With one last mournful look at Charlie and Emma, who were hugging their mom, Max turned away from the approaching humans and ran down the road on his three good legs.
Rocky and Gizmo did not hesitate to follow. They raced between the lines of soldiers and the onlookers, past Dr. Lynn, back toward the truck they’d ridden in.
Dr. Lynn’s assistants, and Charlie and Emma’s dad, and the soldiers all shouted at the dogs, calling for them to stop, to heel, to be good dogs. Les ran after them, begging Max to come back.
But even with his injured foot, Max was too fast for the humans, especially now that he didn’t have a leash trailing behind him. Reaching the back of the truck, he, Rocky, and Gizmo ducked and raced under it, where humans wouldn’t be able to follow.
Panting for breath, they huddled in the shade beneath the vehicle. It smelled of oil and gasoline, and Max’s stomach twisted with nausea and hunger. He realized he hadn’t been fed or given water yet, that his body still ached all over from fleeing the coyote and wolf packs.
The shadows of human feet surrounded the truck on all sides, and heads peeked underneath to see the three dogs huddling there. Max, Rocky, and Gizmo growled at the humans, snapping their jaws, doing their best impression of animals gone feral.
“I’m a mean dog,” Rocky said, though Max could hear the sad whimper behind his barks. “I’m a mean dog, ya hear? You don’t want to mess with me.”
“Me, too,” Gizmo yipped. “I’m… I’m a bad dog!”
Human voices rose louder, some calling for the dogs to crawl out to safety. Others insisted this meant something had gone wrong with Dr. Lynn’s cure. More air horns blasted as the soldiers shouted at the tent-city residents to go back to their makeshift homes, that there was nothing to be seen here.
“I hate this,” Gizmo whimpered. “Max, you don’t need to run away from Charlie and Emma for me. Please, go back to your pack leaders.”
Max tucked his tail. “I wish I could, but I can’t leave you two alone. You came all this way to find my humans. You deserve your own family.”
“Everything will be all right,” Rocky said, nuzzling Gizmo’s side.
Hands reached under the truck, but none were able to grab the dogs. Someone had a looped piece of rope at the end of a long pole, but the three dogs easily avoided being lassoed and dragged out.
“How will we get out of here?” Rocky asked.
Max didn’t have an answer.
And then, the truck above them bounced, and Max heard someone stomping up the metal steps that led into the canvas-covered back.
“Listen to me!” Dr. Lynn’s voice cried out, enhanced like Samson’s back at the mall. “These animals are not dangerous. The cure is real, and it is coming soon. These three dogs are more intelligent than you know—they can understand human speech.”
The shouting gave way to intrigued murmurs.
“They are frightened,” Dr. Lynn went on. “Because they have bonded in a way none of us could have expected. And now they fear being separated.”
“She knows,” Max whispered.
An electronic squeal echoed, followed by Dr. Lynn saying, “For the sake of restoring our world, so that we can all go home, please no more shouting, no more flashbulbs, no more throwing bottles. Let me talk to these three.”
“They’re just dumb dogs!” someone cried out.
“I assure you,” the scientist said, anger in her voice, “they are not.”
The microphone Dr. Lynn had been speaking through crackled and went silent. The truck bounced once more as she descended the steps, knelt down, and looked underneath at the dogs. Smiling, she beckoned them with her hand.
“Do we trust her?” Gizmo asked.
“We trust her,” Max said.
Crawling forward with Rocky and Gizmo at his side, Max emerged from beneath the truck. Dr. Lynn’s words must have sunk in, because the people behind the barricades stood still, watching quietly. Standing behind the doctor were her assistants, Les, and Max’s human family.
Cassie clutched her baseball cap in both hands, twisting it anxiously. “So was it me?” she asked. “I mean, I knew they could understand what I was saying, but I didn’t know they’d care. I thought they’d just want to be back with their human families.”
Dr. Lynn sat up on her knees, holding out her hand to let Max, Rocky, and Gizmo inhale her reassuring scent.
