Lily to the Rescue

by W. Bruce Cameron

  “Even I didn’t know that,” Dad said. “Very interesting. And that’s another reason why it would be better if Casey joined a family—so that he could learn from them.”

  7

  We went to a park! It was not the kind of park where dogs are allowed to run around without a leash. That made it not the best kind of park, but still, there were many smells and there were trees and there was a big pond—and I noticed there were a lot of birds.

  There were big birds floating in the water, and there were little birds in the trees, and there were groups of crows that were on the ground poking at the dirt with their beaks. Dad set Casey’s cage on the ground, and Casey was so excited he opened the door himself and jumped out.

  “Wow!” Dad said. “I didn’t know Casey knew how to do that!”

  “You’re a smart bird, Casey!” Maggie Rose called out.

  Casey was obviously very interested in the crows that were across a big lawn. He kept looking at them, cocking his head to one side and the other, the way he had done when he first met me. After a time, he hopped up and flew a little bit closer to the big group of crows. They ignored Casey, probably not realizing what a special bird he was and that he had a dog for a friend.

  Maggie Rose and Dad walked around pointing at birds, and Bryan and Craig threw a ball to each other. I decided to stick with the boys, and sure enough, Bryan dropped one of Craig’s throws, and then we had a lot of fun playing Chase-Me-I-Have-Bryan’s-Ball-and-You-Don’t. Craig and Bryan kept yelling, “Drop it, Lily!” which I decided meant “Keep running with the ball, Lily!”

  Eventually, I let the boys tackle me and take the ball out of my mouth. “Yuck,” Craig said, “it’s covered in dog spit!”

  I wagged at the word dog. I trotted over to be with Dad and Maggie Rose because they were down at the pond watching the big birds float.

  After a little while, I noticed that Casey had hopped closer and closer to the other crows. I wondered if he was making friends with them. I wondered if they would let me make friends, too.

  The trouble was, I did not know any crow games other than the one where Casey would ride on my back. There were many, many crows, and I did not think I could hold all of them up on my back.

  Then I saw a dog running across the park. It was a brown spotted dog who was dragging his leash.

  “A springer spaniel,” Dad said to Maggie Rose. “That’s a bird dog. Bred to hunt birds with his owner. See how excited he is with all the birds in the park? He probably yanked the leash right out of his owner’s hand.”

  I watched as the brown dog very rudely ran right into the middle of Casey’s friends. They all took off into the air, Casey included. They flew around the park in a big, open circle. And then they flew up into the air over the trees and went away.

  “Beau! Come back here!” a woman was yelling. She had her hands on her hips, but the brown spotted dog didn’t seem to know that meant he was being a bad dog. I knew, though, so I pressed against Maggie Rose’s leg, being a good dog, and waited for Casey to return.

  But Casey did not come back.

  Dad called the boys, and we all went to the car. I noticed Maggie Rose had her head down, as if she were watching for something to happen on the ground.

  When we got to the car, Casey was not in his cage. I realized then that he was going to stay with his crow friends. Maybe they would all find some chipmunks to play with.

  I was very sad. Maggie Rose was my best friend in the world, but Casey was my best bird friend. I had not realized how much I enjoyed being with Casey until he left.

  “I know you were sorry to see Casey go,” Dad said to my girl. “But believe me, this is best. It’s your mom’s job and mine, too. We take care of animals, we help them get better when they’re sick or injured, and then we release them back into the wild.”

  “Except puppies,” Craig said.

  “Right,” Dad replied. “Dogs can’t live in the wild, so your mom finds them homes.”

  “And cats,” Bryan said.

  “True enough.”

  “And monkeys!” Craig said. He laughed.

  “Whales! Dolphins!” Bryan hooted.

  “If I come across a whale up in the mountains, I will do my best to find it a good home.” Dad chuckled.

  Both boys were laughing, but Maggie Rose was sad. She could probably feel the emptiness in the cage behind us, just as I did. It felt as if Casey were still in there, but every time I checked, he wasn’t. Casey was gone.

  I hoped Casey would be happy with his new friends. But I was sure he would miss me, just the way I was missing him.

