Lily to the Rescue: Lost Little Leopard

by W. Bruce Cameron

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  Copyright Page

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  Dedicated to the people saving animals at the Humane Society of the United States.

  1

  I was playing in the backyard with my girl, Maggie Rose, and my good friend Brewster.

  Well, Maggie Rose and I were playing. Brewster was watching. Watching is something Brewster does a lot.

  Napping is something he does even more.

  Maggie Rose is my girl, and I am her dog. We were playing my favorite game in the entire world, which is Give-Lily-a-Treat. But Maggie Rose kept getting it wrong.

  “Play dead, Lily,” she told me. “Play dead!”

  She had that treat clutched tight in her fist. I knew it was in there! Her whole hand smelled like chicken, and chicken is the best treat. No, maybe salmon. No, bacon … or peanut butter.… These are the sorts of things I think about a lot, but I never can make up my mind.

  Probably the best treat of all is whichever one I’m about to eat, so I nibbled and licked at Maggie Rose’s fingers, trying to get to that chicken-smelling thing she was clutching so tightly.

  Brewster lay next to us in the grass. Brewster is a lot older than I am, and a lot lazier. He and I often go to a place called Work, where I visit animals and he sleeps. Then we go Home, where I play with Maggie Rose and he sleeps. He was interested in the treat, too, but not interested enough to get up and do anything about it.

  That’s how he is. I don’t understand it, but there are lots of things I don’t understand—like why Maggie Rose wasn’t giving me the treat! I licked her hand even harder, trying to get my tongue between her fingers.

  “No, Lily!” Maggie Rose told me.

  Humans like that word: “No.” I do not.

  Maggie pushed me away a little. “Play dead, Lily!” she told me.

  I stared at her. She had that tone in her voice that she uses when she wants me to do a trick, like Sit or Down or Shake. But she wasn’t saying any of those words.

  Still, when I do Sit or Down or Shake I get a treat sometimes. So I tried. I put my rump on the grass and looked eagerly at Maggie Rose.

  She didn’t give me the treat. So I flopped down to put my belly in the grass. Treat now, right?

  Maggie Rose did not seem to notice how well I was doing Down. So I jumped up to give her my paw. Everybody likes it when I do Shake. Maggie Rose couldn’t possibly resist and would give me chicken!

  Except she didn’t.

  Brewster let out a long sigh and rolled over so that he could rub his back in the soft grass. He wiggled a little and groaned as the warm sun touched his belly. He closed his eyes.

  “Good dog, Brewster!” Maggie Rose exclaimed. “Good job playing dead!”

  Then she gave Brewster my treat.

  I stared at her in dismay. Brewster got a treat for, what, taking a nap? Brewster takes naps all the time, whether anybody tells him to or not! It isn’t a trick!

  I don’t think Brewster knew why he was getting chicken any more than I did, but he ate it. I jumped into Maggie Rose’s lap and licked both her hands to get all the chicken taste I could. Since she was my girl, I accepted that she gave my treat to Brewster.

  Good dogs have to put up with a lot of unfair things.

  While I was working on Maggie Rose’s hands, Mom came out into the backyard. I like Mom very much and normally I would run over to sniff at her shoes and see if she smelled like any new animals. Mom goes to Work every day and there are lots of animals at Work.

  But I was too busy getting the last traces of chicken off Maggie Rose’s thumb, so I only wagged my tail in Mom’s direction.

  “Maggie Rose,” Mom said. “Your dad just called. He’s working up in the mountains today, and he needs Lily.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. He just said to bring you both, a bottle of kitten formula, and he’d explain when we got there.”

  Then Maggie Rose and Mom did the thing that people do sometimes, where they hurry around saying stuff like “Where’s my phone?” and “Maggie Rose, tie your shoes, please!” I helped by following Maggie Rose closely so that she’d know I was always there if she needed anything. I am so good at this that she even tripped over me a few times.

  When we got to the car, Casey fluttered down and landed on the ground. Casey is both my friend and a crow. He croaked up at me. “Ree-ree,” he said. He says this a lot when I am around. It sounds a little like Lily.

  “Can we bring Casey, Mom?” my girl asked.

  “Better not. We don’t know what your dad is doing, and I wouldn’t want Casey to get in the way.”

  Sometimes Mom lifts the back of the car and Casey flies right in, into one of the cages back there. But not this time. Casey wasn’t coming, and neither was Brewster, who was probably still lying down in the backyard, waiting for another treat to fall on him for doing nothing.

  When I climbed into the back seat with Maggie Rose I sniffed to confirm she still had chicken. She did! I could tell she had treats making a delicious bulge in her pocket.

  As we drove, I put my nose out of the window and sniffed as hard as I could. That’s what I love best about car rides—all the smells that come gushing in the window, so many that they make me sneeze. Maggie Rose likes to wipe her face after I sneeze.

  Soon the air coming at me was cleaner and colder.

  I turned away from the window so I could sneeze on her cheek.

  “Lily!” Maggie Rose sputtered.

