by Nick Pirog
I feel my stomach gurgle. I’ve been broken up with before. I know the signs.
“Are we okay?” I ask before she has a chance to answer.
Megan is sitting Indian style and her head hangs. She cuts her eyes at me. They are glassed over. “I’m moving,” she says flatly.
The air is sucked from my lungs.
“Moving?” I wheeze.
She nods.
“Where?”
“Connecticut.”
I push myself up from the sand. I press the heels of my hands into my eyes and shake my head. Then, glaring down at her, my hands raised above my head, I ask, “And when is this happening?”
“October 1st.”
“That’s next week.”
“I know.” She wipes a tear from her cheek.
“Why are you moving to Connecticut?”
She pushes herself up. She cradles her elbows together in her hands. “I was just browsing the internet for building leases and I found this perfect little spot in West Haven.”
“Perfect for what?”
“For my dog bakery.”
Right, her dog bakery.
She says, “I went to the bank, thinking there’s no way I would get a loan, but they gave me one.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”
“I didn’t think it was really going to happen. Even after I was approved for the loan, I wasn’t sure. But then the realtor for the building in West Haven called and said someone else was interested. It was mine if I wanted it, but I had to give him an answer by today.”
“And you said yes.”
She nods.
My pulse rate has steadily climbed and I can feel it beating wildly in my neck. I bite my lip to stop it from quivering.
How can she do this?
How can she leave me?
What about all those things she said? About how much she loved me?
“Where are you gonna live?” I ask.
“I found a place a mile from the building. A little house on a few acres.” Her dimple flashes when she says this.
I can feel tears forming in my eyes.
I can’t look at her.
I turn and walk up the beach. With each step, I feel a chunk of my heart fall away. Huge glaciers falling into the icy sea.
A moment later, a hand clasps my arm.
I turn.
Tears dribble off Megan’s cheeks. Her bottom lip trembles. “I want you to come with me,” she says.
Time stops.
“You what?”
“I love you. I can’t imagine life without you. And I want you to come with me.”
I try to play it cool. I don’t want her to know this is the greatest moment of my life. That this is what I wished for at my birthday dinner.
I ask, “You want me to move to Connecticut with you and live in a little house with you?”
She wipes at her eyes. “Yes, please.”
Hugo
I dig my claws into the bark of the tree and climb. I’m a much better climber than I was four weeks ago when I first entered the Mountains. Not only have I grown, but with a few simple tricks learned from Xanthus, I can scoot up any tree in the forest.
I crawl out onto a long branch, then jump to the branch of a nearby tree. I race down the trunk and leap to a rock.
The sky is covered in clouds and it’s as dark as I can ever remember it being. I can’t see far, maybe a hundred feet or so, but it isn’t my eyes I’ve learned to rely on. It’s my ears and my nose.
I cock my head and listen.
Under the light breeze, I hear the hoot of an owl. I’m still small enough that an owl could easily swoop down and grab me. I’ll need to stay in the underbrush as much as possible.
I jump from the rocks and scamper to a row of dense brush. Somehow, I don’t make a sound. I stop. Listen. All I hear is a light wind. I sniff. There’s a scent caught by the breeze.
I turn and head back the way I came. Back upwind. Back to the rocks. Back to the tree. The branch. Jump back to the first tree. I find the lowest branch and I wait. Stealth and patience, Hugo. Stealth and patience. I slowly breathe in and out through my nose.
There’s a soft rustle.
I hear him pass.
I let him pass.
Silently, I creep down the trunk of the tree to the ground. He’s standing on the rocks. The rocks I was on. The rocks I led him to. From there, he heads to the brush. The brush I was in. The brush I led him to.
Looping.
That’s what it’s called.
I hear the hoot of the owl. Hoots always come in pairs and I wait. On the second hoot, I scurry to the rock and fall into its shadow.
I hear a soft rustle.
He’s heading back to the second tree. I can no longer smell him, but I can hear every time he sets his paw down.
Paw, paw, paw, paw.
I dart out from the shadows, take three giant leaps, and I pounce.
My mouth is too small to wrap around his neck, so I bite one of his tufted ears.
“You’re dead,” I tell Xanthus.
Chapter 21
“THE LAST LEG”
Jerry
“So you’re really doing it?” Alex asks. “Moving to friggin’ Connecticut?”
“Yep.”
We’re in Alex’s small apartment. Cassie is in Julie’s room playing. Alex and I are sitting on his futon. He claps me on the back with one of his meaty paws and says, “And you’ve known this chick for what, three months?”
Not even three months. “Right around there.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure this is gonna blow up in your face in spectacular fashion, but I hope you enjoy the ride.”
This is the most encouragement I can expect from Alex. “Thanks, buddy.”
“So she’s already out there?”
“Yeah, she took over the lease on the 1st, so she drove out last week. I’ve got a U-Haul trailer with all her stuff in it and I’m gonna drive out in the next couple of days.”
“Don’t ask me to help you pack.”
