Seaglass Summer

by Anjali Banerjee

  “Cool,” Hawk says.

  Stu whines. He’s probably thinking, Duck = food. But Duff’s holding his collar. “Oh, no you don’t. Ducks are not dinner for doggies.”

  The mallard lands at the end of the hall and waddles around, quacking.

  “Oh heck!” Santa says. “What do we do now?”

  “Quiet,” Uncle Sanjay says. “We don’t want him to try to fly and hit the window. He could break his neck. We need to walk over there quietly. Grab his wings so he doesn’t fly.”

  “We need a net,” Duff whispers.

  “Where are we supposed to find a net?” Saundra asks, hands on her hips.

  The duck waddles into the women’s bathroom. I tiptoe down the hall.

  “Where are you going, Poppy?” Hawk whispers, but I’m already at the bathroom door, my heart pounding. I stare at the duck and he stares at me.

  “You have to go home to your mate,” I whisper to him. “Your babies need you.”

  The duck toddles over near the toilet, flutters his wings.

  “Come on, don’t fly away,” I whisper.

  I have only one chance.

  I lunge forward and grab the duck, clamping my hands down over his wings. He’s heavy and strong. He tries to flap, but I hold on, making sure not to squeeze too tight. Every molecule inside me knows I can’t let go. If I do, he’ll fly into the window and die.

  “Hold on, Poppy!” Uncle Sanjay rushes over with the box. “Drop him in here.”

  I release the duck inside the box. My heart is racing. Uncle Sanjay presses down the flaps. “Well done, my dear niece!”

  I let out a long breath of relief; my hands are trembling. Everyone pats me on the back, and even Saundra gives me a smile. I’m starting to glow.

  Chapter Nineteen

  MOONSHADOW

  In the evening, I tell my parents about the mallard duck, geoducks, and everything I can do at the clinic.

  “You’re an expert, Poppykins,” Dad says. “James Herriot has nothing on you.”

  Early the next morning, after an all-night rain, I help mop the floors and do laundry at the clinic. Around nine o’clock, a black kitten comes in shivering with cold. Her owner, a skinny lady with cropped hair, holds the kitten in a towel. “Thimble climbed a tree and got stuck there all night. I didn’t know she was up there.” The lady bursts into tears.

  “It’s okay, don’t worry!” Saundra rushes back to find Uncle Sanjay.

  I stand there, looking at the trembling ball of fur in the skinny lady’s arms. I try to see the future. I try to see Thimble fluffy and happy and … warm.

  Uncle Sanjay dashes up to me. “Grab a few towels from the dryer. They should still be warm.”

  I bring the towels to the cat exam room. Everyone is gathered inside—Hawk, Duff, Saundra, Uncle Sanjay, and the skinny lady.

  “We apply them loosely, see?” Uncle Sanjay wraps up the kitten. “Now, Poppy, go with Duff and get a circulating water pad.”

  I rush after Duff to the pharmacy room, where she grabs a big white heating pad.

  Back in the exam room, Uncle Sanjay gently rests the kitten on the heated pad. “The water circulates and distributes the heat evenly,” he tells me. “A regular heating pad might burn the kitten. You can keep bringing me warm towels, as well.”

  Thimble slowly comes back to life and starts mewling softly.

  We saved her.

  Uncle Sanjay pats me on the back. “You’re a good helper,” he says. “Duff, show her a few more basics.”

  I smile a little. Outside, the sky is clearing after the rain. Dewdrops glisten on the leaves.

  “Come on,” Duff says. “I’ll show you how to weigh the animals.”

  I practice, and I create my own technique. I hold the cat and step onto the scale, and then I weigh myself without the cat.

  POPPY plus CAT equals GIGANTIC WEIGHT

  GIGANTIC WEIGHT minus POPPY’S WEIGHT equals CAT WEIGHT

  “Hey, not bad,” Duff says.

  “Poppy, you rock.” Hawk pats me on the back.

  I’m on a roll.

  Uncle Sanjay lets me listen to a cat’s heart, which beats more than a hundred times a minute. He shows me the different parts of the stethoscope: earpieces, eartubes, tubing, and the chill ring, which is also called the chest-piece. That’s the metal part that presses against the animal’s chest.

  I even get to help Duff take temperatures. A cat’s normal temperature is 101 to 102 degrees Fahrenheit, as high as mine is when I have the flu.

