The ocean. It smells like salt and sand and coconut oil and vastness and beginnings. It smells like romps through waves and catching minnows for lunch. It smells like midnight snacks; an after-sunset beach is a fine place for a hungry dog to find the tossed contents of humans. It smells like leaping, joyful, leashless freedom.
“Pssssshhhttt.” Frank’s foul finger reminds me that I don’t have leashless freedom. “Watch, Daisy.”
I do. I watch Frank’s back. I’d rather eat slugs, but I want those patches.
There are so many dizzying distractions between the muddy sounds and the noisy colors and the fetching smells, but I can tell I’m doing well on this test. I can tell based on the tension in the leash. We turn, we stop, we climb, we reverse. I can practically feel the patches on my vest now.
“Check, Daisy,” Frank wisps.
I trot around a light-spinning, music-spurting, kid-screaming thing. It has fake horses trotting up and down in a circle. I check. The only thing there is a fat, dumb squirrel eating a French fry out of a garbage can. The idiot rodent narrows his eyes on me but greedily keeps stuffing the fry into his furry face. Go ’way, he mutters through mush. A disgusting little spew flies from his mouth.
Manners. I cringe.
I turn to report my findings to Frank when I hear it:
The red-alarm beeping of a truck backing up.
beepBeepBEEP
It’s quiet at first, but grows louder, bigger, like all sirens do when they approach. Nearby sirens mean nearby hurt.
I freeze. I stiffen. I stop breathing.
There it is: the monster truck with teeth on its hind end.
It backs up to the garbage can. The squirrel screams and leaps away. Two huge claws emerge from the truck’s sides. They grip the can and tip the heady garbage into its terrible foul mouth.
I remember:
I’m back living in the warm green Dumpster behind the ice cream parlor. My sweet, amazing litter of three smart, beautiful pups begs me not to leave. But I have to use the restroom, and no civil dog uses the restroom in her living quarters. I leave the Dumpster. I leave the Dumpster. When I return, a monster truck is dumping my babies into its foul mouth. I try to save them. I rip my ear. I hear their yelpy puppy screams.
They are forever good-bye.
Screams. The screams of Frank, the screams of silly humans zooming through space on metal mountains bring me back to the amusement park. I’m still frozen. Stiff. Unbreathing.
Frank scowls. “Fail.”
It’s a garbage truck word.
Colonel Victor’s shoulders fall when Frank tells him. He whacks a metal light pole with his walking stick, and the clang sounds like heartbreak. He pulls at the fur on his head. He yells inky words at Alex, at Frank. Then he grabs my leash and yanks me—ouch!—out of the park.
My tail is tucked. I am not getting the patches. I am not a useful tool.
Micah’s tail is tucked, too. His ear muzzles are on. He looks at the Screamin’ Demon with saltwater eyes.
17
ITCHES THAT CAN’T BE REACHED
I have an itch I cannot reach.
I wriggle, bend in half, rake my toenails against my neck. But the itch is there, just under my collar. It pulses orange. My tags jangle.
The breezy tinkle of my tags stirs the Colonel. He tries to focus his foggy eyes on me.
It’s been two sunrises since I failed the test. I’ve been using the restroom behind the couch again.
“C’mere, Daisy,” Colonel Victor says, his words fuzzy like caterpillars.
I do.
He scratches me. He takes his delicious human fingernails and scratches all around my neck.
It feels like steak.
I close my eyes, but I can still feel Micah staring at me from across the den.
Disappointment tastes like bubbles. Bubbles are floating rainbow balls that look like candy but taste like soap.
“We’re gonna try one more time, Miss Daisy,” the Colonel says. His words are too soft. “One more chance to pass the test.”
He scratches harder.
“I’ll pay. Two more weeks. Yeah, I can pay that. We can afford two more weeks. We’ll . . . find the money.”
He keeps scratching.
It feels like filet mignon.
But the itch is still there.
I cannot reach it.
It’s too deep inside.
18
FAILING DOESN’T MAKE YOU A FAILURE
“Potty, Daisy,” Colonel Victor commands. I go.
“Inside, Daisy.” I enter the training building.
“Get your leash, Daisy.” I do.