“You remember Mortimer?” she asked Ben and Cassie.
“Of course,” Ben said. “Hard to forget an elephant who never forgets. Literally.”
Scratching behind Max’s ears, Dr. Lynn said, “He was always so lonely, yet he found no solace with the other Praxis test subjects. He longed to be with others like himself, who were as smart as he had become.” Simultaneously scratching Rocky and Gizmo beneath their chins, she added, “These three found a way to fill that need in one another. They’re not just smart; they’re emotionally complex in a way we’ve never seen in dogs. Whatever they went through to get here has bonded them deeply, well beyond a typical canine pack. They really are a family now.” She stood up and wiped the dust off her knees. “It would be cruel to split them up.”
Charlie and Emma tugged at their parents’ shirts.
“Mom!” Charlie said. “Dad! We have to take them all home together.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” their father said. “With everything we have to do to get the farm up and running again, having two new dogs to take care of could be a hassle.”
“That’s right. It might be best if the doctors took them,” their mother said.
“No!” Emma cried. She came forward and flung herself at the animals, hugging Max around his neck with one arm while pulling Rocky and Gizmo in close with the other. “They have to come with us. Max came all this way to find us; we can’t just ship his friends away.”
Charlie stared up at his parents with pleading eyes. “Please let them come home. We’ll take care of them. We’ll do all the work, we promise!”
The children’s parents looked at each other, eyebrows raised.
“They are cute,” the mom said.
“And they’re not too big,” the dad said. “How much dog food could one Dachshund eat?”
Max wagged his tail, amused.
“If it helps at all,” Dr. Lynn said, “my own home is not too far from yours. I would be happy to set up a laboratory nearby so that I can help take care of the dogs while we continue our work.”
Charlie and Emma’s parents leaned into each other, whispering softly. The assembled crowd watched, silently.
“Do you think they’re going to say yes?” Gizmo asked, trembling in anticipation.
“As long as they don’t find out how much kibble Rocky eats, they might,” Max said.
Rocky growled playfully. “Hey!”
From somewhere, a woman yelled, “Just say yes, already!”
A murmur of laughter ran through the crowd. Smiling, the dad ruffled Charlie’s head and said, “Looks like we have some new members of the family.”
Dr. Lynn gazed down warmly at the three dogs.
“That is, as long as that’s all right with you,” she said to them.
“It is!” Max barked, leaping up onto his three good legs. “Oh, it definitely is!”
Cassie clapped her hands. “I think that’s his way of saying yes.”
And as the crowd applauded and cheered, all four members of Max’s human family knelt down to pet him and Rocky and Gizmo.
The darkness Max had felt looming over him all throughout his long journey was gone, burned away under the hot desert sun.
His families, new and old, could finally be together.
TWO YEARS LATER
Max awoke to the trilling of birds.
It was midmorning, and he lay on the front porch of his family’s home. Blinking open his eyes, he peered up to see three small brown sparrows perched side by side under the overhanging roof. They sang a chipper song, not the least bit concerned that they’d woken
him up.
Fresh-cut grass filled his nostrils, and he heard mooing and oinking from the cows and pigs. Farmhands whistled as they shifted hay bales in the barn, and the motor of one of the big tillers hummed out back.
“Uncle Max, Uncle Max!” a young voice barked.
Max braced himself as the pattering of tiny paws came up the porch stairs. Seconds later, four tan-and-black puppies barreled into his side, slobbering him with licks. Startled, the sparrows cheeped and flew off.
“Wake up!” squealed the tiniest of the puppies.
They were little things, their features a clear mix of Dachshund and Yorkshire Terrier. Their faces were similar to Gizmo’s, except for the floppy ears that dangled like their father’s. They had wispy tufts of fur above their eyes and noses and long, low bodies that weren’t quite as sausage-shaped as Rocky’s. Their black, brown, and white fur was mostly sleek, though it curled up at the ends of their tails and ears, like their mother’s.
