I need to finish my sweep, I say.
You need to do as I say, Smaug says. Listen closer. This is for you, not for me.
I start panting. I don’t really have time for this right—
Listen closer to Micah, Smaug says through gooey yellow teeth. You’re missing the big clue.
YOU listen! I growl at this pile of scales. I’m tired of you giving me advice. Micah is NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY.
“Miss Daisy!”
I twist. Over my shoulder, Colonel Victor fills the doorway into Micah’s room. He’s wheezing now, and foamy spittle is pooling at the corners of his mouth. His eyes are black stones. Shadows stain his face, and his heart roars. Micah, Anna, and Analise peek around him, leaves on a tree.
Oh no. I got sidetracked on my sweep, and I’ve scared the Colonel.
“What’s taking you so long? Did you find . . . ?” The Colonel pauses, looks from me to Smaug. The smug Smaug never stops chewing leather, never tries to explain that my delay is his fault. He is making me look duck-silly again. His gummy yellow slurps make me ill.
“You got distracted by the bearded dragon?” the Colonel asks. He blinks, jabs a finger at me. “Daisy! You should know that scent by now! Smaug is part of our family! I’ve given you a second chance, Daisy, and you keep making silly mistakes! You shouldn’t be afraid of something you know. YOU SHOULDN’T BE AFRAID OF YOUR FAMILY!”
Shame. It tastes bitter like acorns.
The Colonel bends in half, hands on knees, and sucks in air. “I gave you a second chance, Daisy. I believe in second chances.”
I rush to his side, nudging him, leaning on him, licking his knuckles. I’m sorry, I say. I’m sorry.
He trembles, like twitching whiskers trying to figure out the world. Behind him, Micah is a knot of muscle and tears. He and Anna and Analise walk away. It’s just me and the Colonel now.
“I don’t think this is working,” the Colonel says, standing bolt upright. “This second chance. It’s not working.”
His voice is quivery and unsure. His words smell like despair. Like roadkill.
And I know: I’ve made the biggest mistake yet.
If I’ve destroyed the Colonel’s belief in second chances, then, well . . .
I’ve destroyed his belief in himself.
22
THREE WORDS THAT MAKE A WHOLE POEM
The beach smells yellow and tan and blue and green. It tastes like stardust and universes and beginnings. It feels like freedom and ease and power. And somehow, it makes you feel both large and small. One grain of sand. Many.
I sit on the beach under a rainbow-colored umbrella, next to Colonel Victor and Anna. Analise digs in the sand nearby. Micah squeals and leaps through water like a dolphin.
I love dolphins. They sing to the soul.
The sand beneath me feels warmly shifty and impermanent. It feels like doubt.
“Tomorrow’s Monday,” the Colonel says to Anna. “The shelter will be open. We’ll go see about a new dog then.”
A.
New.
Dog.
Three words with enough power to tear apart a heart.
A wave crashes onto shore like all of earth is behind it, pushing it. Micah squeals lightning bolts of joy.
I lie down. Pant. I have water, but I don’t want water. I can’t get comfortable.
I want permanence.
But I’m sitting on sand.
The sun moves across the sky like a snail. Micah crashes toward us, spraying silver behind him.
“The water is cold, but it’s awesome,” Micah pants.
Gosh, I’m weary.
Weariness is thin. Murky. Gray.
Anna starts packing up stuff. She looks at the crust of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich Micah left behind. She tosses it to me. I gobble it up. It’s sandy.
Micah towels himself. I feel sorry for humans yet again, that they can’t just give themselves a good shake to dry off.
Look at me. Feeling sorry for humans.
I have to stop that.
“So the shelter, then,” the Colonel says. He stands. Dusts sand off his swim trunks. His eyes don’t meet mine. Cowardice tastes like roadkill. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Micah’s voice is oddly squeaky and hairy and mouse-like. He shakes his head. “I don’t understand. We’ve been training with Daisy—”
“I’ve been training with Daisy,” the Colonel spits. Regret colors his face immediately. “It’s just . . .” He sighs. I’m beginning to really dislike sighing. Sighs move like snakes.