“Get your vest, Daisy.” I get.
“Sit, Daisy.” I sit.
“Still, Daisy.” I sit stiller.
“Go, Daisy.” I walk.
“Heel, Daisy.” I walk on the Colonel’s left.
“Over, Daisy.” I roll onto my back and show my belly.
“Right, Daisy.” I turn to the right.
“Quick, Daisy.” I speed my pace to the Colonel’s.
“Shake, Daisy.” I extend my paw.
“Snuggle, Daisy.” I place my paws on Colonel Victor’s shoulders.
“Wait, Daisy.” I pause while the Colonel sits.
“Visit, Daisy.” I place my head on the Colonel’s lap.
“Down, Daisy.” I lie on the icy floor.
“Settle, Daisy.” I remain lying. That’s a stupid one.
Alex huffs impatience. “She knows all the commands. I don’t understand why she failed.”
Colonel Victor shrugs. “It’s disappointing this was a failure.” That word makes me picture fire ants.
Micah shifts on his tailbone. His ear muzzles cover his ears, and he doesn’t look up from his small plastic screen, but still he says, “Failing doesn’t make you a failure. Failure is not trying at all.”
His words are tiny, surprising belly rubs.
Alex makes a clicking sound with his mouth, like a cricket. “We’ll keep trying. We’ll just keep doing this, I guess.” He doesn’t sound whole-hog sure about that. He unclips my leash. “Free dog,” he says.
Free dog. The command means I’m off duty. That I can relax. Play.
Free dog.
His words are tiny surprising bite marks.
Free?
I need to be useful. I need to practice more. I need to train.
I don’t need to be free.
Do I?
19
PACK RULES
Some days are unusual, like tuna instead of beef.
Today is a tuna day.
Today we train without Alex. Earlier, he said fluffy cotton ball words like “not sure how much more I can do for Daisy” and “need to focus on other clients.” I agreed. But I didn’t know it would get this weird.
I am standing in front of a roomful of Micahs in the building called school. Their eyes all poke me. My muscles twitch under my vest. The horrible white lights above buzz and wash out all the colors in this room. This place smells of socks and warm lunch meat and puberty.
“. . . and that’s what Miss Daisy here does for me,” Colonel Victor says.
The Micahs all clap. It sounds like a herd of running bare feet.
“Thank you, Colonel Abeyta!” the alpha dog of this pack says. She is in charge of a roomful of Micahs. She has my sympathy. Sympathy feels like the sound of squeaky toys.
She places a hand on Micah’s shoulder. My ears perk, because she’s made contact with my pack.
“Micah,” she says. Her voice is honey. “Would you like to walk your dad out of school?”
Micah’s face is pink. “Sure!”
We walk down the cold, white floor. My toenails click, and the sound echoes off the metal cubbies lining the walls.
“I need to duck in here,” Colonel Victor says. He shoulders open a door. It has an odd picture of a human on it.
This room is tinier, colder, echoier.
“Here,” Colonel Victor says. He hand
s Micah my leash. “Hold Miss Daisy for a sec.” The Colonel steps into a stall and swings the metal door shut.
What?
This is all so tuna.
Micah holds the leash loosely but firmly. He jiggles the weight of it in his hand. The leather and chains jangle. He tugs the leash. Not like tug-of-war. More like he’s testing where the boundaries are. I understand testing boundaries.
“Daisy,” he whispers. “Block.”
I blink at him. Is he trying to guide me?
Do I follow? We are of equal rank, aren’t we?
Before I can decide, the door to this cave crashes open. A small herd of boys gallops in.
These boys weren’t in Micah’s classroom earlier. I know this because I don’t recognize any of their scents; they all smell new to me. One smells like the goop humans put in their hair, one smells like peanut butter, one smells like sweat.
The one in front stops like a deer when he sees me. But he smiles. Micah’s heart skips. His chin lifts. He flexes his muscles. He’s displaying his strength. He wants to be a part of this pack of boys.
“Hey, Abeyta. That your dog?” Hair Goop asks.
Micah’s face ticks up. “Yeah.”
No.
“You brought your dog to school?” the one who smells like sweat asks.