  Over the next few days, I learn to brush dogs and cats and cut off knots. My hands are steadier now. I help warm up formula and feed kittens and puppies using an eyedropper. But blood still makes me woozy, and everyone tries to protect me from the gross stuff.

  I tell my parents about our second visit to the lavender festival before the tents close down, about my trips to the beach with Stu and Hawk, about the new treasures we find in the sand, the sea lion we see bobbing in the water, waving its flipper. I send postcards to Emma and Anna at their Santa Monica address. They’ll be back from camp a few days after I get home.

  My second Saturday on the island, when I’ve been here nearly two weeks, I get to make house calls with Uncle Sanjay.

  Stu sulks in the office at the clinic while I help Uncle Sanjay throw bags of prescription cat and dog food into the back of the truck. He secures the tailgate with a rope and brings a giant black duffel bag filled with basic equipment—stethoscope, antibiotics, flea and tick medicine, brushes, syringes, and patient charts—in the front seat.

  “I wish I had my first aid kit,” I say. I keep the broken box on the bureau in my bedroom, next to the lavender sachet.

  “We have everything we need,” Uncle Sanjay says. “Some of my clients don’t get around much, so I make house calls once every three weeks or so. When I was young, I ran my business out of this very truck.”

  “You did? This rickety old thing?”

  “Wasn’t rickety back then.” He pats the dashboard. “This hump of tin was brand new at one time. Still chugging along. The little truck that could. Even a rusty old heap can still be useful. I made many friends from this truck. It was my office before I got the job in Seattle. Darned difficult it was to find a position at any clinic in those days.”

  “But why? You’re such a great doctor.”

  He frowns, driving up a windy road on a hillside. “In Virginia, nobody wanted to hire a vet with an Indian accent. They said people wouldn’t bring their animals to me.”

  I twist my hands in my lap. “I wanted to play the princess in The Princess and the Pea once, but I had to be the Indian princess that the prince rejected. And I couldn’t be Alice in Wonderland.”

  Uncle Sanjay adjusts the rearview mirror. “So, you understand what I mean. But you mustn’t let anything stop you. I became a vet despite the roadblocks. I finally found a job with a Palestinian veterinarian in Seattle. He didn’t care about my accent. He had one, too. I met the woman with the German shepherd at his clinic, fell in love, and the rest is history.”

  He turns down a narrow driveway marked by a sign: NISQUALLY ISLAND RETIREMENT CENTER. I imagined a stuffy building full of old people who can’t walk. But the retirement home, perched on a forested hillside next to the sea, looks like a hotel for celebrities. Inside, the lobby is full of plush chairs and carpets, and it smells like roses.

  “Hey, Doc, Poppy!” Toni Babinsky rushes down the hall and hugs us. She looks different as a nurse all dressed in white. I wonder if she gives spiritual readings to the residents. “So glad you could come. Have you been meditating, honey?”

  I show her the seaglass, which is still in my pocket. “It’s working. I’m helping at the clinic—”

  “She saved a duck,” Uncle Sanjay says.

  Toni whistles. “A duck! This seaglass is an excellent specimen.”

  Uncle Sanjay’s eyebrows rise. “Thanks for the call about Mrs. Morey,” he says to Toni. “We’ll stop in to see her.”

  “I
’m afraid she’s gone off again,” Toni says.

  Off? I wonder what we’re in for.

  “Well, thanks for letting me know. Keep me informed, okay?”

  “I sure will.” Toni blows us each a kiss and bustles away.

  Uncle Sanjay and I stop at five luxury apartments, where wrinkly people give us tea and cookies, and Uncle Sanjay checks dogs and cats, leaving food and sometimes flea medicine and antibiotics. We visit mostly ladies, some men, and a few married couples. Uncle Sanjay is always friendly and calm, patting people on the back, assuring them that he’ll take good care of Fluffy or Fifi or Mitzi or Googoo. I help him, handing him his instruments or holding a light or petting a cat.

  “Some of these people need to bring their pets to the clinic,” he whispers as we stride down the hall for the last appointment. “I’ll talk to Toni about it.”

  In the last apartment, Mrs. Morey lives alone with a million polished antiques and one gray Persian cat, Moonshadow. Moonshadow Morey. Moonshadow’s face looks smashed in, but Uncle Sanjay says Persian cats just look that way—flat-nosed. Moonshadow is mellow and lets Uncle Sanjay examine him and knead his belly.

