Waggit Again

by Peter Howe

  When he went back to the campsite Felicia was putting some sticks and dead, dry leaves into a circle of blackened stones. She then disappeared inside the tent, and Waggit could hear her muttering to herself.

  “Matches. Matches. Now come on, matches, where are you?”

  After a couple of minutes he heard her cry, “Ah-ha!” and she reemerged, her baseball cap slightly crooked, triumphantly holding a large box of matches in her hand. She busily lit the fire, talking to the matches all the while, encouraging them to do their work. Once she got a good blaze going she let it burn for a while until all that remained of the wood were hot, glowing embers. She placed an old, battered frying pan on the coals, and into this she threw some fat sausages. Soon the sound of sizzling and the delicious smell of meat cooking wafted through the air, causing Waggit to drool.

  Felicia noticed this and said, “I know that it doesn’t matter to you whether they’re cooked or not, but since I live without the benefits of a refrigerator it’s probably best that we heat them through. We don’t want you getting sick.”

  Although this was sensible, it was also a nuisance, as many sensible things are. By the time she put the food on a plate and placed the plate on the ground, Waggit thought he would faint from hunger. The actual eating of the sausages was the shortest part of the whole process, and when it was over, and the dog got that wonderful, restful sensation of a full stomach, he belched softly.

  “Now that you’ve eaten,” she said as she cleaned out the frying pan with a handful of grass, “let’s try to work out where your home is.”

  She put the pan back into the tent and turned toward him only to find that he was fast asleep, exhausted from the excitement of the day’s adventures and the effect of the food.

  “Oh well, maybe later,” she said kindly.

  3

  Travel Plans

  Waggit awoke to the sensation of being stroked. Felicia was gently smoothing the fur down his back and caressing him behind his ears. She made him feel safe and peaceful, more relaxed than before his owner had left him at the farm.

  “Welcome back,” she said as he stretched and yawned.

  He got up and shook himself, and in doing so realized that she had gently taken off the length of chain while he slept. This was a great relief, because even though it didn’t weigh much, it did get in the way and, worse, it was a reminder of his recent captivity. He wagged his tail in gratitude and then sat down again.

  “Well,” she said, “I think we know where your home is—or at least where it was at one time.”

  She reached over to his collar and shook the rather battered red tag that hung from it.

  “That, my friend, is a rabies vaccination tag from a New York City vet. So we know you lived in New York at one time. Why you don’t have any other identification tags I have no idea.”

  Waggit remembered that in his fight with Hodge some of the stuff that jingled from his collar had been ripped off and fallen to the ground, never to be reattached.

  “New York sounds familiar,” he said uncertainly.

  “Was it a big city with lots of people and very tall buildings?”

  He nodded.

  “And yellow cabs?” she asked.

  “I don’t know what a cab is,” he admitted.

  “You know, a car,” she said. “A big metal thing that goes along the road carrying people—er, Uprights, that is—inside.”

  “Oh, a roller.” He finally understood. “There were a lot of rollers that color.”

  “Assuming that a roller is a car, then we can also assume that the yellow ones were taxis. I think,” she said, “that your home is New York, and that you’re a long way from it. How did you end up in this neck of the woods?”

  “I was living with a woman. She was the one who rescued me from the Great Unknown.”

  “The Great Unknown? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that.”

  “It’s where they take you when they catch you in the park,” explained Waggit. “Anyway, we lived together for many risings, and everything seemed just fine until one day she suddenly put me in a roller and brought me to a farm near here and left me there.”

  “Why did she do that?” asked Felicia.

  “I don’t know.” The dog was really confused. “I thought she liked me; she seemed to. I liked her, and I trusted her, but she abandoned me, like the first Uprights I lived with did.” He suddenly was shaking with anger. “That’s what you get for trusting Uprights. I should’ve learned my lesson; I promise you I’ll never trust another one.”

  “Whoa, slow down there. I’m an Upright and you trust me, don’t you?” said Felicia.

  Strangely enough, he did, although he wasn’t sure why.

  “Also,” the woman continued, “there are many reasons to leave a dog somewhere. It doesn’t necessarily mean she abandoned you. Maybe she left you there because she had to go away and wanted them to look after you. Maybe she was coming back.”

  “No,” said Waggit. “She never went away for that long. It was too many risings ago. No, she abandoned me.”

  “Oh dear, you do feel sorry for yourself.”

  “So would you if you’d been abandoned, for the second time, as it happens.”

  “No I wouldn’t,” she cheerfully contradicted him. “I would say to myself: Here’s the opportunity to do something different; here’s the possibility of an adventure.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” replied Waggit, somewhat resentful of her breezy optimism. “You’ve probably never been abandoned.”

  “Actually, I was, in a way.” He waited for her to explain what she meant by this, but she fell silent.

  “Look,” she said after a few minutes, “why don’t we do this? I haven’t been to New York City in a long time, and it might be fun to see if it’s changed. I’ve nothing special to do at the moment, so why don’t I join you and we’ll go there together? Sound like a plan?”

