“Let’s go to the beach,” Al suggested. “No, leave the dishes for later. Come on, while it’s still light.”
“Let’s bring Ellie.”
“Of course, let’s bring Ellie.”
* * *
Al had brought a blanket to the beach, and he spread it out on the sand. The sun was going down, and the breeze took on a chill. He wrapped an arm around Maya’s shoulders and they talked while the little waves came in.
“It’s so beautiful,” Maya said.
I figured they probably wanted to play with a stick or a ball or something, but she had my leash on so that I couldn’t go and Find them anything. It was too bad. They had nothing to do.
Al got my attention by becoming afraid. His heart started to pound so loudly I could hear it, and I could smell the sweat that broke out on his palms and his forehead. I could sense the nervous tension that was tightening all his muscles.
I looked around anxiously. What was going to happen? I moved a little closer to Maya, ready to save her if she needed it.
“Maya, when you m-m-moved here…,” Al stammered. “So many months I wanted to talk to you. You are so beautiful.”
Maya laughed. “Oh, Al, I’m not beautiful; come on.”
Some boys ran down by the water, tossing a thin plastic saucer through the air. I watched it alertly, in case it turned out to be the thing Al was so nervous about. It didn’t look dangerous; it looked like it would be fun to chase, actually.
“You are the most wonderful woman in the world,” Al said. “I … I love you, Maya.”
Maya was starting to feel afraid, too. I nudged my nose under her hand, in case she needed comforting. She always petted me when I did that. But this time she didn’t.
“I love you, too, Al.”
“I know I’m not rich, I know I’m not handsome…,” Al said.
“Oh my…,” Maya breathed. Her heart was beating fast now, too.
“But I will love you all my life, if you will let me.” Al turned on the blanket, rising on his knees. “Will you marry me, Maya?”
* * *
It wasn’t too long after that day that Maya and Mama and all of the people we saw so often at Mama’s house came together in a big white building and sat quietly to watch me do a new trick Maya had taught me. I walked very slowly down a narrow path between long wooden benches, climbed up some carpeted stairs, and stood patiently while Al took something out of a little pack that he’d already tied on my back.
Maya whispered, “Good girl, Ellie!” She was wearing a big, fluffy dress, so I knew we weren’t going to Work afterward or to the park for a run. But I didn’t mind, because everybody seemed so happy. Mama was even sniffing back tears of joy. I must have done the trick really well, I thought, sitting down to wait while Maya and Al and another man in a dark suit talked and talked and talked.
Then we went to Mama’s house and the children ran around and fed me cake.
Soon after that, Maya and Al did something strange. They took everything in Maya’s house and stuffed it all into big boxes. Then they did the same with all of Al’s things. I didn’t understand why they needed so many things anyway; I was content with just my dog bed and my food dish. Maybe they’d decided that was all they needed, too.
But it didn’t turn out that way.
“Come, Ellie!” Maya called the day after all the boxes had been carried into a big truck. “Car ride!”
I still loved car rides, even though we never got to go to Work anymore. I bounced into the backseat. But Maya did something I didn’t understand at all; she came out of the house carrying two big cases, and then she went back for a third. When she put the cases in the back of the car, I heard angry and frightened meowing coming from inside. Stella, Emmet, and Tinkerbell were in there!
Cats did not come on car rides! Car rides were only for dogs. I barked at Maya to let her know she’d made a mistake.
“Calm down, Ellie. Cool it, cats!” Maya said, getting into the car and shutting the door. “It’s a short ride. Don’t worry. We’ll be there soon.”
“There” turned out to be a new house.
I approved of the house. It had a much nicer backyard than our old one. And there was a big bed, too, which Maya let Al share with her. That wasn’t fair; she had never let me share!
So that first night I made a plan. After Maya and Al had been quiet for a while, I crept up to the bed and worked my nose under the quilt. Nobody stirred. My plan was working!
