Storm Dog

by L. M. Elliott

  Nature’s beauty is not always so obvious, of course. Take that deceptively dull-looking, gray catbird. Nothing eye-catching about him. He even lets out a pretty appalling caterwaul when he feels threatened and wants to warn off creatures he doesn’t like the looks of. But when he sings—he’s sheer poetry. The bird world’s star jazz vocalist! You’d completely miss his improvisational magic—his lovely ever-changing medley of melodies—if all you thought about was his appearance.

  I don’t know why my moods swing so wide so fast sometimes, but that pretty blissful revelation switched abruptly to fill me with frustration. Wasn’t I like that catbird? I had thoughts worth hearing. I had creativity aching to sing out. If people took a second to not just look but to listen, they’d recognize that.

  Back at my house, my own sister had basically just called me a dog. How could people who should love me make me feel so awful?

  Each thought hit me like a gut-punch. I felt sick. Then I got mad, swelling up with fury. I’ll show them. I’ll show them all, I thought.

  As my thoughts whirled around like a tornado, growing wilder by the second, the scent of the flowers and the creek deepened the way they do when shadows spill quickly across the land. I looked up. The tree leaves were contorting in a sudden wind. Cold air slashed my face.

  I turned around. A tsunami-big squall line surged toward me from the mountains. In the distance, heavy curtains of angry rain were pounding the earth and sweeping my way fast. How in the world did that tempest blow up so fast? It was like it had been conjured. I raced for the animal shelter. By the time I reached the back door, I had to really fight to open it against the winds.

  Inside, Marcus was finishing up adoption paperwork for a family. I couldn’t believe it. They were taking that bad-boy dog, Spike.

  “Why not Midnight?” I whispered.

  Marcus shook his head. “They thought Spike was more fun.”

  As the family drove away, the rain hit, pelting and ricocheting off the roof and pavement. Gales battered the windows. And it’s the strangest thing—I swear I heard chimes ringing, just like those hanging on Sergeant Josie’s porch. I looked out the windows, figuring I’d see a bunch jangling in the wind. I saw nothing but storm water gushing out over the gutters like a thunderous waterfall.

  “Hear that, Marcus?”

  “Yeah, some storm.” He nodded.

  “No, those chimes.”

  He held still a moment, listening. “No, I don’t hear any bells. Do your ears hurt? Maybe you’re working up an infection. Sometimes that makes my ears ring.”

  “No, it’s . . . it’s wind chimes.” I heard them plain as day. Was I nuts?

  Marcus frowned. “Oh! Wait a minute. I’ve got a text. That must be what you heard. Good ears!” He checked his phone. “Just Mom, making sure I was okay in the storm.” He texted back.

  That did it. The fact that Marcus’s mother would check on her twenty-year-old son and my parents didn’t seem to worry a bit about where I was in hurricane-strong winds split a chasm in my heart. Just as the heavens had kicked open a floodgate to rain, I spewed out my sorrows since we were now officially friends with a theme song and all. I told Marcus how lost I felt at home without George. How that hurt led me to the hills and then to Duke and Sergeant Josie. About dog dancing. How wonderful meshing with the music felt. How awesome—like witnessing a little miracle—it was to see Duke let go of his fear as he danced with me.

  I even confessed my idea of crashing the parade. My hope that—if people saw what I could imagine and create—they would stop thinking I was some kind of failure in the making. The only thing I didn’t share was the spiteful part about wanting to steal the show from G-L-O-R-I-A.

  “Shoot, Ariel. That rocks.”

  “Really?”

  “Heck yeah!”

  “I was thinking, Marcus. After you said she was as regal as an Apple Blossom queen. Maybe I should take Midnight, too. If I put her in the parade and get her to dance even just a little, someone’s sure to want to take her home. Don’t you think?”

  Marcus grinned. “There, you see? Being smart is good. I never would have come up with that.” He stuck out his lower lip in thought. “The poor old girl is in danger of being euthanized soon if we can’t find her a home.”

  I gasped.

  He nodded, thoughtful. “I’ll sign her out as if I’m adopting her so you can take her. Have you got a place to keep her?”

