There was a game that Todd liked to play, down by a small creek that ran behind the houses. He’d bring a pack of matches and burn things—leaves, sticks, Linda’s dolls. I stayed a little distance away, since I didn’t like the way the matches smelled when Todd struck them. And the smell of Linda’s plastic dolls when their hair lit up and their faces shrank and shriveled was horrible.
Ethan didn’t want to touch the matches, but he’d watch. He didn’t laugh as much as Todd did, though.
One day, Todd announced that he had a firecracker this time. I had never seen anything like the brightly colored stick he was holding, and I didn’t like its smell—it was like the matches, only worse. It smoldered for a bit on the ground, and then there was a flash and a bang so loud that I leaped across the creek. Quickly, I ran back to the boy, barking.
Ethan patted my head. “It’s okay, Bailey. Easy, boy. It’s just noise. Don’t worry.”
I sniffed cautiously around on the ground where the stick had been. There were some scraps of paper and cardboard there now, and a piece of one of Linda’s dolls. All of these things had a charred, smokey smell that I didn’t like. Somehow it said “danger” to me.
“Come on, Ethan. Get it!” Todd said impatiently while I sniffed.
Ethan hesitated. I lifted my nose from the ground.
“Come on,” Todd insisted, and Ethan turned toward his house. Of course, I followed.
Ethan went to his room and took something off a high shelf. I got a faint whiff of that same smell that came off the table when Dad and Ethan sat there together after dinner.
“No, not the rocket,” Ethan decided and put back the toy he was holding. He grabbed another one and ran outside to where Todd was waiting.
“Cool airplane!” Todd said.
There was excitement coming off of Ethan, but it was a strange kind of excitement. I could smell something like fear in it, and I danced around nervously, barking a little, as Ethan and Todd fussed over the toy in Ethan’s hands. I could smell the sharp flare of a match being lighted, and then Ethan threw his toy up into the air.
Bang!
Another noise! I shook my ears, which hurt from the loudness. Both boys were standing still, looking up into the sky, where smelly, charred bits of plastic were drifting down to the creek.
“Cool!” Todd yelled. Ethan said nothing. The excitement and the fear were both draining out of him, leaving something heavy and sad behind.
“Come on, Ethan, get another one!” Todd shouted. But Ethan shook his head. Todd lit more firecrackers and tossed them into the air, and I ran in circles as the noises went off.
Ethan picked up a bit of plastic from a rock near the creek bed, one a little smaller than his hand.
Behind Ethan’s back, Todd looked at me and grinned. He tossed a firecracker in my direction.
Bang! The thing burst so close I felt the wind from the explosion whoosh against my fur. I yelped and ran to Ethan, who dropped the chunk of plastic to hug me.
“Come on, Bailey,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
The next day Ethan and I went to Chelsea’s house after school. Marshmallow and I wrestled and ran in their backyard. I liked Marshmallow. She was always ready for a good game of Tug on a Stick or This Ball Is Mine.
Sometimes I even got to go and see Marshmallow on my own. Whenever Ethan went away on the yellow bus, leaving me alone in the backyard, I would check the gate. It didn’t have a doorknob, like the gate to the first yard I’d lived in, so there was nothing I could bite or tug with my teeth. But sometimes, if I gave this gate a good hard shove with my paw or my nose, it would swing open. Then I’d take a stroll around the neighborhood.
I’d visit Marshmallow, touching noses with her through the wire fence around her backyard, and I’d mark all of her trees carefully. After that I’d go wherever my nose took me, until I remembered that the boy might be waiting. That meant it was time to trot home.
One day I wandered farther than usual, so that when I turned back it was just starting to get dark. I began to worry that I might have missed the time when Ethan was supposed to get off the bus. What would he do without me there to greet him?
I cut through the creek, which took me right past Todd’s backyard. He was playing on the muddy bank, and when he saw me, he called out to me.
“Hey, Bailey. Here, Bailey.” He held out his hand.
I eyed him with suspicion. There was just something inside Todd that I didn’t trust. And that something seemed to be stronger now that he was on his own, with no other humans nearby.