  8

  We went back to Work, and I took a nap with Brewster out in the yard while Maggie Rose helped Mom with the cat cages. I had a dream that Casey was on my back. Then I went in and took a nap with Maggie Rose on a narrow, soft bed where she liked to lie down sometimes, often with a book. She was still a sad girl, so I pressed up against her, letting her know that she had the love of her dog.

  I was sound asleep when I heard a tap. I opened one lazy eye, wondering what I had just heard. Then there was another tap. This was certainly a puzzle. What could be making that noise? Should I get up and see what was going on, or nap?

  Nap, I decided.

  Tap.

  I raised my head and looked around. Was someone knocking on the door? I did not think that was it. I yawned and started to put my head back down and heard it again. Tap. Tap, tap.

  All right, time to figure out what was happening. I stretched, but I stayed on the bed so that another nap could be easily had if I decided whatever was making the noise wasn’t worth investigating.

  Tap.

  I looked and saw to my surprise that a crow was standing on the window ledge, tapping on the glass with his beak. It was Casey! He was back!

  Tap.

  Maggie Rose seemed to be sound asleep, so I gave her face a lick. She kept her eyes closed but wiped at her cheek with her fingers. I licked her again. Giggling, she opened her eyes.

  “Oh, Lily, you are so silly. Why are you kissing me right now?”

  Tap.

  Maggie Rose heard the noise. She sat up and frowned. Then her face brightened, and she gasped. “Look, Lily! It’s Casey!”

  We ran down the hallway and out the door into the yard. Casey was waiting for us. I circled the yard joyously while Casey flew over and landed right on Maggie Rose’s outstretched hand. “Why are you here, Casey?” she asked. “Didn’t you want to stay with your new crow family?”

  Casey twisted his head back and forth at Maggie Rose’s question, so maybe he understood it. Then he lifted his wings and flapped up into the air and glided over to the back gate. He turned and looked to us.

  “What is it, Casey?”

  The crow pecked at the gate. I wandered over to look through the wires to the other side, but I saw no friendly chipmunks or any other animals. Then Casey fluttered up to the gate latch and pecked there, scrabbling a little with his feet before dropping back down next to me.

  “Do you want us to leave the yard?” Maggie Rose asked.

  Casey just stared at her. I headed to the fence and lifted my leg like a male dog, which I do sometimes. I had never seen Casey do that. I couldn’t fly like a crow, but I could mark the fence, which was probably more satisfying, anyway.

  “Mom,” Maggie Rose called. “Is it okay if I leave the yard?”

  “Don’t go far!” Mom yelled from somewhere inside.

  When my girl walked over to Casey, he fluttered up over the fence and landed on the other side of the gate. He came to the wires and poked his beak through so that I could sniff him. “Okay,” Maggie Rose said, “I have no idea what we’re doing, but let’s go.” Maggie Rose snapped a leash into my collar, and we went for a walk!

  It was a very different sort of walk from those I had ever taken before. Casey was mostly on the ground and was hopping and holding his one wing the way he had the very first time I saw him. I remembered that I had followed him when he had bee
n hopping like that, and now we were following him again. Did Casey remember the first day we met? Was that why he was hopping so strangely, so that I would track right behind him?

  “Where are you taking us, Casey?” Maggie Rose asked.

  I did not know what she was saying, but I thought perhaps she was asking Casey if his wing was hurt again. I hoped not. That would mean Casey had to wear a coat, and with that coat on, he was much less active and never flew anywhere.

  Casey led us down the sidewalk, still hopping. Maggie Rose was confused; I could tell by the slow way she was walking.

  I passed several yards where dogs had marked, and I wanted to stop and sniff each place, but my girl tugged my leash because Casey didn’t know enough to wait for me to paint my own scent over the other dogs’. I liked Casey, but sometimes he could be irritating.

  Casey flopped his way over to the base of a tree. Once there, he folded his wings normally. When we came closer, Casey crouched down. Then he started flapping his wings and rose up into the air. He landed in the tree right over our heads, and that is when I smelled it—there was an animal in that tree.

  A kitten! Casey had led us to a kitten who was in the tree!