Micah shifts, shrugs. He is itchy uncomfortable.
“You’re one of the military kids, right?” Hair Goop asks.
Micah sways from foot to foot, a small tree in a mighty wind. “I was one. Now I’m . . .”
My heart squeezes for him with squeaky-toy sympathy. He doesn’t know how to define his current pack. Switching packs is as difficult as walking against ocean waves.
“Hey, doggy, doggy.” Peanut Butter squats and quacks at me like a duck. Like Alex. He reaches toward me. I flinch.
I feel Micah tense through the leash. He steps in front of me, an orange safety cone. A block! “Uh . . . you’re not supposed to pet her.”
It’s true: I’m wearing my vest, so no petting. Micah is trying to follow the rules. But Micah wants to be a part of this pack. I lean around him, offering to get petted anyway. I can step over this rule like a tiny crack in the sidewalk. Just this once. But Micah nudges me back.
The rules of the Abeyta pack mean more to him than the rules of this pack.
“Not supposed to?” Hair Goop asks. “Why?”
Micah swallows. His throat is dry. “She’s my dad’s service dog. She’s a tool.”
“A tool!” This pack of boys hoots and hollers like crows. They gasp and wheeze too much. Micah burns red fire beside me. The Colonel burns red fire in his stall. I can feel their heat.
One of them finally sucks in enough breath to puff, “A tool! Does your dad need to be fixed?”
They bang and clang out of the bathroom, small twisty tornadoes.
Colonel Victor bangs and clangs out of his stall. He splashes cold water on his face, dousing some of his fire. Micah tugs on his ears. I can tell he itches for his ear muzzles.
Colonel Victor takes the leash from Micah’s slack hand. “Let’s go, Miss Daisy. Micah, I . . .”
I can sense the words that are growing inside the Colonel: I wish you didn’t have to hear that. I do sometimes feel broken, but I’m getting better. I love you. Those are the colors on his face. Those are the words stewing in his heart.
But instead he says, “Micah, I’ll see you at home.”
Humans are frustrating.
What a tuna day.
20
THE BANGY, BOUNCY SIDE OF MESSY
Over the next several sunrises, we train every day without Alex. We go over and over and over the same commands. Every day is an echo. An echo isn’t a real thing, it’s a reflection of a thing. Each day feels more hollow and thin and colorless than the last.
“Can we get ice cream today, Dad?” Micah asks on this particular echo. The words are a fat pile of diggable dirt, full of promise.
The Colonel’s face doesn’t pull down when this new thing is mentioned. His heart doesn’t pound with terror. He is getting stronger. “Hey, that sounds great, hijo.”
So we take a different turn! Different! Variety tastes like candy red hots. This new sidewalk is lined with clumps of bright purple and blue gum and the grime feels like sandy salt and the whole street smells like bright yellow tennis ball hope.
And the ice cream parlor! It’s chilly inside like tiny pinches of snow, but it smells of gummy bears and sweet cream. A poisonous chocolate undercurrent is there, too, but it’s easy to ignore because the bluebird lady behind the counter sings, “Would you like a scoop for your dog, too?” And the Colonel smiles—smiles for real, like a sunflower—and says, “Yes.”
Yes!
We skip outside and find a spot in the warm white sun. Colonel Victor loops my leash around a metal chair leg and places my ice cream in front of me.
Bliss!
Ice cream is summer rain on asphalt: steamy relief of hot plus cold. Ice cream is forever happiness. I don’t blame the ice cream parlor for my torn ear and my nightmares. Those things taste like garbage, not ice cream.
I lap up the sweet, sticky cream. I’m very aware of the fact that I eat with my face. It’s certainly messy, and messy can be smelly and embarrassing. But sometimes messy is glorious and squishy fun. Ice cream tilts into the bangy, bouncy side of messy.
We’re sitting there, soaking up sunshine like blades of dewy grass, when a girl not much older than Micah jogs by. She’s wearing the same type of ear muzzles that Micah wears. Her heart sounds heavy for how fast it’s pounding, like it’s trying to break free from something.
She stops. Pulls the headphones off her ears. Squeaky sounds shoot out of the ear muzzles like faraway scattering mice.
