Ellie's Story

by W. Bruce Cameron

  “Um, yeah, okay.”

  Without much interest, I watched Vernon walk away. Maya knelt down and patted me, then poured a little water from a bottle into my mouth. I lapped it up and she scratched my ears.

  “Okay, Ellie, ready? Ready to Find?”

  I got up slowly. I was tired. And I could tell Maya was not as excited as she was pretending to be. But it was Work, so I followed her directions. She took me over to a house we’d already searched.

  Why were we going back here? I paused in the doorway, puzzled, while Maya waited in the street. Something was different. I put my nose down to the dusty carpet and sniffed.

  Vernon. His smell had been in here before, of course, but now it was fresher. And he’d walked straight across the floor. I followed, stepping over bits of glass, books that had fallen from a bookcase, a toy truck, a smashed radio.

  There was a pile of blankets in the corner. Vernon’s smell was strong there, full of sweat and heat and goats. He smelled different from the other people I’d Found so far in this place. He smelled … alive.

  I turned and raced back to Maya. “Show me!” she urged.

  I ran back to the blankets, and when Maya peeled them back Vernon sat up. A big smile crossed his sad, grubby face.

  “You found me! Good dog, Ellie!” he shouted. I wagged so hard that my back feet started dancing with excitement. I was a good dog after all! I’d Found somebody who was glad to be Found!

  Vernon laughed at my dance and rolled with me in the blankets. I licked his face. He tasted sweaty and dusty. Maya threw him the rubber bone, and we played tug-of-war.

  Then I was ready to Work some more.

  Maya and I Worked all night. We Found more people, including Vernon, who became better and better at hiding. But I’d worked with Wally, so no one could fool me for very long. I found Vernon every time.

  The sun was coming up when we came to a new building. Sharp-smelling smoke was still rising in slow clouds from one corner. There was a smell here that I did not like at all. Some metal barrels had been crushed under chunks of concrete and were leaking a liquid that made my eyes water. It didn’t smell like anything I’d ever smelled before.

  Maya kept the leash on my collar. “Careful, Ellie,” she murmured.

  A brick wall had fallen down. I pushed away the horrible smell from the barrels, trying to Find. The smell was faint underneath the chemical stink, but I still caught it. A person. Dead.

  I stopped and stared at the pile of bricks. “Someone’s here!” Maya called out. Her voice was tired.

  “We know about him,” a man with a shovel told Maya. “We can’t get him out yet. Whatever’s in those barrels is toxic. Going to need a cleanup crew.”

  “Okay, good dog. Let’s go somewhere else, Ellie.”

  I got up, but I didn’t walk away with Maya. There was something, a hint of a new smell underneath the flood of chemical odors. There! The scent trickled out from a wide crack in the wall just beyond the pile of bricks. Another person. A woman.

  My body went rigid. I looked up at Maya, waiting for “Show me!”

  “It’s okay, Ellie. We’re going to leave this one here. Come on,” Maya said. She pulled gently at my leash again. “Come, Ellie.”

  I stared back at the crack in the wall, then up at Maya. We couldn’t leave!

  This new person I had found smelled like Vernon. She smelled alive.

  15

  “We see the victim, Ellie. We’re going to have to leave him here. Come on,” Maya said.

  She wanted me to leave. But why? We weren’t done. We hadn’t Found the person I had smelled.

  Unless …

  Was Maya confused? Did she think I was still telling her about the person under the bricks? That wasn’t right. I stared up at her, trying to tell her with my eyes, my ears, my tense and rigid body, that I had Found someone new.

  I needed Maya to understand. I could not Find without her. Finding meant bringing Maya to a person. What would I do if she wouldn’t come?

  “Does she want to Find me again?” Vernon asked.

  Maya shook her head. “Poor Ellie. This is so confusing for her. You can’t hide around here; it’s too dangerous. Tell you what, though, it would be fun for her to chase you a little. Go up the street a bit and call her, and I’ll let her off the leash.”

  I didn’t pay attention to Vernon as he trotted away. I was still on Find. My focus was on the rubble, on the crack with the faint smell drifting out of it.

