Near the trees was an old building with no doors, just walls and a sagging roof. I hoped we were not going to live in there. The house had a big yard, but I could not imagine that my mother and my girl and Dad and everyone else could fit along with me into such a small place.
“Do you notice something you don’t see?” Dad asked.
“Don’t see?” Maggie Rose repeated. She was silent for a moment. “Middens?”
“Exactly!” Dad beamed. “Very good, Maggie Rose. That’s one of the ways I figured out that no other squirrels had declared this their territory. No middens.”
“I hope Sammy will be happy here,” Maggie Rose said.
“Well, there’s only one way to find out. Hold on to Lily,” Dad advised.
I felt a twist on my collar as Maggie Rose tightened the leash, and I wagged at the sudden attention. Then I tensed as Dad knelt by the cage and began rattling it. Pretty soon, I was going to play with a squirrel!
Sammy retreated from Dad, her fluffy tail twitching. I watched with excitement as the cage door swung open. Yes! Time for Chase Me! I wagged furiously.
Dad stood up and stepped back. “Okay, Samantha,” he said.
“Go on, Sammy,” Maggie Rose encouraged.
8
Sniffing, Sammy moved with quick, jerky motions toward the front of the cage. I got ready to play, but as I surged forward, my girl held me back.
Bewildered, I glanced up at her. What sort of game was this? We had this enormous yard, but my girl was holding me still? With a squirrel about to be on the loose? Hadn’t we been waiting all this time for a chance to play Chase Me with this creature?
Sammy darted out of the open door of the cage and stopped. She was twisting her head back and forth in quick motions, looking. Maggie Rose was tense; I could feel it in the way she held my leash.
What were we doing? I strained against my collar. Squirrel!
“No, Lily,” Maggie Rose said.
It was a word I had heard before—no—and I didn’t like it very much. It meant I was not being a good dog. How could that be? I wasn’t doing anything except trying to play with a squirrel!
Suddenly, Sammy skittered forward, halted, and then dashed to a tree, leaping up and scrabbling toward the top branches. I barked in frustration, and Sammy paused on a tree limb, staring down at me.
Well, how was I supposed to play Chase Me when she was up there? I yipped, wagging, and when my girl suddenly dropped my leash, I ran to the tree and put my paws on the trunk and stared up at Sammy. If I looked at her hard enough, she’d understand that she needed to come back down right now!
“Your leg’s all better, Sammy!” my girl called, clapping her hands. I wagged. Yes, Sammy, come down to play!
“Maggie Rose, as long as we’re here, I’m going to walk out toward the edge of the field. There’s a small prairie dog colony out there. I want to see how they’re doing. Do you want to come with me or stay with the truck? Lily will have to remain behind; prairie dogs have fleas, and we don’t want Lily to get any.”
“I’ll stay here with Lily and watch Sammy,” Maggie Rose replied.
Sammy was still watching from atop the tree. I decided she wasn’t as smart as a dog, because any dog would be able to tell I wanted to play Chase Me. I decided that until the squirrel came to her senses and returned to the ground, I should ignore her. I shook myself all over, brushing away thoughts of Chase Me and ready for whatever came next.
“I won’t go far, but if you need me for anything, just honk the horn,” Dad said. I wagged as he marched away from us, and I looked up at my girl, who was gazing up into the trees. I followed her gaze but couldn’t see anything but a squirrel that I was ignoring.
Maggie Rose undid my leash. “Let’s make a midden for Sammy, Lily,” Maggie Rose said. She began picking up the dry, pointy balls that were littered on the ground. They had the same sharp tang I could smell coming off the trees. She soon had a pile of them in a hollow area under a fallen tree trunk.
I watched, baffled. What could we possibly be doing now? I was even less interested in these dry things as toys than I was in the sticks with the odor that made my eyes water.
A quick look showed me that Dad had wandered far away. I sat and scratched under my chin with a rear paw, wondering what my humans were doing.