“Can I pet your dog?” she asks Colonel Victor. “I know he’s a service dog . . .”
She.
“. . . but he reminds me so much of the dog I had until my parents divorced.” Tears well in her eyes.
She. But I forgive her this last one, because divorced sounds like the not-fun kind of messy.
The Colonel is in a squirrelly mood. He likes rules so much he’s almost a muzzle, but today he says, “Sure.”
I wriggle like a tadpole, I’m so happy for new petting hands. The girl’s pink fingernails are like sunsets. After several scratches, her face shadows fade, and her heart, while still heavy, thuds a little lighter.
Then she hugs me. Tight, like rock. Her heart against my heart, singing together. My heart brings hers back into harmony. It’s solid and sure. Hugs are the keys that unlock our souls.
I’d almost forgotten. My first pack had many faults, but they could hug like fur.
She loosens, leans back, looks me in the eye. “Thank you,” she says to my harmonizing heart. “I was having a really bad day.”
My pleasure.
She lifts on her horrible, mousy ear muzzles, stands, and jogs away, trailing rainbows behind her.
The Colonel smiles sunbeams. Stands. “I’m going to get an ice cream for Anna and Analise. Watch Miss Daisy, Micah.”
Micah stares at him like he’s a stranger, then looks at me the same way. He leans down to me. I flinch because I can’t read his face shadows.
“How do you do it?” he whispers to me. “How do you absorb all those bad feelings?”
He fiddles with the strings of his own ear muzzles. “I’ve tried, you know? I’ve tried to be the sponge. But I can’t do it. I can’t.”
His words confuse me like wind. You don’t need to do that. That’s my job in this pack.
Micah’s face softens. But he chews the inside of his cheek. “I guess I don’t need to do that, do I? That’s your job in this family.”
21
SECOND CHANCES
All five of us in the Abeyta pack spend the day at the park. Only twice do I have to nudge Colonel Victor to calm his twitchy heart: once when a tasty Frisbee flew by, once when a kid cracked a ball against a bat. Two times is quite an improvement. The
Colonel’s training is coming along rather nicely.
We ride home in the glorious wind-blast, music-blast car. When the five of us topple toward the house, sun-tired and grass-smelling, the Colonel pauses at the threshold of the front door, a pointing retriever.
He extends an arm, holding his human pack members back. “Light switch, Miss Daisy,” he orders.
I step inside, across the monster shadows flying throughout the house, and flick the lights with my nose. Click! The monster shadows scatter.
“Sweep, Miss Daisy,” Colonel Victor commands. He’s still not allowing his other pack members inside. I know how important it is for him to determine that a place is safe before his pack enters. This is an important job. I am an important pack member for doing it.
So I sweep. I sniff around each corner of our den, making sure there is no danger. I do this every time we arrive home now. A two-minute sweep through the entire house, then I report back to the Colonel that all’s clear.
Analise begins wailing, a noise that tastes like black pepper. The sound makes it difficult to smell clearly. But I sniff around this room and move into the next. Micah’s room.
Fish scales.
Welcome, canine companion. Smaug sighs at me. He’s not in his glass box like he’s supposed to be; he’s curled inside the cup of a baseball glove, chewing on the leather threads. All is well in Micah’s chambers. That I can assure you.
I’ll be the judge of that, I reply. I know I sound whiny like a throbbing stubbed toe, but this is my job. I won’t be replaced by some lazy, leather-chewing lizard. Plus, he never even tried to explain to Micah that I wasn’t attacking him that day outside.
I sniff around Micah’s room. A wad of gum stuck under his bed frame. Skunky socks on the floor. A rotten apple core that missed the trash can.
All clear, I proclaim. Two more rooms to go.
Pause, Smaug says. Listen closer.
I think at first he means here and now, in this dot in time and space. I cock my head and listen to my pack outside. Analise is really wailing now, and it sounds like a red-and-chrome fire truck. It’s difficult to listen to because it confuses my smell. Anna coos, shhh, shhh, over and over. Micah pops a bubble and I can hear from his huffs that he’s rolling his eyes. The Colonel’s heart pounds and he’s trying to catch his breath.
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