by Jodi Kendall
“Perfect health.” Dr. Stern tapped his chart. “I’m just keeping a close eye on him while his owners are away for the holidays. Josie, would you like to hold Oliver while Lucy and I check on one last patient?”
The puppy wriggled up against my chest, as if he liked hearing my heartbeat and feeling the warmth of my wool sweater. “Sure!”
“Okay. Hold him tight, he’s a wiggler.”
“Trust me,” I said, thinking of all the times I’d held Hamlet. “I know all about wigglers!”
We shadowed Dr. Stern as she moved to a glass aquarium, peeking in on a green iguana that had suffered a tail injury. Dr. Stern had amputated the iguana’s tail and it was all bandaged up. Then we put Oliver back in his kennel and did a final walk-through of the clinic. We helped empty all the garbage cans in the examination rooms while Dr. Stern gave the animals fresh water and food.
“Wow, I wish I had you girls to help me all the time!” Dr. Stern said with a wink. “Who needs a part-time job?”
I laughed, pulling warm, clean towels from the dryer. As I folded them, I realized my heart wasn’t racing and my skin wasn’t electric with nerves and I was even humming to myself. Being with the animals in the clinic actually felt . . . natural.
My skin tingled. I once felt this way at gymnastics practice—that the sport fit my spirit, that each skill and routine felt right.
When did gymnastics start feeling wrong? Was it when I grew taller than the other girls? Or advanced to Level 5? Or was it something else—something inside of me that had changed?
Hamlet’s hooves clicked against the smooth tiles as she trotted down the hall to check on us. I sat down and wrapped my arms around her neck. “Dr. Stern,” I said, looking up. She was wiping down medical equipment in an examination room. Lucy took a seat beside me on the floor. “Can I ask you a question?”
She met my eyes. “Sure.”
“Do you think my family should keep Hamlet?”
She paused, but it didn’t seem like she was thinking through her answer. It sorta felt like she was studying me, the way Dad sizes up Tom’s teammates, trying to figure out what skills each player was going to bring to the team. “That’s not up to me to decide, Josie.”
I sighed. “Yeah. I guess not.”
Dr. Stern studied her university diploma, which was framed and hanging on the opposite wall. Then her gaze followed the cages down the hall, where we heard Oliver pawing at his little door and the meow of Atticus.
“You know,” the vet said thoughtfully, “whenever I need to think something through, I ask the animals their advice.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You do?”
She nodded, her face serious. “Sometimes people do more talking than listening. It can be difficult to hear my own thoughts through the noise.”
I nodded. I understood exactly what she meant. “But it’s not like animals can talk back,” I said. “They can’t actually give advice.”
“I wish they could!” chimed in Lucy. “Then I’d just have to convince my mom to get a cat. I don’t have any brothers or sisters or animals to talk to. . . . It’s so unbelievably lonely at my house.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. Lonely? I’d always thought Lucy’s life was perfect. She went to a fancy private school and had a beautiful townhouse and gymnastics came so easy for her. Both her parents were super involved in everything she did—it was obvious she was the most important person in the world to them. I’d always been envious of her life. Lucy never seemed lost or invisible.
But . . . lonely?
I hardly ever felt that, and even when I did, I never was, not really. Amelia was always around, ready to jump on furniture or sprint down the sidewalk. Sarah might have an attitude problem, but she loved to joke around and make people laugh. Ellen’s face was always stuck in a book, but her eyes lit up if I told her a story. And my brother Tom? Even though he was off at college, I could always call him when I wanted to talk.
And even during the times I needed space from my siblings, Sugar would wag her tail and come sit at my feet. I thought of Hamlet, too. She’d made herself right at home within all our Shilling family chaos. She oinked when I came home from school and raised her snout in greeting. When I gave her baths, she blew bubbles in my face, making me laugh.
As stressful as my family felt sometimes, I couldn’t imagine not having my brother and sisters and animals around. I offered Lucy a smile.
“You don’t need to feel lonely,” I told my best friend. “You have me and you can come over anytime you want!”
“I know, Josie,” she said, beaming. “And thanks.”