“Sammy! You’re on the roof!” Maggie Rose squealed. She ran over to the old building, and I followed. Sammy had made her way there, leaping from branch to branch, and was now on top, peering over the edge at us. “Here, Sammy, have a pine cone!”
My girl swung her arm and tossed one of the odd-smelling balls up in the air and over the squirrel’s head. Sammy immediately disappeared from view.
“Squirrels eat pine cone seeds, Lily,” Maggie Rose said.
I wagged, then barked when Sammy’s head reappeared. Now she was holding the strange ball in her mouth. Suddenly, the ball fell from Sammy’s mouth, bounced down the roof, and landed at my feet. I pounced on it, picking it up. But I didn’t chew it. It tasted awful.
Maggie Rose laughed delightedly. When she reached to grab the dry, crackly ball out of my mouth, I danced away. We could play Chase Me at last! I was willing to keep this disgusting ball in my mouth if it meant my girl would play at last.
“No, Lily! Bring it here.”
Bring it here. That sounded familiar. And there was that word no again. I froze. Was Maggie Rose trying to tell me that we were playing Chase Me differently? But how else would the game go? I had the dry, prickly ball in my mouth, and now I would run and Maggie Rose would come after me. Right?
The powerful tang of the ball was building a horrible taste on my tongue. Suddenly, I just needed to spit the thing out.
“Good dog, Lily!” my girl praised.
Good dog? What had I done to get from no to good dog so quickly? I wagged in confusion.
The squirrel was watching from the roof. Maggie Rose cranked her arm back and pitched the foul-tasting ball up over Sammy’s head again.
I was frankly glad to be rid of it.
Sammy vanished. And then she was back with that same awful ball in her mouth! I was immediately worried she would toss it down again. We had enough of them on the ground already; my girl had made a whole pile of the things over by the fallen tree.
“Throw the pine cone!” Maggie Rose encouraged Sammy.
Pine cone. The thing was called a pine cone, and it tasted as bad as anything I had ever had in my mouth. I was very disappointed to see Sammy drop it once again. But when it hit the ground, I felt I had to leap on it, because apparently that was the game we were playing.
Maggie Rose laughed with such absolute glee I couldn’t help but wag, even with a horrible pine cone in my mouth. My tongue felt sticky.
“Bring it here, Lily!” she sang, holding out her hand.
Apparently, bring it here meant I did not have to hold this thing in my mouth any longer. I gladly allowed my girl to take it from my jaws.
“We’re playing catch! Catch, Sammy!”
The game lasted for some time, until my tongue and nose were so full of that piney flavor I felt pretty sure I would never be able to taste food again. I would have been more than happy to do anything else, but my girl was laughing so delightedly I stuck with it. Wasn’t this what I wanted, to hear her clear, high laughter? I had managed to bring real cheer to my girl, and that was the purpose of a puppy.
Although I did think we could have managed without the pine cone. And probably without the squirrel, too.
Dad came back from wherever he’d been, his dusty boots coated with a new and interesting odor. He poured some water into a bowl for me, and I drank and drank, tasting pine cone with every swallow. Then he put Sammy’s cage in the truck, but Sammy forgot to climb in it.
“We played catch with Sammy, Dad!” Maggie Rose said once we were back in the truck. I sprawled at her feet. Exhausted, I yawned so hugely the muscles in my jaw ached. I hoped as soon as Sammy came out of the tree and got in the truck we would go
home so I could nap with my mother and maybe my girl and Dad.
“That’s nice, Maggie Rose,” Dad replied.
“No, really!”
The truck rumbled to life and started moving. Sammy was being left behind. How odd. I decided that I would think about what that meant some other time.
“I have to stop by the house for something,” Dad said as we drove. “Then we’ll head back to the shelter and drop Lily off.”
It was the last thing I heard anyone say before I dozed off.
When the car stopped, I jumped out with Maggie Rose, who put the leash on me. Treat! I looked around to see where we were.
We had not returned to the place where I lived with my mother. We were in a small yard in front of a building that was bigger than the one where Sammy had sat on the roof. The grass and the dirt and the sidewalk all smelled powerfully of Maggie Rose and her family. Dad, Mom, Bryan, Craig, and my girl had walked here many, many times.
