The One and Only Bob

by Katherine Applegate; Michael Grant

  six

  There’d been six of us in the litter. So why was I only looking for her?

  Because it was her bark I’d heard.

  After the box landed. Even after the truck roared past.

  I heard it. A whimper-bark-howl-cry, something I’ve never heard since.

  She survived, at least at first.

  I survived.

  The rest of them didn’t.

  relieved

  And what did I do, when I heard that bark? Did I run toward it? Did I try to find her, to save her?

  No.

  No.

  I was just a few weeks old. Helpless. Useless.

  The cries stopped almost as soon as they’d started. And you know what?

  Part of me was relieved.

  I didn’t want to have to go back onto that highway. I couldn’t bear wanting to rescue her and not knowing how.

  I didn’t want to see her die.

  But mostly, I was afraid.

  coward

  I was afraid. A coward.

  There’s a certain freedom that comes with owning your faults.

  the wind

  Every day I went looking for Boss. Up and down that same barren stretch of highway.

  Sometimes I’d catch a hint of something hopeful on the air and think it was my sister’s scent. I’d be certain the breeze had brought me her voice, like an invisible gift.

  The wind can really mess with your head.

  enough

  After a while I stopped going to the highway.

  Stopped looking.

  It was a relief to give up. I had enough to worry about.

  my paddles

  As I run from the park, I keep hearing my sister’s yelp in my head. Still, with every step, my doubts grow.

  Sometimes we hear what we want to hear.

  The animal shelter is close, just down the street, but there’s nothing quick about the trip. Water rushes past like a raging river. The sun’s been swallowed by black clouds.

  I pick my way through muddy front yards, avoiding the worst of the water.

  I ain’t much of a swimmer. Doesn’t come up much in my line of work, though I do a passable dog paddle.

  The problem is my paddles. My paws are tiny. Not much to work with when you’re fighting a flood.

  I see a couple humans with flashlights, carving tunnels in the sheeting rain. But mostly the street seems eerily abandoned, especially after the chaos of the park.

  The shelter is at the bottom of a slight hill. Rain’s pooled outside the front door, despite a pile of sodden sandbags. A police car is out front, parked at an odd angle.

  I find some footing on a large rock near the door. Takes me three slippery tries, but I manage to leap onto the topmost sandbag.

  I bark, bark with all I’ve got. But I might as well be voiceless, between the wind and the rain and the howling animals begging for escape.

  inside

  I pause to listen. I hear humans shouting, and I can make out what sounds like police radio chatter.

  But I don’t hear Boss. I’m right here, right at the source. Nothing.

  It wasn’t her bark I heard.

  She’s dead and I’m crazy and hearing things and drenched and shivering and where is Julia, where is George—

  “Hey, little guy.” The door eases open, just a crack.

  Every bone in my body, every smart part of my doggie brain, says RUN.

  This is an animal shelter. A flooding one, apparently. My sister isn’t here. And I still have to find George and Julia.

  The door moves.

  Swoop.

  The loop comes down around my neck so fast that for a moment I don’t know what it is. It’s like a cowboy’s lasso, the kind in old Western movies I used to watch with Ivan.

  But this lasso is at the end of a long metal handle.

  And at the end of the long metal handle is a man.

  “Stay calm, buddy.” The man eases me, gently but firmly, off the sandbags and through the door.

  I’m inside the bow-wow big house.

  The hound pound.

  The pet pokey.

  Oops.

  the return of snickers

  The man pulls me along with his lasso. I decide not to argue.

  We enter a small room stacked with animal-filled metal cages, and I’m assaulted by howls and hisses. The cold water on the floor sloshes as we walk, just skimming my belly.

  As bad as my smeller is, I instantly pick up on one distinctive odor.

  It’s like the world’s worst perfume, the kind old ladies emit. The kind people spray on their dogs to camouflage their lovely dog stink. The kind—

  The kind Snickers wears.