  I wagged.

  The car stopped and Maggie Rose let me out. I squatted and made a puddle in the worn-out grass, then looked around, excited to be here even though I didn’t know where I was or what we were doing.

  I saw some big buildings, bigger than the house where I lived with Maggie Rose. Next to the buildings were big patches of lawn that had been fenced in. I hoped I’d get to go into one of those yards soon, and be off my leash and maybe find another dog to wrestle with.

  “James!” Mom waved at Dad, who had just come out of a building. “We’re here!”

  He walked over to us, and I tugged on the leash to drag Maggie Rose closer so I could smell his shoes. He has the best shoes, even better than Mom’s, with thick soles packed full of marvelous odors.

  Dad gave Mom and my girl a hug and reached down to pet me. “You want to see something special?” he asked my girl.

  Then I heard a scream.

  2

  “What was that horrible noise?” my girl asked in alarm.

  Dad grinned. “Come on, I’ll show you.” We followed Dad around the side of a building. Maggie Rose clapped her hands in excitement. “They’re so pretty! So red!”

  B
irds! Big birds in cages, much bigger than Casey. One of them let loose with a piercing shriek and I blinked in surprise. Casey says “Ree-ree” and makes other noises, but never such a loud screech. “What are they?” my girl asked.

  “Scarlet macaws,” Mom replied. “What are they doing here, James?” She calls Dad “James” sometimes, which is odd because his name is Dad. Even a dog knows that.

  Dad wore a disgusted expression. “The guy who lives here has been smuggling exotic animals. We came up with a warrant to arrest him. Those macaws must have been brought up from South America. They’re wild, and they definitely don’t belong in the Rocky Mountains. Macaws are jungle birds, accustomed to living in large rainforests. They wouldn’t survive the winter—if we hadn’t come along, they would have been sold illegally to collectors who would keep them in indoor cages for the rest of their lives.”

  I sensed that Maggie Rose was upset. I left Dad’s shoes and went to sit close by her legs. I touched her knee with my nose so she’d remember she had a good dog with her. “Why would anyone do that, Dad?” she asked.

  Dad sighed. “People will sometimes do bad things for money, Maggie Rose.”

  “It’s why we need game wardens like your father, to protect the animals,” Mom added.

  One of the big birds let out another screech. I expected that someone would shout “No!” but nobody did.

  “Wow,” Maggie Rose exclaimed. She looked at Dad. “What’s going to happen to the macaws now? Will they have to go to a zoo?”

  Dad shook his head. “No, they’re better off being released back into the wild, where they belong. We’ve been on the phone with the government in Veracruz, where there’s a preserve, and we’re going to take them there. But that’s not why I asked your mom to bring you and Lily up here, Maggie Rose. The man we just arrested wasn’t just smuggling birds.”

  “What else was he up to?” Mom asked.

  “Jungle cats,” Dad replied. “We got a tip that he was trying to sell some tiger cubs, but that’s not what we found. There’s only one kitten here—a very scared little leopard who needs some help.”

  * * *

  Dad led us to a tall fence with a gate in it. Dad opened the gate and we all entered a smaller yard. He shut the gate behind us.

  The situation called for a ball or a squeaky toy, and I gazed expectantly at my girl.

  “Where is it?” Maggie Rose asked Dad.

  “See the pile of big boulders? She has a den up in there in one of the cracks.”

  “How big is it, James?” Mom wanted to know.

  “She’s just a baby, but I didn’t really get a good look at her.” Dad looked down at Maggie Rose. “Do you think Lily can get the leopard cub to come out? I really don’t want to have to crawl in there after her. She’s already scared.”

  “Lily can make friends with anybody,” Maggie Rose proclaimed confidently. She bent down and snapped the leash off my collar. “Go get the leopard, Lily. Go on. Go!”

  I was excited to be off leash and dashed around the yard. Whatever we were doing, it was fun!

  “Lily, you silly,” my girl called to me. I trotted up to her, thinking how much a chicken treat would improve things, but she made no move to dig into her pocket. She squatted down and pointed at some big rocks. “In there, Lily. Go see the baby leopard.”

  No toys, no treats. But my girl obviously wanted me to do something. When she gestured with her hand, as if throwing something at the rocks, I moved in that direction, puzzled but willing to play.

  And that’s when I smelled a familiar smell—the smell of a cat.

  I know a lot about cats. When I go to Work with Mom, there are usually cats there. They live in crates, like all the animals at Work, and people come to meet the cats and then, if they’re lucky, take the cats home. The really lucky people get to go home with dogs.

  That is what happened to me. I used to live at Work, and now I live at Home with Maggie Rose. It happened to Brewster too—he came home to be with my girl’s brother Bryan.

  But before the animals go Home with their new people, I play with them. I play with cats and puppies and grown-up dogs and sometimes with my friend Freddy the ferret.

