I had to take care of CJ. It was time to go.
Jennifer opened the gate. Rocky and Trent went through. CJ followed. I kept close at her heels.
“No, Molly,” Jennifer said, sticking out her foot to block me.
The gate swung shut.
I sat down and stared at it.
I was on one side of the wooden gate, and my girl was on the other. That was not right! It was not how things should be!
“It’s okay, Molly,” Jennifer said.
I yipped, frustrated that my voice was so tiny. How would my girl hear me? I jumped past Jennifer and put my tiny claws up on the gate and scratched at it. CJ could not leave without me! I had to go with her!
But the gate did not open. CJ was gone. Rocky was gone. I barked and barked with my useless little puppy voice. Jennifer was here, my mother was here, my new friend Daisy was here. But I still felt all alone in the world.
3
Daisy came over and sniffed me as I barked. She understood that I was unhappy; I could see that. But she did not understand why. Some humans had left the yard. Why was that a problem? Daisy seemed happier, in fact, with fewer people around.
I tried to bite at the bottom of the gate, but all that did was hurt my teeth. I ran to my mother, and she licked me affectionately from nose to rump, but that was no help, either. I needed my girl!
“Molly?”
The sound of her voice jolted me. I turned and yipped once more. There she was. CJ. She was standing just inside the open gate.
Jennifer was next to her, smiling.
CJ dropped to her knees. I ran over and threw myself into her arms, licking her face, burrowing my nose under her chin. It had all been an awful mistake. Thank goodness! I’d thought for a moment that my girl was actually going to leave me!
CJ looked up at Jennifer, and at Trent, who came back into the yard, too, holding Rocky in his arms. “She chose me, so what could I do? Molly chose me,” CJ insisted.
I was happy to be Molly. I was happy to be with CJ. She held me close as she talked with Jennifer and then carried me out through the gate. I was with my girl, feeling her gentle hands around me, snuggling close to the warmth of her skin. Everything would be all right after all.
“So what is your mom going to say?” Trent asked. On the sidewalk there was a wagon with a cardboard box inside it. Trent put Rocky gently in the box. CJ set me next to him. Rocky jumped on me happily, his tail wagging, as if we’d been apart for days. Obviously, the only thing to do next was wrestle.
The wagon started to bump down the sidewalk. Trent was pulling it. CJ was walking next to him. I had my front legs on top of Rocky, but my back legs kept slipping off.
“CJ? Seriously?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” my girl said.
I barked to let her know I could hear her. She put a hand in the box and stroked my ears.
“Will she let you keep Molly?”
“Well, what am I supposed to do? You saw what happened. Molly and I are supposed to be together.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like your mom isn’t going to notice that there’s suddenly a dog around,” Trent said.
CJ sighed. I licked at her fingers. I’d already figured out that being licked by a dog can cheer up just about anybody.
“CJ? You seriously think you can hide a dog? In your house?” Trent asked.
“I could hide a pack of wolves in the house if I wanted to,” CJ said stubbornly. “Gloria doesn’t even know if I’m there a lot of the time. She’d hardly notice a little puppy.”
“Okay, sure. So for the next six years, until you go to college, you’re going to hide a dog in your house and somehow your mom won’t find out.”
CJ sighed again. “You know what, Trent? Sometimes you don’t do stuff because it makes sense. You just do it. Okay?”
“Right. That makes sense.”
“You always have to argue with me.”
They were both silent for a moment. Rocky had taken advantage of my time licking CJ to chew on my tail, so I had to teach him a lesson. Then I heard Trent speak up again.
“I’m sorry. I was just looking out for you,” he said.
“Yeah, I know. But, um, go past my driveway, okay?” CJ said. “Just keep walking.”
The two of them walked a little farther, and the wagon bumped a little more, and I fell over on Rocky and ended up with his head under my belly. Then CJ reached into the box and picked me up.
I looked down at my brother, who sat with his head cocked, looking up at me. It was good-bye; I knew that somehow. Just as I’d said good-bye to my mother and Daisy and Jennifer and the yard, I was going to say good-bye to my brother now. But it was all right, because I’d be with my girl. My girl who needed me.
