27
The Debriefing of the Waterfall
So you had a cell phone the whole time but never used it?”
Tessa looks up from her notes at Caleb.
“Yes, ma’am.” Caleb cracks his knuckles. I smile with a flop of my tongue because he just did what Beatrice would do. “You won’t tell the others?”
Tessa cocks her head. “Why wouldn’t you want me to tell them that?”
There is a big sigh from Caleb, and I echo him because that’s what good therapy dogs do. I hope I’m still a therapy dog. I hope I’m still a good dog.
“It was my safety net, you know? We were on this big adventure, but I wanted to be practical about it. I knew you guys could follow us if I left my phone on, on silent.” He pauses, then adds with a smile, “Plus I didn’t want Amelia to throw it in the lake.”
Tessa is surprised by that answer but tries not to show it. “Whose idea was it to leave?”
“Um. Mine.”
Tessa sighs now too. Writes on her notepad. Here’s the thing: Amelia gave the same answer when she was asked, Whose idea was this? And neither of them showed the signs of humans who are lying: sweating and shifty eyes and fidgeting. They feel they are telling the truth. And they are, in a way. They made the choice to go, to follow Beatrice. So it was their idea. That’s all that matters. Not who led them out the window.
“You used a port-a-john, I hear.”
Caleb fights a grin. “Beatrice told you that?”
Tessa shrugs, trying not to grin as well. “Did Beatrice do anything surprising?”
“Everything Beatrice does is surprising.”
Tessa blasts with bliss at that. Caleb chuckles with her.
“How about Amelia?” Tessa really wants to hear news about Amelia, but Caleb just looks at me, then looks at the ceiling, as if he’s trying to recall anything out of the ordinary. “No. I don’t think so.”
Amelia’s one word—LUNA!—echoes through both our memories. But it stays there. Beatrice did this too. They’re protecting their friend. Feeling protective of someone feels like offering them a blanket when they’re cold. Beatrice and Caleb know Amelia’s not ready for more pressure to speak.
“Your parents don’t want you to return to this group, Caleb,” Tessa says. “And that is of course their right to make that choice. How do you feel about that?”
Caleb is awash in feelings. Anger. Sadness. Irritation. Annoyance. He is a Waterfall, after all. Every emotion rushing in at once. But humans are drawn to waterfalls. They seek them out. Something about their quiet power, their crisp straightforwardness. Waterfalls are no-nonsense: water that falls. As pure as a poem.
“I didn’t think they’d come look for me,” Caleb says at last. “When we left, I didn’t think they’d follow. But they did.”
“They’re angry with each other, Caleb,” Tessa says. “But they love you. Love is stronger than anger. Stronger than everything, I think.”
Caleb laces and unlaces his fingers. He feels brave, but it’s a different shade of bravery than the bright purple boldness it takes to climb out a window and trek toward the moon. This color brave is airy and light, lilac, the shade of shadows fading and weight lifted off shoulders.
“I love my parents,” he says. “And I respect them. But we have a lot of communicating to do.”
28
Eagerness Feels Bubbly Like Soda
Beatrice and Amelia squeeze down the narrow steps into the church basement at the same time, Beatrice leading, pulling Amelia’s hand. Today Bea’s hair is purple. “C’mon, A! You know this group session is going to be bananas. I can’t wait to see what we do next!”
Amelia giggles dandelions. They sit next to each other. A handful of rainbow days have passed. My kids feel excitement. Excitement is what you feel when you dance in the nighttime rain with your friends, the scent of magnolia playing nearby.
I wag. The girls hug me.
“Hi, Luna!”
Amelia kisses me on the top knot of my head.
Beatrice bounces in her seat. “Is Caleb coming back, Ms. Tessa?”
Tessa paces the room. She is unsure. Unsure is what you feel when your feet sweep out from under you in a waterfall. “We’ll see, Beatrice. I hope so.”
Footsteps echo down the stairs. Beatrice hops up. Amelia screeches her metal chair on the concrete floor, screeeee.
A bike wheel.
Followed by a Hector.
Hector pushes his bike into the room with his right arm. Under his left is a mess of plywood, plastic, and wires.
Beatrice is stunned. “You! Where were you last week?”