I wiggled up so that my front legs were under the covers, too. Then it was just a matter of jumping so my back legs could make it as well. I jumped.
“What’s— Ellie!” Al shouted.
“Oh, Ellie!” Maya was groaning and laughing at the same time. “Oh, Al, I’m sorry. She never did that before.”
“Oh, whatever. Let her stay.” Al reached down and scratched my ears. “But on top of the quilt, Ellie! Not under the blankets!”
At last! I curled up at Maya’s feet and she tucked her toes under me to keep them warm.
But after a few nights, I decided that sleeping on the big bed was not as much fun as it had seemed. There wasn’t that much room, and the cats didn’t get the message that they belonged on the floor now that I was allowed on the bed with Maya and Al.
I jumped down and decided that I’d much rather sleep on the fuzzy rug on Maya’s side of the bed. That way I was able to get up and follow her if she woke up in the middle of the night and wanted a glass of water or went to read a book in the living room.
Maya still took me for car rides. Sometimes we went to the beach to run and Al came with us now and then, but he had trouble keeping up. Maya and I went to the park for long walks, too. But I began to understand that we were not going to do Work again.
We must have Found all the people who needed to be Found. And maybe Wally and Belinda just didn’t want to play anymore. I didn’t really understand it. I missed Find, and I missed the sense that Maya and I were doing something important together. That we were a team, the way Jakob and I had been.
But if Maya didn’t want to Work anymore, I guessed we would not be doing it.
So I was surprised the day that Maya, dressed in her uniform, called to me. “Ready for work, Ellie?” she asked.
My ears perked up. Work? Really?
I nearly knocked her over, dashing to the car.
One thing puzzled me. Maya was relaxed, not tense. She was smiling, not serious. She had never been like this before when we were going to Work. I wondered why.
She pulled the car up in front of a big building and took me up to the front door.
“It’s a school, Ellie. You’re going to like it here. Lots of kids, just like at Mama’s house.”
Maya opened the big doors and we went inside.
There were lots of kids in the building, many more than at Mama’s house! Maya took me into a big, noisy room with a stage up front and rows and rows of children sitting in chairs. They started laughing and calling out as soon as they caught sight of me.
“Dog! Look at the dog!”
“Can I pet her?”
“She’s so cute!”
Maya and I walked up some stairs to the stage. She told me to Sit, and I did it. Someone must have told the children to Sit as well, but they were not very good at it yet. They wiggled and bounced and got up on their knees to see better.
A woman got up and talked to the children. I wasn’t paying much attention to her voice, since I didn’t know it well. “Use your listening ears,” I heard her say, and “best manners, please,” and “a real welcome.” Then all the children clapped. The noise startled me, and they laughed.
I wagged. The joy that I could see in their faces and hear in their giggling voices made me happy, even though there didn’t seem to be much to do here.
Maya walked me forward, and when she spoke her voice was loud.
“This is Ellie.” I perked up my ears, looking up to see if a command would follow. “She is a retired search-and-rescue dog
. As part of our outreach program, I wanted to come to talk to you about how Ellie has helped find lost children, and what you can do if you ever become lost,” Maya said.
No command. I sat down and yawned.
I waited for about half an hour while Maya talked. Then she led me down off the stage. The children lined up and came in small groups to pet me. Some gave me grabby hugs; some hung back, a little afraid. One girl timidly offered me her hand, and I licked it, tasting salty crackers and a smudge of chocolate. She jumped back with a squeal, but she was giggling.
After that, Maya and I did School often. Sometimes the children were younger, sometimes older. The younger ones gave me more hugs. The older ones scratched behind my ears. Either one was fine with me.
Sometimes we went to other buildings, where there were no children at all but people as old as Marilyn, one of the first people I’d ever Found. Or to places that had sharp, chemical smells. I couldn’t smell as much anymore, but those places reminded me of the liquid that had splashed onto my nose and hurt it. I didn’t like the smell, but I did like the people. They were lying in beds or sitting in strange chairs with wheels, and I could smell and feel that they were sad, or sick, or in pain. But some of that sadness lifted when Maya talked to them and they stroked my fur.