“I don’t think a dog like Daisy can do this job,” the Colonel says.
I’m unsure what he means by that. A dog like Daisy. A dog with a torn ear? A dog with a patch over her eye? A dog that isn’t a fighter? A dog that isn’t useful?
But I know for certain: there have never been thornier words than those. I sigh snakes.
Micah’s face scrunches to one side, which makes it difficult to read his shadows. His heart skips faster. He gulps air. “You’re making a mistake, Dad.”
He’s standing up to the alpha dog. It takes bravery to do that. The sunset behind Micah colors him yellow and orange. He casts a tall shadow.
“You know there had to be some reason she failed that test the first time around,” he says. “And you’ve been training with her since then. She’s so close! It’d be crazy not to try the test again. Why not give her one more chance?”
One.
More.
Chance.
Three words that make a whole poem.
The Colonel cracks his knuckles. Grits his teeth. I’m fully prepared for him to slip out of sync, or for him to get spears in his eyes. Micah braces himself like a palm tree facing a storm.
But the Colonel nods. It’s a small, simple thing that humans do, nodding. But a small, simple yes can be a very big thing.
“One more chance,” Colonel Victor mutters. “Maybe.” He turns to pack up a cooler. “We are close to the new test date. Okay.”
Micah’s grin tilts toward his mom. She shoots him a discreet thumbs-up.
Surprise tastes like cinnamon.
But here’s the thing that Micah forgot: he forgot to convince me.
On the ride home, I sit in the back of the glorious car between Analise’s seat and Micah with the ear muzzles. Colonel Victor and Anna discuss a new medicine the Colonel is taking, and they say windy words like side effects and drowsy and diarrhea.
Micah’s face ticks up on that last one.
How does he hear with those things on his ears?
The swaying car makes me drowsy. I spin, lie down, curl up tight. When I wake, my head is somehow resting on Micah’s leg. His hand is light on my neck. He smiles at me as I smack my drooling jaws awake.
Humans are full of cinnamon.
23
DISOBEDIENT DAISY
The sidewalk is sausage-sizzling hot under my paw pads. The traffic on the road next to us is full of green and orange and blue and red and yellow and silver noises and reminds me of Analise. Horns honk and sirens warn and engines rev and all of it together is too much flavor and it makes my nervous stomach churn.
We’re headed to take the certification test again.
Nervousness tastes like pigeon feathers.
“I don’t understand why I can’t walk her through the test,” Colonel Victor says in chisel-sharp words. “She’s my service dog.”
“That’s exactly why you can’t administer the test,” Alex says. His words today are flat and black like tire marks. “You’re biased.”
Not in a positive way, I chime in.
Micah scuffs his feet on the sidewalk next to me, and the noise makes me itchy because it sounds like fleabites. His ear muzzles cover his ears again, and for once, I’m jealous of them, because then I wouldn’t have to suffer this clatter.
“It’s ridiculous,” the Colonel says. “Miss Daisy doesn’t need to be certified.”
He doesn’t think I can pass this test. I might agree
with him. Doubt tastes like heartworm medicine.
“She does if you want the VA to cover her bills,” Alex says.
Alex, go play in that traffic.
“The VA is a pile of . . .” The Colonel’s heart rushes. He leaves that sentence hanging there, but there are very few things that pile, and almost all of them stink.
The Colonel grits his teeth. I can tell by the twist of shadows on his face that his stomach is knotted just like mine.
Alex natters on about the test, using long-legged, spidery words like proficient and competent and pliable.
All of it, together, is too much. I’m feeling dizzy, tail-chasing dizzy, when I hear it:
BeepBeepBEEP.
It’s a sneaky, snaky sound that creeps like black ink under all the other sounds.
BeepBeepBEEP.
It gets louder. The Colonel seems to sense it, too, because his heart explodes and his eyes glass over, full of milky ghosts.