Dr. Stern smiled, too. “You’re right, Josie, that animals can’t voice their thoughts the way humans can,” she continued. “But if you’re really quiet, and you pay close attention, I think you’ll be surprised by what you can hear.”
Goose bumps sprung to life on my arms. This whole time I’d been talking to everyone around me about the pig. But never once had I asked Hamlet what she wanted.
For almost a month now, I’d fed Hamlet meals, walked her outside, given her baths, and cleaned her Cave. She trusted me. I desperately wanted to save her life. But selfishly I also wanted to keep Hamlet.
Was I really helping her by trying to keep her?
Maybe Dr. Stern was onto something here. Maybe Hamlet knew where to find her forever home and I’d been too busy making noise.
I stared into Hamlet’s deep, dark eyes. I just needed to find some peace and quiet so I could ask her the right questions and listen to what she had to say.
Chapter 16
COLD HANDS, WARM HEART
On the eve of my big gymnastics meet, my chattering teeth jolted me awake in the middle of the night. I rubbed my eyes. My fingertips felt like icicles against my skin. The city streets outside seemed eerily quiet, hardly a car whooshing by. Moonlight peeked in through our white window curtain, casting a gray, ghostly glow across our bedroom.
What time was it?
Across the room, Sarah and Ellen were sound asleep in their bunk bed. I leaned over the railing and peeked below. A pillow hid Amelia’s face, but the sounds of her soft snores reached my ears.
Something seemed off in the night, like when I’m standing at one end of the balance beam and about to do a straddle jump, but my nerves shake my balance and tip me over the edge.
Hamlet.
I needed to make sure she was okay.
My heart raced in my chest as I swung my legs over the bed, toes curling around each rung of the ladder as I stepped down to the carpet. I breezed down the hall and past my parents’ open bedroom door, where I could see them sleeping in their bed with Sugar snuggled up on the shag carpet rug.
A floorboard squeaked beneath my feet. Sugar’s eyes fluttered open, and she cocked her head sideways. I held my breath, praying she wouldn’t bark. She just watched me, unblinking.
Oh! She wanted to come with me.
I looked back down the dark hallway toward the staircase and then glanced back at Sugar. Fear was crawling out of my skin. Can dogs smell fear? All of a sudden I didn’t care if she barked and woke my family. I needed her to come with me, or I might get too scared and run back to bed. I gave our golden retriever a little wave of permission. She popped up on her feet and followed me down the hall to the stairway.
My heartbeat echoed deep in my ears. Ellen’s hand-me-down sleep shirt—once long enough to reach my ankles—now grazed the skin of my knees. My hand reached for the light switch like it had a mind of its own. No! I pulled it back, as if the wall was fire. I didn’t want to wake the family. Not at this hour, on this night, just before Sarah’s PSAT in the morning and my big gymnastics meet in the afternoon.
A shiver made the hair beneath my messy low ponytail stand on end. I needed to go downstairs. Cold air tingled in my lungs. Everything was fine. I was just being a baby. Amelia probably left a window open downstairs. I should just go and shut it and peek in on Hamlet. No big deal.
Sugar brushed against
me, and the shock of her soft fur made me practically jump out of my skin. “Sugar!” I whispered, ruffling her ears. My eyes adjusted to the darkness until finally I could make out the shape of the banister. I reached for it and moved down the steps, slowly at first, and then faster until I reached the almost pitch-black hallway downstairs.
I twisted the knob on the small table lamp by the front door. The house looked normal with Amelia’s scarf and boots by the door, a bazillion coats and hats hanging on the coat rack, and stacks of paper advertisements piled up in the corner, just waiting for Ellen to stuff the Sunday papers for her route. Even from my angle, I could see the bolts locked on the front door.
Everything was fine.
Wasn’t it?
I rushed down the hall to Hamlet’s Cave, Sugar’s nails clicking against the pinewood floors behind me. The baby gate had been knocked down. Newspapers were strewn about. Her water bowl had flipped upside down, melting the ink across the front page of yesterday’s City Centennial. Square tiles had been ripped off the floor, exposing the old hardwood floor. Her Cave had been completely trashed!