Most humans would think Beatrice is being abrupt, pushy, but not Hector. He’s a rock, after all. “I had a cold.”
Amelia and Beatrice lock eyes, then erupt with laughter, like confetti. “A cold! Hoo boy!” Beatrice bends in half, hands on knees. I laugh with them with my floppy tongue, my waggy tail. I don’t know why we’re laughing at a cold, but it sounds like the opposite of a hot, so . . . ha?
“Is that the hoverboard?” Tessa asks Hector over their laughter. She points at the stuff he’s carrying. It’s a round board, a bit bigger than a car tire, with gobs of plastic and a long orange cord. He nods once.
Bea and Amelia are so busy laughing about Hector’s cold they don’t hear the next set of footsteps on the stairs.
Caleb stops at the bottom, beams at his friends. They don’t see him or hear him; their backs are toward him and humans have awful forward-facing ears. Beatrice flings an arm over Hector’s shoulders and tells him they looked for him last week. That they really want to see that hoverboard of his float. When Hector hears they were almost to the park near his house, his forehead wrinkles.
“You went all that way for me?” Hector asks.
“I went all that way for me,” Beatrice says.
Caleb sneaks up behind them, stoops. “I went all that way for her,” he says, pointing his thumb at Beatrice. Bea jumps, then throws her arms around Caleb’s neck. “You’re back!”
Caleb burns like a hot sidewalk but nods. “I’m back.”
Amelia stands, smiles, squeezes his hand. Caleb might explode like a tiny sun from all this attention.
My friends, together again! And now we have Hector too! I wag so big my whole butt wags too.
Tessa is speechless, taking all this in. Her mouth is open like a fish’s. She doesn’t yet know how well they howl together. Finally Hector says, “Tessa, can I finish the art project we started two weeks ago?”
“What? Oh. Don’t you want to show us your hoverboard?”
He shrugs a single shoulder. “I’d rather finish what I started.”
Beatrice beams at him. “I hear ya, kid.”
Tessa smiles her wide, bright sunflower smile at her clients. “Then, yes! Great idea, Hector. Let’s do that.”
As she puts art supplies on the table and Hector stacks his hoverboard in a corner, Amelia tugs on Caleb’s shirt, grabs Beatrice’s hand, gathering them. I stick my snoot into their tight huddle.
Amelia takes a new screen out of the bag on her hip.
“Dude, your parents already bought you a new phone?” Beatrice says. “I need to try this whole no-talking thing.”
“Definitely not your style,” Caleb says, and all three chuckle.
Amelia swipes the screen a few times, then turns it toward us. It’s a moving picture. A video.
“Is this drone footage?” Caleb asks, squinting at the screen. Amelia nods. Points to the words below the video.
“‘I stayed late at the #badtothedrone meetup and got footage of these two teens getting BUSTED!’” Caleb reads. “Busted?”
Beatrice leans closer. “Two teens?”
They watch. On Amelia’s screen, Dark Glasses and Red Hat bang baseball bats on playground equipment, BAM BAM BAM. They shout, “Here, doggie-doggie!”
“Luke and Bryce!” Caleb hiss-whispers. “They were at Zilker!”
The fuzzy guys with pebbles for hearts. I
feel my hackles rise.
“Tools,” Beatrice whispers. I don’t understand this because tools are useful and those fellas didn’t seem useful at all. “They were still looking for us.”
Amelia holds up a finger, keep watching.
A man—an adult—walks up to the teens. He’s stocky, and it’s hard to tell in this nighttime video, but he looks to be heavily tattooed. And he’s wearing a uniform. A police uniform. Amelia raises her eyebrows.
“What the—?” Beatrice mutters, eyes on the screen. “Is that—get out!”
“Officer José Ramírez,” Caleb says. Amelia laughs, nods big at this.
“The guy who told us to put a leash on Luna?” Beatrice asks. “The off-duty guy?”
“That same guy,” Caleb says. “You know: your dad?”
They all smile slyly. They keep watching the tiny screen as the trio of guys yells at each other. The officer shouts things like “disturbing the peace” and “don’t make me arrest you.” Finally he leans in close to them and exaggerates sniffing them, their breath. I’m a pro at sniffing; I’d know sniffing like that anywhere. The sound on the video gets choppy, and there is a flash of two sets of metal bracelets before the video fizzles out.