  I catch a glimpse of her in an upper cage. Bedraggled bow in her droopy hair.

  “Snick baby, fancy meeting you here,” I say. “You look good behind bars.”

  “Harebrain,” she replies.

  “Hey,” calls a rabbit two cages down. “Watch your language.”

  “Mack couldn’t deal with you?” I ask Snickers.

  “He brought me here because he thought it would be safer.”

  “Seems he may have been mistaken,” I say.

  Carefully grabbing my scruff, Cowboy lifts me into an upper cage. He pulls the lasso loose and shuts the barred door. I’m not happy. But it’s a relief to be out of my noose.

  “Oh, great, another one?” calls a woman wearing tall rubber boots. She pauses in the doorway. “I thought we were turning people away.”

  “People, yes,” says Cowboy. “But this pup came solo.”

  “Tick-tock, folks,” says an older, ruddy-faced officer. He’s holding a radio in one hand and a flashlight in the other. “You are running out of time.”

  “We hear ya. But first we’ve got to move everybody who’s lower level.” Boots sighs. “Last hurricane we had two feet to deal with. I swear they’re getting worse.”

  “Climate change,” says the officer. “What’re ya gonna do?”

  “More than we’re doin’,” says Boots. “That much is for sure.”

  “I’ll move the dogs from room two,” Cowboy offers. “There are only a couple on the bottom level. We’re outa cages, though. We’ll have to double up.”

  “Put that little female in with the new guy,” says Boots. “They look like twins.”

  I’m shivering. And it’s not because I’m cold.

  I press my hurt nose to the metal bars.

  I smell something. I do.

  I hear something. I do.

  Cowboy returns, dog in arms.

  A bark.

  That bark.

  The door to my cage opens.

  “Hey,” I say automatically, even as my heart is already whispering the truth to me, “they call me Bob.”

  “They call me Boss,” says the voice, but by now I know, of course I know, and I’m howling with joy.

  alive

  Thunder claps. Shutters fly. Windows rattle. Water rushes. Dogs whimper. Cats howl. People yell.

  And all I can hear is my sister’s voice.

  catching up

  We lick each other, sniff, yelp, circle, wrestle.

  Neither of us was ever the touchy-feely sort.

  But sometimes you just gotta let it all out.

  “Wow,” says Cowboy, watching us. “You’d think they knew each other.”

  tough

  Boss isn’t anything like I remember. She’s scrawny and flea covered. Her left ear has a big notch in it. Her fur is dull, her body scarred, her tail cut short.

  I’m afraid to ask how that happened.

  She’s clearly had it tough, really tough.

  “I thought I heard your bark,” I say, “but then it stopped. Figured I was crazy.”

  “I was napping.”

  “In this chaos?” I ask.

  “I can sleep anywhere. It’s a gift.” Boss nibbles on a toenail. “Funny thing is I was having a dream about you. Must’ve caught a whiff of you in my sleep.”
/>
  I can’t stop staring. Boss. Here. With me.

  “What?” she asks when she catches me looking at her.

  “I was just wondering,” I say, “about your life. Do you have . . . you know, anybody?”

  “You mean like humans? Nope.” She gives a little flick of her stubby tail. “Never have. Never will.”

  “You’ve been on your own this whole time?” I flash on my cushy bed, my lovely food bowl, the way everyone knows just how I like my ear scratches.

  “Yep.”

  “How’d you end up here?”

  “I was out scrounging for food. Just had another litter and I was tired, off my game. Animal control got me.” She licks a nasty cut on her front paw.

  “Wait.” My ears prick up. “So . . . you have puppies?”

  That would make me an uncle. A dog uncle, on top of being an honorary elephant uncle.

  “Had the last batch seven, maybe eight weeks ago.” She scratches at a flea.

  “Last batch?” I repeat. “You mean you’ve had others?”