But then I realized it.
Hamlet was gone!
It felt like my heart might explode from pounding so fast. I spun around toward the kitchen. The fridge door was closed, and the floor and counters seemed spotless. Dad must’ve cleaned it the night before. It didn’t look like Hamlet had gotten into anything.
Oh no!
What if she had escaped?
I rushed to the back door and spun the knob. Locked. There’s no way Hamlet could’ve gotten out. A window had to be open—that was the only explanation.
No no no no.
Doug’s colorful, twinkling lights caught my attention. The living room!
I sprinted out of the kitchen and through the dining room. Our Douglas fir was beautiful in all its glorious lights and popcorn trim, but it looked different somehow, like a bit of Tree Day’s magic had fizzled away. It took me another second to figure it out.
Our presents were gone.
We’d been robbed!
And someone had stolen Hamlet!
“Hello?” said a deep voice behind me.
I screamed and spun around, doing a high kick in the air. Tom sat up on the couch, his hair sticking out in all directions.
“Whoa, whoa—Josie?”
“Tom!” I gasped. “You scared me half to death!”
“Geez, how’d you learn to kick so high? You could’ve taken off my head!”
“Sorry! But what’re you doing here?!”
“Caught the last bus home and crashed on the couch. . . . What’s going on?”
This couldn’t be happening. This had to be some terrible dream. “We were robbed, Tom! And Hamlet’s missing!”
My brother rubbed his eyes. “Huh?”
“The presents. They’re all gone. Well, except for one, that little one in the corner. Amelia counted them all yesterday. Nineteen. Now look—almost zero!”
Tom squinted his eyes like he was trying to see through his sleepiness. “Dad probably just moved them so Amelia would stop being so nosy.”
“No.” I shook my head. “That’s not it. I know it. And—and they took Hamlet, too!”
“Josie? Tom?”
“Is everything okay?”
Mom and Dad stood at the bottom of the stairs. Mom wrapped a bathrobe more tightly around her chest, and Dad’s eyebrows furrowed together in concern.
My lower lip began to shake. “Hamlet’s gone—”
“Hamlet’s right there, sweetie.” Mom motioned to the corner of the room. The pig was snuggled up inside a big wicker basket where all the folded blankets are stored. She had burrowed her body inside the fabrics, so only her snout was exposed.
Dad sighed. “Oh, honey. We haven’t been robbed. Just go back to sleep, okay? It’s the middle of the night.”
I rushed to Hamlet’s side and lifted the blankets, just to see for myself that she wasn’t hurt. She opened her eyes and nestled her cold snout against me. “She’s freezing!” I exclaimed, taken aback. “She must’ve busted out of her Cave to get warm.” I pulled the blankets back up over her body, exhaling a sigh of relief that even though she was cold, she seemed fine.
“It is freezing in here, Stephen. I’ll check the thermostat.” Mom rubbed her arms vigorously and moved down the hall. “Fifty-eight degrees. Oh, my goodness. Fifty-eight degrees! Stephen! What happened?”
“Hmmm. Could be a number of things.” Dad leaned forward, examining the thermostat more closely. “I’ll have a technician come out to take a look at it. Tom, please grab the space heater and get it running down here. It’s in the coat closet on the bottom shelf.”
“I’ll check on the girls,” Mom said.
Tom nodded, and Sugar trotted off alongside him while Mom disappeared upstairs. “But Dad.” I got to my feet and motioned toward the tree again. “The presents—”
“They weren’t stolen, Josie.” Dad wrapped his arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze, the way he always does when he’s about to deliver bad news, like that time he told me I couldn’t go to private school with Lucy. “The presents were returned.”
He said it like they hijacked the van and drove themselves back to the store. I blinked. “You returned them? But why?”
Dad pinched his lips together. “This might be hard for you to understand right now, but we had to take them all back. We—we—” He cleared his throat. “We maxed out a credit card and . . . I’m so sorry, honey, but we can’t afford presents this Christmas.”