Charlie and Emma had found out that Dachshund and Yorkshire Terrier crossbreeds were called Dorkies, so that’s what they called the four puppies.
The largest of the puppies, a boy the children had named Milo, spun in an excited circle in front of Max’s snout.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” he yowled at the porch ceiling. “It’s time for TV!”
His brother, Blue, tackled the bigger puppy, nipping at his ears. “I wanted to tell him!”
Max’s tail thumped against the porch as he watched the brothers wrestle through half-closed eyes.
The tiniest puppy, Chloe, stood in front of Max’s nose. “Uncle Max!” she squealed. “I know you’re awake; your tail is wagging!”
Her sister, Lola, lay nearby, her head resting on her paws. She swished her hindquarters back and forth slowly, preparing to jump on Max.
Before Lola could leap, Max rolled over onto his side, then pushed himself up on all fours. The puppies yipped in surprise. “You don’t think I’d miss TV time, do you?” he said to them.
“Yay!” Milo said. “Follow me!”
The puppies bounded ahead, tumbling over one another in their eagerness to get to the door. Milo yanked on the rope that had been connected to the door handle, and the other three shoved the door open. Together, the four little Dorkies and Max walked onto the shiny wooden floor of the foyer, and then into the living room.
Max jumped up on the couch and lay down while Milo, Blue, and Chloe curled up against his belly. Lola climbed onto the coffee table, sniffed at the remote control, and then pressed a button. The big TV blinked on to the dogs’ favorite new program.
The half-hour show featured heartwarming stories of humans being reunited with their pets as they returned to the homes they’d been forced to flee.
Max never missed an episode, and the puppies always made sure to join him. Sometimes Charlie and Emma watched, too.
He didn’t know most of the animals on the show, though he was always happy to see dogs, cats, and other pets cradled in the arms of their pack leaders.
But sometimes, the show featured an animal Max knew. Those were the best episodes.
It was how he saw the cats Panda and Possum reunited with a tall blond man who hugged them close as they purred in his arms.
Belle was there, too, happily helping her family as they worked to clean up the wreckage of their mansion. The owners of a beachside inn were surprised to find their Saint Bernard, Georgie—the former Mudlurker—at the mansion, too, having befriended Belle. It was enough to make them relocate back to Baton Rouge.
The Dalmatian firedogs, whom Max had met on the riverboat Flower of the South, were hailed as heroes for having watched out for a whole city’s worth of pets. They were filmed sitting proudly on the back of a fire truck alongside smiling human firefighters.
The German Shepherds named Julep and Dixie were found walking back from the Praxis laboratories. These days, they watched over their town once more with the other canine police. Max wondered if they’d managed to make it to the labs and gone through the second half of the Praxis process, or if they’d given up and headed home.
Then there was the feature on the town of DeQuincy. Humans had found the tiny train abandoned in the desert, near animal tracks leading all the way back to the small town. In DeQuincy itself, the pets that had been left behind had bonded with wild animals—Spots with Stripes the skunk, the puppies and kittens fast friends with a precocious raccoon Max knew was Tiffany the Silver Bandit.
Spots was at long last reunited with his pack leaders, the old man and woman who owned the train museum. He was also reunited with Dots, who’d been saved by Dr. Lynn’s team after he made it past the wall. The footage of the two brothers bounding at each other as though they were young puppies again made Max’s tail wag uncontrollably. He was even happier when the narrator of the show announced that Spots’s human family had adopted his best friend, a skunk, as a pet, despite trepidations about her smell.
And there were many more stories of reunions still to be told.
Of course, life wasn’t as simple as that. Other TV programs showed towns and cities ravaged by storms and neglect, overrun with all manner of creatures. Wild animals had become brazen, refusing to leave the towns they’d claimed as their own. Exotic beasts had escaped from zoos. People reported hearing music at night from a junkyard in Baton Rouge. A city of dogs seemed strangely organized against returning humans, and it was proving impossible to clear out a mall that was now full of mice.