“Handcuffs.” Beatrice looks over her shoulder to see where Tessa is, but she is still lining up paints on tables, humming happily. “You don’t think . . . that officer came to check on us, and he ran into those losers instead?”
Amelia nods big.
“That’s exactly what I think,” Caleb says, running a hand over his head.
Beatrice grins. “And hey. Dude was a cop. That’s good.”
Hector approaches the huddle, and my kids widen to welcome him. He glances at Amelia’s screen.
“Is that Bad to the Drone’s Instagram?”
Amelia nods, shows him the screen.
“It’s a very fun club. Do you want to come next time? You don’t have to have a drone. You can borrow one of mine.”
Amelia beams at him, nods with eagerness. Eagerness feels bubbly like soda. Bubbly like gaining a new friend.
Caleb and Beatrice smile too. They are all happy, like fireflies lighting up a trail at night.
“Come on, y’all,” Tessa calls. They sit. They art. Their happiness whirs like hummingbirds and they smile sunshine. They swoosh color and glue and glitter joy.
Pound pound pound. Snip snip snip. Fling fling fling.
I am delighted that my kids are together, and they are inside and safe. Delighted feels like a butterfly dusting your nose.
“Hey, wait,” Caleb says, looking up from his pottery project. “Hector. Is that a one-eyed cat?”
Hector holds up the mosaic he’s pieced together. “It is. This cat is everywhere. Follows me here every week. He’s outside now.”
“He’s here?” Caleb, Amelia, Beatrice, and I scramble up the basement stairs, past the waiting parents, and out the back door. The adults rush to follow us, because us running out of places before has been troublesome.
Sandpaper!
He sits on the hot sidewalk, calmly licking his paw and dragging it over his head. Greetings, Merry Band of Five. I’m pleased to be a part of the denouement.
Amelia, Caleb, and Beatrice stoop to pet and scratch him.
You’re still narrating, aren’t you? I ask.
Ah, but our story isn’t yet finished, is it? Our Transformation isn’t fully complete. How goes the quest?
I think before I answer. We never made it to the moontower. To Hector. We almost did, but we didn’t. But look! Hector made it to us. I motion over my shoulder to the pack member Sandpaper hasn’t yet met.
Ah yes. Not knowing how close the truth is, we seek it far away.
Caleb scoops up Sandpaper, and it’s like watching someone lift a bag of bones. He turns to his mother, who stands behind him on the sidewalk.
“Mom, we now own a cat,” he says, and he marches back inside clutching Sandpaper.
Our eyes adjust from the bright Texas afternoon, and we follow Caleb and Sandpaper downstairs, into the drippy, odd basement once again.
“What are you going to name him?” Beatrice says, scratching Sandpaper’s ear.
Caleb lifts him up, so they are eyes to eye. He twists and turns the scrawny orange cat. Listen, new owner, Sandpaper says. You are indeed a decent human and I am happy to have you feed me, but you can never truly OWN a cat, understand?
I laugh. Stubborn is a cat, and that is that.
“Charles Wallace,” Caleb says at last. “After the boy in A Wrinkle in Time. Because if anyone can time travel, it’s this cat. You’re right, Hector. He’s everywhere!”
Caleb gently drops Sandpaper—Charles Wallace—so he can explore the church basement. As the cat sniffs an old radiator, I feel my throat get tight. My eyes get tingly.
I’m glad you’re okay.
Sandpaper scoffs. Is this the part where the awful mentor and the protagonist become friends? Right on time.
Mentor? I ask. I thought you were the narrator.
I’m both! Keep up. Sandpaper glares at me. That one eye of his sure can shout.
I feel grateful all over again. You were a real hero for us, you know? With that coyote? I wish . . . I wish I could’ve been that brave. I wish I had turned out to be the hero.
Sandpaper sighs, drops into a crouch. He crosses his front paws, left over right. He looks wise, like a lion, except his hip bones jut out at odd angles. Listen here, dog, and listen close. I’m about to give you a compliment, and I don’t do that for dogs very often. I don’t do that for ANYONE very often.