“You sure it’ll be—” Trent started to say.
“It’ll be fine, Trent,” CJ said firmly. And she turned around and started walking. I heard the wagon with Rocky in it rattle and bump away as CJ carried me down the sidewalk toward a house. Some dogs had marked the bushes outside, but the scents were old. Nothing told me that any other dogs lived here now.
“Okay,” CJ told me, her voice low. “Let’s see how quiet you can be.”
Moving quickly now, she carried me through a front door, up some stairs, down a hall, and into a bedroom. I cuddled into her warmth, tired now from all of the barking and worrying and the excitement of the wagon ride down the street.
“Clarity? Is that you?” a woman called from somewhere inside the house.
“I’m home!” CJ yelled. Her voice was so loud that I twitched and yipped a little, and she shushed me, her hand rubbing along my back. Then she set me down on a bed.
The surface under my paws was soft and padded. It felt nothing like a wooden floor, or a cardboard box, or springy grass. I took a step and fell over, struggling back to my feet. When CJ sat down on the bed beside me, I fell over again.
CJ giggled. “Oh, Molly!” She reached out to pick me up, and I licked her hands enthusiastically. My girl tasted delicious.
Then we both heard footsteps in the hall. CJ froze.
“Molly! Shhh!” she said. Then she flopped down on the bed and yanked a billowy pink-and-yellow quilt over her, bending her knees to make a tented space. She snatched me and shoved me into that space. It was dim and warm in there, and I was surrounded by sheets that smelled like my girl. What a wonderful game!
“Ta-daa!” a woman’s voice sang.
“Gloria? You bought that?” CJ asked, shocked.
“Of course!” said the other voice.
“A fur?”
Obviously, I was supposed to get out from under the sheets. I ducked out from under CJ’s knees and began to struggle up toward her head, wading over soft bulges in the cotton sheets, shoving with my head to push past with the weight of the quilt that had settled down over me.
“You like? It’s fox.”
“A fur? How could you?”
CJ’s hand came under the blankets, pushing me back down. I wrestled with it a bit, then licked at her fingers.
“Well, it’s not like I killed anything. It was already dead when I bought the coat. And I need it for my trip. Aspen is the only place left where you can wear a fur without feeling guilty. And, well, probably France.”
“Aspen? When are you going to Aspen?” CJ asked. She pulled her hand away. I did my best to chase after it.
“Monday. So, I was thinking, we should go shopping that morning, before I leave. Just the two of us.”
“Monday’s a school day,” CJ said.
“Well, school. It’s just a day.”
CJ wiggled out from under the blankets, and the quilt settled softly down around my head. “I need a yogurt,” CJ said.
I shook my entire body hard, staggered a few more steps, and poked my head out from under the quilt. I’d won! At last! But I was too late. CJ was already leaving the room, closing the door behind her.
“I hate it when you wear those shorts,” I heard Gloria say from the hall. “They
make your thighs look so heavy.”
I was alone. Again! But last time my girl had come back to me. That’s what she’d do this time. I was sure of it.
Even so, it was hard to wait. I poked my nose over the side of the bed and decided that it was way too far for me to jump. So I paced back and forth, with difficulty, on the soft, lumpy quilt. I whimpered. I chewed on a stuffed toy, which helped a little.
Then the door opened. My girl!
“Good girl, Molly,” she whispered, scooping me up.
Her breath had a lovely, sweet, milky scent. I licked her mouth and face eagerly, and she giggled and kissed me back. Then she pushed me deep into the soft shirt she was wearing.
I figured this was another game and tried to squirm out. I wanted to lick my girl’s face some more and hear her laughing! But before I could do that, I felt her carrying me back down the stairs, and then we were in another yard. I knew it by the smells of grass and dirt and fresh, warm air, even before CJ pulled me out of her shirt.
The first thing I did when I got on the grass was to squat and pee. CJ seemed happy with that. She stroked me and talked to me, and then she tugged a plastic bag out of one of her pockets. Inside were some bits of cold, salty meat.