“I know better.” But to be honest, I don’t have a whole lot to pack. When I moved from San Francisco, I sold all my furniture and most of my belongings on Craigslist. Everything at my parents’ house is, well, my parents’. All I have to pack are clothes and some odds and ends.
Alex asks, “So where is Connecticut anyway?”
“Next to New York. Under Massachusetts.”
He cocks his head to the side. “Are you sure? I think it’s like an island or something.”
A week ago, if he asked me this question, I wouldn’t have been sure, but after doing my due diligence on my new home on the internet, I am. “It’s not an island, though there is a bunch of coastline.”
“What’s the name of your town?”
“West Haven.”
“Is that where Dawson’s Creek was set?”
I laugh. “I’m not sure.”
“I’m pretty sure it was.” He digs out his phone to check.
“Don’t go,” I hear from the hallway.
Julie and Cassie emerge. Julie’s eyes are big and puffy. She sits down on the carpet and Cassie falls into her lap. Julie strokes Cassie’s head and repeats, “Don’t go.”
In the microsecond it took me to decide whether or not to move with Megan to Connecticut, I realized the only things about Tahoe I’m going to miss are Alex and Julie. I’m excited for a fresh start. Excited to begin a new family. But Alex and Julie are family too.
“I’m sorry, kiddo,” I say softly. “But you can come and visit whenever you want. And I’ll come back once a year; I promise.”
“Pinky swear?”
She lifts her pinky and I walk over and intertwine mine with hers.
“Capeside, Massachusetts,” Alex shouts. “Dawson’s Creek was in Massachusetts!”
~
After saying goodbye to Alex and Julie, Cassie and
I walk-jog to the woods. The sky has turned a dark gray and the temperature has plummeted ten degrees since we first left the house an hour earlier.
“One last hole,” I say to Cassie as we weave through the fallen pine cones.
I find the shovel hidden in the brush and I wind between the trees for a few minutes. Cassie meanders about, smelling trees and marking spots.
“One last hole,” I repeat.
I dip the shovel into the earth in a few different locations but stop short of pushing it down. If not for the drizzle beginning to fall from the sky, I might have walked around for hours.
Cassie comes back, her paws covered in dirt. She cocks her head to the side as if to say, “I’ve already dug a bunch of holes and marked ten spots. What are you waiting for?”
I smile at her, then I push the shovel into the dirt. It takes me ten minutes to dig down three feet to where it would have been buried.
I don’t find our time capsule.
“Sorry, Morgan,” I sigh.
As Cassie and I walk back to the house, I glance at the mountains. Thick gray clouds obscure the peaks. I’ve no doubt the persistent drizzle we’re getting at lake level will be the first snowfall of the year in the mountains.
Hugo
I’ve kept a steady pace for five days, resting for a few hours during the day and again at night. Abandoned dens and hollows are easy to come by and I use all of Xanthus’ tricks to hide. To mask my smell. To stay alive.
At night, I hunt.
The first night, I don’t catch anything. But on the second night, I pounce onto a small mouse. He’s delicious.
I scamper over bramble, through bushes, up and over fallen trees. I climb the steep hills, then scamper down their backs. There are several streams I’m able to swim across, but more often I have to walk for ages until I find a log or rocks I can use to cross.
Once I try to cross a stream and get swept away, but I’m able to swim to a bunch of branches and pull myself out.
One of the streams empties into a lake. For a moment I think it might be my Lake, but it’s too small. And there are no houses. No streets. No cars.
On the second day, I have quite the scare.
I’m hopping down the side of a steep mountain, going from rock to rock. Then I hear this rattle, which sounds almost like one of the toys that Sara bought me (which seems like ages ago). I turn around and I see an animal curled up on the rock below me.
It’s shaped like a large hose. It’s tan and brown. Its head is triangular and it has a thin pink tongue that it darts in and out. Its tail is white and bubbly and I think what is making the rattling noise.
Xanthus spoke of this creature.
A snake.
The snake hisses at me and snaps its head in my direction. I jump to another rock, then another. I turn my head and see the snake slithering over the rocks.
How can it move so fast if it doesn’t have legs?
I jump off the rocks to a patch of dirt and I run as fast as my little legs will go. I don’t stop and I don’t look back. I just run.
Finally, I stop and turn around.
The snake is gone.
The next day, I come to a river. It’s wide and it takes me nearly the entire day to find a place to cross. Each hour, the temperature drops. Dark clouds fill the sky and it begins to drizzle. An hour later, it begins to snow.
I’m starving and I want to hunt. To find a mouse or some nuts, but I can feel my body temperature dropping.
I find a small den hidden under a fallen log. After sniffing out that there are no animals in there, I burrow into the deep hole. After only a few minutes, my body heat begins to warm the small space.
And I sleep.
~
I pat at the wall of snow with my paw and it falls inward. I shake off the snow and climb out of the hole. The snow would have come up to my ankles when I was a dog, but now it engulfs me up to my neck. I think about heading back into the hole and waiting until the snow melts, but that could be days. Or it could snow even more.
I have to keep moving.