I wasn’t saving these people, exactly. They weren’t lost—except that it sort of felt as if they were. Somehow, this was a new kind of Work. I didn’t really understand it, but Maya was there and people were happier when we left. That seemed right. That was what Work was for, to make things better.
17
When we weren’t doing School or our other Work, Maya would run out the door in the morning in a big hurry while Al chuckled. Then Al would leave, too. I’d stay at home with the stupid cats.
Even though I no longer wore the nose cream, Tinkerbell didn’t leave me alone. She curled up against me when I took my naps on the soft blanket Maya had put down near her bed. It was embarrassing, really, but since no one except Emmet and Stella was there to see, I let Tinkerbell stay. The feel of her purr vibrated against my side. It was a warm feeling, somehow, and it reminded me a little of snuggling close with Mother and my brothers and sisters, long ago.
One day Maya called to me and I jumped into the car, ready to Work. “Look at those clouds, Ellie,” she said as she drove.
I wagged, happy just to hear her talking to me, and stuck my nose out the car’s window. The air was damp and sweet. I loved mornings like this. The smells were stronger than usual, more like I remembered them from the old days, when we still did Find. I smelled asphalt, exhaust fumes, salty French fries from a store that we drove past, other dogs, people.
When Maya pulled the car up in front of a school, she ran inside quickly with me as the first drops of rain started to fall.
This time, we didn’t go to one of the big rooms where the children sat in seats and Maya’s voice boomed. Instead, we walked into a smaller place called a classroom. The children sat on blankets on the floor. That looked cozy. If they wanted me to lie down on a blanket, too, I would not have minded.
While I was waiting to see if someone would offer me a blanket, I stretched out on the carpet.
Maya had just started talking when a sudden flash of brilliant light brightened all the windows. Then came a crack of thunder. Some of the children jumped and yelped like frightened puppies. The rain poured down. I lifted my nose and breathed deeply, wishing someone would open a window to let the smells inside.
“Settle down, class,” said a woman standing near Maya.
The door to the classroom swung open and a man, his jacket dripping wet, came inside. A woman was with him. I sat up quickly, looking straight at them.
“We’ve lost Geoffrey Hicks,” the man said.
I knew the worry in his voice, the tension in his muscles, the way alarm was rising off both of them, like a scent. This was the way people looked and sounded when I was about to Work.
“He’s a first grader,” the man told Maya.
“They were playing hide-and-seek when the rain started,” the woman said. “The storm just came up out of nowhere. One minute it was fine, the next—” She put her hand up to her eyes, which were suddenly full of tears. “When I had everyone come in, Geoffrey wasn’t with them. It was his turn to hide.”
“Could the dog…,” the man said hesitantly, turning to Maya.
Maya looked at me, and I sat up straighter. Was this Work?
“You’d better call 911,” she said. “Ellie hasn’t worked a search or rescue in years.”
“Won’t the rain wash away the scent? It’s really coming down out there,” said the woman, fighting to keep her voice steady. “I’m worried that by the time another dog gets here…”
Maya bit her lip. “We’ll certainly help look. You need to call the police, though. Where do you think he might have gone?”
“There are some woods behind the playground,” the man said quickly. “There’s a fence, but the kids can lift it up. They know they’re not supposed to, but sometimes…”
“This is his backpack; will that help?” the woman asked, holding out a canvas bag.
“Maybe.” Maya took it. “Call the police! Ellie, Come!”
I jumped to my feet and raced after her as she ran down the hallway. At last! We were going to Find again!
Maya stopped just inside a door. Outside, rain was pounding down. “Look at it rain,” she muttered. Her nervous energy sagged. She knelt down beside me, and I felt her worry and her sadness but her determination, too. “Ellie, you ready, girl? Here, smell this.”
