“Hi there, Bailey!” She rubbed behind my ears. She was still very good at that. “Did you miss me? Good boy!”
Ethan was coming out of the old barn with a board in his hands. He stopped.
“Oh. Hi. Hannah?”
“Hi, Ethan.”
Grandpa and the other men were grinning at each other. Ethan looked over his shoulder at them, and his cheeks turned hot. Then he set down his board and came over to where Hannah and I were standing.
“So, hi,” he said again.
“Hi.”
They looked away from each other. Hannah stopped scratching. I gave her hand a little nudge with my nose to remind her that the job was not finished.
“Come on in the house,” Ethan said.
For the rest of that summer, whenever I went for a car ride with Ethan, I noticed that the front seat of the car smelled like Hannah. In fact, sometimes Ethan smelled like Hannah. That was probably because they liked to sit very close together when they could. One time I took a little nap on the rug while they were sitting right next to each other on the couch. Suddenly the excitement and alarm pouring out of both of them jerked me awake.
I jumped up, looking around to see what the matter was. Nothing seemed to be wrong. Ethan and Hannah didn’t even look at me. Their faces were very close together, and their hearts were beating fast.
Quickly, I jumped up onto the couch, working my face between theirs, swiping Ethan’s chin with my tongue, getting a bit of Hannah’s cheek wet as well. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be on the couch, but since something exciting was obviously happening, I figured the rules could be bent a bit. I’d need to be close at hand for whatever was going on.
Ethan and Hannah both burst out laughing, and all the excitement faded. I guessed nothing was going to happen after all. But they did let me stay on the couch with them while they watched a movie.
Then the day came when Mom began to walk around the house and carry things out to the car. That time, nobody was laughing.
There was a smell of new paint in the air from the barn. The girl came over, and she and Ethan walked down to the pond and sat on the dock, dangling their feet over the water. And they talked. And talked. And talked.
They didn’t throw sticks or swim or do anything fun. I barked a bit at the ducks—I had the feeling it might be my last chance for a while—and came back to the pair of them to see if anything more interesting was going on.
There wasn’t. Hannah was crying a little, and Ethan was hugging her. I gave her hand a nudge, but she didn’t seem to be in a mood to rub ears, so I lay down and sighed. No ear rubs? No sticks? No treats? No games of Rescue Me?
There was more hugging at the car, and then we drove away, Ethan honking as we went.
16
Things were a little different at home once school began. For one thing, Ethan spent a lot of time in his room, talking on the phone. He kept saying “Hannah,” but I never did see or smell the girl, which was a shame. My ears could have used a really good rub.
The leaves were falling from the trees on the day that Ethan took me for a car ride to a place where big silver school buses came and went, and there was a stench of smoke and burned gasoline in the air. Standing beside one of those buses, waving when she saw us, was Hannah!
I don’t know who was more excited to see her, me or the boy. I wanted to play with her, but all the boy wanted to do was hug her. I wound my leash around their legs in excitement, and they had to stop hugging to get untangled, saying my name and laughing and stopping halfway through to hug again.
I was so glad to see Hannah that I didn’t even mind being a backseat dog on the way home, while she got to sit next to Ethan. “Coach says there will be football scouts from some colleges there to see me play tonight, Hannah,” the boy said. “University of Michigan. Michigan State, too.” I could hear the excitement in his voice, and also a little fear. I looked out the window to see what might be going on, but there was nothing unusual out there.
That night, I was proud to stay with Hannah while Ethan played football with his friends. I led her over to where Mom usually took me and showed her where to sit.
We’d only been there a little while when Todd came walking by.
“Hi, Bailey,” he said to me, his voice friendly. But something was still wrong about him. I sniffed the hand he held out but pulled my head away when he tried to pet me.
“Do you know Bailey?” the girl asked. I thumped my tail on her leg when I heard my name.
“We’re old pals, aren’t we, boy? Good dog.”
I did not need to be called a good dog by someone like Todd.