Before I can blink my surprise away, Sandpaper continues. A hero isn’t usually a hero because of one big act of bravery. No. A hero more often looks like a lot of small acts of friendship. Every day. Through every THING. You are a hero because you never left these kids, Luna. You never left their side. You never forgot your duty.
THAT is a hero.
I’m all mushy, which is a feeling a lot like delicious, juicy canned dog food. Ah, Sandpaper, I say, moving in for a sloppy kiss on his dirty, whiskery face. I approach . . .
Whap!
. . . and get bapped on the nose with a warning paw.
Protagonists do not lick their mentors, dog.
A lot of laughter and chatter and paint splatter later, Caleb looks up. “Oh! Hector! We forgot about the hoverboard!”
“That’s okay,” he says, and he seems to mean it. “I can bring it back next week.”
Next week. Those words make Tessa glow. I glow with her.
Caleb nods with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is what you feel when you think something might float in your future. “Yes! I really want to see it.”
Beatrice socks him in the arm lightly. “I get first ride, dude.”
Hector blinks. “Only if you weigh—”
“—less than one hundred twenty-five pounds. Got it.” Beatrice grins, and I’m not sure the others hear her sigh, “I’ll float.”
Nice things float.
Caleb stands, scoops up Sandpaper. Charles Wallace. It’s a bookish name for a bookish cat, but he’ll always be Sandpaper to me. As Caleb is bent over, Beatrice leaps forward and traps him in a loose headlock.
“When’s the court date?” she asks. “Amelia and I want to come.”
Caleb straightens, forcing Beatrice to loosen her grip. “Does Amelia know this?” Their merriment ushers them up the stairs. Sandpaper looks as though none of this is surprising in the least. He leans over Caleb’s shoulder.
Yes, yes. Excellent. This has all the makings of a fine sequel.
I should be used to Sandpaper tossing odd words at me by now, but I’m not. A what?
Sandpaper chortles, whiskers askew. See you next week, Protagonist!
Hector and his hoverboard and his bike clang up behind them. Amelia is last. She catches Tessa’s eye from behind her artwork. She knocks one knuckle on the table, look here. And then she’s gone too.
My heart feels empty without my friends. I’ll see them
in a few more rainbow days.
Tessa gasps. I rush to her side. She’s holding Amelia’s artwork, but it’s more than swoops of color. It’s letters. Words.
“‘Test Beatrice for dyslexia,’” Tessa reads. Her eyes are immediately salty, her throat tight. “Yes! That’s it. And from Amelia too!” Tessa clutches the artwork to her singing soul.
My friends each found themselves on that trail. Amelia found a playful shadow. Beatrice found a string of useful knots. And Caleb? Caleb who doesn’t swim dove into the waterfall and won.
I’ve never been able to see the constellations that Tessa traces in the sky, her fingertip sketching from star to star. But I can feel, now, what those star-pictures mean. Amelia, Beatrice, Caleb. Me. Sandpaper. Hector too. Individual stars, but drawn together? We make something mighty.
Elated is what you feel when you’re happier than happy. So happy that you could leap off a rope swing and fly to the moon.
That’s me. Luna. The moon. I was wrong before; the moon itself never actually changes. I am steady and true, and I never leave my friends’ sides. But like the moon, how people see me changes. Sometimes they’ll see me as a dog driven by instinct, not meaning to hurt a bird but oh. Hurting a bird. But sometimes they’ll see me as their guide. Their light. My duty leading my heart. People see me how they need to see me. I am a therapy dog, pin or no pin.
I found the moon on that trail too.
29
Almost
I spend too much time in this leaky, flickering church basement these days. The very next set of rainbows later, during the high yellow hour of the day, Tessa and I return for a meeting of our Therapy Dogs Worldwide group. I’m still sore from the Big Moontower Adventure. Tender. Tender is a delicate, bruised feeling. Many folks think being tender shows weakness, but I know that it takes more strength to admit you need to heal than to bury your tenderness like a bone in the backyard. Bones in the backyard rot.
The room smells like dog breath and sounds like toenails clicking on cold tile. Very different from magnolia flowers and mud.
There she is! Goliath bellows, and I wonder yet again how a creature so small can make so much loud. The tiny chihuahua saunters up to me. Also how can a creature so small saunter?
Luna Howls at the Moon Page 13