  I pondered a moment. I couldn’t ask Sergeant Josie to take another dog. “Oh! Wait! Our barn has stall doors that still close. I might could hide her there.”

  Then another idea hit me. An even bigger, better idea. “Marcus, you know what would be really great? I could take some of the other girl dogs, too, and they could be princesses to Midnight. Wouldn’t that be fun? I could spruce them up and maybe get them to do a little something to the music, too.”

  I could be like George leading a whole marching band through the streets during the parade. I’d wow everybody!

  “Now hold on, Ariel, that’s getting a little crazy, don’t you think?” Marcus said. “How are you going to handle that many dogs? Besides, I don’t know, making a dog court like the princesses’ seems kind of disrespectful. A lot of folks around here, including me, are really proud of that parade. Shoot, it’s been going on near a hundred years. There’s nothing else like it, anywhere. We’ve got all those celebrities that come to be grand marshal. And . . . and . . . I don’t think Gloria would like that at all.”

  “I’m not being disrespectful of the parade, Marcus. I love it, too. But this idea is epic, don’t you see? Ironic! It’ll prove even ‘real dogs,’”—I made air quotes—“can be beautiful in their own way. We can prove that beauty is really about dreams. Creativity. Hard work. Originality. Heart. It’ll be . . .” There were those chimes again.

  Marcus patted his pocket and pulled his phone out. “Ah.” He smiled. “It’s from Glorious Gloria. Speak of the devil.”

  That’s about right, I thought.

  Marcus walked away from me to open the text in private. As he read, his typically sunny face turned stony.

  His expression scared the bejeebees out of me. What if Gloria had some horrible news about George? I tried to never think about the reality that George could get hurt or . . . “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Marcus ignored me. Striding to the window to get better reception—because now thunder and lightning were rocking the shelter—Marcus thumbed in a number and put the phone to his ear. He redialed six times before my sister picked up.

  “What’s going on, Gloria?” Marcus’s voice sounded like his eyes had looked when he caught me being such a snob about him.

  He listened for a long time before saying, “Speak the truth and blind the devil, girl. Did your mother put you up to this?”

  Plugging one ear with a finger against the raging storm, he listened. Then he held the phone out to look at it. The call had dropped. Or Gloria had hung up on him. He called back, letting it ring and ring. No answer. Called again. Nothing.

  Marcus put his forehead against the windowpane. His shoulders started shaking. The rain fell, and Marcus sobbed, tears against tears through glass.

  I knew the call wasn’t about George. I pretty much figured what it was about, but finally I asked, “Are you okay, Marcus? What happened?”

  Slowly, Marcus stopped crying. He stared out the window, wiped his face with his sleeve, and handed me his cell phone without turning around.

  The message read: I can’t see you anymore. I’m sorry.

  “Oh, Marcus,” I murmured in sympathy. Leave it to G-L-O-R-I-A to dump a boyfriend via text. I had suspected she’d break up with him once she got up on her high throne of the float. I guessed her being fitted that morning for the pink ball gown she’d wear in the parade convinced her of Mama’s argument that Marcus no longer fit her life. Typical. But doing it by text? I was furious for him. And ashamed for her. She needed to be taught a lesson—bad, I fumed. She needed to feel what it fel
t like to be thrown away as junk.

  Lightning lit up the room, thunder kabanged, and the lights went out. When the generator kicked up and emergency floodlights snapped on, Marcus was staring at me, the strangest look in his eyes as he asked: “How many dogs did you say you wanted?”

  In pouring rain, thunderclaps, and lightning explosions, we crammed Midnight and five other girl dogs into the back of Marcus’s Mustang. It’s like they knew they were making a prison break: they were so quiet and cooperative, even as all the boy dogs we were leaving behind howled and scratched at their doors. I felt so sorry for the ones we couldn’t take—they were so upset, baying and jumping and crying—I tossed fistfuls of dog biscuits into their cages. If I could have, I would have sprung every last one of them.

  Only as we drove off did I dare talk to Marcus again; he’d been so angry-silent. He hadn’t locked the back door. I worried that he should.

  Marcus’s voice was cold as he answered, “I left it open on purpose. It’ll look like I made a stupid mistake and that the dogs got out or someone came in and stole them.”

