Stay

by Bobbie Pyron

My stomach knots up. She knows. We shake our heads again.

  Tamara sighs. “We can hold him for two weeks. After that, he’ll be put up for adoption.”

  “But you can’t,” I say. “Baby is all Jewel has in the world!”

  Tamara smiles. “Is that his name? Baby?” Her eyes soften. “Look, Baby will get very good care while he’s here. Plenty of food and a bed to sleep in. We’ll give him a bath and get him all up to date on his shots.”

  I guess that all sounds good, until she says, “He’ll actually be better off here than living on the streets with his owner. Being homeless is no way for any dog to live.”

  All of a sudden, I feel like I’m channeling Ree. I don’t care if this lady has figured out we live in a shelter. We’re here to help Baby. I pull myself up tall and say, “Just because a person doesn’t have a home to live in doesn’t mean they don’t love their dog or cat as much as someone who lives in a fancy house! And just because they live in the park, that doesn’t mean Jewel isn’t somebody. She is, and Baby needs her.”

  Mrs. Bailey puts her hand on my shoulder and squeezes. I can feel the blood pounding in my ears.

  Tamara smooths some papers on her desk. She nods. “I understand.”

  She steps out from behind her desk and smiles. “Would you like to see him?”

  My heart lifts up. “Yes, ma’am, I sure would.”

  Mrs. B and I follow Tamara down a long hall, through the cat room (so many kittens!), and through a door to the kennels. Row after row of big dogs, small dogs, some jumping up against the chain-link wire cages, others sleeping or huddled in the corner. Some look hopeful, some look like they’ve given up all hope of anything good ever happening again. I want every one of those dogs.

  “Here we are,” Tamara says, stopping next to a kennel at the end.

  I peer into the dark. It takes me a second to see Baby curled up on a blanket in the corner. His food and water look untouched. He’s trembling.

  I kneel down and call to him softly, “Baby, come here, Baby.”

  He lifts his head and whimpers uncertainly.

  “Come here, Baby,” I call again. I put my fingers through the wire so he can smell me. Ree says dogs remember everything through scent.

  Sure enough, he comes slowly, timidly, over and sniffs my fingers. Then he wags his little bit of a tail. I just about burst into tears. “Hi, Baby,” I manage to get out. “Hi, sweet boy.”

  “You can go in and sit with him for a minute if you want,” Tamara offers.

  She opens the door and I scoot in, sit cross-legged on the cold concrete floor and take him into my lap. He covers my face with kisses.

  “I’ll wait for you in the lobby, Piper,” Mrs. B says. “Just a minute, though. We need to get back.”

  After Mrs. Bailey and Tamara leave, I hold Baby close and whisper in his soft little ear, “I promise I will find a way for you and Jewel to be together again.” I rock him just a little and stroke his back. I can feel the knobby bones of his spine through his fur. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, Baby, but you’ve done so much good for me, it’s the least I can do.”

  But how? I’m just a kid.

  Baby sniffs my coat pocket and wags his stubby tail. I almost forgot! I pull out the little toy rabbit we found in Jewel’s bag.

  “Here you go, buddy.”

  Gently, he takes the little bunny and licks it over and over.

  Baby wags his tail and looks at me like I can do anything. There’s not one speck of doubt in that furry little face. Only trust.

  31

  Flying

  Baby listens to the night sounds in this place,

  unlike any other place

  he has lived.

  He listens to the sounds of

  dogs whimpering their questions:

  Why?

  Where am I?

  How long will it be until . . . ?”

  He hears the wet slap of dogs lapping water

  from metal bowls.

  He hears the groan of the old dog two kennels away

  as he eases his weary bones down on a blanket.

  He hears the restless click of toenails on

  the concrete floor

  as dogs pace, pace, pace,

  waiting.

  Baby waits too.

  He waits for the girl to come back.

  She was here.

  She held him.

  She whispered his name.

  He felt the beat of her true heart

  and smelled sadness

  and something else

  on her.

  Was it love?

  Was it hope?

  Baby wishes he could see the outside.

  Baby has not slept inside for a long time.

  He longs for the stars and moon

  and smells of simple things:

  grass

  moldering leaves

  thawed earth

  and his Jewel.

  That was home.

  Baby leaves his bed and his bunny and

  trots over to the wire door

  of the cage.

  The girl did not tell him to stay

  like Jewel did.

  She did not even tell him to be

  a good, good boy.

  What is a little dog to do?

  Baby sniffs around the bottom of the door.

  How will Jewel find him here?

  Let’s go! Baby barks.

  He pushes his nose and then his head

  underneath the door.

  The space between

  the bottom of the door and the concrete floor

  is too small, even for Baby.

  He paws at the wire, bites it,

  until his paws and mouth bleed.

  He looks up and up

  at the latch he knows holds the door closed.

  So far!

  He leaps anyway, high

  higher

  higher

  higher!

  until his legs buckle beneath him.

  Baby drinks from the bowl,

  tags clinking against the metal.

  He lies back down on the thick blanket

  where his one-eyed bunny waits

  and curls up into a tight little ball

  of misery.