BeepBeepBEEP.
We’re approaching a crosswalk. Alex swings his arms around grandly, chattering. A stupid squirrel. He doesn’t notice.
I dig in.
I sit on that scalding-hot sidewalk, roasting my rear end.
“Walk, Daisy!” Alex orders.
The leash yanks my neck, and I gag.
BeepBeepBEEP.
“Walk, Daisy!” Alex shouts at me. It sounds like he’s underwater.
I disobey.
Alex’s words from early in our training burn in my mind: There’s a difference between a smart dog and an obedient dog, and for this job, we need an obedient dog.
“Walk, Daisy!”
I disobey.
The Colonel is shaking now, a full-body no.
Micah plants himself, too. Grabs his dad’s arm. He’s brave to touch his dad when the Colonel is out of sync.
BeepBeepBROOOOOOOOWWWWWWW.
A truck roars past in reverse, cutting the corner too quickly. The wind it creates as it whooshes by us is full of sewer stink.
Alex’s eyes widen. “That was . . .” His voice catches in his throat.
“Close.” Micah says. He pulls his arm away from the Colonel like he’s touched something boiling hot. Micah is shaking, and his eyes are wide, his breathing short and shallow.
I know those signs.
I can help.
I step forward, nudge Micah’s knee with my cold nose. I rub the side of my head, my torn ear, on his leg. I lean on him, my ribs against his shin.
He lays his fingertips on my head. His heart slows, his breathing deepens.
He bends down. Looks me directly in the eye.
When humans look dogs directly in the eye, their souls soften.
Both souls.
“You heard that truck, didn’t you?” he whispers.
Yes. I’m panting now. And so did you.
Smaug’s voice is now in my mind: Listen closer to Micah. You’re missing the big clue.
The ear muzzles.
Micah’s ear muzzles don’t make squeaky music noises like that jogger girl’s did. His ear muzzles are always, always, completely quiet. And the Colonel and Anna and Alex and other tall humans talk about all sorts of things once he puts them over his ears.
Micah doesn’t wear ear muzzles to listen to other things.
Micah wears ear muzzles to listen to now.
He doesn’t turn music on. The others think he does, and then they talk about all sorts of tall human things. He’s tricked them so he can know what’s going on. The ear muzzles are useful.
I am so confused. So dizzy. My throat hurts from the yanked leash and my butt hurts from the hot sidewalk and my head hurts from these windy humans.
My stomach lurches. Once, twice, three times.
I vomit.
I fail the test.
Again.
The Colonel is so tired he doesn’t even scowl at me.
Alex is so upset he doesn’t even smirk at me.
Micah is so suspicious he doesn’t take his eyes off me.
Micah knows.
He knows I failed the test on purpose.
There are no scent maps with this pack. I don’t understand them. And if I don’t understand, how can I help? How can I be a useful part of it?
I try my hardest to be useful, and it’s wrong. I make a mistake, and it’s right. Lizards and knives and ear-muzzle lies confuse me. And any good choice I make outside the test doesn’t count. Humans and numbers and tests! So little faith in instinct! How do they possibly survive thinking so often with their brains and so rarely with their hearts?
Colonel Victor and I are like two pups from the same litter: we’ve both lost dear members of our pack. We’re both fighters who don’t want to fight anymore. And now I’ve even destroyed his belief in second chances. Destroying things is worse than uselessness. That makes me even worse than before.
There’s a difference between a smart dog and an obedient dog, and for this job, we need an obedient dog.
I knew I had to fail the test when I disobeyed Alex at the crosswalk. He wants a mushy, pliable dog, not one that disobeys when he says walk.
I am not an obedient dog.
So I failed the test on purpose.
Micah stood up for me, fought for one more chance for me, but I can’t do it. I threw his chance away like garbage.