  “Oh, my,” Maggie Rose said. “There’s a little kitten! It’s stuck up in the tree! Come on, Lily. We need to go get help!”

  Now we were running! I scampered joyously next to my girl. We ran all the way back to Mom’s Work, leaving Casey and the kitten back in the tree.

  When we got to Work, Bryan and Craig were playing with a big ball in the grass. I immediately ran over to try to take the ball away, and both boys shouted, “No!”

  I still didn’t like that word very much.

  “There’s a little kitten stuck in a tree!” Maggie Rose told them. “Can you come help? Casey found her.”

  “Casey’s back?” Craig asked.

  “Yes!”

  I wagged that they were saying Casey so much, but I would have been even happier if they had let me play with the ball.

  “Wait a minute,” Bryan scoffed. “You mean to tell me the crow led you to a stuck cat? How is that even possible, Runt?”

  “Yes, Casey did exactly that, and Dad said to stop calling me Runt!”

  Craig picked up the ball and tossed it from one hand to the other. I watched, fascinated. “Okay, let’s go check it out,” he said.

  The boys followed us back to the tree where Casey was sitting on a branch near the frightened kitten. Bryan and Craig kicked the ball back and forth all the way, but I didn’t try to chase it because I was in no mood to hear them yell, “No!” again.

  “Hey!” Bryan said. “The runt was right! There’s a kitten stuck in that tree.”

  9

  We all looked up to where the kitten was still clinging to the trunk of the tree with its little claws. It glanced down at us and opened its mouth and made a very tiny, “Meew.”

  “I can get it,” Craig said. He went to the tree and hugged it. I watched curiously. Then he kicked his legs and hugged the trunk higher, inching his way up the tree.

  Maggie Rose clapped her hands together. I looked at the ball. Maybe I should grab it while Craig was up the tree.

  Craig soon made it to the branch where Casey was sitting. He swung himself up, and Casey fluttered his wings a bit, moving over to make room. “The kitten doesn’t have a collar,” he called down. He reached out his hands, very gently pulling the frightened little kitten off the tree trunk. I could hear the ripping sound her claws made as they were lifted from the bark.

  “I have no idea how this little thing got up here,” Craig said down to us. “She must have been chased by a dog or something.”

  I heard the word dog and wagged.

  Craig put the little kitten inside his shirt and then hugged the tree and slid back down to the ground. He reached up inside his shirt and pulled out the little kitten so that we could all smell it. Well, I smelled it, anyway.

  Bryan and Craig and Maggie Rose took the kitten to Mom, who looked it over.

  “She’s well fed,” Mom observed. “She’s not a stray. We’ll put up notices, and I’m sure her family will come claim her. She must have just escaped from someone’s house. Good job saving her, Maggie Rose. And you boys, I’m proud of you.”

  “Don’t forget Casey!” Maggie Rose said. As she spoke, there was a tap. We looked up and saw Casey standing on the window ledge, and he pecked again at the glass. He wanted us to join him in the yard!

  Maggie Rose let me out into the yard, and Casey flew up and landed on my back for a dog ride. Mom came out to watch.

  “Maybe we could have Lily put on a dog show to raise some money for the shelter.” Mom laughed.

  I wagged because they were both so happy.

  “I could teach Lily tricks!” Maggie Rose said. “Would you like to be in a show, Lily?”

  “When I was a little girl, I wanted to put on animal shows on TV,” Mom said. “I trained my first dog to jump through hoops and sit on benches and thought someone would drive by and see me and make me a TV star. But what I do now is much better, saving animals every day. You, too, Maggie Rose. I’d rather have you here than on TV. I’d miss you.”

  “And I would miss Lily. Maybe we should just do our own dog show, here in the yard. Casey can ride Lily’s back, and I could teach Brewster to do some tricks, too.”

  “That could be fun. I’m sure you could teach Casey, too. Did you know that crows are so smart they can learn to say actual words?” Mom asked Maggie Rose.

  “What? They can talk?” Maggie Rose said. She sounded delighted.

