His scent changes to bursting joyous surprise, like the rubbery powder scent inside a popped balloon. But then his eyes flicker to the lieutenant. I can hear his heart. It sings a song that pings full of question marks, high notes from a xylophone. Madden wonders if she’d let him make that kind of commitment. So he shrugs and says, “I’ll think about it. Thank you.”
Madden and the lieutenant and I pile into our truck. Ashvi decided to take the bus back with the others, so she waves goodbye and heads to Page Middle. Maybe Madden was right. Maybe she is done with us since their duet (now: trio) is complete.
I’m in the back seat by myself, which means I can pace to-and-fro, window to window, and bark at the cars that dare to whizz past us. Soon, I’m so tired I realize I can’t stand another minute, so I collapse in a coil. Madden laughs at me from the front seat.
Silence.
No music, no talking. Just the hum of tires on road. My eyes droop.
The lieutenant shifts in her driver’s seat and clears her throat. “So, what piece are you going to play to audition for jazz band?”
And Madden? Madden’s emotions explode like smoky shimmery fireworks—pow kapow pop! “I could do that?”
The lieutenant ignores the question. “You could play ‘Rocket Man.’ I love that song.”
Madden laughs. “Only if I’m auditioning for a group of octogenarians.”
The lieutenant chuckles, and it sounds like the ice on our pond cracking as the sun warms its surface. “It’s jazz band, Madden. Your target audience isn’t exactly spring chickens.”
They laugh and giggle their way through song possibilities:
“‘Thriller’?”
“Nah, not jazz.”
“Some Motown, then.”
“Maybe . . .”
“How about a Broadway tune?”
“No way!”
Their banter sounds like a duet, like two very different instruments playing off each other. It’s the first time I’ve heard them talk this long without it being about diabetes.
“Oh! How about some Trombone Shorty?”
Madden’s face quirks. “You think I could play that?”
“Absolutely. We’ll get you lessons if you need.”
Doubt smells slick and bumpy like raw chicken. “Could we do that?”
The lieutenant shrugs. “What, you think the army doesn’t have a few musicians who could give us a lesson or two? Just watch me pull rank here.”
They laugh at that, then sit in silence for a while before the lieutenant grins. “‘Thriller.’ Son, it’s a good thing I filed for that transfer to come home. My kid woulda walked up into a jazz band audition with ‘Thriller’ . . .”
Madden’s heart takes a sudden uptick, an adagio. I learned that label in band. “Wait, you put in a transfer to come home?”
The lieutenant blinks, and she smells suddenly salty like taffy or tears. “Of course, Madden. I was heartbroken to be overseas when we found out you are a . . .” She stops here, takes a deep breath. She was about to label him a diabetic, but she knows that’s not what Madden is, it’s what he has. “. . . when we found out you have diabetes. Thank goodness your grandparents took care of everything until I could get back. I love many things about the military, but they aren’t known for their rapidity in situations like that.”
I can hear Madden’s heart piecing together these surprising new notes. “But you loved that job.”
The lieutenant arches her back, looks over her shoulder at the traffic on the highway. “Yeah, well. I love you more.”
If I’m understanding all this correctly, the lieutenant requested her reassignment? Isn’t that like choosing failure? But then she ended up here, home, with Madden. That’s not failure. It reminds me of those balloons when we learned about chaos theory. They bumped and spun and drifted sideways on the wind, but still they went UP. They didn’t fail; they adjusted. They found a new path.
The tires hum. Our three heartbeats blend, making an arpeggio. “Mom?” Madden asks.
“Hmmm?”
“What you said earlier. About Dad? That you didn’t protect him?”
The lieutenant gulps, nods.
“That wasn’t your job, Mom. I’m really sorry diabetes stole him from us.” I can hear Madden swallow past the sudden lump in his throat. “And I want you to know, well . . . you do a good job of it. Of protecting me.”
The lieutenant blinks, and a tear slips down her face. Madden and I have this in common: we love our dads. And our path UP looks different from theirs.
“And Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Can I bring a friend with me to that JDRF walk?”
★ 41 ★
Bring It, Dog
Who wants to go for a walk?”
I leap to my feet and bark, because I am shameless and I have no self-control when it comes to seeing my blue play leash. Madden squats, clips it on.