  It did sound like a plan to Waggit, especially since he didn’t have one of his own. Furthermore, she made him feel happy, even if he didn’t particularly want to be. He wagged his tail in agreement.

  “Good,” Felicia exclaimed, “that’s settled. Let’s shake on it.”

  She extended her hand, and he put his paw in it. It was a deal. They were traveling companions.

  “I think,” said Felicia, “that with all due respect to your nose, I shall buy a map at the first opportunity.”

  They decided that they would start out in the morning, and as the day drew to a close the woman prepared yet another meal. This time she opened cans of beef chili and warmed them in the same pan in which she had cooked the sausages. She put two large dollops of the food on a plate for herself but let Waggit eat his directly from the pan, when it had cooled down. Of course, being chili, even when it had cooled down it was still hot, because that’s the way chili is. It surprised the dog, who had never tasted spicy food before, but when he got used to it he found it delicious, and furthermore, as he licked the last remnants from the pan he could still taste the morning’s sausages.

  While the woman washed out the utensils in the stream before it got totally dark, Waggit lay by the opening of the tent licking his paws. He looked at Felicia as she worked. He had never met a human like her before. It wasn’t just that she understood what he said or the peace he felt in her company—both of these things were remarkable enough—but she also didn’t seem to have any of the worries and concerns that other humans had. She wasn’t always in a hurry, and from the eccentric way that she was dressed she clearly didn’t care what other people thought of her. She was so calm and confident that he couldn’t imagine her being frightened.

  “Are you ever afraid of things?” he asked her when she returned.

  “Not often,” she replied. “I’ve found that things are rarely as scary as you think they’re going to be. That’s the trouble with fear. It holds you back. It stops you from doing things that might be fun or might be good for you. Take this journey we’re about to g
o on. I’m sure we’ll come across stuff that won’t be what we expect, and some parts of it will be difficult, but if you let fear of what might happen stop you, then you might as well stay right here forever.”

  Funnily enough Waggit had been thinking that living with Felicia in the tent by the stream was so nice that maybe they shouldn’t take the long and possibly hazardous trip back to New York, but he didn’t mention this to her.

  “I’ll give you an example,” Felicia continued. “When we get to New York we’ve got to find where your woman lives. Locating someone in a big city is difficult even if you have a name and address, neither of which is in our possession, and New York is as big as big cities get. But I know that once you start moving forward, things have a tendency to fall into place, and so I have no doubt that it’ll work out.”

  Waggit sat there, stunned.

  “But—” he began.

  “No,” said Felicia. “Not another word. We’ll find her if it takes every power that I possess.”

  “But—” Waggit tried again. “But I don’t want to find her.”

  “You don’t?” asked Felicia, puzzled. “I thought you wanted to go home.”

  “I do,” said Waggit. “I do want to go home. I want to go home to the park.”

  4

  Getting Acquainted

  It was Felicia’s turn to be surprised.

  “Hold on there,” she said. “Are you telling me that the woman lived in a park?”

  “No, no,” said Waggit. “The team lived in the park.”

  It was quite dark now, and the only light was from the glowing embers of the fire and the cold light of the moon. Waggit moved closer to Felicia, and in the darkness he told her the story of his life. He told her that when he was very young, just a puppy, he had been left in the park by a human he had been living with, but had been rescued by a big, black dog called Tazar. Tazar was the leader of a team of dogs that lived there without any humans caring for them. Waggit told Felicia of the friends he had made, especially a short-legged, scruffy dog called Lowdown who was much older than him, and whom he feared might now be dead. He told her how hard it was to survive in the park during the winter but also of the fun they had in the snow and on the frozen lakes. He told her about their enemies, a tough, violent dog called Tashi, and Wilbur, his evil lieutenant. He told her that he owed his life to the team, and that they were really the only family he had.

  Then he went on to tell her about meeting the woman. She was a singer by profession, and as the weather got warmer she came to the park to eat her lunch and practice her songs. She had shared her food with him, and it became his routine to be in the same place every day to see her—and one day she wasn’t there but a park ranger was. He caught Waggit and took him to the pound. In a very quiet voice he told her about the pound and the door in the wall that they took you through if you were there too long. He told her that nobody ever returned after they went through the door. Then he told her how the woman had come back and rescued him, and how he had decided to stay with her rather than return to his friends. But now he regretted that decision and wanted to rejoin the team, if they would have him, if indeed there still was a team.

  Even though Waggit was young, the story of his life was long because so many things had happened to him in such a short time, and some of them were painful to recall. He looked up at Felicia and thought he saw a tear catch in the moonlight as it trickled down her face. She put her hand on his head, and the ache he was feeling in his heart seemed to vanish.

  “They’ll take you back,” she said. “Anyone would. You’re such a good dog.”

  With that reassurance they prepared to sleep. Felicia thought he might be happier spending the night outside, but Waggit welcomed the opportunity to lie next to her and feel her comforting warmth as he cuddled up to the softness of her sleeping bag. He felt safe and snug, and the day had been long and exciting, so it surprised him that he couldn’t fall asleep. He thought from her breathing that Felicia was awake as well.

