by Linzi Glass
“Um, fine,” Ashton blurted out, since I seemed to have lost my tongue.
“Excellent!” Mr. Matheson gave Ashton a wink. “You’re a well-matched king and queen. A very attractive couple.” There were snickers followed by laughter from the rest of the class. I slid down as far as I could in my seat.
“Now, now, class.” Mr. Matheson frowned and whispered to me that I didn’t look very well, and did I need to go to the nurse’s office?
I shook my head vigorously. The last thing I needed was to be poked and prodded and put under a microscope by the nosy school nurse.
Thankfully the end-of-period bell rang and we all filed out. Ashton caught up with me as I hurried down the hallway.
“Hey, Bree, wait up!” he said loud enough for everyone close by in the corridor to hear.
I stopped at the sound of my name and turned around. Ashton had his gray sweatshirt hoodie up over his head, but his hazel eyes were focused on me. I noticed that some of the kids from class were watching as Ashton joined me and we continued down the hallway. I figured he probably wanted to talk to me about our next rehearsal, but I was wrong.
“Listen, Bree, I’m sorry if I was a bit weird when you sat down next to me in drama lab, but all my friends are acting so lame about us being the married royalty.”
“It’s a play. Not real life,” I replied.
“Yeah, I know. They’re such dorks, and Mr. Matheson and his comments aren’t helping any.” He shook his head. “But hey, listen, what I wanted to talk to you about was getting together this weekend to create a ‘Lost Dog, Big Reward!’ website for Danny, and also get more flyers printed to hand out in the neighborhood. I really think it’ll help us find him.”
The sound of an “us” instead of a “me” finding Danny made my bad day suddenly seem amazingly good. That is, until someone slammed a book bag down on Ashton’s head from behind.
“Ouch, moron, that hurt!” Ashton gave his best friend, Max, a punch on the arm.
Skinny, lanky Max laughed and did a big fake bow as the three of us continued down the hallway.
“Sooooo sorry, King Oberon.” Max wedged his way in front of us and grabbed my hand and tried to kiss it as he bowed again. “Queen Titania.”
I pulled my hand away.
“Knock it off!” Ashton sounded more than irritated.
I said a hasty good-bye without replying to Ashton that yes, getting together on Sunday would be great. I ducked into the science lab, where Mr. Drollinger was setting up what he informed us was a “peanut observation lab.”
We each had to select a peanut to “adopt,” and then after measuring its girth, width, length, color variations, and noticeable flaws, we had to throw it back into the peanut bin and try to find our very own peanut again using the information that we had written down.
As I held on to my chosen peanut and tried to get to know it very well, I decided that if I could find my peanut again in the bag of nuts, surely I would be able to find my very special dog somewhere in sprawling, huge Los Angeles.
Chapter Ten
“You said she would be here by now, Bree. It’s already ten.”
The newsmom paced back and forth, her crisp, cream-colored suit snapping to attention as she sliced through the living room while I lounged on one of the couches.
“Leave, then,” I told her, knowing that she wouldn’t. I picked up a magazine and flipped through it, pretending to seem nonchalant and not at all concerned.
I was dressed in sneakers and my oldest jeans, which is what Rayleen had told me on the phone to wear. “Messy work. Sometimes smelly, too!” She laughed. “Hope you’re up to it.” I assured her I would be fine, although the thought of seeing lots of dogs when none of them was Danny was now making me feel queasy. The newsmom’s tension tirade wasn’t helping the sick feeling that was swirling in my stomach either.
“I think this is a bad idea, Bree. Stay home rather, or call Lulu.”
“She’s home, resting up, Mom,” I quipped.
“Well, do something with Kate, then.”
“She’s out shopping with her mom.” I pulled my knees up to my chest and looked at her. My mom’s face was free of makeup and she looked like she was ten years younger. The news station makeup artist would pile on the layers until she looked perfect and polished before she went on camera, but I thought this was her best look, all fresh and clean faced, despite her foul mood.