My ears rotate, perk toward the kitchen. The lieutenant is talking to herself, pacing. She does this sometimes, while she holds her blue screen to her ear. I’ll never fully understand humans.
And I think that’s okay. I understand what I need to.
“You should’ve seen him, PopPop,” the lieutenant says into her blue screen. “He nailed it. Looked just like you with your saxophone. And they won!”
Madden doesn’t seem to hear any of this, based on his steady, skippy heartbeat. His scent stays drifty calm and sweet, like honeysuckle.
The lieutenant continues. “Yeah, they won state! Right? I’ll send you the video, just like last time. Thank you again for that donation. They wouldn’t have been able to go to this competition without that.
“And listen. I know you two said that Madden and I needed some space to get to know each other again, but I feel like we’re doing great. How about you plan a trip to come see us this summer?”
Madden’s silly small ears hear none of this. He leads me outside.
When we get to the park, Madden unclips my vest, my leash. “Go, Zeus!”
The day is warm, and the ice on the pond has almost melted off. Dragonflies buzz about, sewing the air like tiny electric needles. They taste like papercuts, dragonflies, but they’re fun to chase. They remind me of Ashvi’s flute. I miss Ashvi.
The ground is squishy and cool between my paw pads. So I dig in my back haunches and BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK!
I’m halfway around the pond before the ducks realize I’m coming.
YOU! YOU! NO! GO! AWAY! BIG! TEETH!
Big teeth?
I skid to a stop.
They know I’d never actually . . . do anything, don’t they? They know this is a game?
One brave duck waddles forward while the others paddle out into deep water. He raises his wings like a dare.
YOU WANT SUMMA DIS? BRING IT, DOG!
He’s so brave, this one duck, out here talking smack. I feel half my face lift. I’m the Jake here. This duck is the Madden. I may not fully understand humans, but I understand this.
BACK OFF, DOG! I TASTE TERRIBLE AND YOU WILL LIVE WITH REGRET IN YOUR SOUL FOR THE REMAINDER OF YOUR DAYS.
We’re cool, duck. We’re cool, I say.
The duck’s face shifts, if that’s possible for a bird. Duck? Duck?! GOOSE! He quacks a laugh, and his duck buddies quack along with him, all flustering and flappy. Ha! And they call US birdbrains! He begins pacing, flapping his wings in wide, swinging gestures. Buddy, we’re not ducks, we’re geese! Branta canadensis, in fact. Canada geese.
Geese? I squeak. I couldn’t be more shocked if I’d hiked my leg on an electric fence. They are geese? I’ve been labeling these birds as ducks for months, and now I find out they are geese.
Labels can be . . . wrong?
My haunches twitch. I scratch at my neck with my paw. I shakeshakeshake and feel tilty because LABELS CAN BE WRONG. Huh. A flock of geese, I say.
The birds get all flappy and full of honks again. A GAGGLE of geese, the head bird says. A group of geese is called a gaggle. Y
ou really don’t know much about birds, do you?
I . . . know you can fly.
We can do many things, canine. The goose crosses his wings over his broad, feathery chest, taps his flappy foot. Certainly more than any old scraggly gang of ducks. The geese all honk out gales of laughter at that.
You’re not ducks, I say. Well, I’ll be a puppy’s uncle. I thought you were ducks.
The main goose raises his wings, feathers spread wide. He flaps them at me. Pushy bird.
GEESE! WE. ARE. GEESE. YOU. MANGY. MUTT.
And then he nips me on my leg—BITES ME WITH HIS FLAT, WEIRD, WAXY BILL. We migrate home tomorrow. Bye, Dog. IF YOU ARE A DOG, THAT IS. He waddles away, chuckling and snorting. The geese honk a bunch of nonsense at each other, and I proceed to have an identity crisis in which I wonder: Am I a dog?! How do I know for sure?
Behind all the terrible goose noise, I hear Madden and his sparkling xylophone chuckle. And then I see why: Ashvi waves from the top of the hill.
I cannot wait to talk to her. I am so much older and wiser since the last time I saw her: yesterday, at the band competition.
Madden’s heart leaps out of his chest and runs up next to her like a yipping puppy. The rest of Madden tries to play it cool. He waves back. Wise, because if he tried to talk right now, it’d just come out as a squeak.