  “Yep.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “Dunno. It’s not like they come home for the holidays, Bob.” Boss lies down on the old towel lining our cage. “Or should I call you Rowdy?” She considers. “Nope. No, I like the sound of Bob.”

  “Me too.”

  “Anyway,” Boss says, “mostly they’re dead, I’d guess. You never know, though. Maybe a few got rescued.”

  She’s so matter-of-fact. So resigned.

  “This last litter, well, I thought I was onto something. Found this little car, you know those ones that look like a big ol’ bug? Abandoned. Right down by the creek, near that bridge. Easy access through a hole in the floorboard. Blanket in the back seat.” She pauses. “All the amenities.”

  “How many puppies?” I ask.

  “Three. But only one survived, a male. The other two were pretty sickly, and, well . . . you know.”

  Something crashes into the front office. Sounds like a window has broken.

  “We gotta get outa here!” an orange-striped cat howls. He throws himself against the front of his cage, then pokes out his paw, grabbing for the latch. “I’m too young to die!”

  “When they caught me,” Boss continues, ignoring the cat, “I barked for the puppy to sit tight, wait. Told him I’d be right back.” She sighs. “Nice. Last thing he’ll ever hear was a lie.”

  “What’s his name? The puppy?”

  She looks at me like I asked her if she’s ever been to the moon. “I don’t name them, Bob. Just makes it harder.”

  Below us, the water’s slowly rising, filling the empty lower cages. We watch the humans rush back and forth, carrying buckets, as if they can stem the tide.

  There’s nothing to do. Nothing to say. And nowhere to go.

  not right

  I stare at my sister and try to imagine all the pain she’s endured.

  And here I thought I’d gotten the raw deal.

  To lose your pups. To wander alone. To struggle for every drop of water, every crumb of food.

  I mean, I experienced a little of that. But Ivan and Stella kept me going. And then Julia and her family.

  Why me? What’s so special about me?

  Is it really that I’m more resilient? That I’ve made my own luck?

  Am I somehow better than Boss? More deserving?

  “It’s not right,” I blurt. “Not right you shoulda had it worse than me.”

  “Well, if you want to talk about ‘not right,’ you and I both had it a whole lot better than our siblings,” Boss says.

  “I will never forgive those people for what they did to us,” I say through clenched jaws.

  “Really?” Boss seems surprised. “If I held on to that much anger, I’d never get out of bed. Not that I’ve ever had a real bed.” She sniffs at the towel beneath her feet. “This towel’s kinda nice, actually.”

  I look at her in disbelief. “You’re one of those? Those ‘dogs must forgive no matter what’ types?”

  She almost looks amused. “Well, it is kind of our thing, right?”

  “When someone does something hurtful, they have to admit it,” I say. “Then they have to be punished for it. And maybe then, if they apologize and change, maybe—maybe—then they get forgiven.”

  “All I know is, I’ve done lots of bad stuff in my life, Bob. I’ve had to forgive myself plenty, just, you know, to get through the day.” Boss gazes at me with her wise, weary eyes. “And I figure if I’m going to forgive myself, I’d better be ready to cut everyone else some slack, too.”

  evacuate now!

  “Look,” says the officer, “you need to evacuate now. It’s mandatory.”

  “We can’t just leave these animals.” Cowboy sticks his finger in the orange cat’s cage. The cat rubs against it, purring like his life depends on it.

  Which it maybe kinda does.

  The officer sighs. “You don’t have a choice.”

  “We can’t just leave them,” says Boots, and I have to applaud her enthusiasm, even as I wonder why she’d risk her life for us.

  There is no explaining humans.

  “Just got word the bridge over Big Fork Creek collapsed,” the officer says. “You guys gotta move.”

  Boots snaps her fingers. “Wait, you have a cop car, right?”

  “Yes, I have a vehicle, ma’am,” says the officer. “But the way the roads are looking, probably not for long.”

  “Okay,” says Boots, “so we evacuate. We evacuate every last dog and cat and gerbil we can get in your car.”