“You don’t go to school here. Do you go to East High?” Todd asked.
“No, I’m just visiting Ethan’s family.”
“What are you, a cousin or something?”
The people in the crowd all shouted, and I jerked my head around. More wrestling was happening out on the big lawn. I gave a little tug at the leash, but Mom must have told Hannah to keep a good hold of it. I wasn’t going to get to play today, either.
“No,” Hannah told Todd. “Just … a friend.”
“So you want to hang out?” Todd asked. “Some of us are getting together. This game’s going nowhere.”
“No, I … I’d better wait for Ethan.” I cocked my head toward the girl. I could sense her getting anxious, and I didn’t blame her. Maybe she could feel the anger inside Todd, just the way I could. It was always there, and now it was starting to build.
I remembered the way his hand had come down on my hindquarters. I moved a little closer to the girl.
“Ethan!” Todd turned and spat in the grass. “What, is he your boyfriend?”
“Well…”
“’Cause you should know, he’s pretty much going out with Michele Underwood. She’s one of the cheerleaders.” Todd pointed. “See, over there? With all the blond hair?”
“What?”
“Yeah. Like, everybody knows it.”
“Oh.”
Todd moved closer to the girl, and when she stiffened, I saw that his hand was touching her shoulder. Nervousness spiked inside her, and it brought me to my feet.
Todd looked down at me, and I felt the fur lifting on the back of my neck. Before I even knew I was going to do it, a low growl rose in my throat.
“Bailey!” The girl leaped up. “What’s the matter?”
Todd was looking at Hannah now, ignoring me. “Why don’t you tie up the dog and come with me? It’ll be fun.”
“Um, no.” Hannah tugged at the zipper on her jacket. “No. I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not? Come on.”
“No, I have to take care of Bailey.”
Todd shrugged. He stared at her. “Yeah. Well, whatever.”
The anger inside him was a tide about to overflow. I growled again. This time the girl didn’t say anything to me about it. She didn’t say anything to Todd, either.
“Fine,” Todd said. “You ask Ethan about Michele. Okay? You ask him.” He jammed his hands into his pockets and walked away.
Hannah sat down and put an arm around me. I leaned against her. When the rest of the people around us shouted and yelled, she stayed quiet.
An hour or so later, Ethan ran up to us, sweaty and happy and excited. “Michigan State, here we come!” he shouted. I wagged and barked and danced at the end of my leash. Then Ethan’s happiness drained away as he looked at the girl.
“What’s the matter, Hannah?”
“Who is Michele?”
I put my paw on Ethan’s leg to let him know that I was ready to play with the football now, if he wanted. The other boys had left the big lawn, but I was right here.
“Michele? Who do you mean?” Ethan laughed, but the laughter stopped after a second, as if he had run out of air. “Hannah? What’s wrong?”
The boy and the girl walked in circles around the big yard, talking, talking, talking, while the other people left and the light faded and the air grew chillier. I trailed behin
d them, finding some worthwhile scraps on the ground—popcorn, crusts from a tuna sandwich, an ice cream wrapper. I wondered why people thought that making sounds with their mouths was more fun than chasing a football or running around on a field.
“I don’t know this girl,” Ethan said. “Who said that to you?”
“I don’t know his name. He knew Bailey, though.”
I froze at my name, and lifted my nose from the candy wrapper I was licking. But nobody seemed about to take it away from me. I went back to work.
“Everybody knows Bailey. He comes to all the games.”
More walking. More talking. But I’d already found most of the scraps worth eating, and I was ready to go home. Finally, the boy and the girl stopped and hugged each other. They certainly did that a lot.
“Want to go for a car ride, Bailey?” the boy asked.
Of course I did!
We went home, and there was more talking (didn’t they ever get tired of that?) and some more hugging on the couch. I went into the backyard, leaving them to it, and found something remarkable there.
Meat. A big piece of meat lying right in the grass.