“Come on, boy,” he said, slapping his hand against his leg. He turned and walked toward his house.
What could I do? Come was one of the tricks Ethan had taught me. I knew that it meant I was supposed to follow the person who said it.
I lowered my head and trailed after Todd into his house.
7
Todd let me in through the back door into a kitchen. He eased the door shut behind us without a sound. Curtains were pulled over the windows, and the room had a dark, gloomy feel and a stale, chilly smell. I usually love the way kitchens smell, but not this one.
Todd whispered, “Come on, Bailey!” and I followed him out of the kitchen and down a hallway. About halfway along it we passed a doorway to a living room, where a woman was slumped on a couch, watching television. She didn’t move or even turn her head as we went past.
But someone else moved. After we were past the door, Todd turned back. I paused, too. He scowled as a small figure came to the doorway that led into the living room, outlined against the grayish, flickering light of the TV.
It was Linda, Todd’s sister. She saw me and her eyes grew wider. She came forward.
“No,” Todd hissed at her.
I certainly knew that word. I cringed at the sharp tone of Todd’s voice. Linda put a finger in her mouth, chewing at the nail, but she didn’t back up. She held her other hand out to me. I licked it.
Todd stepped forward to push Linda away. “Leave me alone,” he said sharply to her.
Then he opened a door, grabbed my collar, and pulled me inside. He didn’t have to do that. I would have gone with him, even though I would rather have stayed with Linda. I knew what I was supposed to do to be a good dog.
Todd shut the door and I heard the lock make a clicking sound. I sniffed at piles of smelly clothes on the floor and found a plate under an old T-shirt with half a piece of toast on it. I quickly ate it. Clean the Plate was always my job when a plate was on the floor.
Then I checked on what Todd was doing. He was walking quickly around the room, his hands shoved into his pockets. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, now … now…”
He sat at his desk and opened a drawer. I could smell firecrackers in there; the odor stung my nose. I didn’t like it. I backed up to the other side of the room, under a window.
“I don’t know where Bailey is,” Todd muttered. “I haven’t seen Bailey.”
I wagged at my name, then sighed and flopped onto a pile of sweatshirts. It had been a long day, and I was tired. I hoped I’d be going home to the boy soon.
A tiny knock at the door made Todd jump up as though one of his firecrackers had gone off right under him. I jumped up, too, and came over to stand right behind Todd as he whispered angrily out his door at Linda.
I could smell the girl more than I could see her in the dark hallway. Her dress needed washing, and she had been eating salty crackers, and she was both worried and scared. That made me worried, too. I backed away from Todd and started to pace. I didn’t feel like lying back down.
Todd slammed the door and locked it again. I could feel a flash of pure rage from him, and it frightened me. I’d felt the boy get angry from time to time, Dad and Mom, too. But that was a mild feeling compared to what I could sense from Todd.
Just then there was a drawn-out cry from outside the window. “Bay-leeeeee!”
Ethan! My boy was calling me!
I ran to the window and tried to jump up, putting both
feet on the sill. But before I could see anything except that it was starting to get dark out there, Todd was beside me. He yanked a thick curtain that smelled of dust across the glass.
I couldn’t see the boy! I barked in frustration. Todd smacked at my rear end with an open palm. “No! Bad dog! No barking!”
I whined and backed away, as alarmed by the flare of rage and the tone of his voice as I was by the pain from my hindquarters. Had I been a bad dog? But I’d been trying to get to my boy! When he called, I was supposed to come!
“Todd?” a woman shouted from somewhere in the house.
Todd glared at me. “You stay here. You stay,” he ordered. He backed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
I paced around the room some more, confused. I knew the word “Stay.” I knew what it meant. But I didn’t like it much … and the boy was calling me! How could I find him? It wasn’t right, being here in this room. I was becoming more and more sure about that. But the door was shut, and the window was covered, and Todd had certainly seemed angry when I’d barked …
A click came from the door, and I whirled around.
