Because of Shoe and Other Dog Stories

by Margarita Engle

  Tío’s prize heirloom tomato plants,

  along with the giant alpine dandelions.

  So I stop hoeing and just blow a bunch

  of dandelion fluff up into the sky.

  It makes me feel babyish with hope,

  but I have to admit I love to watch

  all those wispy wishes twirl and rise.

  A call comes in on the radio,

  but it’s not my uncle—it’s a search,

  a real search, not just practice.

  There’s a lost child, a little boy

  who wandered away from a campsite.

  What were the grown-ups doing?

  How could they fail to pay attention?

  Gabe stares up at me with eager wolf eyes.

  He recognizes the radio’s automated voice

  calling for volunteers to join the search.

  He knows words like deploy and urgent.

  Gabe is just as much of a natural-born trail angel

  as my uncle—I’m the only one who doesn’t know

  how to help.

  Vermilion, that’s where the radio tells

  searchers to meet and be deployed,

  sent out to various portions of the area

  where the lost boy might be found.

  Vermilion isn’t too far. I could make it

  on the ATV, a super-cool all-terrain vehicle

  that looks like a golf cart and drives

  like a motorbike.

  I’m not supposed to take the ATV

  past the driveway, but I do know how,

  and this is an emergency, hide-and-seek,

  life or death.

  Tío would disapprove.

  Or would he?

  Isn’t he the one who always

  insists that I can be brave?

  I could do it, with Gabe’s help

  I could find that little lost kid.

  I’d be a hero.

  I’d be a trail angel,

  filled with magic.

  Gabe’s eyes urge me to go, go, go!

  He sits beside me on the ATV while I talk,

  reminding him that we can’t really search

  because I don’t have the CPR training

  or any of the dog-handling skills Tío has studied

  and mastered, day after day, year after year.

  We’ll just watch.

  We’ll just be heroic observers.

  We start gliding, slowly at first, then faster,

  until we’re on a narrow dirt road,

  and then we’ve reached Vermilion,

  a lively rest stop where two trails meet

  and all the thru-hikers have to take a ferry

  across Edison Lake.

  There are dozens of people milling around,

  some on horseback, leading pack mules

  and llamas loaded with bundles.

  I feel like I’ve landed in a faraway country

  where animals are still a huge part

  of daily life.

  Gabe is crazy with excitement.

  I hold on to his leash, so we can hang out

  near a table where sheriffs are giving

  instructions to all sorts of search-and-rescue

  volunteers—mounted posses, dog teams,

  ATV teams, and plenty of ground pounders,

  people on foot who just walk around

  trying to spot footprints in meadow grass

  or pine needles, or on the mud

  of slippery creek banks.

  When Gabe bumps my leg with his nose,

  I’m sure I can hear his thoughts.

  Go, go, go, find, find, find!

  But he isn’t wearing his orange vest

  with SEARCH DOG written on the sides,

  and I’m not carrying a GPS for mapping

  the area of interest, a circle that grows wider

  and wider as minutes pass.

  What if the little boy is still wandering

  farther and farther, getting more and more

  lonely and lost?

  I try calling my uncle on the radio,

  just in case he might be close enough.

  Nothing.

  Why did Tío choose this crazy day

  to leave me alone without contact,

  without any way to communicate

  and ask him for help?

  I recognize the dogs and handlers,

  but they’re too busy to notice me.

  The handlers are volunteers, but they wear

  official-looking uniforms, and they carry

  heavy backpacks filled with emergency gear,

  in case the search goes on overnight.

  They have first aid supplies and space blankets,

  food, water, matches.…

  All I have is my uncle’s dog.

  If I found a lost, scared little boy,

  I wouldn’t be much use.

  I’d be helpless,

  not heroic.

  Thru-hikers weave in and out of the crowd

  of searchers, some talking English,

  others chattering in their own languages.

  There’s a chaplain in a sheriff’s uniform,

  praying with people who must be the lost boy’s

  desperate, anxious, guilty family.

  I feel like I’ve gone traveling to some faraway,

  scary planet, even though I’m just a few miles

  from the safe, quiet cabin.

  Next thing I know, I really have gone away.

  I don’t know if it’s courage or foolishness.

  All I know is I want to help, I have to try.

  Gabe whines beside me on the seat of the ATV

  as I race it out onto a little side trail

  that none of the searchers have reached yet.

  Pretty soon, we’ve left the crowd behind.

  We’re in unfamiliar country, seeing plenty

  of tracks, but none of them are human.

  I park in a meadow, get off, and turn Gabe loose.

  He goes into his zigzag search pattern,

  expecting me to guide him

  to the right areas, but all I can do is hope.

  I have no idea where to search.

  I don’t know the right commands.

  I can’t read Gabe’s movements.

  It’s like I’m illiterate in the mysterious

  language of dogs.

  We pass the musky scent of a bear den.