I was about to gulp it down before any other dog could come along and steal it, but I hesitated. I put my nose down for a second sniff.
It didn’t smell quite right. There was a funny, bitter odor that I had never smelled on food before. Even more strange, Todd’s scent was all over it.
I picked up the piece of meat and carried it over to the patio near the back door. Then I dropped it. It didn’t just smell bitter; it tasted bitter, too. Foamy saliva rushed into my mouth and I let it dribble out onto the grass.
I sat down and looked at the meat.
It didn’t smell right. It didn’t taste right. But it was meat. Right here in my own yard. Maybe if I gulped it down fast, the bitter taste wouldn’t be so bad.
I poked the meat with my nose and then lay down next to it, staring at it. Why did it smell so strongly of Todd?
17
When Mom came outside the next morning and saw me, I hung my head and flattened my ears. I felt guilty for some reason. But I wasn’t sure why.
“Good morning, Bailey,” she said. Then she saw the meat. “What’s this?”
She bent over to look at the meat more closely. I tried a timid wag. The tip of my tail just brushed against the patio bricks. That meat had been worrying me all night. Should I have eaten it? Was it the right thing to leave it alone? What should I do to be a good dog?
When I rolled over and Mom rubbed my belly, I felt better. Bad dogs didn’t get tummy rubs. “Where did this come from, Bailey?” Mom stopped scratching and picked the piece of meat up gingerly between two fingers. “Ugh,” she said.
I sat up and cocked my head. Was Mom going to feed me the meat? If she did that, it must be okay after all. My tail wagged more strongly.
“Yuck, Bailey. You don’t want that, whatever it is,” Mom said. She dropped the meat into the garbage.
Hannah sat in my front seat for the car ride to the giant silver school bus, and I was alone in the car for a long time while Ethan and Hannah stood and hugged. When the bus drove away and the boy came back to the car, I could sense his loneliness and wondered if he needed to go home and play Doghouse. I hopped into the front seat and lay down with my head in his lap instead of sticking my nose out the window.
The girl came to visit again the day after the family sat around the indoor tree and tore up papers for Merry Christmas. Normally, I liked this time of year because I’d have Mom and Dad and Ethan together, in one room, with good smells coming from the kitchen and some paper for me to rip with my teeth. (The family didn’t usually like it when I ripped up paper, but on Merry Christmas the rules were different.)
This year Christmas was not as much fun as usual, because Ethan gave Mom a new black-and-white kitten, named Felix. That little scrap of fur had no manners at all! He would stalk my tail from behind or leap out at me from behind the couch, batting at me with his tiny paws. When I tried to play with him, he wrapped his legs around my nose and nibbled me with his sharp teeth. He was worse than Duchess when she’d been a puppy! Finally, I shrank into a corner and put my nose down on my front paws with a long sigh to remind Ethan of how much I was suffering.
Even Hannah, when she arrived, paid far too much attention to Felix. I’d known her longer and, of course, I was her favorite pet. But she kept dangling bits of Christmas ribbon in front of the kitten’s nose and laughing. I’d have to come up and nudge her hard with my nose to make her give me one of those good ear rubs.
At least I got to go outside with Hannah and Ethan. Felix tried once. He put one paw into the fluffy white snow that surrounded the house and then turned around and dashed straight inside as if he’d been burned. So when the boy and the girl built a big pile of snow in the front yard and put a hat on it, I was right there beside them. The boy liked to tackle me and drag me around in the white stuff, and I liked to let him, just for the joy of having his arms around me. It was how we’d played every day when we were both younger.
Her second day with us, Hannah and Ethan and I went sledding. Felix, of course, had to stay behind.
The sun was out, and the air was so cold and clean I could taste it all the way down my throat. Most of the children from the neighborhood were there at the sledding hill, and Hannah and Ethan spent as much time pulling the younger ones up to the top as riding down themselves. I was at the bottom when Todd drove up.