She offered me some, and I gobbled them up eagerly. But the salty flavor was so strong it burned my tongue! I shook my head to make the taste go away. Then I ate more. I was hungry by now, so hungry I almost didn’t mind how the meat tasted. I just gulped it down.
“I’ll get you some puppy food tomorrow, Molly, I promise,” CJ said. “I promise, promise, promise. Do you want some more ham?”
I did. And that night I slept in the crook of CJ’s arm. “I love you, Molly. I love you,” she whispered as I drifted off to sleep.
I was so worn out by everything that had happened that day that I didn’t even get up once. But by the time the sun was out, my little bladder was nearly bursting. Luckily, CJ got up early as well, putting on her clothes and carrying me outside. She talked to me in hushed whispers as I squatted and left a puddle that rapidly soaked into the grass.
Then she picked me up again and brought me inside. I figured we were about to go back up to her room for some more of that hiding-in-the-sheets game, but instead she carried me down some different stairs to a basement.
There were a lot of new smells. I hung over CJ’s arm, my nose twitching as I tried to take them all in. Dampness … and wet earth … and old cement … and soap … and cardboard … and other things I was curious to explore.
CJ set me down. I sniffed around with interest. There were newspapers on the floor, and some cardboard beneath them. CJ crouched beside me, and fed me some more of that cold, salty ham.
“This is my special space here under the stairs, Molly,” she whispered. “I got it all set up for you last night. See? Here’s a pillow for you, and here’s some water. You just have to be quiet, okay? I have to leave for just a bit. I promise I’ll come back soon. Now don’t bark. Be quiet, Molly. Be quiet.”
CJ moved very suddenly, wiggling backward and jumping to her feet. She tried to pull a box across the floor to block me in, but I was too quick for that. She wasn’t going to win this game! I darted out and jumped on her feet, wagging hard.
“Molly!” CJ groaned.
I put my front paws up on her legs and wagged harder. But to my surprise, she didn’t laugh. With one hand, she pushed me back into the small, dark space I’d just escaped. And once again she pulled that box to block me in.
This time I wasn’t fast enough. My nose bumped into the cardboard.
I thought I’d made my feelings clear when we were at Jennifer’s. CJ was my person. I did not want to be left in this space. I wanted to be with CJ!
“Be good, Molly,” CJ’s voice said from the other side of the boxes. “Remember, stay quiet. Don’t bark.”
I sat down in dismay. What was all this about? Where was my girl? I scratched at the boxes, but could not get them to move. I paced about, stepping in my water dish. I found a stray bit of ham on the floor and ate it, and the burn on my tongue reminded me to dash back to the water dish and lap some of it down.
My girl would come back. Of course she would. She had not left me in Jennifer’s yard. She had not left me in the bedroom. She would come back for me this time, too.
But I wished she could understand that we should always be together!
I took a quick nap. I found a round ball just a little bit too big to go into my mouth, and I chewed on it as best I could. Then I had to squat and leave a puddle in a corner. The smell of my own urine was not particularly interesting, and I began to feel that I had waited long enough.
I barked, making my voice as loud as I could. The tiny space I was trapped in bounced the barks back at me, making it sound like there were at least two sad, bored, lonely puppies trapped down here. But even then, it wasn’t very loud.
Still, now that I’d started barking, it seemed like a good idea to keep it up for a while. Then a new sound came to my ears, and I stopped.
I’d never heard anything like it before. It didn’t sound like words, or barks, or even the noise a car makes rushing down the street. It was a human noise; I was pretty sure about that. But it was something between crying and wailing. Did humans howl when they were upset? Was a human somewhere in pain?
It was awful. I paced and whined. The dreadful noise got louder, and I heard heavy footsteps on the basement stairs. It wasn’t CJ coming back to me—I could tell. A strange scent—flowery and oily at once—drifted around the boxes that held me in. Was the scent connected to that bewildering noise? I crouched low, worried, and whimpered as quietly as I could.
