Storm Dog

by Jennifer Li Shotz

  Dedication

  For Emmett and Amelia

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  SCOUT WAS WORRIED. He ran his snout over Matt’s heavy suitcase, sniffing and snorting, his tail sticking straight out behind him and his ears perked forward. His brow was furrowed in concentration, as if he was trying to figure out where Matt was going.

  “It’s okay, Scout.” Matt laughed as the dog nudged the lid of the suitcase open and stuffed his head into the neatly folded pile of T-shirts. “Relax, pal. You’re coming with me.” Matt wrapped his arms around his dog’s chest and gave him a hug. “You don’t think I’d go to Puerto Rico without you, do you?”

  Scout responded by licking Matt’s eyebrow.

  Satisfied, Scout spun around three times and, after some rearranging of the blankets, plopped down next to the suitcase on the bed. He dropped his head onto his paws, still watching Matt.

  “How’s the packing going?” Matt’s mom called from the kitchen. “We’re wheels up at fourteen hundred hours.”

  “On it!” Matt called back down. He turned to Scout and shook his head. “How many times has she already asked me that this morning?” Matt questioned the dog, who stared at him blankly in response. “Military parents.” Matt sighed.

  Matt shoved a Reno baseball cap and a pair of flip-flops on top of his clothes and zipped the suitcase shut. He looked around his room, at his fishing rod leaning in the corner, the kayak oars hanging on the wall, and the photo of his whole family at his sister Bridget’s high school graduation just a few months earlier. It was the last photo he had of the four of them. Now that Bridget was off at her first semester of college in California, she and Matt only talked via the occasional text. After Bridget had left, Matt’s dad had shipped out too, for what Matt hoped would be his last deployment to the Middle East. They managed to FaceTime once a week, depending on his dad’s schedule.

  It had just been Matt, his mom, and Scout all summer, though Matt kept himself busy kayaking and rock climbing with Dev, Amaiya, and Curtis. Matt had been looking forward to going back to school with his three best friends in a couple of weeks, but plans had changed—as they so often did in his family.

  If you had asked Matt to name the very last thing he imagined doing for his seventh-grade year, it would have been spending it in Puerto Rico with his mom and dog. Matt still wasn’t sure how he felt about it—other than knowing it was the right thing to do. That was because the upheaval in Matt’s life was nothing compared to what a lot of other people were going through in Puerto Rico. Just a few weeks earlier, a powerful hurricane had crashed through the island. Matt had seen the frightening images in the news: houses ripped from their foundations, tall trees snapped in half, cars flipped on their sides . . .

  The island was devastated.

  More than half of it was still without electricity. Tens of thousands of people were without clean water. Just as many people had no home to return to. Fallen trees blocked roads, making it hard for rescue crews to get through with food and water.

  That’s where Matt’s mom came in.

  National Guard troops from all over the country were headed to Puerto Rico to help, and she was leading the way. That’s because she wasn’t just Matt’s mom—she was Colonel Tackett, in charge of the entire Nevada Army National Guard base. She would be heading up the response teams that were converging at the National Guard base in Puerto Rico. They were going to help in any way they could—they would find people who needed assistance in remote areas, distribute food and medical supplies, clear debris, rebuild businesses and homes, reopen roads . . . whatever needed doing.

  When Matt’s mom got word of her deployment, Matt had a decision to make. With his dad and Bridget gone, he couldn’t stay alone in their house on base. His mom had spoken to Dev’s mom and then gave Matt the choice to spend the first semester of seventh grade living at Dev’s house. Matt was tempted—hanging out with his gangly, goofy, hilarious friend 24/7 would be a ton of fun. Plus, he had quickly felt more at home here in Nevada than in all the other states he’d lived in during his twelve years, mostly thanks to the closest friends he’d ever had.

  But the more Matt thought about staying at home, the more a little feeling started to tug at him. Matt had always felt as though he were a part of something bigger. Like the decisions he made weren’t just about him.

  After a couple of days, that wiggly feeling in his gut grew into a certainty, and his decision became clear.

  I can’t help from here, he thought.

  Matt wanted to go with his mom and help out as much as he was able to. He knew he wouldn’t be allowed out in the field with her troops, but maybe he could help in smaller ways—plus, he could still be with Scout.

  Matt’s mom was taking Scout to Puerto Rico too, in case her team needed him for a search-and-rescue operation. After all, Scout was the best dog they had. In the eight months since he’d joined Colonel Tackett’s K-9 team, Scout had proven that he was the best of the best. He’d been rough around the edges at first—a little undisciplined and a lot stubborn. But then a dam burst and a flood crashed through Silver Valley. Scout had saved a lot of lives that day, including Matt’s and his sister’s. And if that weren’t enough, Scout had also saved Matt, his dad, and his friends when they’d gotten stuck on a mountain in the middle of a terrifying wildfire.

  Scout was the star of Colonel Tackett’s team, but he was also an important part of their family now. He didn’t just live with the Tacketts, he was also Matt’s shadow, protecting him all the time.