  Finally, Baby sleeps.

  He dreams of wings unfurling from his small back,

  great wings lifting him up

  and out

  into the night sky studded with stars

  and back to Jewel.

  32

  The Key

  Monday morning. Karina, Daria, and I walk from the middle school to Olympia Elementary.

  I tell them all about finding Baby at the Humane Society and what the lady, Tamara, said. “They’ll adopt him out to someone else in two weeks if we can’t figure out a way to get Baby and Jewel together, and then they’ll never see each other again.”

  Daria nods. “My mother’s biggest fear was that if the police or somebody found out we were living in our van, they’d take me and my baby sister away from her.”

  “That would have been terrible,” I say. I can’t imagine being taken away from Mama and Daddy.

  Karina clears her throat. “We had to give up our dog to move into Hope House.”

  I stop in my tracks. “Really?”

  She nods and looks down at her shoes. “I think that was the worst part of losing our apartment and ending up there, giving up Peaches. I miss her every day.”

  I squeeze her hand. “Then you know how important it is that Jewel doesn’t lose Baby.”

  Karina nods. “We’ll figure something out. I know we can.”

  “Me too,” Daria says in her whispery voice.

  Karina throws her shoulders back as we walk across the schoolyard, looking like the Karina who leads Troop 423. I can see the wheels of a plan turning behind her eyes. I think plan-making is Karina’s superpower.

  Just before we get to the front doors, she says, “Okay, here’s what we’re going
to do: after my mom gets home from work, I’m going to borrow her phone and try calling some of those phone numbers in Jewel’s book.”

  Before Karina can give her an assignment, Daria says, “I’m going to do some more research on the computer.”

  “Piper,” she asks, “remind me what was Jewel’s last name?”

  “Knight.”

  “Right,” she says, writing it down on a piece of paper.

  The bell rings. “Piper, your job is to figure out what that key of Jewel’s goes to,” Karina says.

  “Jeez, I don’t know,” I say, shrugging. “That’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  Karina bumps me with her hip. “You can do it. You’re a Firefly Girl.”

  Lunchtime. I grab my food and hurry over to our table in the corner.

  I only half listen to Jerome and Noah talk about tryouts for track. All morning, most of my brain space has been taken up with that mysterious key and why the heck Jewel and Baby came all the way out here from Kentucky in the first place. I remember how endless that bus ride was from Texas and how scary and confusing it was when we got out at the bus station.

  I gasp. A chill runs over me. “Country-Wide bus station!”

  Everybody stops talking and looks at me like I’ve gone crazy.

  I grab Karina’s arm. “CWS! The key! Country-Wide bus station!”

  Karina nods. “That could be right.” I can see the wheels working behind her brown eyes. “That could totally be right.”

  “Okay,” Jerome says, “you’ve lost me here. What’s the deal?”

  Quickly, I fill them in on the story of Baby and Jewel.

  “On the key it says ‘CWS three, number twenty-five,” I explain. “We figure the number twenty-five is a locker number, but we didn’t know what CWS stood for. Until now.”

  Noah nods. “I think you’re right. I know some bus stations have lockers.”

  “But what does the number three mean?” Luz asks.

  We look at each other, brains puzzling and puzzling.

  Noah gives me a shy, sideways look. “I know which station number three is.”

  “Really?”

  He nods. “Me and my big brother came in at that station a few months ago from LA.”

  For a second, he doesn’t say anything. Then he says, “We had to leave some stuff in a couple of lockers there until we found a place to stay, over at the Road Home shelter. It’s pretty far away,” he says. “In the south end of the city. We’d need to take the subway there.”

  I stand up. “I say we go there, see what’s in that locker.”

  Karina blinks. “Now?”

  “Well, no,” I say, sitting back down. “After school.”

  Karina shakes her head. “I can’t. I have to babysit my sister after school.”

  I look at Jerome. He frowns. “Tryouts for track are after school today. I really want to go.”

  “Noah, please say you can go.” I’ve never ridden on a subway. The thought of it makes me kind of sick.

  I catch a ghost of a smile on Noah’s face. “Sure.”

  “Great,” I say with relief. “But I’ll need to stop by home first and get the locker key.”

  Luz’s eyes gleam with excitement. “I bet she’s got a million dollars stashed in that locker. Enough to buy a big house for her and Baby.”

  Karina laughs. “And maybe she’d let all of us live there too!”

  Jerome snorts. “If she had a million dollars, why would she be living in a park in the winter?”

  I know Jerome’s right. I just hope like everything there’s something in that locker to help Jewel. To tell us who she is.

  33

  Jewel

  Jewel worries the threads of her blanket over and over until the edge unravels.

  What was that woman’s name, the one who came in like she owned the world, like she knew everything there was to know, and told Jewel where she could and couldn’t live?

  And so many questions!

  “Where is your family?”

  “When is your birthday?”

  “What is your social security number?”

  “How old are you?”

  “What is your last known address?”

  “Husband?”

  “Sister?”

  “Brother?”

  Who are you, Jewel Knight?

  Who are you?