  “Felicia.”

  “Yes, Waggit?”

  “Are you awake?”

  “I think I must be.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure you can.”

  “How did you learn to talk to dogs? Who taught you?”

  “Oh,” said Felicia, “that’s a long story.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” said Waggit. “And anyway, I told you about my life. If we’re going to travel together I should know about yours.”

  “That seems reasonable,” said Felicia. “Where shall I begin? Well, I’m told that I come from a good family. What it’s good for I’m not quite sure, but many generations ago one of my ancestors made a lot of money, and the family’s been living off of his hard work ever since, including me. You see,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye, “I may be strange, but I’m strange with a trust fund.”

  Waggit didn’t know what that was, but anything with the word trust in it was probably good.

  “Go on,” he said.

  Felicia paused for a moment, putting all the events of her life into order in her mind.

  “I grew up,” she began, “in a big house in the country, not far from here, actually. I had a very privileged life, with all of the comforts that anyone could wish for: servants to look after me, a chauffeur to drive me, and my own pony to ride. I had everything except friends, and I was lonely. I had no brothers or sisters; I didn’t go to school because I had someone who taught me by myself, and my mother and father were hardly ever there. When they were they didn’t take much notice of me.”

  “Did the Upright who taught you tell you how to speak to dogs?” asked Waggit.

  “Bless you, no,” said Felicia with a chuckle. “She taught me how to speak to French people but not to dogs. No, the woman who did that wouldn’t have been allowed inside our house.”

  “Where did you meet her, then?” asked Waggit.

  “The house was surrounded by lots of land, much of it wooded,” she continued, “and one day when I was about—oh, I suppose I must have been a teenager—and bored with the activities that had been planned for me, I took a long walk in the woods, farther than I had ever been before. I was just about to turn back when I came upon a hut that someone had built out of dead branches and leaves, more like a shelter, really. Sitting in front of it was this old woman, and we got to talking. She lived every summer in our woods, and nobody knew she was there, not my parents or anyone who worked for them. She didn’t own anything, but she knew everything about the woods and the creatures that lived there.”

  “Did she know about dogs?” asked Waggit.

  “She did,” said Felicia, “but more to the point, dogs knew about her. I had taken my black lab, Smutty, with me on the walk, and he was the one who found her first. By the time I got up to them they were in the middle of a long conversation, which of course I didn’t even know was taking place.”

  “But she taught you the language, right?” asked Waggit.

  “She taught me that if you love creatures and you open your mind and your heart to them, there are no limits to what you can say or feel. All Uprights have the ability, but over the years they’ve forgotten how to do it because other things became more important to them, like getting ahead and making money and being powerful.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I went to see her every summer,” said Felicia, “and she taught me all she could about trees and plants and animals. This went on for maybe five or six years, and then one summer she told me it would be the last one. She knew she was going to die, but she wasn’t sad. She loved nature, and to her death was part of nature, just a part of life really. And she was right. It was the last time I saw her, but after I realized she had gone I decided I wanted to live the way she lived and to value the things she valued. So I became a wanderer. I don’t have a huge amount of money but enough to live simply, and I get to go to wonderful places and make fascinating acquaintances like you.”

&nb
sp; “What about your family?” Waggit asked. “Don’t they worry about you?”

  “They did at first,” said Felicia. “But now they think I’m crazy, and so they leave me alone. There’s a certain freedom in people thinking you’re mad, you know. Besides, as long as I’m taking money out of the bank from time to time they know I’m alive.”

  The dog had been fascinated by her story but now he began to feel tired. He tried not to show it, but a yawn came and he couldn’t stop it.

  “We should get some rest,” said Felicia. “We begin our grand adventure tomorrow, and we need to start out full of energy.”

  So once again they settled down, Felicia in her sleeping bag and Waggit nestled against her, feeling safe and drowsy. Tomorrow would be a big day, and he was both excited and a little scared about what might befall them, but he was happy to have this companion with him on his journey home.

  5

  The Journey Begins

  It rained heavily during the night, but the next morning was bright and fresh, as if the earth’s face had been scrubbed clean. Felicia got up early and was cooking bacon when Waggit awoke. In fact it was the delectable aroma that aroused him. It wasn’t the only enticing odor, however. Everything was bursting with life, and he could almost smell energy and optimism in the air. It was the scent of spring, and it felt like a good day to start an adventure.

  After they had eaten and Felicia had washed herself in the stream, she started to pack up her belongings. It was amazing how she could get everything into her large backpack. Waggit watched in fascination as she carefully folded each item of clothing and placed all of them in the bottom of the bag. She then put in a layer of plastic sheeting and several layers of newspaper before placing the food on top. When she had completely filled the backpack she zipped it shut and attached the rolled-up tent and sleeping bag. She checked around to make sure that she hadn’t left any trash at the campsite, then squatted down and put the pack on her back. She stood up carefully and turned to Waggit.