24
RAINY DAYS
Rain confuses a dog. Cold water falling from gray skies coats all the colors with a film of silvery flash. Rain smears all the scents and washes them underground. There are no more scent maps, after the rain; the past is carried away, and finding your home after a rainstorm is difficult.
That’s why lost feels like rain.
This pack, the Abeyta pack, makes me feel rainy.
I’m not useful here.
I’m not useful at all.
If I’d been useful to my first pack of humans, if I’d fought other dogs like they wanted me to, my pups would be okay today. They’d be fighters, which would break my heart, but they’d still be with me.
Now the Abeyta pack will take me back to the shelter. I’ll have another fourteen sunrises before I head through the Bad Side door. Unless someone else finds my use.
I can’t blame them. It’s dangerous for a pack to keep a member who has no use.
Today is a rainy day.
25
THE GOOD SIDE BELL, PART TWO
This car ride is not glorious. It is stuffy and windless and full of the sound of tires moaning across roads.
We—the Colonel and Alex and Micah and me—pull into the parking lot of the shelter. I knew we’d come here, but I didn’t fully think this through when I failed the test. The toy lightning cages. The cardboard dry food. The heavy smell of dog fear.
My leash jangles like a mourning bell.
My tail tucks, my head hangs as we approach the door.
Until . . .
That scent!
My head snaps up. I flare my nostrils and suck in the smells, trying to separate the taste of each.
It is! It has to be!
I start yanking the leash, my toenails skidding and scratching the pavement like tiny, galloping music notes. Let’s go! We have to get in there!
“Whoa!” the Colonel says. “Easy there, Miss Daisy!”
The bell over the Good Side door dings green.
Janie looks up from her always desk. “Oh! Well, hello again.”
But I’m pulling and jerking and tugging and skidding and whining and crying because—
KATIMA! I yell. I heave toward a row of cages, wrenching the Colonel behind me. She’s in the middle one, too high for me to see.
I hear her stand, tiny flecks of lightning sparking off her cage like fireworks. She’s penned up, but she’s HERE. SHE’S HERE!
Is it you? Katima cries. Is it really you?
We’re both whining and crying and pawing and scratching and OH! KATIMA’S HERE!
“Do these two know each other?” Micah asks. He looks at Janie.
She b
links like a possum. “It looks that way.”
The Colonel’s heart races. “Can you get the other dog down, please?”
Janie unlocks the door with a tiny click that sounds like a whole song. Before she can even reach into the cage, Katima jumps down to me.
I pull the leash out of the Colonel’s hand. Katima and I wriggle and writhe and sniff and whine like a pile of pigs. I get us tangled together with the leash and we laugh and lick and cry.
Micah laughs. The Colonel laughs. Even Alex, who I’d forgotten exists on this day, laughs.
“Looks like they’re old buddies,” the Colonel says. By the way he says buddies, I know it’s a word full of music to him. It’s a word with weight and worth.
But we’re more than buddies.
We’re family. I sigh.
Mama, Katima says, licking my face. Mama.
26
RAIN SPUN INTO SUNSHINE
“She showed up here,” Janie was saying in her meek voice. Before, I thought Janie’s voice useless, simply because it wasn’t bold. But useful isn’t always bold. That was a mistake, to think that. Mistakes taste humble like dry dog food. “We don’t normally get dogs who wander right up on us, but this one sure did.”
Katima nods. I did. I followed your scent all the way here, Mama.
I lick her face. It tastes like sweet candy sprinkle love. Smart girl.
Alex stoops, looks Katima in the eye.
He’s harmless, I tell her. A dullard, but harmless.
She sits tall on her rump, anxious to make a good impression. That’s my girl.
“Hmmm,” Alex says. He sneaks a hand forward, turns Katima’s jaw back and forth. “This is one good-looking dog.”
Like mother, like daughter, I say, and Katima and I both laugh with our tails.
“She’s healthy and smart,” he adds.
You are as right as a ball bounce, Onion Alex, I think to myself. I love you and your poop-scooping and your caramel squeals and your kitty litter protests because you see beauty here.
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