Overhead, I heard the front door open and shut. Then the basement door opened, too.
“Gloria? Are you down there?” It was CJ’s voice, loud enough to hear over the wailing.
Relief spread through me. I didn’t quite dare jump up and bark with joy, but I wagged my tail hard.
Footsteps came rattling down the stairs. “Gloria?” CJ’s voice called, louder.
There was a loud scream. I jumped. CJ screamed, too. I squirmed back into the darker corner of my space. What was happening?
“Clarity June, you scared me to death!” Gloria gasped.
“Why didn’t you answer? What are you doing?” CJ asked.
“I was singing! I had my earbuds in! What’s in that bag?”
“It’s dog food. We’re, um, we’re having a food drive at school.”
“Do you really think it looks good to bring people dog food?”
“Mo-ther. It’s not for the people. It’s for their dogs. Dogs need help sometimes, too. Are you getting laundry? I’ll help you fold,” CJ offered. “Come on, let’s take it upstairs.”
CJ and Gloria went back up the stairs, leaving me alone. I bounced up and scratched at the boxes some more, harder this time, panting with anxiety and impatience.
How could CJ have come back, but left me here? Didn’t she know I needed her?
Plus, I was getting very, very hungry.
4
What could have been a whole day passed. I’m not sure it was really a full day, but it was a long time before I heard footsteps on the basement stairs again.
I smelled CJ. I smelled food, too. How wonderful! CJ and food!
She pushed the boxes aside, and I leaped out, wriggling, and clambered onto her lap. Then I fell off again so I could bury my nose in the bowl of food she set down.
“She’s finally gone. She went to do errands,” CJ said. “Oh, Molly, I am so, so sorry.”
I was too busy eating to do more than swipe briefly at her hand with my tongue. The little pieces inside the bowl were crunchy and tasty, and they didn’t burn my tongue like the ham. I ate as quickly as I could, and then slurped up water while CJ picked up the damp newspaper I had left under the stairs and laid down some dry sheets. Then she opened a new door, one that led directly from the basement to the yard, and took me outside.
I loved the yard. It didn??
?t have other dogs like Che or Barney or Daisy, but it did have grass, and dirt, and ants and beetles to chase, and sticks to chew, and worms to dig up. And of course it had CJ.
I sprawled on the warm grass, rolling in sheer joy. CJ flopped down beside me. How exciting! Jennifer had been nice, but she had never gotten down in the grass and rolled with me!
CJ and I played Tug on a Towel for a few minutes, but it had been a long morning for me, and I was exhausted. She scooped me up and held me close, and I fell asleep in her lap.
When I woke up, I was back in the dark, small space under the stairs.
I yipped impatiently. This was not where I wanted to be! CJ seemed to understand, for a few minutes later I heard her feet clattering down the stairs.
She shoved the boxes aside. “Shhh, Molly! You need to be quiet!” she said. “If my mother finds out you’re here, she’ll make me give you away!”
I thought I was beginning to understand my girl. When I wanted her, I should bark, and she would come.
She took me out of the corner, and I explored the basement a little, sniffed in dark corners, and got cobwebs stuck on my nose that CJ gently took off. When I needed to squat on the cement floor, she only laughed and shook her head and cleaned the puddle up. Then she hugged me and kissed me up and down my face. Love flowed from her, so strong that I wiggled all over with happiness.
We played and played outside until I was sleepy, and I didn’t mind too much when she put me back under the stairs. I knew she’d come if I barked for her. Instead, I took another long nap. CJ had to wake me up when she came down for me in the middle of the night and took me outside to play and wrestle in the cool air of the backyard.
“Shhh, Molly,” she kept saying. “Shhh!”
It probably meant she was as happy as I was to be outside together.
The next morning I woke up under the stairs again, listening to some strange, loud noises from upstairs. It sounded like more of that yowling, but in different voices this time. I heard Gloria talking, too. “Would you please turn down that music?” she asked.
I barked and scratched at the boxes that blocked my exit, ready to get out and play with CJ. But for some reason my girl was slow to come.