  The person was alive and frightened. I could smell fear, sharp beneath the chemical smell that hurt my nose.

  Maya unsnapped my leash. “Ellie? What’s Vernon doing? Where’s he going?”

  “Hey, Ellie! Look!” Vernon shouted. He started to run slowly up the street, glancing back over his shoulder at me.

  I stared after him. It would be fun to chase him. Maya wanted me to, and I liked Finding Vernon. He’d wrestle and play with me, and he was glad to be Found. Finding him had been the only fun part of this night.

  But I had Work to do. I turned back to the collapsed building.

  “Ellie! No!” Maya called.

  If it had been Jakob, that “no!” would have stopped me in my tracks. But Maya just didn’t command me with the same force. She was more frightened than angry. It showed in her voice.

  I scrambled over the pile of bricks that lay over the dead body, scrabbling my way forward. My feet slipped in something wet, and the pads started to sting. That harsh, unnatural smell was rising all around me. It was blocking out the woman’s scent. I clawed my way forward, trying to find it again.

  There! The crack in the wall was ahead. I pushed my way into it. I’d done this before, wriggling through the tube. First with Jakob, then with Maya. I knew what to do.

  Something wet and slick was underneath me. It was sticking to my fur. It splashed up onto my nose as I forced my way forward. It hurt! My nose stung even worse than my paws. I pushed myself forward faster, desperate to get out of this cramped, dark, dangerous place.

  Then the ground vanished beneath me. I’d dropped down into a narrow shaft. I hit the concrete floor hard and staggered back up, shaking my head hard. My nose! It was burning!

  I couldn’t even smell the woman huddled in a corner of the shaft, pressing a piece of cloth that she’d torn off her skirt to her face. Her eyes were wide and dark as she looked at me, shocked.

  I couldn’t get back to Maya to Show her what I’d Found. I barked instead.

  “Ellie!” Maya’s voice echoed off the concrete walls around me, and she started to cough.

  “Get back, Maya,” Vernon warned.

  I kept barking. “Ellie!” Maya shouted again, sounding closer.

  The woman heard Maya. The cloth dropped away from her face, and she started screaming, all of her terror and pain tumbling out of her in her voice.

  “Here! I’m here! Don’t leave me in here! Get me out!”

  “There’s someone in there, someone alive!” Maya shouted.

  I could tell Maya understood, at last. So I stopped barking and went to sit down beside the woman I’d Found. I kept shaking my head and pawing at my nose with my paw. My eyes were watering, and whatever had gotten on my nose was getting worse and worse.

  The woman saw. Gently she tried to pat at my nose with the piece of cloth she’d held over her face.

  I jerked away and growled. I couldn’t help it. Her touch had made the stinging flare into sharp, angry pain.

  I felt bad for growling. I knew that wasn’t what I was supposed to do. So I crept back to her side and licked her hand to apologize. She seemed to understand and didn’t try to touch my nose again. Instead she whispered quietly to herself, words that were quiet and urgent at once.

  I’d heard Mama talk like that once. She’d called it praying.

  The woman and I sat together until a man wearing a helmet and a mask poked a flashlight into the space and waved it around. The light fell on both of us, and the woman gasped and then waved frantically.
>
  Soon the sounds of digging and hammering drifted down, and then a square of daylight broke into the shaft from above. A shadow blocked it almost at once. A man was swinging down on a rope.

  The woman had obviously never practiced being lifted by a rope harness before. She was very frightened and kept praying the whole time while the fireman buckled the straps around her and hoisted her out. But Jakob had taught me that a harness was not to be feared, so I stepped calmly in when it was my turn.

  I went up in jerks and stops to the top of the shaft. Maya was there when they hauled me through the hole the men had dug. I jumped into her arms as soon as they unclipped the harness from my back.

  Maya’s relief turned quickly to alarm. “Oh no, Ellie. Your nose!”

  Maya clipped on my leash and ran with me quickly to a fire truck. Maya talked to one of the firefighters, her voice urgent. He came over to me and then—well, as if things weren’t bad enough, he actually gave me a bath!