  “Well, they can’t have a real conversation, but they can say a few words. When I was growing up, a man down the street had a pet crow who could say, ‘I love you.’ Only it had trouble with the letter L, so it would say, ‘I ruv you.’ Actually, it was more like, ‘I ruv roo.’”

  I wagged at Mom’s voice, feeling Casey’s hard little feet up on my back. Maggie Rose fell to her knees next to me. “Can you talk, Casey?”

  I wondered if my girl was asking Casey if he wanted a peanut. Whenever Maggie Rose fed Casey, the crow seemed most excited about the peanuts, even though they were still in the shell.

  I might eat a peanut if I had to, but really I’d prefer almost anything else.

  “Lily?” Maggie Rose said. “Lily? Say Lily, Casey? Lily? Lily?”

  I stared at Maggie Rose, absolutely mystified. What did she want me to do? Why was she saying my name? I looked around the yard, but I could think of no reason why she would be calling to me when I was sitting right here.

  “Say Lily, Casey! Lily!”

  Mom chuckled. “Well, I don’t know how they learn words, so that might not work, Maggie Rose. But you can keep trying.”

  “Lily! Say Lily, Casey?”

  Casey and I both stared at my girl. What on earth was she doing?

  From that day on, Casey was back to being my friend. He might fly away for a day or longer, but he always came back to see Maggie Rose and me at Work.

  That little kitten Casey found didn’t live with us very long. In fact, it was the very next day when a woman came. She called the cat Mittens, and when Mom took the little cat from her cage to the woman, the woman started crying.

  “I was sure I’d lost Mittens,” the woman said, wiping her eyes. I could tell her feelings were very strong. Dogs have feelings, too, but mostly they are just happy ones, so we don’t ever need to cry. “Thank you so much for saving her!”

  “Well,” Mom replied, “it was something of a group effort.”

  When the woman left holding the little kitten, I saw Casey high in the sky. The woman drove away, and Casey followed. I knew that Casey was making sure the kitten was safe.

  10

  Casey came back that afternoon, and we waited in the yard together for Maggie Rose to quit being at the place called school and come play with us. When the gate finally opened and my girl came in, I raced around the yard in a frenzy of joy!

  Casey flew right up and l
anded on my girl’s outstretched hand.

  “Lily? Can you say Lily, Casey? Lily?” Maggie Rose asked.

  That again. I went to Maggie Rose and did a very good Sit, thinking if I were the best dog I could be, we could end this crazy behavior.

  Casey flew over and landed on my head. I felt him up there, so I held very still. My girl giggled so hard she sat on the ground.

  I wagged. Whatever we were doing, it was making Maggie Rose so happy she couldn’t even stand up.

  “Do you want to go on a picnic, Lily?” Maggie Rose asked.

  I had learned that picnic meant that we would go to the dog park and sit on a blanket, and Maggie Rose would give me treats out of a basket. I very much liked Doing Picnic.

  It turned out that Casey liked picnics, too. He came along to the dog park and flew right down to land on the blanket with us.

  Boggs the dog came running over to see us, and Casey wisely flew up in the trees so that Boggs wouldn’t sit on him. I was friendly to Boggs, but I watched him closely as he sniffed at the basket with food in it. Those were not his treats in there. I could smell my treats, my girl’s snack, and peanuts for Casey.

  Maggie Rose called Boggs a good dog, which to me meant she had forgotten about Boggs sitting in the water bowl. Sitting in a water bowl is bad dog behavior and is the sort of thing a dog would never forget.

  Boggs ran off to do whatever he was doing, and my girl reached into the basket for the treats. Yes! She had a loop of flashy metal on her wrist. Dangling off this circle of wire were very small dog tags that glittered in the sun.

  Casey found the thing fascinating, and he flew down from the tree to sit close to my girl and stare at the dangling dog tags, twisting his head side to side.

  “You really like my charm bracelet, don’t you, Casey?” Maggie Rose asked him. When Maggie Rose held out her wrist, Casey pecked cautiously at the dangling things.

  “Here’s a peanut,” my girl said. I wagged so that the whole give-a-treat thing would continue—but hopefully with something other than peanuts. Casey took the peanut, which was fine by me.