I took a deep whiff of the canvas bag. I could smell strawberry yogurt, cookie crumbs, paper, crayons, and a person. “Geoffrey, Geoffrey,” Maya said. “Okay?” She opened the door and the rain whipped into the hallway. “Find!”
I leaped out into the rain. In front of me was a wide stretch of black pavement and beyond that a playground piled with wood chips. I coursed back and forth, my nose low to the ground. I could smell many children, although the smells were not strong and the rain was starting to wash them away.
Maya was out, running away from the school. “Here, Ellie! Find here!” she shouted over the drumming of the raindrops on the hard ground.
We tracked all the way back to a wire fence. Nothing. I could feel Maya’s frustration and fear, and it made me tense inside. Was I doing this wrong? Was I being a bad dog?
Maya found a piece of the fence, next to a pole, that had been bent back to make a triangle-shaped hole. “Find, Ellie!” she commanded. I sniffed all along the fence, but I could Find nothing. “Okay, if he’d gone through that, you’d smell him, right? I hope so,” she murmured. “Geoffrey!” she shouted. “Geoffrey, come on out! It’s all right!”
No one came out.
“Keep trying,” Maya said softly. “Find, Ellie!”
We followed the length of the fence all the way around the school yard. Nothing. A police car pulled up on the street outside the fence, red lights flashing through the rain. Maya jogged over to talk to the man driving.
I was still on Find. I kept going, my nose to the ground. It was hard. I wasn’t picking up much of anything, and the rain was washing so much away. But I knew if I just concentrated I could separate the smell of the backpack, the smell that was Geoffrey, from all the others. Jakob had trained me. Maya had Worked with me. They’d shown me how to do it. I could still do it, if I just didn’t quit—
There! I had something. I whipped my head around again and sniffed harder. Right in the middle of the fence, there was a gap between two poles. No grown person would be able to squeeze through, but Geoffrey had done it. His scent had been rubbed on both of the poles, strongly enough that the rain had not washed them clean.
Geoffrey had left the playground.
I dashed back to Maya. She was speaking to the policeman when I got to her feet. “We tried, but it’s no good. Ellie can’t—”
Then Maya turned to look at me, shocked. “Ellie?” she said. Her voice
came out as a whisper. Then it got stronger. “Ellie, Show me!”
We ran back through the rain to the two poles. Maya peered through the small gap. “Come on!” she shouted, running along the fence toward a gate. I followed. “He left the school grounds! He’s on the other side of the fence!” she shouted. The policeman got out of the car and ran after us.
Maya threw the gate open and we both raced through it, then back along the fence to the two poles. I could still smell Geoffrey there. I put my nose to the ground. The smell was not as strong, but I could follow it. He had gone this way!
Then the smell faded, not two steps away from the fence. I stopped, lifting my nose into the wet air.
“What is it?” asked the policeman.
“He might have gotten into a car,” said Maya, worried. The policeman groaned.
I put my nose to the ground and backed up a few feet, and that’s when I picked Geoffrey’s scent up again. The trail was going the other way.
Maya gasped. “She’s got it. She’s got him!”
I ran down the sidewalk, Maya and the policeman behind me. Beside us, water rushed down the gutter and gurgled down a storm drain. I leaped into the street and shoved my nose into the gap where the water was rushing from the street into the drain. The flowing water carried all sorts of smells with it—grass, dirt, garbage, dead leaves, the faint scent of water itself—but I ignored those, concentrating every thought on my nose. If I needed to, I could have wiggled into that drain to follow the trail. But it turned out I didn’t need to. I could smell Geoffrey strongly now. He was right in front of me, although I couldn’t see him in the darkness. It was a good place for Geoffrey to hide, but I’d done it. I’d Found him!
I looked up at Maya.
“He’s in there! He’s in the sewer!” Maya shouted.
The policeman pulled a flashlight off his belt and knelt down beside me in the rushing water to shine the light into the drain. We all saw it at the same time: the pale face of a frightened little boy.