  A bath! Weren’t we Working? I was disgusted, but I sat still when Maya told me to. Actually, it was more of a rinsing than a bath. The firefighter held up a hose and sluiced cool water over my face and fur. At first it made my nose sting worse and I jerked away, but soon the tender skin felt a little better.

  Work was over after that. Maya took me back for another chopper ride and then on an airplane. Once we were back at the airport, she put me in her car and drove me straight to a man in a cool white room.

  He wore a white coat and smelled of other dogs and of harsh soap and disinfectant. I’d been here before. The man’s voice was kind and his hands were gentle, but often there were shots involved, so he wasn’t my favorite person.

  He held my face in his hands and looked at me carefully. Then he took a tube out of a jar and rubbed some kind of cream gently into my nose. The cream smelled awful, but it felt cool and wonderful, so I let him do it without protesting.

  “What was it, some kind of acid?” he asked Maya.

  “I don’t know. Is she going to be okay?” Maya’s hand was on my neck, rubbing the fur gently. I felt her love and concern in her touch and her voice, and I wished I could let her know I was feeling better. My nose didn’t hurt as much as before, and the cream had taken the last of the stinging away.

  “We’ll want to watch out for any signs of infection,” the man in the white coat told Maya, “but I don’t see any reason why she shouldn’t heal up just fine.”

  “But will she be able to work?” Maya’s voice was still worried.

  The man shook his head. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

  * * *

  Maya and I didn’t do any Work for the next two weeks or so. Every day, she gently rubbed the cream into my nose. Emmet and Stella seemed to find this pretty amusing and would sit on the counter and watch. It was embarrassing, letting the cats stare at me like that, but Maya told me to hold still, so I did.

  Tinkerbell, though … she loved that cream. I can’t imagine why, but cats are strange and that’s all there is to it. After Maya had finished with me, the little gray-and-white cat would come out of wherever she’d been hiding and sniff at my nose for a long time. Then she’d rub against me and purr.

  This was even more embarrassing than the cat audience on the counter. I’d lie down with a sigh, and Tinkerbell would sit and smell me, her tiny nose bobbing up and down. She even started curling up against me to sleep.

  It was almost more than I could stand. I couldn’t wait for Maya to tell me it was time to go back to Work.

  At last, she did. When we got to the park, I bounded up to Wally and Belinda. They were excited, too. I could see it in their wide grins and hear it in their voices.

  “I hear you are the hero dog, Ellie! Good dog!” I wagged even harder when Wally praised me. Praise was nice. Petting was good. But best of all, we were about to go to Work!

  Wally ran off while Belinda and Maya sat down at a picnic table.

  “So how are you and Wally doing?” Maya said.

  I sat, but it was hard. My legs were twitching with eagerness to be up and running. If we went after him now, we could Find Wally right away.

  “He’s taking me to meet his parents over the Fourth, so.…,” Belinda replied.

  “That’s good.”

  I groaned. Humans could do so many amazing things—why did they sit still and make words so often? They were not even interesting words, like “Find” or “Come” or “walk” or “good dog.”

  “Down, Ellie,” Maya said. That was not an interesting word, either. I flopped down with a sigh, looking pointedly in the direction Wally had taken.

  Maya and Belinda kept on making their uninteresting words. Finally, just when I was about to burst from impatience Maya looked up with a smile.

  “Okay, Ellie. You can’t wait, huh, girl? Find!”

  I took off. It was marvelous, being able to run, and Maya was able to keep up with me now. There was nothing better in the world than this.

  Wally had gotten much better at hiding! It was strange. I couldn’t find his scent at all. I checked the grass, and then I lifted my nose, searching for any trace of him. There weren’t many other smells today to distract me, but I still couldn’t find the familiar scent that was Wally.

  I ran back and forth, checking the grass and the air, turning my head into every breeze. Nothing.

  I dashed back to Maya, to make sure we were still Working. “Find, Ellie,” she said again. I could hear a little worry in her voice, but she didn’t need to worry. I was good at Work. I liked Find. Wally was just being extra clever this time, but he could not fool me for long.