  Mrs. Morey is the nervous one. She keeps pacing, lifting her pearl necklace to her lips. “Oh, poor Moonshadow. So many problems. Dr. Chatterji, I’m so worried he’s going to die soon.”

  Uncle Sanjay pets Moonshadow and checks his ears. “What is he dying of today, Mrs. Morey?”

  She paces, gazing out the window. “The lumps, you know. I feed him his favorite foods, and he eats as if there is no tomorrow, perhaps because he realizes there is no tomorrow for him.”

  “Where are the lumps?” Uncle Sanjay asks.

  She waves an arm behind her, not turning around. “Oh, the usual places. They keep moving. Sometimes on his ears—yes, I felt a lump on his ear this morning, but then it moved to his nose. Maybe it’s gone, but it’s hiding somewhere; you can be sure of that.” She spins around to face us. “You’ll find the tumor, won’t you?”

  Uncle Sanjay nods. “I certainly will.”

  “And you’ll fix it?”

  “I have the medicine here.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small paper bag, the one he fills with freeze-dried chicken bits to give to the animals as treats.

  Mrs. Morey relaxes, folding into an antique armchair. “Oh, Dr. Chatterji, you’re a godsend. You’ll fix my Moonshadow?”

  Uncle Sanjay examines Moonshadow again. “I’ve found the problem. These should help. My dear niece, will you do the honors?” He hands me the paper bag.

  I feed Moonshadow a chicken treat. He gobbles it greedily.

  “There,” Uncle Sanjay says. “All better.”

  “But,” I say, “the chicken—”

  “All done for now,” Uncle Sanjay says, and gives me a warning look.

  I stare into the paper bag. Can chicken treats heal a tumor?

  “Thank the heavens!” Mrs. Morey lifts the pearl necklace to her lips and kisses it. “What would I do without you?”

  “The gods only know,” Uncle Sanjay says. He hugs her, and she wipes tears from her eyes.

  “How I look forward to your visits, Doctor,” she says.

  On the way back to the car, I ask him, “What did you do to Moonshadow? What was wrong with him?”

  Uncle Sanjay yanks open his door and throws the duffel bag onto the seat. “Nothing wrong with that cat.”

  I climb into the truck. “Then why did you say … ?”

  “I told Mrs. Morey what she needed to hear. In her mind, I really was healing Moonshadow with those chicken treats, and he loves them. Every time I see her, Moonshadow has a new disease. Last time he had heart failure. The time before that, a brain tumor.”

  “But why does she say all those things about him?”

  Uncle Sanjay drives down the road and heads into town for our last stop. “Who knows? Sometimes my work is not only about providing the best medical care. It’s about providing comfort to those who need it, human and animal alike.”

  Chapter Twenty

  SWINGING THE PUPPY

  Monday morning, the start of my third week on the island, I wake up and Uncle Sanjay is already gone. Maybe a giant geoduck swallowed him. I shuffle through the house in my slippers, Stu close on my heels. Uncle Sanjay’s bed isn’t made, but the truck is gone. I find a note next to a cereal box on the kitchen table.

  Emergency.

  I didn’t want to wake you.

  Not again.

  I glance at the clock on the wall. Seven a.m. I shovel down breakfast and quickly feed Stu. I picture every horrible thing that could’ve happened. Another dog hit by a car. A duck with a broken neck. Or worse. What could be worse?

  I take a deep breath, grab the lavender sachet from the bureau, and take a whiff. The sweet scent calms my brain. I tuck the lavender in my pocket, and Stu and I head out the door. He tugs at the leash all the way into town.

  At the clinic, Duff is on the telephone. A lady paces in the waiting room. She’s dressed in a long black coat and jewelry made of many colorful rocks, as if she picked them all up from the beach. “Poor Matilda,” she says. “I hope she’s not in too much pain. I should’ve called Doc earlier, but I wanted to wait and see if I could handle it myself.”

  Handle what?

  Duff’s holding the phone to her ear. She covers the mouthpiece and waves me toward the dog exam room. “Go in there and help Doc,” she whispers, then goes back to the phone.

  I feel important as I slip into the exam room. Duff sent me in to help Uncle Sanjay. Me.