I knew she liked us, I bark, but Madden ignores me. Ashvi is perfect. She is hope and doubt. Those two big feelings, side by side, again. Maybe hope can’t exist without doubt. Doubt is a fence; hope leaps over fences. But there has to be a fence—otherwise, why leap?
The wind carries Ashvi’s flutelike voice across the pond. “Madden, I’m sorry. What I said before the competition? About practicing with Jake.” Madden waves her off, but he smells like relief, like a breathy sigh that escapes during a warm hug.
I am so filled with joy, I plow my nose, then my jowls and jaw, then my neck and ribs and back hip through the mud. I flop. I squirm. I wave my paws toward the white-cloud sky. The soft goosh coats my fur and cools my sun-warmed skin. I kick my legs and wriggle wriggle wriggle, coating myself in mud . . .
“Zeus, no! Aw man!”
★ 42 ★
I Know My Next Mission
Shut the locker, Zeus.”
I nudge Madden’s locker shut with my head. Blam!
“Spin the lock, Zeus.”
I paw at the combination dial built into Madden’s locker two, three times. It spins.
“Fist bump, Zeus.”
I droop my paw forward and Madden gently pounds it with his knuckles.
It is the Monday following our big Page band win, and in Language Arts, Mr. Nance teaches a poem by a woman who wears the tag Elizabeth Barrett Browning. And would you believe it? It is about a DOG! FINALLY. A dog named Flush, which seems a very odd name for a pet, since it describes toilet functions and whatnot. Anyway, Mr. Nance dances and recites the poem. I hear a part that sings to me:
But of thee it shall be said,
This dog watched beside a bed
Day and night, unweary—
And I don’t know, but I think Flush might be me? I’ve noticed that about poetry. A lot of it seems to be about me. And yeah, I still love labels. Language speaks to our mind. Music speaks to our soul.
But after the poem, Mr. Nance straightens his bow tie. Clears his throat. “We’re not going to review any more poetry this year, kids.”
We all groan, me included. No more poetry? No more bubbles or flashlights or crafts or dancing to words?
“I know, but . . .” He pauses. His scent changes to regret. Regret smells like chicken bones—too soft to chew on, too hard to digest. “We have to start prepping for our standardized tests.”
More groans. This, I don’t understand. Standardized tests? All I know is: all forms of the word test stink like poo.
The rest of the hour is spent hunched quietly over robot sheets of paper, each student scratch-scratch-scratching with their pencil points, blackening tiny dots.
After class, Jake falls in step with Madden. Jake’s scent is apologetic, like the too-sweet smell of fake sugar put into some of Madden’s candy. Madden darkens as if he stepped into a shadow.
“Man, I hate standardized tests,” Jake mutters to Madden.
Madden’s clouds shift. “Me too. I never do good on those. They make me feel so stupid.”
“Yeah,” Jake says. His eyes dart quickly to Madden’s, then he drifts away. “See you.”
Wait.
Not only are these standardized tests something that Jake and Madden actually agree on, but they make Madden feel stupid? They make him feel LESS THAN OUTSTANDING?
That’s it. I know my next mission:
STANDARDIZED TESTS MUST BE DE-STROYED.
The Epilog Dog
We wait in the visitor room of the prison, but it smells different. Well, the scents are all the same: The chicken fried steak in the cafeteria. The human sweat in the gym. The zingy nerves of the people who haven’t visited loved ones in a long time.
But the smells feel different. These are the smells of my past. My past is like my tail; it is behind me. And like my tail, my past gives me balance, it helps me move and maneuver about the world. But when I try to get a good look at it, it curls just out of view. And as a wise dog once said: Tails don’t listen. Tails don’t have ears. You can’t change a tail.
(Me. It was me. I’m the wise dog who said that.)
My future is my nose. It leads me where I need to go. I know I can always trust following it. It is sure and reliable.
Reassignment isn’t always terrible. I learned that from the lieutenant. We are all just a bunch of wild balloons, finding our paths UP. I don’t want to be re-assigned, of course, but if I am? I’ll adjust. Find my new, chaotic path.
But I reallyreallyreally hope I’m not reassigned. Don’t whimper, Z, I tell myself.
I whimper.