  The officer purses his lips. “And take them where, exactly?”

  “Shelter at the high school. That’s where we’ve been sending people. They’re not really set up for it, but once we started flooding and the elementary school stopped taking pets, they agreed to do what they can.”

  The officer grumbles, considers, goes for it.

  The three humans load cats and dogs, parakeets and hamsters, one after another, into the police car. Some are in cages, and some, including a couple of unhappy cats, are on tug-of-war strings. Finally, it’s our turn. Looks like there are nine of us left.

  “Car’s full and then some,” the officer reports, struggling to shut the shelter’s front door against the rising water. “We are officially out of room.”

  Cowboy looks at us, his eyes teary. “Don’t worry, fellas. We’ll be back.” He sniffles. “I promise.”

  “You think we should leave the cages open, at least give ’em a fighting chance,” asks Boots, “in case . . . you know?”

  “Sure. But they couldn’t handle this current. I can barely stand up.” Cowboy shakes his head. “Look, I’ll borrow my brother’s bass boat. We’ll come right back. Hopefully the water won’t get much higher than this.”

  “Okay, then.” Boots gives a grim nod. “Stay calm, friends.”

  Like that’s an option.

  preparing for the worst

  The wind slows for a moment and the room goes silent. We stare at the black pool swallowing the cages below.

  A chew toy shaped like a pink turtle floats past.

  It’s just us and a whole lot of water.

  I check out the group. Two cats. One bunny. Six dogs, including Snickers, Boss, and me. There’s nowhere to jump. No tables, no cabinets. No space above the upper cages.

  And as Cowboy pointed out, the current is probably too strong for us to tackle, anyways.

  “Folks, don’t give up hope. You heard them,” I say. “They’re coming back for us.”

  “No way are they coming back,” says a sad-faced beagle mix. “Gimme a break.”

  “You never know,” I say. I am such a lousy liar.

  “Oh, yes we do,” my sister mutters, just loud enough for me to hear, and we share a look.

  “Look, chances are the water won’t get too much higher,” I say. “But just to be on the safe side, pile up anything you have in your cage. Bowls, toys, towels.”

  “Who
died and made you pack leader?” asks a big mutt with a graying snout.

  “Well, it beats howling like babies,” I say, and instantly I remember landing in Stretch’s domain. Howling like a baby is exactly what I did.

  “I had a dog biscuit this morning bigger than you,” says Gray Muzzle.

  “What about me?” someone squeaks. “Does the bunny get a vote?”

  “Hold on, Thumper,” says the orange cat. “This clearly is a job for a higher feline intellect.”

  “No!” A sharp voice rises above the din. “Listen to Bob. He’s annoying. And his hygiene leaves a lot to be desired. But I’ve seen him get himself out of all kinds of scrapes.”

  “Thanks for the props, Snick,” I say. “Especially the kind words about my odor.”

  The wind groans, and something metallic hits the side of the building. We fall silent again, waiting for more.

  The windows rattle. The walls shudder. It’s like the building is as scared as the rest of us.

  “So,” Snickers says, breaking the gloom, “you heard Bob. Start stacking!”

  “How about my litter box?” asks a small, white cat with dark green eyes. “Would that work?”

  “Sure,” I say. “Use anything. The goal is to get as high as you can.”

  “And then what?” asks a young dachshund.

  “Worst case, we swim for it,” I say.

  “That’s actually not the worst case,” says the bunny.

  No one asks what is. We already know.

  a question

  We do all we can do. Which isn’t much.

  The rain hammers. The wind shrieks. Sirens come and go in the distance.

  I wonder what Ivan and Ruby are doing. And what about George and Julia? Where are they? How are they?

  Boss seems scary calm. Tough as old jerky. She looks the way I want to feel.

  Before long, the water is lapping onto the floor of our cages. It’s ice-cold. And moving quick. One inch, two.