My Dog, My Hero

by Betsy Byars

  Buster

  I love Buster. He is the bravest and most remarkable dog in the world. If you’d asked me a year ago, I would have told you I didn’t like Buster. It’s not that Buster’s not cute. He’s plenty cute. He’s a big yellow Lab that lives next door. His eyes look up in a sad sort of way. So you’re wondering why I didn’t like such a cute dog? He ate my toe.

  I was cutting the grass in my front yard. I’m supposed to wear tennis shoes, but I had on my sandals. My foot slipped under the edge of the mower, and the blade cut off the tip of my toe. I couldn’t move. I always freeze like that when something terrible happens.

  I was standing there staring at my toe when out of nowhere came a yellow streak. Buster! He flew across the yard, grabbed my toe, and ran. That is why I did not like Buster.

  Last summer Buster did something to change that forever. It was a hot day and I was in my front yard pulling weeds. My baby sister, Mandy, was napping in her stroller beside me. When Mandy is in the yard, Buster keeps an eye on her stroller. Buster has always had a thing for babies. Every time a mother walks by pushing a baby stroller, Buster sits up and he doesn’t take his eyes off that stroller until it is out of sight.

  This day Buster was sitting on his porch watching Mandy and me. I had been pulling weeds for almost an hour and was getting tired. I decided to step inside and pour myself a glass of water.

  First I checked on Mandy. She was still asleep. I debated whether to drag her stroller up the front steps and inside the house while I got my drink. I decided against it. I didn’t want to wake her up and listen to her yell for Mama, who had run to the store.

  I would only be inside a minute. Nothing could happen in that short time.

  Buster had been sitting on his porch. Now he was standing. He watched me like he knew what I was going to do. He was giving me a look—like I shouldn’t leave Mandy alone.

  “You’re not my mother,” I said in an ugly voice.

  Buster wagged his tail.

  I put my hands on my hips. “Quit staring! I’m not mowing today. No more toes for you.”

  I yanked open the door. “Watch Mandy while I’m gone,” I said.

  I don’t know why I said that. Buster didn’t understand me. And even if he did, what was he going to do? He’s overweight. And those skinny legs weren’t going to carry him anywhere, except to grab defenseless toes.

  Buster walked to the edge of the porch, like he understood me or something.

  I went inside.

  It’s hard to know what happened next. The garbage man said he lost control, claimed his brakes didn’t work right. All I know is that I heard screeching tires.

  I ran to the window. The garbage truck was barreling down our street, completely out of control. It hit a parked car, then swerved toward a telephone pole across the street. The truck grazed the telephone pole. The wheels jerked left, and the truck headed straight for our yard.

  I froze. I wanted to run out and grab Mandy, but my legs wouldn’t move. I stood there like a statue. A sick feeling washed over me. The truck was seconds away. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a streak of yellow.

  Buster.

  He dashed across our yard, and jammed his large head into Mandy’s stroller. His skinny legs never quit moving. His head hit the stroller and he pushed it into the next yard. The garbage truck bumped over the curb, barely missing Buster, and crashed into our porch.

  All of a sudden I could move. I gasped a breath of air and ran outside. The garbage man jumped out of his truck. He said something—I don’t remember what it was. I grabbed Mandy out of her stroller and hugged her tight. She yawned. She had slept through the whole thing.

  I started crying. I don’t cry much. I don’t know why I did then. I just know that I couldn’t have stopped even if I had wanted to.

  In the middle of hugging Mandy, I felt hot breath on my neck. Buster. I whirled around and grabbed him too. I don’t think I have ever hugged anyone harder. I hugged him and scratched him. I think I even kissed him.

  Buster licked my face. His tail wagged.

  At that moment, Mom pulled into the driveway. She got out of the car and stared at the truck. Then she dropped her groceries and ran for Mandy and me. It was Mom and Mandy and Buster and me, all rolling around on the ground hugging and kissing each other.

  My dad went out that night and bought Buster a steak.

  After they towed the garbage truck out of our yard, I had lots of yard work to do. Buster came over and sat beside me while I worked.

  He comes over all the time now. I tell him what I’m doing. He listens. Mandy loves him too, even though she doesn’t know he saved her life. I kept the newspaper article for her.

  My toe used to remind me how much I didn’t like Buster. Now it reminds me how close we are.

  Buster risked his own life to save Mandy. He is my hero … and Mandy’s hero … and our whole family’s hero.

  Blue

  “Speak, Blue, speak!” I bet I said that a thousand times when I first got the dog. But Blue would not bark.

  He never barked. I mean, never.

  If Blue wanted a thing, he’d find some other way to let you know.

  Like, if he wanted to come inside the house, he would scratch at the door. There were scratch marks in the wood, but I never cared. Looked to me like it’s a compliment to a house that the dog wants to come in and be with everybody.

  Blue got his name because his mom was a full-blooded blue tick hound. We never figured out who the father was, but Blue had the look of his mom.

  Anyway, to get to the story, that morning—this was September, a Friday—I went into the woods. I took two things with me—my dog and my chain saw.

  What I was going to do was cut down some tree branches that Mama said were cutting off her view of the lake.