Then there were the animals who’d never heard Max’s message of hope, who hadn’t known that the humans still loved their abandoned pets. They’d gone feral, afraid of humans, even while other pets leaped with joy at the sight of their returning pack leaders. Kind humans worked to rehabilitate these lost pets, to teach them to trust people again. But it would take time.
It was a new, wild world, one the humans were still trying to reclaim two years later. Though vaccinations had been given to all the people and medication had been released into the air to destroy the Praxis virus dormant in all the animals, normal was still slow to return. Two winters had passed before the birds had even started to migrate back. It was still a novelty to see a flying V of ducks in the clouds or to spot a hawk circling the sky for prey.
But despite the world still trying to sort itself out, on the farm it was almost as if nothing had ever changed. Except, of course, for the additions of Rocky, Gizmo, and the puppies.
And Dr. Lynn.
She was staying in a guest room on the second floor of the farmhouse. She’d returned to find her home destroyed by vandals, angry at her part in unleashing the Praxis virus. A new home and laboratory were being built for her on the land that once belonged to Rocky’s pack leader, who decided to stay in Florida after learning his home had been claimed by fire.
But Dr. Lynn didn’t mind staying at Max’s home. Charlie and Emma called her Grandma Lynn, and the whole family accepted her as one of their own. Sometimes Max saw her looking at a photograph of herself and Madame Curie, sadness in her eyes. He hoped that being with his family, she didn’t feel so lonely.
Dr. Lynn had done lots of interesting experiments with the dogs since they’d come home. They had even learned how to communicate with humans. She had a big board with words, pictures, and letters on it. That was how Jane’s name became Gizmo again, after the terrier nosed at the letters she thought seemed right.
It was also how Max found out what had become of Dolph.
Dr. Lynn rubbed the sides of his neck after he pointed at the picture of the wolf on the board and then whimpered.
“Don’t you worry about him, my friend,” she said. “We found a new home for him at a wildlife preserve far from here. He keeps to himself now, howling at any wolf that comes near him. But he doesn’t try to come after you. I think, maybe, he has chosen to let you be.”
Max thought of the wolf sometimes. Dolph had been so desperate to prove himself in front of his pack that he had chased Max across the country. Now, Dolph had no
pack. Unlike Max’s journey, the wolf’s had left him without a family, alone with his anger in a strange new place.
It seemed a sad life. But Max knew Dolph had chosen it for himself. He’d let his hatred consume him. Not all wolves were like that, not by a long shot. Max hoped that one day Dolph could forget Max completely and find some peace. But he did not know if that was something the scarred former pack leader would ever be able to do.
Music blared from the TV, and the puppies squirmed against Max’s chest and belly as the credits scrolled across the screen. Another episode of the reunion show had come and gone.
“Did you see anyone from your adventures?” Blue asked.
“Not today,” Max said. “But there’s always tomorrow.”
Little Chloe leaped to the floor, then jumped up and down. “Time to play! It’s playtime!”
“Let’s go find Mommy and Daddy!” Lola said as she bounded after her sister.
Max climbed down from the couch, stretching before he followed the energetic little fur balls into the kitchen, where they were racing around Charlie and Emma’s mother’s legs.
Then Milo swatted the back door, making strange, guttural barking sounds.
From any other dog, the barks would have been excited gibberish.
But to humans—and to Max, Rocky, and Gizmo—the noises sounded almost as if the puppy was saying in human words, “Open, please.”
The mother, who had been washing dishes, dried her hands on a towel and then carefully made her way over the yipping puppies to open the door.
“Thank you!” Lola said in human tones.
The kids’ mother laughed. “You’re welcome,” she said as they disappeared outside. “You keep an eye on them,” she told Max.
Max wagged his tail and barked in reply, though unlike the puppies, he couldn’t make his barks sound like people words.
The speaking trick was unusual. The Dorkies had figured it out all by themselves, listening to human words and mimicking their sounds. Of course, dogs didn’t have the vocal cords or mouths to truly speak like people, but that didn’t stop the brothers and sisters from trying.
Journey's End Page 20