My mom looked at me and sighed. “You’re looking pale and you’ve lost weight. Drink a protein shake to pick you up.”
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
She sat down dejectedly on the couch next to me. “I wish more than anything I could undo that day and the gate and everything…but I can’t. You know I’m not Cruella Deville.” Her eyes started to well up. “I loved Danny….”
The gate phone rang just at that moment and I jumped up to answer it.
“Oh, no!” My mother touched her face. “I’m a mess.”
“You’re fine, Mom,” I said. “It’s just Rayleen, not some TV executive.”
I was relieved that Rayleen had made it before the newsmom had to leave, otherwise I would have been housebound all day.
“I’m awful sorry I’m late,” Rayleen singsonged sweetly, her southern drawl even more pronounced than I remembered it. “I was followin’ up on a dog that was found. See, I thought it might be yours, but no luck.” She shook her caramel curls and held out a long, muscular arm.
My mother had somehow managed to throw on a fresh coat of red lipstick in the minutes it took for Rayleen to come up our driveway and park. The combination of the newsmom’s cream suit, dark hair, and glossy lips was nothing less than dazzling. I could see Rayleen take her in like she was looking at a beautiful, exotic orchid.
“Why, ma’am, what a pleasure.” She gave my mom a gap-toothed smile and shook her manicured hand.
I watched my mom stifle a grimace at the strength of Rayleen’s firm grip, but she did it with a smile, like a true professional.
“I can’t thank you enough for helping my daughter the other evening. I told her how strangers are often just friends we don’t know, and how few truly kind people there are left in this world and surely you must be one of them….”
I wanted to laugh but held myself back. I was waiting to see how diplomatic the newsmom would be in getting Rayleen’s drivers’ license number after all that mushy praise.
“Well, I know how bad she’s hurtin’ ’bout her Danny boy. And she saved my Clay, who woulda died under that car if it weren’t for Bree.”
“Really!” My mother seemed surprised. “I had no idea…. We haven’t had much time together the past few days, what with my work schedule and her busy school life….”
Rayleen smiled a long, slow smile. “I remember workin’ like a crazy woman and bein’ nonstop busy. Not my life anymore, no sir. Left that world an’ the no-good boyfriend back in New Orleans. Saved a bunch of soggy, starving dogs, rented a huge moving van, and brought ’em all to California after the hurricane. Never went back.”
“I covered so much of that terrible situation on air,” my mom said.
I watched as Rayleen took in the designer-decorated house and the newsmom, who fit right in. Cream on cream. Silk on silk.
Rayleen wore tan cargo pants and a black tank top that had a Yogic “Om” embroidered in red across its center.
“I used to teach yoga, but my work is rescuing dogs now,” she said, as if her life résumé needed completing.
“We’d better be going, Mom. Weren’t you worried you’d be late?” I suddenly blurted out, realizing that in a sentence or two Rayleen would probably tell her she had no TV and had never watched the news on Channel Five.
“Oh my! I am very late. Yes, let’s.” My mom grabbed her briefcase and we all headed to the circular driveway.
“That pretty mama of yours needed the whole deal. Age and license. Expiration date included.”
“That’s my mom. Charming, competent, and always
with an agenda,” I groaned as we listened to Elvis and drove on the 10 freeway toward downtown.
“Hey, be grateful you still have her, sweet pea. Mine’s gone three years now and I miss her more ’n’ more every day. Nothin’ like appreciatin’ someone when they’re gone.”
We talked and laughed and sang “Blue Suede Shoes” all the way to downtown, a place I had hardly ever been except to go to the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion when I was seven to see Peter Pan. We pulled into the parking lot of a gray, square building. I was in a happier mood than I had been in a while. Rayleen had a calming effect on me.
But as I opened the car door, nothing could have prepared me for the barking and howling of what sounded like hundreds of dogs from inside the shelter walls.