  There are piles of colorful bear scat,

  red poop next to Manzanita bushes,

  blue piles near ripe elderberries.

  I don’t know what I was thinking.

  This isn’t a dog movie where the kid

  turns into a hero because his puppy

  knows the way.

  Gabe is already frustrated.

  He wants me to tell him what to do.

  He knows his job, but I don’t know mine.

  So I get on the radio and try to call Tío.

  That’s when I find out the battery has died.

  Now I’m scared beyond belief.

  So is Gabe.

  He smells my fear and makes it his own.

  We climb back onto the ATV, but as soon

  as I try to spin a U-turn and head home,

  we flip over, and even though we’re both

  alive, we’re bruised and scratched,

  and the ATV is stuck upside down

  in soft sand.

  I feel as panicky

  as I used to when the pit bulls

  were fighting to entertain

  human bullies.

  What have I done?

  How could I be so selfish?

  Gabe is worried and whiny,

  and his fear is my fault.

  Worst of all, we aren’t any use

  when it comes to my far-fetched

  daydream of becoming heroic

  by helping

  that lost little kid.

  We have to walk now.


  It’s farther than I thought.

  Gabe is thirsty, so we find a stream,

  but once we’ve branched away from our trail,

  I can’t find my way back.

  Gabe’s sense of smell could lead us,

  but I don’t know how to tell him

  what we need.

  I make up my mind

  to take dog training classes,

  and pay more attention

  to my surroundings,

  and visit Mom more often,

  now that I know

  what it feels like

  to do something dumb

  and mess up.

  If you get lost in the woods,

  you’re supposed to stay in one place

  and wait to be found, but most people

  just slide into a deeper and deeper panic,

  and that’s how I feel now, crazy with fear,

  even though fear makes everything

  worse, a lot worse.…

  Gabe is hungry.

  He chases a dragonfly, but he can’t catch it,

  and even though I know he loves berries,

  I’m afraid to go near bear-scented bushes,

  so we just nibble a few round, bitter leaves

  of miner’s lettuce, both of us wishing

  for Tío’s burgers and pie.

  A helicopter whirs far overhead,

  but I don’t have a signal mirror,

  and I know they’re looking

  for the other lost boy.

  No one knows that I’m gone yet.

  No one’s searching for me.

  Later, after I’ve run in circles

  and confused Gabe, the cloudy truth

  starts to get clear.

  We’ll be out overnight.

  It’s already twilight.

  If I had a trash bag, I could fill it

  with pine needles to make a sleeping bag.

  If I had a fish hook …

  If I knew how to find my way

  by following stars …

  If I had common sense …

  Gabe keeps one side of me warm.

  Looking up, beyond windblown trees,

  we watch the half moon, wondering

  what we’ll do if the weather turns stormy,

  if lightning strikes, if Tío loses custody

  because I made him seem

  like an irresponsible foster parent.…

  Gabe is the first one to hear the shriek.

  It sounds like a cross between a huge bird

  and an eerie ghost in an old horror movie.

  I know what it is, because my uncle

  has described it a million times.

  A mountain lion.

  Or La Llorona, a mythical woman

  who screams because she can’t

  find her children.

  Tío says you can’t tell mountain lions

  and the Weeping Woman apart

  just by sound, you have to see tracks,

  but there’s no way I’m getting up

  to follow eerie moonlit footprints.

  What would I do if I actually spotted

  a mountain lion, anyway?

  Tío has told me, over and over:

  stand tall, wave a branch, be enormous,

  never crouch or run, don’t look like prey.

  Gabe is silent.

  He’s holding his breath.

  He knows the sound of a predator.

  Or a mythical being.

  He probably smells whatever it is.

  He could tell me which direction to go

  if running away was an option.

  We lie still.

  We don’t breathe.

  I wonder if Gabe can hear my thoughts

  the way I imagine that I can hear his.

  Somehow, we survive until morning.

  Then we walk over rocks, between shrubs,

  and past purple bear scat, even though I know

  we should stay still, be patient, wait.…

  By now there must be two searches,

  one for a boy too young to know better

  and one for a big boy who got careless.

  Tío must be going crazy.

  I’ll be grounded forever, if I even get to stay

  and live with him until college, like we’d planned.

  Forestry, that’s what I was going to study

  if I’d been smart enough to stay out of trouble.

  Gabe is up and gone.

  I try to follow, but he races so fast

  that I trip and fall, then scramble back up,

  wishing, wishing, GIANT wishing

  that I’d followed the rules.

  A weight knocks me down,

  swipes my breath, closes my eyes,

  and when I open them, all I can see

  is the dusky gold of a mountain lion’s coat.

  But it’s Gabe, slamming against me,

  alerting me, letting me know he’s won

  the life-or-death hide-and-seek game.

  I smile.

  I walk calmly.

  There he is, the little boy, sound asleep,

  tucked way under a twisted, wind-stunted

  scrap of splintered pine tree.