Dave arrives, and I spinspinspin and BARK! I lick him, and he tastes authentic. He and Madden fist-bump, chat—blahblahblah—and then Madden lays a hand on the knot on top of my head and says:
“I still don’t understand how Zeus thinks, but I love him anyway.”
Dave grins. “So is Zeus a good fit, then?”
THIS IS IT. MY WHOLE DESTINY FOLLOWS. EVERYTHING I’VE BEEN TRAINING FOR FOR YEARS, EVERYTHING I LOVE AND HOLD DEAR, MY ENTIRE EXISTE—
“Yeah.”
Dave smiles. “I thought so.”
I blink. I didn’t even have time to spiral into a tornado of anxiety there, but if I heard that yeah right, then HOORAY, I WILL NOT BE REASSIGNED! And even better, Madden LOVES ME. Which means he’s not just keeping me around to make the lieutenant happy. He’s keeping me for ME. We are in each other’s orbits like the spheres in Madden’s room. Orbit is a fancy human word for close by.
I am not a failure. Dave and Madden agree: I am a good fit. I wish this moment could be a fermata moment. That’s a label I learned in band. It’s a squiggly symbol that means hold this note. I want to hold this tasty chicken nugget of a moment forever in my heart.
I love you, Madden! I say with my eyes. Then Dave reaches down and hugs my neck. He is heavy, heavier than I remember. He whispers into my tall, pointy ear, “‘Miracles are the natural way of the Universe—our only job is to move our doubting minds out of the way.’ Jonathan Lockwood Huie said that.”
I don’t know what that means, exactly, but I lick him. He tastes salty. And then Madden picks up my leash. And I panic a bit, because what if Madden forgot I love him while Dave was hugging me? So I tell him again, because it’s been several seconds: I love you, Madden.
Madden smiles, tugs my leash. We leave.
It is the last time I’ll ever see Dave. I know this. He can’t leave this kennel to visit me. But I also know: he wants me to follow my nose rather than chase my tail.
Author’s Note
Not all heroes wear capes, but many of them wear service dog vests. Service dogs can do amazing things: They can detect an
impending seizure in persons with epilepsy. They can calm anxiety and panic attacks in persons with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD, as in my previous book about service dogs, A Dog Like Daisy). And yes, they can detect blood sugar highs and lows in persons who have diabetes.
No one knows exactly how dogs can do this, although many suspect it’s due to a dog’s keen sense of smell. In doing my research, I heard it said that humans might be able to smell a teaspoonful of sugar in a cup of tea. Dogs can smell that same teaspoon of sugar in an entire pond.
German shepherds like Zeus make good service dogs because they’re smart—smart and confident enough to know when to be disobedient and seek out any way possible to help their human. My gratitude to Brenda Dew and Lesley Adams of Retrieving Independence in Brentwood, Tennessee, for enduring hours of my questions on how this works. Brenda and Lesley pair puppies with prisoners, and the training begins.
According to Brenda and Lesley, incarcerated persons are chosen based on a strict application and interview process. Once it’s been determined that they’d make a good service dog trainer, they’re trained (yes, the people must be trained, too!) and matched with a puppy when one becomes available. The puppies are about four months old when they enter these programs. This situation is ideal: dogs must be with their humans 24/7 in order to make their training most effective, and incarcerated persons are able to provide that stability for the dogs. They are paid for this work, and they learn skills that benefit them once they reenter society. Also, Brenda notes, the dogs offer a calming influence on all inside the institution, so both dogs and humans benefit from this relationship.
The instruction begins with behavior training (commands like sit and stay), then moves into scent training. Retrieving Independence has a network of volunteers who have diabetes to aid in the scent training of these dogs. These persons wear flat cotton pads inside their socks, and when their blood sugar spikes or bottoms out, they save that cotton pad in a Ziploc bag in a freezer and label it with the exact blood sugar number. The dogs use these cotton pads to learn the differences between blood sugar highs, lows, and the normal range. Between 80 and 120 milligrams of glucose (sugar) per deciliter is considered a typical normal range. The dogs then must be taught that they are smelling the scent on the cotton pad, and not the cotton itself. The process from puppy-in-training to a dog in a vest takes about fourteen months. Through Retrieving Independence, a service dog costs about $15,000 (which is one of the best prices I’ve heard of for such a highly trained dog!).
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