That meant this place was all right by me.
Craig was Outside, playing with a big ball. As I watched, he threw it up at the roof, even though there were no squirrels up there. Instead, there was a ring of metal. The ball bounced off the ring and came back down.
Maybe that’s how people played Bring It Here when they didn’t have any squirrels or pine cones.
“Hey, where you been, runt?” Craig asked.
Dad came around the front of the truck. “Craig? What did you just say?” he demanded.
9
I glanced up at Craig because he was suddenly different. Not afraid, just uncomfortable and tense.
“Uh…,” Craig said.
“You called Maggie Rose a runt. Runt? Explain yourself,” Dad said.
“It’s just a nickname we call her sometimes. Bryan does it, too.”
“Don’t hide behind your little brother,” Dad said shortly.
“It’s okay, Daddy. I don’t mind,” Maggie Rose said quickly.
“No, honey, it’s not okay. Craig, your brother is younger, and I don’t expect him to behave in a mature fashion, but you’re different. You’re in high school now. You should be watching out for your sister, not putting her down. Understand?”
Craig kicked the dirt. “Yeah.”
“Sorry?” Dad responded.
Craig straightened. “Yes. Sorry.”
“All right, then. Maggie Rose, thank you for helping me today with Samantha.”
“You’re welcome, Dad.”
Dad left.
“Craig, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble,” Maggie Rose told her brother. “I don’t mind it that much. I really am a runt, just like Lily. That’s why we belong together.”
I wagged at my girl for saying my name.
“No, Dad’s right,” Craig answered. “Forget it. I won’t call you runt anymore.”
“Dad sometimes calls me princess. You can call me that if you’d like.” Maggie Rose sounded relieved.
Craig shook his head. “Pass.”
“How about smartest kid in the family?” Maggie Rose suggested.
Both Craig and my girl laughed, so I wagged again. “You’re the smartest girl in the family, though,” Craig agreed.
“You should have seen what happened with Samantha, Craig! She played catch with Lily and me.”
“Samantha?” Craig replied.
“The squirrel with the hurt leg? Dad took us to her new territory.”
“Uh-huh,” Craig said slowly. “Catch with a squirrel.”
“Really! I’m not lying.”
“So maybe that’s your new nickname. Squirrel Girl,” Craig observed.
Maggie Rose shook her head. “You don’t believe me.”
Craig shrugged. “I believe you think you played catch with a squirrel named Samantha. And wait, what did you mean about Lily? You said you belong together?”
Maggie Rose sighed. “I asked Dad if I could keep her. To be my dog.”
Craig lifted his eyebrows. “Wow. What did he say?”
“He didn’t say no,” my girl replied carefully.
“So he said to ask Mom, right? I bet I know what her answer was. You probably don’t remember, but I wanted a Labrador puppy last Christmas, but Mom said she doesn’t support giving puppies as gifts because too often they wind up being neglected.” Craig shook his head. “She said it would send the wrong message. She didn’t say who would get the message, just that it was the wrong one.”
“We would never neglect a dog!” Maggie Rose declared hotly.
“I know! I guess Mom’s worried about what people will think. All those volunteers at the shelter. She feels like she needs to set an example.”
“Well … maybe it will be different with Lily,” my girl said hopefully.
Craig smiled. “That would be okay by me,” he said. He put his hand down, and I sniffed it, smelling dirt and sweat and something sweet. No peanut butter, though.
Then I squatted.
Treat!
Dad came back out of the house, and Maggie Rose and I rode in the truck to the shelter. I was glad to get to my mother, to snuggle into her warm fur and take a good long nap after all the excitement.
The next day, Maggie Rose came back—of course, because she was my girl! We went out into the yard to play Bring It Here. What a great game!
“Bring it here, Lily,” Maggie Rose kept saying.
I ran away from her and pretended that the ball had slipped out of my jaws. When she took a step toward me, I snatched it up again and pranced away so that she’d have to chase me some more.