  So it was decided: Matt would join Scout and his mom, and live with them at the National Guard base in Puerto Rico. They didn’t know how long they would be there—at least several weeks, if not several months. All the schools on the island were still closed, but if they opened in time, Matt would probably start the school year there as well.

  It would be a big change, but Matt was ready.

  The doorbell rang downstairs, and Matt heard his mom greeting someone. A herd of elephants stomped upstairs and toward Matt’s room.

  “This is NOT happening,” Dev bellowed from the hallway. Dev had not stopped giving him a hard time ever since Matt had made up his mind to go.

  Matt grinned. “It’s happening.”

  Matt turned to see Dev filling the doorframe. Amaiya ducked under Dev’s arm and walked into the room.

  “I can’t believe this is really happening,” she said with an exaggerated frown.

  “Me neither,” Curtis said from behind Dev.

  Dev plopped into Matt’s desk chair. “It’s not too late for you to come live at my house,” Dev said. “My mom is a seriously good cook.”

  “No offense,” Matt said, “but your room is too much of a mess.”

  “Ouch,” Dev replied.

  “I mean, he’s not wrong.” Curtis shrugged. />
  Amaiya turned to Matt. “Feel free to take me with you.”

  “I’d take you all if I could,” Matt said.

  Excited by all the new company, Scout hopped down off the bed and ambled over, plopping down on the rug at the center of the room.

  “Scout!” the kids cried out.

  “We’re gonna miss you too, buddy!” Amaiya said.

  “Gimme a kiss,” Dev baby-talked, leaning down to rub his nose against Scout’s. The dog obliged him with one big, wet slurp across the cheek.

  As Amaiya rubbed Scout’s ears, her expression grew serious. “What’s it going to be like in Puerto Rico?” she asked Matt. “I went there once on vacation and the beaches were so beautiful, but now . . . It’s awful what the storm did.”

  “Yeah, it’s a mess,” Matt said. “My mom said roads are still flooded or blocked with trees and stuff. Lots of people still don’t have water or electricity.”

  “Sounds a little scary, man,” Curtis said.

  It did sound scary, but Matt wasn’t afraid. He’d be living on base, where there were generators and supplies, so he wasn’t worried about himself. He didn’t know what to expect, but he knew that his mom and her team were the best and could handle anything.

  The room got quiet. No one knew exactly what to say.

  Matt looked around at his friends, sprawled around his room.

  He was going to miss them.

  “I’ll be back so soon, you won’t even know I’m gone,” Matt finally said to fill the silence.

  “Know you’re gone?” Dev shot back. “I’m sorry—are you still here?”

  Amaiya tossed a shoe at Dev, who caught it and chucked it back at her. She ducked and it hit Matt’s closet door.

  “You guys had better get out of here before you destroy the place,” Matt’s mom said from the door. Curtis jolted upright, and Amaiya and Dev sat up straight too.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Tackett!” they said at once.

  “I’m just kidding.” She laughed. “At ease, people.”

  Matt always found it entertaining when his friends were intimidated by his mom. Sure, she had incredibly straight posture, wore her dark brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, and usually had on camouflage. But she was just . . . his mom.

  “Well,” Amaiya said, getting to her feet, “we should go anyway. We just came to say good-bye.”

  The kids gathered in a group hug while Matt’s mom watched from the door.

  “Bye, guys,” Matt said.

  “See you on the other side,” Dev said, clapping Matt’s hand in an upright shake.

  “See you on the other side.”

  Dev, Amaiya, and Curtis filed out past Matt’s mom. Scout watched them go and sat down by Matt’s knee.

  “I know this is hard, Matt,” his mom said. “But you’re handling it really well. I’m proud of you.”

  Matt shrugged. “Thanks, Mom. It’s not really that hard, though. I mean, I’ll miss them, but I’ll see them again soon.”

  “You will. I know I promised you that we’re staying in Nevada, and I meant it. We are not leaving Nevada. This is just temporary.”

  “Mom,” Matt said with a huge eye roll. “You told me. Like, a thousand times.”

  She chuckled. “I just want to be sure you know that I keep my word. We asked a lot of you when we moved here, and I don’t take that for granted.” She shot him a grateful look. “And I love seeing you with your friends, seeing how happy you are here. This is our home now.”

  “Then I don’t mind leaving for a while, because I know we’ll be back.”

  Matt’s mom wrapped him in a tight hug. “Plus,” he mumbled into her shoulder, “people need our help. We can’t just stay here when we could be down there doing something. It’s—” He pulled back and looked at her, trying to find the right words. “It’s just . . . our duty, I guess.”

  “That’s my boy,” Matt’s mom said, beaming at him.

  At the word boy, Scout lifted his head and raised his ears. He looked from Matt’s mom to Matt and back again.

  “She wasn’t talking to you, boy.” Matt laughed. “She was talking to me boy.” Matt dropped to his knees and took Scout’s face in his hands. “We’re in this one together, Scout.”

  In response, Scout wagged his tail, raised his snout, and let out one loud, excited bark.