Chapter Eleven
I followed Rayleen in through the double doors. The smell of disinfectant and kennels still needing to be cleaned hit me instantly, and I felt my stomach lurch like a boat on rough seas. I quickly realized that this shelter was very different from the one in Santa Monica. At the entrance was a man with an unshaven face and stooped shoulders. He had a black Lab who was straining against a short leash. The big dog pulled and tugged and whined and reared up like a horse. “Now, stop, Neptune!” The man yanked hard on the dog’s collar. “Gotta leave you here, buddy. No home to go back to anymore. Can only feed one mouth.” The dog must have sensed that something was terribly wrong because he let out a loud howl that blended in with the noise of all the dogs who were already inside the shelter.
Rayleen quickly went over to help.
I watched as she leaned closer to the confused dog and whispered words to get him to relax. She rubbed her hand up and down his smooth coat. “It’s gonna be all right. It’s okay, big boy.”
Neptune looked at her with big anxious eyes. “I’ve got him,” she told the man. He handed her the leash without blinking. Rayleen was wearing a shelter badge and had given me a volunteer badge to wear in the car. I felt its hard edges dig against my heart as I placed my hand instinctively over it.
Neptune seemed to quiet down at Rayleen’s touch, and the scruffy-looking man moved forward to the Animal Control Officer, who was dressed in an official blue uniform and was sitting on the other side of a glass-paneled divider. His badge said his name was Officer Reyes. He barely looked up, but I heard him say “Relinquish or Stray?” to the man in a monotone voice, like he’d said those words a thousand times before, almost in the same way a tired waitress in a diner might ask a patron if they wanted cream and sugar in their coffee.
Relinquish was a vocab word I knew well. I remembered it from our pop quiz about six months ago. Relinquish. To give up. To withdraw or retreat from. To leave behind.
I felt sick inside as the man mumbled, “Relinquish,” and handed over the five dollars he had to pay to leave his dog and walk away, which he did without looking back.
The black Lab strained on his leash as he watched his owner shuffle on torn tennis shoes out the door. He let out a yelp as the door smacked shut, and Rayleen hushed him again with sweet words. I realized in that moment that what was extraordinary, amazing, and above all, heartbreaking about dogs was that they loved unconditionally and with every inch of their beings. They loved owners who beat them, starved them, neglected them in backyards, kicked them, left them in the rain without shelter, and yes, abandoned them. Neptune was no different than any other dog. He wanted his owner back at any cost. He loved him and didn’t understand why his owner had let his doggy world fall apart. I let out a ragged sigh and shook my head.
“You okay, sweet pea?” Rayleen asked as she slipped Neptune’s collar off and tossed it into a large metal bin. I flinched when I saw that it was full almost to the top with collars in all fabrics and sizes. They had once belonged to dogs whose owners had secured them to their necks. “Relinquish or stray” echoed through my head.
Rayleen placed a simple blue noose on Neptune’s neck and he held still while she looked deeply into his eyes. “Your old man cared. Just not enough to fight to keep you.” Neptune looked forlornly at her, as if he understood.
“What’ll happen now?” I almost had to yell against a sudden rise in the din of dogs.
“He’ll be given an impound number and put in a cage with a few other dogs of similar size. He’ll go on the shelter website and hopefully some nice person will come and adopt him and he’ll have a happy ending.” I followed as Rayleen opened a door and led Neptune through. The howling and barking were even louder in here. Rayleen waved to a few other volunteers who were bathing some little dogs in a side room.
“Later I’ll introduce you to the New Hope coordinator.”
“What’s New Hope?” I asked.
“Red listed dogs. I’ll explain after I give this handsome boy over.” She patted Neptune on the head.
Rayleen handed Neptune over to Officer Reyes, who didn’t even look at him but led him to a holding cage, then went back to his desk to fill out his paperwork. In less than five minutes Neptune went from having an owner to having none, and from having a name to being called by a number. Like jail. Except he hadn’t committed a crime. I thought how fitting it was that he was named after a planet. Poor Neptune’s fate was in his unlucky stars, which had given him the wrong human as his owner.
“People need to know about this place!” I wanted to say to Rayleen. Here was a world so far away from anything I had known before. No one in my school could even imagine a place like this existed. Dingy, smelly, and full of sadness.