The door was eased open just a little, and in the narrow crack along its frame I could see Linda’s face. She thrust a hand into the room. It was holding a soggy cracker.
“Here, Bailey,” she whispered. “Good dog.”
I liked her voice, I liked her words, and most of all I liked that cracker. I was at the door in three steps, and I slurped the cracker out of her sweaty hand.
Linda opened the door wider and beckoned to me. I bounded down the hallway after her until we reached the kitchen. Todd’s voice came from the living room. “What? What do you want? No way. I’m not doing that.” A woman’s voice mumbled. “I don’t care. I’m busy,” Todd snapped.
Linda and I had reached the door to the outside. She pushed it open and the cool night air flowed in. I sniffed it in gratefully and leaped onto the grass.
Then I turned to look back for a moment. Linda stood in the doorway, looking both relieved and miserable. For a moment I wished I could bring her with me. She seemed nice, and maybe she’d bring some crackers along with her.
Then I raced off into the night to find my boy.
Mom’s car was down the street, and the boy was leaning out of a window, calling, “Bay-leeeee!” I took off after it as fast as I could. The taillights flashed brightly, and a moment later Ethan was out on the street, running to me. “Oh, Bailey, where have you been?” he said, burying his face in my fur. “You’re a bad, bad dog!”
I knew that being a bad dog was wrong, but the love pouring off of the boy was so strong. I couldn’t help feeling that, right now, being a bad dog was somehow good.
* * *
I was so glad to be back home that I didn’t even check the gate to the backyard for a few days. When I did feel adventurous again and managed to slip out, I stayed away from Todd’s end of the street. And if I ever saw or smelled him playing in the creek, I was careful to slink into shadows or dash behind some bushes before he could see me.
I was learning new words every day. Besides being a good dog, and sometimes a bad dog, I was told that I was a big dog over and over. It seemed to be a good thing, mostly, so I wagged when I heard it. I also noticed that I had trouble arranging myself comfortably on the boy’s bed.
Then there was the word “snow.” The first time I heard it, I thought Ethan was shouting “No!” and I didn’t understand. I didn’t even have anything in my mouth! And I certainly hadn’t lifted my leg. I’d already decided doing that inside the house was more trouble than it was worth.
But Ethan threw on his coat and hat and boots and dashed outside, yelling at me to follow. That’s when I discovered that “snow” meant the world outside had changed.
It was covered all over in a cold, white, furry coat. I paused at the back door and stared. Where had the grass gone? Where was the patio? I put a paw tentatively into the white fuzz. Cold! But Ethan was running around in it, and I wanted to be near him. So, very bravely, I jumped into the freezing stuff with all four feet.
“Come on, Bailey!” Ethan shouted. “It’s snow!”
The snow made my paws ache after a while, but it was fun to bite, and Ethan loved it so much that I decided I loved it, too. He pulled a heavy, flat wooden thing out of the garage. “Let’s go sledding, Bailey!” he said.
I followed him, tromping through the snow and up to a hill a few blocks from our house. He dropped the flat wooden thing to the ground and flopped down on top of it. “It’s a sled, okay, Bailey? You watch, Bailey. It’s fun!”
He pushed hard with his hands, and suddenly he shot down the hill, away from me.
I stared in astonishment. I never knew that the boy could move like that! Instead of walking or running, stiffly upright on two legs, he was zooming close to the ground. I tore down the hill after him, barking with excitement and surprise.
The sled slowed a bit as it got closer to the bottom of the hill, and that meant I could catch up. I timed things carefully and leaped, landing right on top of Ethan. He shouted. The sled shot ahead, skimming past the sleds of several other children who had all been doing the same thing.
The ground flattened out and the sled skidded sideways, tumbling Ethan and me off into a thick patch of snow. “You like sledding!” Ethan gasped, laughing under me. “You’re a sled dog, Bailey!”
I barked, and we raced up the hill to do it again.