  2

  MATT PRESSED HIS FOREHEAD AGAINST the plane window, trying to get a good angle on the land below. There had been nothing to see but clouds for what felt like hours. Now they were past the Gulf of Mexico, past Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, and they were beginning their descent. Matt was getting his first sight of the island of Puerto Rico.

  It was beautiful. From above, Puerto Rico was a rich, lush landscape of green hills rising and falling into shady valleys, of treetops and narrow roads winding through mountains. There were cities and crowded residential areas, and on one end of the narrow island was a thick patch of forest. All this was ringed with stunning pale beaches.

  But as the plane got lower, Matt saw that the beaches were layered with debris and tree limbs. The hillsides were dotted with splintered homes with their roofs torn off, the gaping holes covered by blue plastic tarps. Bright teal, hot pink, and golden yellow houses were knocked off their foundations, as if they had just been picked up and moved a few feet over. Toppled utility poles were split in the middle like broken toothpicks and lay across highways that had chunks of asphalt gouged out of them.

  Huge patches of land were still totally submerged by the floodwaters, which had risen fast from the storm surge and the rain that had lasted for days. Boats lay sideways on land where they had been washed ashore. The forest looked like a giant had walked right through it, stomping on trees and knocking them pell-mell into one another, leaving footsteps of flattened greenery behind.

  As the plane prepared to land, they flew over a wide zigzagging wall—a fortress set on a spit of land surrounded by water. Matt squinted into the sunlight. He thought back to everything he’d read about the island in the last few days. He recognized the massive structure as El Morro Fort, a sixteenth-century military base built to protect this tiny island in the Caribbean Sea.

  Matt was still taking it all in as soldiers greeted him, his mom, and Scout on the tarmac and led them to a jeep. Scout clambered into the back seat next to him, leaning on Matt as they bumped along. The drive to the base was only a short distance, but it was a slow trip. The road was still covered in a foot or more of water, and the soldier driving the jeep steered it carefully around small mountains of debris. Downed electrical poles, tangled power lines, and piles of wood shards littered the sidewalk.

  Matt saw people in T-shirts, shorts, and tall rain boots wading slowly, trying to go about their daily lives. They carried backpacks and stepped around sodden mattresses, torn sofas, rusted washing machines, and strips of corrugated metal siding. He looked up and thought he was imagining things, but it was all too real. There was a bent and twisted bicycle dangling high up in a tree.

  Matt had never seen destruction like this before, but there was something familiar in the people. It was their hunched shoulders and their dazed expressions as they adjusted to their new reality. It was the same way Matt and the people of Silver Valley had looked after the terrible flood had crashed through their town. Like they couldn’t quite connect what they were seeing with what they knew—things just didn’t add up.

  But this was way, way worse.

  Matt rolled down the window. He wanted to feel and smell the air. It hit him like a briny slap. Scout hopped over Matt’s lap to put his front paws on the armrest, stuck his head out the window, and sniffed wildly at the air. Matt felt the dog’s body shaking with intensity and excitement. Scout was on high alert, taking in the overwhelming number of new scents and sounds—thousands upon thousands of them all pouring into his senses at once.

  Scout was ready to get to work.

  3

  ON ONE SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY, a long stretch of beach race
d alongside the car. The late-afternoon sun sparkled off the water. Matt blinked. They turned onto a smaller road, and soon the jeep slowed as they passed a huge sign, taller than the vehicle. WELCOME TO CAMP MADERA, it said in capital letters.

  They drove slowly through the base, which spread out around them like an open field. Hills rose in the distance, providing a stunning backdrop to the buildings lined up neatly, row after row. The base was alive—there were soldiers everywhere. Troops marched in formation or stood at attention, eyes locked on their commanding officers. Others ran laps around a track in small packs. Men and women in camouflage hustled by, rushing from one barrack to another. Trucks rumbled past.

  It felt like home to Matt.

  Through the car window, Scout’s eyes flitted from one soldier to another, and his ears flicked to the left and right as he took in every sound. He sniffed at the air and pawed at the car door, ready to get out and stretch his legs.

  The jeep lurched to a stop in front of a tidy two-story house. Matt had lived on enough bases to know that this was where the colonel lived—and that’s who they were here to see. Matt and his mom climbed out. A tall man with gray hair, dressed in camouflage from his ankles all the way up to his cap, walked toward them. He was straight-backed and stern, with a deadly serious look on his face. Up close, Matt could see that he was much younger than his hair—and his posture—made him seem.

  Scout hopped out and sniffed at the ground, following a scent across the dirt and over to the man’s boots. The man ignored the dog at his feet. Matt was about to call Scout back—this guy didn’t look like someone who would find a curious dog cute—but all of a sudden, the man opened his arms wide and burst out laughing. Matt’s mom did the same, and next thing Matt knew, they were wrapping each other in a giant hug.

  “Colonel Ric Dávila!” she exclaimed.

  “Colonel Trisha Tackett!” he replied in a deep, loud voice.

  A woman about Matt’s mom’s age appeared next to them, and suddenly his mom was hugging her too.

  “Sonia!” his mom said.

  “Ah, Trisha, it’s so wonderful to see you. Thank you for coming.”