  “But Marcus, no one will ever think you were that careless.” I’d seen how gentle he was with those dogs, how clean he made the shelter kennels, how methodical he was filling out paperwork for adoptions.

  “Sure they will.” His eyes narrowed. “They’ll figure that I am just some dumb hillbilly.”

  “But Marcus, you’ll get in a lot of trouble.”

  Only then did he soften a bit. “Ariel, you really can be a good friend. I won’t forget that. But I’m leaving tomorrow. No need to stick around now. Leaving that door open is like burning a bridge so I can’t chicken out. No turning back. Carpe diem.”

  “Oh, Marcus, where will you go?”

  He was quiet for a moment before carefully reciting, “‘The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes.’”

  “Where did you read that?” I asked.

  “The Book of John.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “I’m no theologian,” Marcus answered, “but I take that passage to mean everything will be all right even though I don’t know my direction yet. As long as I have faith and hope and follow what my heart tells me is right. No matter how much hurt’s been done me.

  “That’ll do fine,” he muttered. “I’ll go wherever these storm winds blow me.”

  Before he drove off into the tempest, Marcus did me one last solid, as he’d say. He helped me sneak the girls into our barn and bed them down together in a big stall. They followed him in that storm as trustingly as puppies trot along behind their mother. I did, too. Once inside, the girls curled up in one slobbery heap of happy as we filled buckets with water for them. To keep from giving ourselves away, we did it all in silence and by the small beam thrown by a flashlight Marcus kept in his glove compartment.

  As he closed the rusty bolt on the stall door, Marcus asked, “Will you be okay from here?”

  I nodded. I felt a big lump in my throat.

  He reached out and ruffled my hair. “See ya, Ariel.” Then he turned and seeped into the shadows of the night.

  But before he disappeared entirely, I ran to catch up and threw my arms around his waist from behind. “Thank you, Marcus. I think you’re even better than any Roman emperor.”

  Then I stepped back and he was gone. With the thunder and winds wailing I couldn’t hear his car start or the sound of his tires on our lane. I just felt him set sail.

  I wish I could tell you that Marcus’s forgiveness or zen or sense of destiny blew into my soul and washed away my fury. But it didn’t. My winds were shoving me in a totally different direction. And I felt the strangest excitement knowing I finally had a battle plan—no matter how storm-child weird it might seem.

  Twelve

  AT FIVE THIRTY THE NEXT MORNING, my alarm clock jarred me awake. I dressed fast and slipped out of the house in the early-morning dimness to head for the barn. I’d heard the dogs howling during the night as the storm raged on for hours, like it had parked itself right over my bedroom. Somehow everyone else seemed to have slept through the cacophony, figuring their baying to be the wind, I guessed. But if the dogs started barking again this morning, someone would go investigating, for sure.

  In the growing pink dawn light, what had seemed a brilliant idea the day before was looking like one of the stupidest ever. Marcus had given me a huge bag of kibble so I could keep them fed. But how was I going to keep the girls quiet? How was I going to explain six dogs to my family if they were found?

  I picked my way over branches the storm had ripped off and flung around like a mad game of pick-up-sticks. The soggy ground sucked at my shoes. Rainwater was still beaded in crystals along trees and dripped in soft cadence from the leaves. A Carolina wren called, “Wheat-eater, wheat-eater, wheat,” and then darted from tree to tree in front of me—like he was leading me someplace.

  There was something Narnia mystical about that morning. Fog hazed everything. So thick, I didn’t even notice the red fox sitting by the barn door until I was almost on top of it. It waited until I could have reached out and touched it before taking off at a gallop in a flash of red.

  “Yeah, you better run,” I muttered. “If these dogs got out, that’d be the end of you.” And me. Even the quietest dogs have a fit when they smell fox. You should hear the yelping of the local hunt’s hounds when they catch a whiff of their quarry.

  I was a little surprised the fox had been there to begin with. Not that it was unusual for one of them to be sniffing for field mice around our barn, but normally the smell of dogs would have scared it off fast. I glanced back at the fox to make sure it wasn’t rabid or something. Everyone around here knows to call animal control quick at the sight of a fox with a mangy thin tail.