I felt sick about Danny. For all I knew he had been dumped at a shelter far away and was just a number now as well. While I helped Rayleen get water buckets and containers of food to distribute from the back kitchen, she told me that “red listed” meant dogs whose time was up.
“Meaning what?” I asked, straining to carry a giant bag of dog food down the hallway.
“Meaning euthanized, sweet pea. Put to sleep ’cause no one wanted them.”
I practically dropped the bag on the concrete floor. “I thought they came here to be safe. Isn’t this place called a ‘shelter’?”
Rayleen tossed her curls back. “Yes, but some shelters get full, with no room for the new animals coming in.”
“How long does it take before an animal is in danger?”
Rayleen stood in front of the huge double doors that led to the area of caged kennels. She turned to look at me, her wide-set green eyes locked on mine. “Five days is the law. Sometimes longer. Listen, sweet pea, that’s why when you walk through these doors and meet the pups that are here, you’ve gotta give each one all the love you have in your heart. So when they leave, either to go to a home or to the doggy heaven above, what they remember from this place is kindness and caring. A soft touch, a gentle voice. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said in a wavering voice.
“You can do this. Remember, you’re the brave gal who threw herself in front of a car to save a dog.” She squeezed my arm. “Let’s go get ’em.”
Loud, angry barks, high-pitched yapping, whining, crying, and howling hit me from all sides. There were kennels that housed as many as six little ones and others that had signs that said MUST BE ALONE. I stood frozen for a second and took in the rows and rows of cages.
Big sad eyes looked back at me from the closest kennels, noses pressed through the bars for a soft rub, and desperate paws tried to touch my legs, my arms, and my face as I knelt down beside their cages. Tongues tried to lick my cheeks, my fingers; anything to be seen and noticed. “Take me! Take me!” they all seemed to say in their whining and whimpering and barking voices. As I moved down the rows, there were some that jumped and barked, baring their teeth, and others that stood huddled like frightened deer in the backs of the cages. But most of them came right up to the gates in the kennels, wanting every part of me. There were purebreds and mutts all mingled together; shepherds and pit bulls and schnauzers and poodles. There were huskies and Chihuahuas and mastiffs and mountain dogs. There were some that had some of this and some of
that all thrown together to make an adorable mutt. Some were fat while others were thin and mangy. It seemed that there were no two alike. But what they all shared in common was that they no longer belonged. Anywhere or to anyone. Discarded dogs and some that jumped fences and walked through open gates and went missing, like Danny.
I made it through that first day at the shelter by staying focused and giving as much love as I could to as many dogs as I could. I held the little ones close and gently stroked the big ones and gave them belly rubs. I fed them, cleaned their kennels, and had to laugh once when I thought about what Kate must be doing right now on a Saturday afternoon: probably lying with a mud pack on her face in a spa while I was covered with it and worse!
At the end of the afternoon, while we washed up and got ready to leave, I told Rayleen of my fears that Danny was in a shelter somewhere far away. He had been gone for five days and today would be the day they could put him down!
“I’ve checked most of ’em in California for you already, but let’s do it again just to be sure.”
We went online and scoured the pictures of every border collie in shelters from here to Sacramento, but none of them was Danny.
While we were looking, Lulu sent me a text message asking if I wanted to sleep over tonight, but I knew all I’d want to do when I got home was take a shower and go to bed early. Officer Reyes kept looking over at me, so Rayleen introduced me to him.
“You’re right by the ocean. That’s a nice place to live,” Officer Reyes said when Rayleen introduced me as “Bree from Santa Monica.”
“Yes, it is,” I replied, and noticed how lined his face looked.
“When I retire next year, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll go to the beach and listen to the sound of the waves. It will be good to get away from the barking.” He looked at me with eyes that were gray and flat.
As Rayleen and I made our way down the corridor, I thought how sad it was that Officer Reyes seemed to have lost interest in caring for the animals around him. They all seemed to blur one into another for him now.