  Maya let me Work for a while, and then she called me. We moved to a new area of the park and I tried again. Grass, nothing. Bushes, nothing. Wind, nothing. No Wally anywhere.

  “What’s the matter, girl? You okay?”

  I snapped my head around, startled. It was Wally!

  How could that have happened? How could Wally have snuck up on me? The wind was behind him, blowing from him to me. And yet I’d heard him before I smelled him. I rocketed toward him until, at last, my nose picked up on the smell I’d been expecting. Then I dashed back to Maya. I didn’t need to Show her where Wally was this time, though. She was already talking to him.

  “We’re having sort of an off day!” she called out as he came toward us.

  “I guess so. I’ve never seen her fail before. Hey, Ellie, how are you doing?” Wally asked me. He held out a stick to me and we played a little, tugging each other across the grass.

  “Tell you what, Maya. You focus her attention away from me. I’m going to go over that ridge, there, and double back a little. Give me about ten minutes,” said Wally.

  “You sure?”

  “She’s been out of action for a couple of weeks; let’s give her an easy one.”

  I may not have seen Wally leaving, but I heard him, even though Maya had offered me the rubber bone and was now (in that way humans had) trying to get it back from me. I could hear him and I knew he was hiding again. I wrestled happily with the bone, shaking my head to tear it loose from Maya’s grip. We were going to Find again!

  “Okay, Ellie!” Maya pulled the bone loose from my teeth. “Find!”

  I took off eagerly, heading in the direction I’d heard Wally go. I ran up a small hill and stopped, not sure what to do next.

  How was Wally doing it? How was he hiding his scent? Not even the breeze was bringing me a hint of it.

  I ran back to Maya for direction. She sent me off to my right. I snaked back and forth, searching.

  No Wally.

  Maya sent me left. Again, no sign of Wally. I dashed back to Maya and stared up at her face eagerly, excited but a little anxious, too. Was there a clue? Something I was missing? Would she tell me? We had to Find him!

  Maya sent me left again and followed me this time. She walked with me around the base of the hill I’d climbed earlier. I searched in grass and scrubby bushes, lifting my nose to the wind. But Wally had been very clever. I had
no idea where he was.

  Then something moved.

  It was just a ripple in the grass, but it caught my eye. I jumped, focused on the place. Wally sat up. I’d done it! I’d Found him! But there was no need to run back to Maya; she was already standing there.

  “This isn’t good, is it?” Maya asked. “The vet said she should be fully recovered by now.”

  “Well … let’s give it another week, see if she gets any better,” Wally said. He felt sad, for some reason, so I nuzzled his hand. He was usually very happy to be Found. I didn’t know why this time it was different.

  Maya and I Worked a few more times after that, but Wally kept on fooling me, somehow. He’d disguise his scent so that I couldn’t pick it up until I was nearly standing on him.

  Then Maya and I stopped going to the park at all.

  16

  “What does it mean that Ellie is decertified? Does it mean you will lose your job?” Al asked one night. I’m not a big fan of feet, but I’d allowed Al to take off his shoes and rub my tummy with his because they didn’t smell as bad as usual.

  “No, but I’ll be reassigned. I’ve been on a desk for the past several weeks, but I’m not really cut out for that. I’ll probably request a transfer to go back out on patrol,” Maya answered.

  Without letting Maya see, Al dropped a tiny piece of meat on the carpet in front of me. It was one of the main reasons I liked to lie in front of him at meals, even if it meant I had to put up with his feet. I silently licked up the treat while Stella gave me a dirty look from the couch.

  “I don’t like to think of you being out on patrol,” Al told Maya. “It is so dangerous.”

  “Albert.” Maya sighed.

  “What about Ellie?”

  I looked up at my name. More treats? No. Al didn’t hand down any more meat.

  “I don’t know. She can’t work anymore; her sense of smell is too damaged. So she’ll be retired. She’ll live with me. Right, Ellie?”

  I wagged. I always liked the way Maya said my name, even if she didn’t drop down anything from her plate. You could hear how much she loved me in the simple sound.