I stared at him, too stunned to say anything. It’s not like I expected much—but still. I thought there’d be something. I tried not to cry when I met Dad’s eyes.
“Okay,” was all I could manage.
Dad exhaled. “I’ll go make some calls and figure out what’s going on with our heating system.”
“Okay,” I said again.
And with that, I was alone in the living room with Hamlet, with a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach as if I drank too much eggnog. I grabbed a patchwork pillow off the couch and punched it, plopping down on the floor next to Hamlet, unfolding her blanket so it stretched across us both.
I needed to get my rest. Tomorrow was the big day. Maybe the biggest day of my life. But I couldn’t stop staring at the tree lights, a million thoughts and emotions whirling through my mind. Everything just felt so heavy inside.
Hamlet climbed out of the basket and snuggled up next to me like she knew I needed a friend right now. Her body was massive. I couldn’t believe she’d once been this little piglet that I cradled in my arms. I had to grab another blanket to cover my bare legs.
“Oh, Hammie.” I sighed and rested my head on the pillow. I scratched behind Hamlet’s ears until her eyes slowly closed.
Although the curtains were drawn over the living room window, from my angle on the floor I saw a slice of night sky outside. Soft, white snow fell against the glass. I caught the glimmer of a streetlamp and passing headlights. It was hard to imagine this big world out there, with other families and people with their own problems and worries.
Hamlet stared at me. I quit petting her head and she nuzzled her snout against my cheek, making me laugh. “Oh, Hamlet,” I said again into her twitching ear. “It’s like the holidays are falling apart. . . . And my gymnastics meet is tomorrow of all days, and I should be resting, but I can’t stop thinking about all this stuff. . . .” I exhaled a big breath. “And I don’t know what to do about—about you. You’re the best pig in the world, even when you don’t listen to me. . . .”
The Christmas tree lights flickered in Hamlet’s dark eyes, and it was a strange blend of happiness and sadness. I felt like I was disappointing her. I thought about what Dr. Stern told me yesterday, about her talking to animals to ask their advice. Hamlet blinked, as if waiting.
“Hamlet . . .” I whispered slowly. “Where do you want to live?”
I don’t know what I expected to happen. It’s not like pigs c
an talk, and I didn’t hear any voices in my head, like you read about in books. But what did happen totally surprised me and gave me the exact answer I was looking for.
Hamlet stood on all fours, trotted to the big window, and reared up on her back legs. Her front hooves clunked against the windowpane. She looked at me, blinking.
I waited, listening.
Hamlet turned to the window and squealed a big, throaty, high-pitched sound like I’d never heard before in my entire life.
SOO WEEEEEEEEE!
It sounded like a pig crying.
It was then that I realized it. Hamlet might love me, but she didn’t want to live here in the city. She wanted to be outside, where she’d be free to be curious and roam around, not confined inside a tiny city townhouse with seven humans she’d only just met.
Hamlet wanted freedom.
My eyes welled up with tears. I waved her back to the floor. “Okay, Hammie,” I said as she hoofed it across the living room. “Maybe I was holding on to this idea of keeping you and not really working to find you a new family. I’m—I’m sorry, Hamlet. Forgive me, okay? I’ll find you the most perfect home ever. . . . We still have sixteen days. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
She snuggled up next to me on the floor. I stared up into Doug’s colorful branches, tugged a candy cane off the tree, and peeled off the plastic wrapper. I handed the candy cane to Hamlet, and she eagerly crunched it in between her teeth and then licked my face with her minty-fresh breath.
I laughed. “Oh, Hamlet,” I said, my chest swelling with warmth and sadness all at the same time. “Everything will be okay. I promise.”
I tried my hardest to believe that. I wrapped my arms around the pig’s thick neck and fell asleep with the thump of her calm heartbeat vibrating in my ears.
Chapter 17
STOP, LOOK, AND LISTEN
Sometimes winter break can be boring, but when you have to hold splits for three minutes on each side several times a day, visualize your gymnastics routines, scrub slushy snow off the bottom of your workout bag, and take care of a farm pig growing much too quickly, it’s like there are never enough minutes in the day.