  I spent about two hours sawing a limb here, a limb there. I was standing at the edge of the lake, squinting up at the house—it was way up on the hill—and I decided there was just one more tree in the way of Mama’s view of the lake.

  I whistled for Blue to let him know I was about ready to head for home. I never knew exactly where Blue was in the woods, because he didn’t bay or bark the way most hounds do. I figured he got his silence from his daddy.

  Anyway, in about two minutes Blue showed up. He had dirt on his nose and I figured he’d been digging.

  I walked up the hill a little ways to the offending tree. I cranked up my chain saw, raised it, whacked the limb.

  I had in mind letting the chain saw swing down away from my leg. I’d done it a hundred times like that. But I don’t know what went wrong this time—maybe I was tired. Anyway, it happened so fast I was helpless. The saw came down right on my leg and cut all the way into the bone.

  I dropped to the ground. Blood was pumping out of my leg. I never saw so much blood. I must have cut an artery. I grabbed my leg and held it tight, and the blood stopped pumping full-tilt, but blood was still squeezing out between my fingers, and when I let go of the leg the least little bit to get a better hold, blood pumped some more.

  I don’t mind admitting I was scared. I was over half a mile from home. I could call for help, but I had screamed when the chain saw hit me and Mama hadn’t heard that. I could start crawling, but that looked like a long half-mile, and it was all uphill, and not flat land either—boulders and gullies, and me having to use both hands to stop the bleeding.

  Well, I looked up and there was Blue. I said, “Blue, get Mama.”

  He looked at me like he didn’t understand. I said it again. “Blue, get Mama.”

  He went a few steps up the hill, but he didn’t look happy about it. The dog knew I was in trouble and he didn’t want to leave.

  I said it again, hard this time. “Blue, get Mama!”

  He turned and started for the house. He never looked back, and I lost sight of him in the trees.

  I waited. I didn’t have a lot of hope, because, the way I figured it, Blue would go to the door, scratch, be let in,
and that would be the end of it. Mama wouldn’t think anything was wrong.

  As I lay there, I felt myself getting weaker. I felt like I was about to faint, and I knew if I fainted that would be the end of me.

  And then, as I lay there—dying, I thought—I heard something I never thought to hear in my lifetime: Blue barking. It sounded far, far away—up at the house—and it was the sweetest sound I ever heard in my life.

  When Mama heard Blue barking, she went straight to the phone and called 911. She said, “I don’t know exactly what the trouble is, but my husband went out with the chain saw and only the dog came back and he’s barking his head off.”

  The rescue squad came—got there in less than ten minutes—and Blue showed them the way to where I lay. They tied up my leg and carried me up the hill on a stretcher.

  So the way I figure it is this: If a hero is somebody that saves a person’s life, then Blue is a hero.

  Thinking back on it, I’m glad he wasn’t a barker. I’m glad he saved his barking for when it was really needed. I wouldn’t be standing here today if he hadn’t.

  Thank you.

  Little Bit

  It’s a miracle that I’m able to be here tonight. I’ll be ninety-three years old tomorrow and my knees are tight with arthritis. It hurts to sit in this wheelchair but I’ll do it for the one who saved my life. It’s all because of one cold wet nose, a trembling paw, a little ball of fur named Little Bit.

  I came to Heavenly Manor in an ambulance. My home was taken away from me. “Too old” is what my daughter said. “Too old” is what everyone said. Every time someone said “too old” I gave up a little bit. I stopped crocheting the baby blankets that I sold at the Mountain Craft Store. I stopped taking care of my azaleas out in the backyard. And finally I just stopped.

  “There’s plenty to do here at Heavenly Manor,” the nurse Jane would say. But all I did was watch TV. I tried to remember my house, my backyard with the azaleas, but slowly the memories began to fade.

  “You need to eat, Miss Ophelia.” “It’s a pretty day outside.” “You need to drink some water now.” But I didn’t want to eat or drink or look at the pretty day outside.

  I don’t know how long I sat, probably close to two months. Someone fed me and wheeled me in front of the TV, but there seemed to be nothing to live for.

  One Wednesday, as I sat and looked at The Price Is Right, I felt something cold on my hand, cold and wet. I didn’t look. “Go on,” I said. “Go on like everyone else.” I pulled back my hand, but all week I kept thinking of the memory of that cold wet nose and I realized that cold nose was the first time anyone or anything had touched me in a long time.

  The next Wednesday they wheeled me out to the Happy Room again, and I sat watching The Price Is Right, and I felt it again, that cold wet nose pushing on my hand. “Shoo, you,” I said. “I don’t have anything for you.”

  The nose didn’t leave, and this time I could feel the breath blowing on my hand.

  The next Wednesday I wheeled myself out early and sat close to the door. When The Price Is Right came on I watched the door. Wheel of Fortune started. The dog wasn’t coming, I thought, and just when I had decided to give up I felt it again—a cold wet nose. This time I didn’t move my hand, and felt the coldness and wetness of the nose. Then the nose pushed under my hand and I felt a soft furry head.