But then Maggie Rose did something strange. She stopped running after me and instead stood still with her hand out. “Bring it here!”
On purpose, I let the ball go. It rolled a little bit away from me. I glanced at Maggie Rose slyly, thinking she would be unable to resist. As soon as she made her move, I would pounce on the ball and be off.
But Maggie Rose just stood there.
“Bring it here,” she repeated.
Why didn’t she come get the ball and throw it again? I bowed down, the toy between my forelegs, waiting. But she didn’t move.
When we had been playing with the squirrel, bring it here meant give the wretched-tasting ball to Maggie Rose so she could pitch it up over Sammy’s head. But there was no squirrel here, and this ball was bouncy and it didn’t taste awful on my tongue, so …
She still held out her hand.
So …
Did bring it here mean that I should take Maggie Rose the ball? Did that make any sense at all? I danced with the ball, twisting, losing it out of my mouth, jumping on it, wagging, playing, and still Maggie Rose stood with her hand out. “Bring it here,” she insisted.
I moved closer, dropping the ball and batting at it, and it rolled right up to her feet.
“Good dog, Lily!”
When my girl bent over to pick the ball up, I tensed, ready to run. There was no time to wag because she was tossing the ball and it was bouncing! I jumped on it triumphantly.
“Bring it here,” Maggie Rose called as I ran around the yard with it.
It didn’t seem right, but if this was how she wanted to do it, I was not going to fight it. We played and played with the bouncy ball, and I brought the ball to Maggie Rose’s feet every time.
After a while, I could see that Maggie Rose was getting a little tired of throwing the ball. I could have kept at it all until dark, but Maggie Rose seemed to feel differently. She led me back into the building. Just inside the door was a bowl of water, and I eagerly lapped some up while Maggie Rose stood by.
People are funny. They never drink out of bowls on the floor, even though there is always one somewhere with some water in it. Instead, they prefer to drink out of much smaller bowls that they hold in their hands.
Mom and Dad were talking down the hall. I felt Maggie Rose tense a little bit as she listened.
“We have that family coming in today who were so interested in adopting Lily. They are really looking forward to meeting
her.” That was Mom talking. Her voice settled differently on my ears than my girl’s—lower and with softer edges.
“How does Maggie Rose feel about that?” Dad asked. His voice caused a rumble in my ears like the sound Oscar made sometimes.
Mom sighed. “Honestly, I didn’t even tell her. I think it would be better to wait until we have a final answer on this family and then explain to her that as much as we all love Lily, we can’t possibly keep her. We’re so busy right now. Plus I can hardly, as the president of this rescue, have a foster failure in my own family, especially with such an adoptable puppy. It makes me look like a hypocrite.”
“It’s your decision,” Dad replied. “You have to do what’s right for the rescue.”
“That’s an interesting response, James. So you disagree? You think we should keep Lily?”
Maggie Rose drew in a sharp breath. I looked up at her in surprise.
“No, I meant that it’s your decision,” Dad replied. “It’ll break Maggie Rose’s heart at first, but she’s young, and eventually, she’ll forget all about the dog.”
“So I get to be the bad guy here?” Mom asked.
“That’s not what I said,” Dad protested. “What I am saying is that I want to support you.”
There didn’t seem to be any problem that I could see—just people talking, the way they like to do. I went back to getting a good long drink.
“The rescue is running far better, but you still feel new to the job,” Dad went on. “If you think adopting one of your own puppies would be a problem, I believe you. But I also get how difficult it will be for Maggie Rose. If you want me to tell her it’s our decision, I will.”
There was a long silence. “No,” Mom said, “I should be the one who tells her. But I really appreciate that you would do it.”
Maggie Rose made a tiny sound. I stopped drinking and stared up at her. She seemed so tense, so sad, I felt sure there was something going on, but I did not understand what. Was she sad that we were not playing with the bouncy ball anymore? Was I being a bad dog? I put my paw on her leg and stared up into her face.
Puppy Tales 07 - Lily's Story Page 5