  No one could have spotted him

  from a helicopter.

  Without Gabe, I would have walked

  right past him and seen nothing.

  Gabe’s nose found him.

  Now it’s up to me to carry him

  out into the open, yell, wave my shirt,

  stay in one place, and wait to be found.

  Orange vests.

  Four-legged trail angels.

  It happens just like it’s supposed to.

  Dogs find us, people rescue us,

  the little boy’s mom cries, thanks me,

  and tells me she loves me,

  while Tío hugs me and admits

  that he’s furious.

  The next few days aren’t easy,

  but nobody sends me away.

  The cabin is crowded with thru-hikers

  from Belgium, France, and New Zealand,

  everyone calling me Wizard.

  The trail name sticks, and even though I know

  I’m not really a trail magician yet,

  at least I do have hope.

  Maybe I’ll make it to college after all,

  study forestry, and find some way

  to repay my uncle for his trust.

  When Mom gets out of prison,

  I plan to ask Tío to invite her

  up to the cabin to meet Gabe.

  Together, Gabe and I can help her

  clear up a few cloudy truths

  about brave dogs

  and scared boys.

  Things People Can’t See

  by Matt de la Peña

  illustrated by Olga and Aleksey Ivanov

  Peanut

  The day after Chico lost his dog, Peanut, he was beaten in a fight at school.

  At least the fight part was something he could’ve predicted. Chico was new at the private junior high on the hill. He was the scholarship kid who got bused in every morning from the wrong side of the freeway. The outsider whose old man worked the endless flower fields behind Home Depot.

  “See all them poinsettias?” his dad had just told him in Spanish at parent-teacher night. He was motioning toward the dense row of Christmas-colored flowers circling the two-story, brick library.

  Chico nodded as they walked the wide path that cut through the heart of his new school.

  “Every single one of ’em, boy. I raised it up from a tiny little seed. Like a pea in the palm of your hand.”

  Chico nodded some more, but in truth he wasn’t thinking of pea-sized seeds or greenhouse-grown poinsettias. Nah, he was too busy watching his new classmates watch him and his dad.

  He was seeing, for the first time, how they saw him.

  And he felt ashamed.

  The Fight

  Calling it a fi
ght, actually, was a bit of a stretch. More like Chico acted a fool and got jumped.

  He was walking across the field on his way to first period, minding his own, reminiscing about Peanut, when he spotted a pack of kids following him with their eyes.

  “Hey!” one of them yelled.

  Chico kept walking.

  “New dude!” another voice called out.

  Chico gritted his teeth.

  He was in no mood. He’d just lost his dog, man. His closest friend in the world. And he was working on zero sleep. He’d spent half the previous night stalking the neighborhood, calling Peanut’s name, whistling, peeking over backyard fences. The remaining hours were spent crying into his pillow like a punk little kid.

  “That’s rude, bro!” he heard another voice yell. “People are trying to talk to you!”

  Chico slowed to a stop, imagining the inside of these rich kids’ heads. To them he was a fly in the lemonade. A smudge on the screen of a brand-new laptop. He was their gardener. Their cleaning lady. The smiling busboy who collected dirty plates at their fancy restaurants.

  In other words, Chico told himself, he was nobody.

  He spun around quick with a chip on his shoulder. Marched toward the pack with clenched fists, shouting, “Who you talking to?”

  The pack seemed caught off guard.

  “Slow down,” a guy named Gabe said, raising his hands and backing up.

  “What’s your problem?” another kid said.

  “Maybe you’re my problem,” Chico told him.

  They all looked at each other.

  A few smiled.

  Like Chico was funny.

  Like Chico attending the school on the hill was a big joke.

  That’s when David Winters, Mr. Popularity, said, “Why the attitude, compadre? We just wanted to ask you a question.”

  Chico took another step forward. “What’d you just call me?”

  There were six or seven of them. All dudes. All staring at him. Daring him.

  One guy got off his beach cruiser and let it fall to the grass.

  “You heard me,” David said, smiling.

  “You heard the man,” another guy chimed in.

  Then David said it again: “Compadre.”

  None of the fragmented thoughts flashing through Chico’s mind told him to walk away. Nah, he’d seen the way they looked at him at parent-teacher night. Looked at his old man. They thought they were better.

  And worse than that, a tiny part of Chico thought they were right.

  That’s the part that swung a closed fist at the closest kid. David Winters. Blasted him in the cheek.

  David stumbled backward but didn’t go down. He reached for his face. Checked fingers for blood that wasn’t there.

  Chico stepped forward, connected again. This time in the gut. David went down on one knee. When he looked up at Chico, his eyes seemed innocent.

  A second of silence followed the body blow. It felt like minutes. Everybody looking at each other, trying to process, trying to imagine what was happening, Chico’s chest going in and out and in and out, his mind unable to stick with one thought.