark.
“Okay, Luna,” it said, making fun of Chief. “Get your good-night kiss over here; get ready for a big bowl of food over there. Take a refreshing dip in the lake over there too!”
A chorus of howls joined in.
“Oh yes, dear, welcome to Puppy Paradise, everything you could dream of!” someone shouted out.
The words may have been teasing, but the voices were grim.
Luna huddled against her brother.
“Chief, who’s out there?” she whispered.
The unseen voices screamed back. “Chief! What is that?” they mocked.
“Welcome to your new home!” someone shouted.
Luna felt crushed by the waves of spite. Where had Raymond brought them? And why?
She and Chief crouched down as though they believed they could make themselves so small, their tormentors wouldn’t know they were there. Even though it was so dark, no one could see anyway.
Then Luna thought of something that made her feel as though the darkness wouldn’t swallow her.
She heard Mutt’s voice inside her head.
“You will find your talent,” Mutt had promised. “You are more like me than you know.” Luna couldn’t explain it, but she felt more positive, just remembering.
“Let’s go to sleep,” she said to her brother, not bothering to lower her voice. “We’ll make some plans in the morning.”
Her words set off another round of hoots from the unseen crowd.
“Good idea, dear!” one of the strangers yelled. “Get some sleep so you’ll be rested for the exciting things you’ll be doing tomorrow. Good idea!”
“Did you hear that?” asked Chief, as if the noise weren’t deafening.
Luna was so exhausted she had already half drifted into sleep, on the clean side of the cage. She rearranged herself to allow Chief to curl up next to her, just as they did at home. His warm body was comforting. She fell asleep thinking about the farm.
That peaceful illusion lasted until morning. They were definitely not at home, but in a dank, dark barn, where light barely filtered in through the large cracks in the walls. Their cage was one of dozens, haphazardly placed on the ground; some perched precariously on hay bales.
Luna felt relief and pity when she saw who had been unnerving them so much the night before. The other cages were occupied by dogs, most of them small, all of them skinny and matted with filth. In the dim light of morning they lost their ferocity and lay limp and lifeless, as though the spirit had been drained out of them.
A gray mass of dirty fur lying in a nearby cage began to move.
A pair of eyes blinked and a voice emerged.
“Sorry about last night,” it said. “The fellows who have been here a long time are so beaten down, they get their kicks by banging on the newcomers.”
When Luna didn’t respond, the gray fur added: “That’s you.”
The voice wasn’t unfriendly, so Luna took a chance.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
Gray Fur laughed in response, a bitter laugh.
“What’s my name?” he repeated, as though Luna were speaking a foreign language. “What’s my name? Good question. It’s been so long since anyone called me by my name that I can barely remember. Here it’s usually Scumdog, Filthymutt, Loser.”
Chief stirred in his sleep.
Luna whispered, “But what’s your actual name?”
She remembered how important she had felt when Gilbert called her Luna for the first time. Just a few months had passed, but it seemed very long ago.
Gray Fur slowly pulled himself to sit, stirring up a cloud of dust. Now that Luna’s eyes had grown accustomed to the poor lighting, she could see that Gray Fur was a mess, barely recognizable as a dog.
“Charlie,” he said. “My name was Charlie.”
A voice interrupted him. “SHUT UP!” it shouted. “WE’RE TRYING TO SLEEP.”
Charlie growled. “Shut up yourself,” he snapped. “All anyone does here is sleep.”
Chief muttered, “How lazy can you get?”
“Don’t be too hard on them,” Charlie said. “Some of us have been here for months, waiting to get out. Then newbies like you come in and hurt our chances. It’s hard not to become bitter.”
Neither Chief nor Luna knew how to respond. Luna felt sympathy for Charlie and the other dogs. But she didn’t want to stay in this place one second longer than she had to.
Her nostrils flared. “How do you stand the stench?” she asked.
Charlie seemed perplexed. “What stench?”
“What stench?” Chief shuddered. “Aren’t you breathing?”
“That’s about all I do,” said Charlie. “You learn not to smell or think, or you’ll go crazy.”
Luna asked, “But why are we here? Why are you here?”
Charlie pressed his face against the wires of his cage.
“We’re here because we’re adorable puppies for sale,” he said in a mocking tone. “Here at Puppy Paradise.”
Luna looked around. She saw cages full of sad-sack dogs. Some had tangled fur like Charlie’s. They were in the best shape. Others had ugly patches of red skin and runny eyes. All of them were bony, with hollowed-out chests and concave stomachs.
Who would want them? she thought to herself.
Charlie read her mind. “You’re probably thinking, Who would want them?” he said. “Good question. That’s why we’re still here—for now.”
Luna was confused.
Charlie explained. “Raymond specializes in selling puppies that aren’t purebreds but are well behaved,” he said. “We’re the ones that won’t bow down to him.”
Chief’s head drooped. He seemed even wearier all of a sudden. “What does he want?” he growled.
Charlie replied, “Total obedience.”
“What happens if you’re well behaved?” Luna asked.
Charlie corrected her. “If Raymond thinks you’re well behaved.”
Luna blinked.
Charlie answered her question. “You get to go to the other barn, the one people see on the brochure. You get cleaned up and are expected to start mating, to produce puppies for Raymond to sell. By the time he takes you over there, you’re broken. You’ll do anything Raymond wants.”
Chief’s eyes widened. “What happens if you don’t become totally obedient?” he asked.
Charlie hesitated.
“Sometimes dogs just disappear,” he said. “Maybe they get to go home. But there have been rumors . . .”
“Rumors of what?” Chief had shaken off his drowsiness and was alert.
Charlie lowered his head. “I hate to say,” he replied.
“Say it,” commanded Chief, who was so accustomed to being the big brother that he acted as if everyone would obey him.
Charlie lowered his voice. “I don’t know all the awful truth of this place,” he said. “But I’ve heard that sometimes dogs just get dumped by the side of the road.”
His voice became ominous. “Or worse.”
Just then the barn door opened. All the dogs, including Charlie, fell silent.
chapter thirteen
HARSH LESSONS
Raymond walked in, accompanied by a handsome Rottweiler, a powerful-looking dog with an arrogant look on his face.
“That dog looks like Raymond’s twin,” Luna whispered.
“Don’t insult the dog,” Chief whispered back.
Luna looked gratefully at Chief. “I’m glad you haven’t lost your sense of humor,” she said.
“Shhh,” warned Charlie.
Luna and Chief watched in silence as dog and man began to walk by the cages, opening each one as they passed it. None of the imprisoned dogs moved a muscle, even though they had been cramped inside for hours.
Luna sniffed the air. The smell of food had pierced the stink that blanketed the barn. She noticed that Raymond was carrying a large bag.
We’re going to be fed, she thought with relief.
She resisted the urge to bark eagerly, the way she and her siblings used to greet Gilbert and then Mr. Thomas when they brought them dinner. It took all of her willpower not to press herself against the cage, trying to get closer to the reassuring smell.
She saw Chief look at her, a warning in his eye. Luna lowered her head, to let him know she understood that there was a rule to be obeyed, even though she didn’t quite know what the rule was or why it existed.
The silence was broken by an outburst of barking, accompanied by a jarring human laugh.
Cautiously Luna peered toward the noise.
One of those poor, pathetic creatures—she could barely think of them as dogs—couldn’t help himself. His hunger had overcome his willpower and his fear. He had jumped out of the cage and run over to the bag of food Raymond was carrying.
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