  Would I be able to play with this new cat? Sometimes cats are afraid of dogs, even a good dog like me or a napping dog like Brewster. This might be one of those scared cats, because it wasn’t coming out. I could tell it was young, a girl kitten, and an unfamiliar smell clung to it—different than any animal I’d ever met.

  “Go on, Lily,” my girl urged. “Go find the leopard!”

  Whatever my girl wanted from me would have to wait—I was too interested in the smell of the hidden cat!

  I bounded forward and stuck my nose into the crack between two round boulders. Yes, she was hiding in there, and I could tell she was frightened and alone.

  I have met lots of animals who are afraid of me at first. I know what to do about that, and how to help them calm down so they can play.

  I thought about squirming into the space between the rocks, but I knew that would really scare her. Instead, I made myself smaller by lying down on my belly.

  “Good dog, Lily,” Maggie Rose praised.

  There was a slight movement way back in the darkness. I saw the kitten hiding in the shadows. She was a pretty large kitten! She was staring at me. I wagged, still lying down. Doing Down was how I usually helped the cats at Work see I was not a threat.

  Brewster had gotten a treat for lying down in the dirt. Now here I was doing the very same thing, but nobody was handing me a treat.

  But wait … Brewster had already been lying down. He didn’t get a treat until he rolled on his back.

  Was that the secret?

  I decided to try it.

  3

  I sprawled out with my feet pointing up in the air, wiggling and wagging in a perfect imitation of Brewster. Maybe now my girl would give me some chicken!

  Mom, Dad, and my girl didn’t move. No treats dropped from the sky. But I noticed something—in the shadows, the large, scared kitten stirred.

  I watched her tentatively come forward. Seeing an upside-down cat walk toward me made me a little dizzy, but I remained on my back.

  As she approached, the sunlight fell across her face. Her fur was spotted and her chin was a light color, lighter than the rest of her. She thrust that nose out of the rocks in order to be able to smell the good dog who was doing Brewster’s trick with no treats.

  I sniffed back. I smelled catness, but that other, unknown smell was something more wild. She did not smell like a kitten who curls up in laps. She did not smell like a kitten who gets treats from her humans for doing no tricks at all, like most cats.

  The kitten sniffed my face all over. She moved on to my head and neck, coming even farther out into the sun.

  I held still, because I could tell that the kitten was still scared. I could see it in the stiff way she moved, in her wide eyes and her alert ears. She was ready to run away at any moment.

  The kitten squeezed completely out of the crack so that she could sniff at my rump and tail. She glanced up at Mom and Dad and Maggie Rose, but didn’t seem to care that they were there—they weren’t moving, which might have been why the kitten wasn’t reacting to them. I’ve often seen that cats only get worked up about things that are moving. They’ll ignore a ball that isn’t rolling but they’ll jump on one that is.

  I could not imagine being the sort of animal who would ever ignore a ball under any circumstances.

  I carefully flopped over so I was lying on my side. The kitten stared at me with wide, strange-colored eyes. I was pretty sure she would pounce on me—that’s what always happened with new cats at Work. So I was surprised when she lowered her head, rubbing her round ears along my ribs, and then cuddled up against me as if I were a mother cat.

  “Look at that,” I heard Dad say.

  “Poor thing has been all alone and is starving for love,” Mom said.

  “Lily is such a good dog,” my girl said.
I wagged at the sound of her voice saying my name.

  “Do you have the bottle?” Dad asked.

  “Right here in my pack,” Mom replied. “Come with me, Maggie Rose.”

  Having the large kitten pressed up against my side was making me drowsy, but I noticed when Mom and my girl walked a short distance from Dad to a different part of the yard. The kitten picked her head up, but didn’t do anything else as they both sat down in the grass.

  “Maggie Rose, call Lily, but very softly,” Mom said.

  “Lily? Come here, now,” my girl said quietly. I moved my head to see her more clearly. What did she want?

  “Come here now, Lily,” she repeated. Oh, she was saying Come. I knew how to do Come. I climbed to my feet, mindful to do it gently so I wouldn’t disturb the kitten, who watched me alertly.

  When I trotted over to my girl, the kitten didn’t move. The humans went very still.

  “If she goes back to her den, I’ll have to try to catch her with a net,” Dad murmured. “Hate to scare her so badly, but we won’t have a choice.”

  Mom had something in her hand. I pointed my nose in that direction. It was a bottle! I knew about bottles. I once had some young pig friends who liked to suck on bottles very much. I could smell that this bottle had milk inside it, and my mouth started to water. I did Sit.

  “This isn’t working,” Mom said worriedly.

  “Lily, can you play dead again? Play dead!” Maggie Rose urged. “Play dead!”

  I held out my paw for a perfect Shake. My girl didn’t grab it. “Play dead!” she repeated. I put my stomach in the grass—a really great Down! Still no treat.

  Then my girl reached out and rolled me gently onto my back. “Play dead!” she repeated.

  Oh, the Brewster trick! I pointed my feet at the sky and Maggie Rose slipped me a chicken treat. I loved Maggie Rose!

  Upside down, I could see the kitten was cautiously making her way toward us.