We went sledding a lot while the snow stayed on the ground. After a while it went away, and I learned the word “spring,” which meant the sun stayed out longer, and the air warmed up, and Mom spent weekends digging in the backyard and planting flowers. The dirt smelled so wonderful, rich and dark and full of life, that after everybody went away, I dug, too, pulling the flowers back up from their beds. I hoped Mom appreciated my help.
That night they all called me a bad dog again, and I even had to spend the evening out in the garage instead of lying on Ethan’s feet while he worked on his papers. I didn’t understand it at all. I’d just done what Mom had been doing! What was wrong with that?
Then one day the kids on the yellow school bus were so loud that I could hear them shrieking five minutes before the thing stopped in front of the house. The boy was full of joy as he ran up to me, so excited that I ran around and around in circles, barking as loud as I could.
When Mom came home, she was happy, too, and from then on Ethan didn’t go to school anymore. We got to lie in bed quietly every morning, instead of getting up for breakfast with Dad. Life had finally gotten back to normal. Thank goodness that whole school thing was over and done with.
8
One warm day, Ethan and Mom and Dad loaded up the car with a lot of suitcases and boxes, and then they called to me. I hopped into the backseat with Ethan. We took a long ride, and when we were done, we were at “the farm.”
The farm meant new animals, new people, and new smells. From the first moment I jumped out of the car after Ethan, I was very busy.
Two older people came out of a big white house, and there was a lot of happy exclaiming while I ran around everybody’s feet. Ethan called the two new people Grandma and Grandpa. After he’d spent some time hugging them and hearing things like “You’ve grown so much!” and “So this is Bailey!” he ran off across a patch of packed-down dirt. “Come on, Bailey!” he called to me.
He didn’t need to call; I was already racing after him.
He took me past a split-rail fence where an enormous horse stared at me. I crawled under the fence to bark and invite her to play, but she only puffed air out through her nostrils and went back to biting off mouthfuls of grass. Her loss! I dove back under the fence and took off after Ethan, who was happily shouting my name.
I followed him down to a pond. I guessed that was what the farm had instead of a creek. There was a family of ducks to bark at, and they splashed into the water, paddling away as I ran up. Unfair! The minute I stopped barking, they came back toward the bank,
the mother in the lead and half a dozen little fluff balls behind her in a line. So of course I had to bark again. Back they all went into the water. Ducks looked to me to be about as useless as Smokey the cat.
“You crazy dog, Bailey!” Happiness was pouring out of Ethan’s voice. “Come on!”
We went running back to the big white house.
Dad left after a few days, but Mom stayed with us on the farm that whole summer. Ethan slept on the porch, and I slept right there with him, and no one even pretended that the arrangement should be different.
Grandpa liked to sit in a chair and scratch my ears. Grandma always seemed to be cooking in the kitchen, and she needed me to sample what she made. I was glad to do my part. The love from both of them made me squirm with joy.
Outside, there was no yard, only a big open field with a fence. The horse, whose name was Flare, stayed inside the fence all day, eating grass. It was a strange thing, though; I never saw her throw up once. She did leave big brown piles all over the field, which smelled interesting but tasted dry and bland. I only ate a couple of them.
Sometimes Flare went into a big, shabby old building called the barn, and the first time I followed her in there I discovered that the farm had a cat. What a disappointment! She crouched back in the shadows and jumped up high or ran away whenever I came near. Well, that made her a better cat than Smokey, at least.
Beyond the barn were woods that were fun to explore, and it was always worth checking out the pond to see if the ducks needed to be barked at. The boy liked the pond, too. He would put me in an old rowboat and push it out into the water. Then he would pull out a pole with a string attached, stick a worm on the string, and drop the worm over the side. Sometimes he’d pull out a small, wriggling fish for me to bark at. Then he’d let it go.
“It’s too little, Bailey,” he’d say. “But one of these days I’m going to catch a big one.”
One afternoon, after we’d been at the farm a few weeks, Ethan was at a table and Mom was stretched out on a couch with a book, and Grandma had gone upstairs to lie on her bed, which meant that the kitchen didn’t smell as good as usual. I decided to explore a little more of the woods.