He looked at me when he got out of the car, but he didn’t hold out his hand or say anything to me. I kept my distance.
“Linda! Come on, time to come home!” he shouted.
Linda was on the slope with three of her little friends, sliding down on a round piece of plastic, spinning and giggling. Ethan and Hannah flashed past them, both lying on one sled.
“No! I don’t want to!” Linda yelled.
“Now! Mom says!”
Ethan and Hannah flopped off their sled at the bottom of the hill, tumbling in the snow. I raced over and sniffed them, in case they smelled different now that they’d had a ride without me. Todd stood and watched them.
Something in Todd rose up to the surface, something worse than anger, something I’d never felt from anyone before. It was dark, scalding hot, and frightening. My head came up, and I felt a growl swelling in my throat.
Ethan and the girl stood up, wiping snow off of each other. Happiness was spilling off them. I looked back and forth from them to the other boy standing so still, his face a blank, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched.
“Hey, Todd,” Ethan said, beaming.
“Hi.”
“This is Hannah. Hannah, this is Todd. He lives down the street.”
Hannah reached her hand out, smiling. “Nice to meet you.”
Todd stiffened a little. “Actually, we already met.”
Hannah pushed her purple knitted cap back a little from her eyes. “We did?”
“At the football game,” Todd said. Then he laughed, a short bark. It sounded to me like a warning.
Hannah blinked. “Oh. Oh, right,” she said.
“What?” Ethan asked.
“I have to pick up my sister,” Todd told them. “Linda!” he yelled, cupping his hands to his mouth. “Come home now!”
Linda’s sled had spun to a stop. She tugged herself out of a pile of friends and trudged through the snow toward Todd, her face downcast.
“He’s … he’s the one I talked to,” Hannah told Ethan. Some worry flickered through her, and I felt it. I also felt the quick flare of anger from Ethan.
“Wait, what? You? Todd, you were the one who told Hannah I’m going out with Michele? I don’t even know Michele.”
“I got to go,” Todd mumbled. “Get in the car, Linda.”
“No, wait,” Ethan said. He reached his hand out. Todd jerked away from it.
“Ethan,” Hannah murmured. She put a mittened hand on his arm.
“Why would you do that, To
dd? Why would you lie? What’s wrong with you, man?”
The emotions boiling inside Todd seemed hot enough to melt the snow he stood on, but his face didn’t change. He stood there, not saying a word. I wanted to grip the hem of Ethan’s jacket in my teeth and tug him away, but I knew that good dogs shouldn’t do that.
“This is why you don’t have any friends, Todd.” Hannah drew in a quick little breath when she heard Ethan’s words. “Why can’t you just be normal? You’re always doing stupid things like this. It’s sick.”
Todd still said nothing. He simply walked away and got in his car. Linda was already in the backseat. He slammed the door.
Todd’s face, looking out the window at Ethan and Hannah, was absolutely blank. Even the motor of the car sounded angry as he drove away.
“That was mean,” Hannah said.
“Oh, you don’t know him.”
“I don’t care. You shouldn’t have said that he doesn’t have any friends.”
“Well, he doesn’t. He’s always doing this kind of stuff. He’s always been twisted, you know? Ever since we were kids. The kind of stuff he thinks is fun…” Ethan shook his head. “Anyway, I don’t care about Todd. Come on, we’ve got to get home.”
A few days after Hannah left, the snow came down and the wind blew so hard that we stayed inside all day, sitting in front of the heaters. That night, I slept under the covers on Ethan’s bed. The next morning the snow finally stopped, and Ethan and I went out and dug for hours in the driveway, him with a shovel and me with my paws.
The moon came out right after dinner, so bright that I could see nearly as well as in the daytime. When I went out in the backyard, the air was thick and sweet with the smell of smoke from many different fireplaces.
Ethan shut the door and went inside. Faintly I heard him call to Mom, “I’m worn-out from all that shoveling. I’m going to bed. Let Bailey in, okay?”