  Warmth on my hand—breath and life. All of a sudden I remembered how I had felt in my backyard digging in the dirt, planting my flowers.

  The next day I got dressed.

  I look forward to Wednesdays now, when Little Bit comes to visit. The girl from the Pet Mobile is friendly and reminds me of my youngest grandchild, Sarah.

  When Jane saw the sweater that I had crocheted for Little Bit she asked me to make one for her dog, Pokey. I think I’m back in business.

  Every Wednesday, Little Bit heads for me first. She’s a small dog, soft brown hair, sleek and shiny, with one white paw. Cold wet nose, soft brown head. Warm body.

  Some of the dogs that they bring do tricks or run around from person to person, but Little Bit just sits. She rests her head on my lap and looks up at me with big brown eyes.

  I think she needs a warmer sweater for winter. Blue would be pretty with her brown fur. I’ll ride the shuttle bus to the mall tomorrow to buy some yarn.

  I read one time in a book about survival in the arctic wilderness, the rule of three: You can go three minutes without air. You can go three hours without shelter. You can go three days without water. Three weeks without food. Three months without love.

  Little Bit may not have saved me with food or shelter, but sure as I live and breathe Little Bit saved me with love.

  She’s my hero.

  Dopey

  There were seven pups. They’d been named Grumpy, Happy, Sneezy, Dopey, Doc, Bashful, and Sleepy, after the seven dwarfs. And, wouldn’t you know it, the only one that hadn’t been sold was Dopey.

  We brought Dopey home and named him Harvey, but we couldn’t quit calling him Dopey, because that’s what he was.

  The dog would bark at anything that was out of place. If I dropped a book on the living-room floor, Dopey would bark at it. To shut him up, I’d have to say, “Dopey, it’s just a book,” and take it over there and show him.

  Here are just a few of the things I said to Dopey: “Dopey, it’s just a bedroom slipper.” “Dopey, it’s just a paper bag.” One time out in the yard I even had to say, “Dopey, it’s just a leaf.”

  We kept hoping he’d grow out of it, but so far he hadn’t.

  On the day this story happened, Dopey and I were in the backseat of the car. My mom pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall and went in Hair Today to get a haircut. She said she would only be about fifteen minutes, but I’d brought a book along. Dopey and I sat out in the car.

  I was reading, and Dopey was looking for something suspicious to bark at.

  It was hot, but we had the windows rolled down, and there was a breeze.

  We’d been there about five minutes when Dopey stuck his head out the window and started barking.

  I looked. I said, “It’s just a car, Dopey.”

  Dopey kept barking.

  “It is just a car!”

  Dopey kept barking.

  “Oh, all right.”

  I picked Dopey up—he fit nicely right under my arm—and carried him over to the car.

  “See, it’s just a—”

  And I never got to finish the sentence.

  On the backseat of that car was a baby. In all this heat—there was a baby, and it looked like it was dead.

  I knocked on the window to get its attention. It didn’t move.

  I tried to open the door.

  It was locked.

  I ran around to the other door.

  It was locked.

  I ran in Hair Today.

  I yelled, “There’s a baby on the backseat of a car and I think it’s dead.”

  Well, Hair Today emptied so fast, it was like those cattle stampedes you see on TV. I had to jump out of the way to keep from getting trampled.

  My mom led the way to the car—she figured out which one it was because it was the only one close to ours.

  “Somebody get me a brick,” one lady yelled, rattling the doors and running around the car.

  One lady ran back in Hair Today to call 911, but my mom wasn’t going to wait for any rescue squad or any brick.

  My mom threw open the trunk of our car, grabbed the tire iron, ran to the front window, pulled back like she was getting ready to hit a home run, and knocked out the window.

  Well, the baby was not dead, but the man from 911 said that if my mom hadn’t acted when she did the baby would have been. “Another two or three minutes in that heat would have done it.”

  We waited until the mom came out, and you wouldn’t believe what she’d been doing all this time. She’d been playing video poker! She said she’d just meant to play one game, but she got so wrapped up in it, she forgot all abou
t the baby.

  My mother gave her a long talking to about taking better care of her baby.

  “Why, if my dog hadn’t barked and if my son hadn’t gone to see what the trouble was, you wouldn’t even have a baby!”

  So that was how Dopey became a hero. Some people might think Dopey was just barking for the pleasure of it, but I don’t believe that. I believe Dopey knew there was a baby in that car and the baby was in real trouble.

  If Dopey does become Hero, if he does get a medal, and I put it beside his bed, he’ll probably bark at it, and I’ll say, “Dopey, it’s just a medal.”

  Wait a minute! Just a medal! What am I saying? “Dopey, it’s the My Hero medal!” That’s what I’ll say. That’s what I hope I get to say.

  Henry Holt and Company, LLC

  Publishers since 1866

  175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

  www.HenryHoltKids.com

  Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC. Text copyright © 2000 by Betsy Byars, Betsy Duffey, and Laurie Myers Illustrations copyright © 2000 by Loren Long. All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-6327-1 / ISBN-10: 0-8050-6327-7

  First Edition—2000

  eISBN 9781466867055

  First eBook edition: February 2014