  Jewel watches the wind tear the last of the leaves from the tree outside her window. She longs to feel fresh air on her face and taste the sharpness of winter on her tongue.

  She misses the sounds of birds, squirrels, the hiss of tires on the wet streets.

  She misses Ree and Ajax, Jerry and Lucky, Linda and Duke.

  Her family.

  But most of all, every part of her aches for Baby. It is like a missing limb, an amputation, Jewel without Baby, she thinks.

  Did she dream Baby was here?

  Did she dream Baby covered her face with kisses and nested in her side like always?

  And just yesterday morning, did she dream she heard a dog howl its heartbreak?

  If she answers all those questions, where will they take her?

  The only place she wants to be is together again with Baby, a pack of two.

  34

  Postcards

  “I thought Fire was coming with us,” Noah says. Noah and I are on the subway headed for Country-Wide Bus Station 3, in search of something, anything, that will help Jewel and Baby.

  I fiddle with the pouch holding the key on a string around my neck.

  Fire was coming with us. Like always, she was all ready to go.

  But then, just as I was about to leave, she knocked on our door.

  “I can’t go,” she said in a voice that didn’t sound at all like Fire. Her eyes didn’t dance like they usually do.

  “How come?”

  She looked down at her hands. “Mama’s having one of her spells. She won’t get out of bed or anything.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I just said, “Gosh, I’m sorry.”

  Fire swallowed hard. “Yeah, it’s better if I stay close by her when she’s like this. She needs me, you know?”

  I nodded. “I’ll let you know what we find out.”

  I look out the subway window. “Her mom’s not feeling good, so she stayed with her,” I say to Noah.

  He doesn’t ask a bunch of questions, just nods. That’s one thing about shelter kids: you don’t have to do a lot of explaining. We understand each other.

  I bump his knee with mine. “I’m sure glad you came, though. I’ve never ridden on a subway train before.”

  Noah looks out the window at the lights flashing by. “I’ve ridden them too much.”

  “How come?”

  He sighs. “After me and my brother came here, well, it took a while for us to find the Road Home shelter.” He glances at me real quick. “The streets aren’t exactly a safe place.”

  I nod.

  Noah looks away. “So my brother and me rode the subway trains at night.” He shrugs. “It was a safe place to be.”

  “What about your parents?” I ask.

  Noah shifts in his seat. “I don’t know my father. My mom’s in jail for possession.”

  I’m not sure I want to know in possession of what.

  It seems that’s all he’s going to say, but then, “My brother, Patrick, is older than me—nineteen. He came back from Saint Louis when he heard about Mom, got me out of foster care.”

  “He sounds like a great brother,” I say.

  Noah smiles. “He’s bossy like most big brothers, always on me about school and homework, but yeah, he’s okay.”

  I think about this. What would I do if I had to be the only one to take care of Dylan?

  “He works two jobs and goes to school at night.” He shakes his head. “He’s always saying, ‘I’m going to get us out of here and make something of myself. You too.’”

  I remember the new vocabulary word Mr. Koehler taught us the other day. �
��He sounds tenacious,” I say.

  Noah laughs for the first time since I met him. The train stops and the doors whisk open. He stands. “Patrick would say stubbornness is tenaciousness turned upside down.”

  I laugh too. I’ll have to remember to tell that to Mr. Koehler.

  We take the stairs up from the platform to the outside.

  Everything looks different here from where we live in the city. It’s mostly strip malls and gas stations and fast food restaurants.

  And then I see them, closer and taller. My heart about leaps out of my chest. The mountains! We’re so close now. I’ll sell the most gourmet brownies, I just know it, and then . . .

  Noah nudges me. “This way.”

  We hurry along the sidewalk up one block and then turn a corner. There we see it: a big sign that says Country-Wide Travel Bus Station.

  A gust of cold wind follows us through the front door. A woman looks up from the ticket counter and frowns.

  “What you kids doing here?”

  “Just here to pick up our grandma’s suitcase,” I call to her, holding up the locker key.

  “See that you give me that key before you leave,” she mumbles.

  Noah and I trot over to the long row of lockers. Some are tall, some are smaller. They all have numbers at the top.

  I look at the number on the key. “Twenty-five,” I read out loud.

  Slowly, we walk along the rows. On the top row are odd numbers: 3, 7, 9; even numbers on the bottom.

  The numbers get bigger: 11, 12, 14, 15. My heart speeds up. So do my feet.

  But then, there’re no more lockers.

  Were we wrong all along about it being a locker key? I feel sick with disappointment.

  “There’s more lockers over here,” Noah says, waving from around a corner.

  Sure enough, across from the bathrooms are two more rows of lockers.

  16, 17, 20, 21, and finally, 25.

  We stand in front of the closed door, just looking at it. I know we’re both thinking the same thing: What will we see when we unlock it? I remember an old game show my grandma Bess used to watch where people had to guess what was behind a huge curtain. Was it a fabulous prize like a boat or new living room furniture? Or was it a goat? I would have liked the goat, actually.

  “No time like the present,” I say.

  I take a deep breath. I slip the key into the lock and turn.