  The lights are dim, and a big yellow dog, a fat version of Stu, is lying on a blanket on the floor, panting. Four little wet rats are squirming around close to her belly. Wait, not rats.

  “Whoa!” I say. “Puppies!”

  Uncle Sanjay shushes me. He’s holding a fifth tiny puppy in both hands. He swings his arms up through the air and then down between his legs, then up and down, up and down, in sweeping strokes. “Come on, little guy.” He swings the puppy again. “Poppy, this is how we clear fluid from the lungs.”

  I touch the seaglass in my pocket. I hope the tiny wet rat will live.

  “Your turn,” Uncle Sanjay says. “She’s trying to push out another puppy.” He hands me the warm, wet lump.

  “But I don’t know what to do!”

  “Yes you do. First, swing the puppy a few more times.”

  He kneels beside Matilda.

  I stand there, frozen, holding the lump in my hands. Time slows, and I hear only my heart pounding. Swinging a puppy isn’t the same as grabbing a duck or weighing a cat. Here is a new, fragile life. What if I kill the puppy?

  But I can’t let the baby die. My arms are moving, swinging up and down, up and down, and then the lump in my hands makes a tiny whimpering sound.

  I’m relieved. “He’s alive!”

  Uncle Sanjay helps Matilda with the last puppy. He grabs a wet rag, wipes the puppy’s mouth, and then rubs him vigorously all over. “Here, you try. Stimulates his breathing.”

  I rub my puppy and then place him next to Matilda, who starts licking her babies. The puppies are squirming and crying and trying to crawl over each other, their eyes still closed.

  Matilda’s human mom, the rock lady, comes rushing in and crouches down to pet her exhausted dog. “Oh, my brave girl, you did it. Thank you, Doc.”

  “All six puppies survived,” Uncle Sanjay says, beaming. I’m thinking of the little one that almost didn’t make it. I helped him take his first breath. Me, Poppy Ray. I’m beginning to understand what Uncle Sanjay meant when he said, The ones we save make it all worthwhile.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  GRAINS OF SAND

  Wednesday afternoon, when I’ve been here two and a half weeks, Mr. Pincus brings Marmalade in again. He talks a mile a minute, telling endless stories. “Got into everything when he was a kitten, you know. I didn’t call him Marmalade because he was orange. He kept getting into jars of marmalade. Ever known a kitten to eat j
am?”

  Duff doesn’t weigh Marmalade or take his temperature. When she steps out of the exam room, I follow her and tug her sleeve. “You forgot something.”

  “I didn’t forget, kid.” She strides into Uncle Sanjay’s office and closes the door. I hear her talking to him in a low voice.

  Duff and Uncle Sanjay come out of his office, and I follow them back toward the exam room. The whole clinic is quiet.

  “Why don’t you wait out here?” Duff says, leading me up front. “Isn’t the day beautiful? Why don’t you go out and enjoy the sun?”

  “I want to stay here.” I feel like a string pulled tight at both ends. Stu is sitting up front, next to Saundra, resting his head on his paws.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. But I already know in my bones, in the tips of my toes.

  Duff gives me a sad look. Even her spiked hair seems to droop.

  I run down the hall and burst into the exam room. Mr. Pincus is sitting on the bench, the bony orange Marmalade in his arms. Uncle Sanjay is standing over Mr. Pincus, resting a hand on his shoulder. My eyes start to water.

  “You have to save him,” I say. “We have to save him.”

  Uncle Sanjay glances at me, looking startled. “Poppy, you shouldn’t be in here—”

  “It’s all right,” Mr. Pincus says in his gravelly voice. “Let her stay. Come here and listen. Put your ear to his fur, young lady.”

  I lean down and press my ear to Marmalade’s soft fur. “He’s purring.”

  “You see, he’s content. He’s not afraid. Do you want to hold him?”

  Uncle Sanjay steps back, tucking a pen into the pocket of his lab coat.

  I lift Marmalade and sit beside Mr. Pincus. “He’s so fragile,” I say. “He’s still purring.” Marmalade settles into my arms. I’m holding a bag of floppy bones covered in fur, but he’s vibrating all over.

  “He likes you,” Mr. Pincus says. “He knows you care about him.” His voice breaks at the end of his sentence, and he presses his hands into his face. His shoulders shake.

  Uncle Sanjay rests a hand on his arm again. “We can give you a little time with Marmalade. We don’t need to rush.”