Luckily, the sun is out and it keeps me from freezing. I make my way up and over the top of a mountain and begin down. The farther down I go, the less snow there is. I’m starving; my tiny stomach is screaming for food and I keep a lookout for something to eat. I see a rabbit, but he is the same size as me. Though I wouldn’t eat him anyway.
I trudge through the snow all day. When the sun begins to set, I can barely get my legs to move. But I can see the top of the peak I’m climbing. I need to get to the top.
“You can do it, Hugo,” I hear Cassie say.
It’s the first time I’ve heard her voice in weeks.
The last time I heard it, I almost died.
Am I about to die?
No.
I force myself to climb through the snow.
Come on, Hugo!
Keep moving.
The sun sets and I keep moving. The moon shines brightly on the white snow and I keep moving. Finally, I make it to the top of the mountain.
That’s when I see it.
The tiny yellow lights of a town. And behind them, under the moon, a large lake.
My Lake.
Jerry
I set the trash bag of my clothes next to the other trash bag of my clothes, which is next to a trash bag of my shoes, which is next to a trash bag of my books, which is next to a trash bag of my knickknacks, which are all next to Megan’s neatly stacked and labeled boxes. Megan had sent most of her stuff to Connecticut in one of those moving pods, but she had a bunch of extra stuff that wouldn’t fit.
I hear a clank and watch as Cassie climbs the metal walkway into the back of the U-Haul trailer. She comes forward and gives my bag of sneakers a few sniffs. Then she sits back on her butt and cocks her head to the side.
She knows something is up. I tried explaining to her that we’re moving, but I’m not sure she gets it.
Cassie
Something is up.
Jerry is acting weird.
He keeps putting all his stuff into these big black bags and then carrying them to this huge car.
We’re moving.
I know what moving is. We moved here. But where are we moving this time? And where are Megan and Wally?
I want answers.
Jerry
Cassie barks.
Once, twice, three times.
I ignore her and jump down out of the U-Haul and go back into the house. I’m half done packing. Turns out I have a lot more stuff than I thought. Mostly gear I rarely used: snowboarding gear (used three times), snorkeling gear (used two times), kickboxing gear (used zero times), workout gear (a bunch of dumbbells, an ab-crunch, a yoga mat, and a fit ball, all used exactly one time).
I consider throwing all this stuff out or giving it to Goodwill, but an irrational part of me thinks that one day I might want to really get into snowboarding, snorkeling, kickboxing, and working out. So I toss all this stuff into black garbage bags and lug it out to the U-Haul.
As I’m cleaning out the last of the stuff from my closet, I let out a loud scoff. In the top corner of the closet, hidden behind a memory foam pillow I bought at three in the morning off an infomercial (which was the worst, smelliest pillow ever) is one of Hugo’s orange tennis balls.
I remember when I took it from him. He wouldn’t go to sleep one night, pounding around on the floor, playing with his ball and I took it from him and hid it behind the pillow to mask its smell. I was always astounded at how Hugo could sniff out one of his balls.
Once, we were at Alex’s and Hugo kept scratching at a backpack in Alex’s room. Alex and I both yelled at him to knock it off, but he kept at it, pawing at it relentlessly. Finally, after he wouldn’t stop, I opened all the compartments of the backpack to show Hugo there was nothing in there, but it turns out one of Hugo’s orange tennis balls was in there from when Alex and I went to the beach a year earlier. I handed Hugo the
ball with a shake of my head and he scampered into their living room with the ball in his mouth and his head held high.
I grab the ball and I think about tossing it into the bag of trash, but I don’t. I add it to my last bag of stuff and carry it to the U-Haul.
Hugo
After I sleep for a few hours, I start down the mountain. The Lake is still a long ways off, but I figure I can get there by the end of the day.
After a few hours, I hear a familiar sound.
Cars.
Not long after, I find the road.
I continue through the brush, trying to keep the road in sight, but the road is windy and it’s faster to go directly up and over the remaining Mountains.
Once I crest the next peak, the Lake is even closer.
I can see houses.
They are small, but I can see a few.
The Lake is only a few hours away.
Maybe less.
Cassie
“Alright, girl,” Jerry says, giving my head a nuzzle. “It’s time to say goodbye.”
I don’t like goodbyes. Like when Martin came over and said “Goodbye.” And when I had to say “Goodbye” to Julie. Goodbyes are sad.
But I have two more goodbyes to say.
I walk out the back door and hop down the porch. I walk to the fence. I look through the small space between two boards and see Storm lying in the dirt on the far side of his yard.
I bark.
Bye, Storm.
He lifts his head slightly and squints in my direction. I wait for him to say something back, but he yawns and rests his head back down on his paws.
I turn around and plod to the swimming pool. Of the seven Almost Frogs, three made it to Frogdom. Hugo didn’t make it. (I think he was snatched up by a bird.) But Greenie (Greenie II to be more accurate), Filbert, and Rosie all made it.
Greenie is sitting on the edge of the pool and Filbert and Rosie are both swimming around. (I think they might be making more tadpoles, but I’m not exactly sure how the making of the tadpoles all works.)