  The fox ran along our driveway. I tracked him but couldn’t see well in the gloom until it reached where our lane meets the road. There, one lonely lamppost shines into the darkness so people can find our place at night. No, the fox’s tail was a beautiful, full plume of fiery red as long as its body. He took one last look at me before hopping over an embankment and disappearing. Watching him, I noticed something else red. I squinted into the mist. A cherry-red pickup was parked by the side of the road.

  It was like the fox was trying to warn me! For a second I went weak with panic. Was it the sheriff? Setting up a speed trap for weekend joy-riders? He’d hear the dogs. Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God.

  Wait. I made myself slow down my brain and think.

  No self-respecting sheriff would give himself away with a bright red truck. It was someone else’s. Strange that it was just sitting there by the side of the road. Was someone snooping around the barn? In a dither of worry, I threw my weight on the heavy barn door to slide it open, not exactly knowing what I’d do if someone was inside—bean them with one of the old pitchforks hanging on the wall?

  I almost fell over at the sight.

  There sat Sergeant Josie, surrounded by all six dogs, facing her like kindergartners listening to a librarian at story-time. They didn’t budge as I came in, even with the booming grate of that door as I pushed it. It was like she had them under some kind of spell. Or maybe it was they who had her.

  “What are you doing?” I felt the need to whisper; the morning and the scene before me felt that enchanted. I tiptoed closer, and only then did the dogs turn their heads to pant happily in my direction.

  “I was worried when you didn’t come to the cabin yesterday since it was Saturday and no school,” said Sergeant Josie. “The cabin has old phone books. I looked up your house number and was going to call. But I wondered if that would get you in trouble somehow. It also listed your address, so . . .” She trailed off. “Everything okay?”

  She’d wondered where I was! I kind of teared up but then just nodded in reply, looking cool, I hoped. I didn’t want to freak her out, thinking that now she needed to adopt me or something. “Where’s Duke?”

 
; “I couldn’t get him out of the truck. I swear he’s standing post.” Sergeant Josie smiled. “I wouldn’t have gotten out myself—I was just kind of driving by to make sure . . .” She shrugged. “Anyway, I wouldn’t have gotten out except I heard barking.”

  One of the dogs woofed at her happily, once, like it had been cued to say, “That’s right.”

  She laughed.

  Another yip-yapped and then silenced.

  Sergeant Josie laughed again. I’d never seen her that at ease. “I swear they invited me in,” she said. “We’ve been sitting like this for quite a while. Did you train them to do this?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve only had them overnight.”

  Sergeant Josie grew serious. “Really? You know, I keep a police radio scanner in the truck. As I was driving here, I heard chatter about a break-in at the animal shelter. All the female dogs are missing. Six of them.”

  She made a point of counting out loud: “One-two-three-four-five-six.” She crossed her arms and fixed me with an emphatic is-there-something-you-want-to-tell-me look. “The police are thinking it was a robbery. They were checking to make sure no dangerous meds were taken.”

  The police already knew! And they were thinking it could be a real heist? Oh no. Had I gotten Marcus in serious trouble?

  “It’s not like that at all, Sergeant, I swear!” I scrambled to explain in a torrent of words: “I went there to help beautify these dogs to help get them adopted. I went with Marcus, Gloria’s boyfriend—well, he was, but she dumped him by text, because he’s what she would call a hick and she’s a princess, and . . . and . . . and I was real upset. And he was all upset. And I thought maybe these dogs could be Duke’s princesses in the parade, and that that would be really funny, and maybe . . . maybe people would love them if they saw them dance, too, and adopt them. And then he told me that was a good idea because they might be put to sleep on account of no one wanting them, on account of their not being pretty enough, and I don’t think dogs should be ignored or thrown away or eutha-eutha-eutha-what’s-it because people who are supposed to love them don’t like them or find them annoying or clumsy or embarrassing or not picture perfect and well . . . well, so we decided to spring them from their cages. And . . . and . . . and you can just arrest me, sir, ma’am. It’s my fault. It was my idea, not Marcus’s. Don’t do anything bad to Marcus, Marcus was just being nice to me, Marcus didn’t do anything stupid except love my sister.”