In memory of Ruby,
beloved service dog for Martha Bird
and the model—
especially through the ears—
for Buddy
—M. D. B.
For my two Valentines
—J. A. B.
Acknowledgments
My appreciation to Rubin Pfeffer of East/West Literary Agency, who found my lost little dog a home and then watched over her with such loving care.
And to Kiley Frank of Atheneum, who helped me find the story I most wanted to write.
And to Ariel Colletti of Atheneum, who finished the journey with Buddy and me.
And, of course, to Dawn, my ruby Cavalier, who lay under my desk patiently, day after day, waiting for this latest competitor for my attention to come to life . . . or at least for me to leave the competitor behind and go for a walk.
—M. D. B.
Little dog,
lost.
Little black dog with brown paws
and a brown mask
and a sweet ruffle of brown fur on her bum
just beneath her black whip of a tail.
Satiny coat.
Ears like airplane wings
that drop
just at the tips.
She used to be called Buddy
until no one called her anything at all.
“Hey, you!” maybe.
Or “Shoo!”
Names to run from.
Buddy wasn’t always lost.
Once she owned a boy.
It was the boy who named her.
(“I know she’s a girl,” he’d say,
“but she’s my buddy anyway.”)
Her boy threw a ball
again
and again
and again
until Buddy flopped
onto her belly
in the tickling grass
and dropped
the ball
between her paws,
her tongue as limp
as
a
dishrag
Come and get it, her grin always said,
and then I’ll chase some more.
The boy used to take Buddy’s pointy face
between his hands
and kiss her on the lips,
just like that.
When Buddy was quick,
she could get in a lick
at the exact moment
of the kiss.
The boy would say, “Arghhh!”
and wipe his mouth
with the back of his hand.
Then he’d kiss Buddy
on the lips
again.
In short,
Buddy and her boy
were perfectly matched
and perfectly happy
together.
But nothing,
not even the sweetest love,
can be certain
of lasting
forever.
Not every boy
has the good fortune
of growing up
with a dog to love.
Another boy—
his name was Mark—
in another town—
the town was named Erthly—
had no dog
at all.
Mark had wanted a dog
for as long as he could remember.
He had asked for a dog.
He had begged for a dog.
He had pleaded and prayed and whined for a dog.
Once he’d even tried barking for a dog.
All to no avail.
His mother always said, “No.”
“Puppies piddle,”
she said.
“Puppies chew.”
“I’m sorry, Mark,”
she said every time he asked,
“no dog!”
Though she never looked very sorry.
Mark’s mother gave him much
of what he asked for:
She gave him the catcher’s mitt
he’d admired in the window
of the hardware store
when it wasn’t even Christmas
or his birthday.
She gave him an almost-new bike.
And just about every time
they made the long drive
into the city
she gave him money to buy
a triple-decker ice cream cone
with chocolate on the bottom
and chocolate on the top
and peppermint crunch
in the middle.
She even gave him things
he’d never asked for:
food on the table,
clothes to wear,
a nice little house
with a big green backyard
(perfect for a dog).
But no dog.
Maybe it was his mother’s “No!”—
the flatness of it,
the certainty—
that made Mark want a dog
so much.
Maybe it was that,
before Mark was even born,
his father had gone out
to buy a loaf of pumpernickel bread
and had kept on going.
That’s the way Mark’s mother put it.
“He went out to buy a loaf of pumpernickel bread.”
Mark knew it was a joke—
sort of—
but still,
he had never liked pumpernickel.
It wasn’t that he missed his father.
How can you miss somebody you’ve never met?
But sometimes
his nice little house
and his big green backyard
and his life
seemed kind of lonely
somehow.
So Mark had decided
long ago
that a boy without a dad
or a brother
or a sister
or even a cousin
living close enough to count
needed
a
dog.
He spent hours and hours
reading about dogs.
If he ever got one of his own,
he knew
exactly
how to care for it.
You had to give a dog
food,
fresh water,
exercise,
some good work to do—
like chasing a ball for a boy—
and lots and lots of love.
Mark knew how to do all that.
No problem.
He’d even practiced.
Again and again,
in his imagination,
he’d fed his dog,
he’d talked to his dog,
he’d scratched his imaginary dog
until he’d found the spot
that made an imaginary hind leg
thump
with pleasure.
And every night
he patted the place
next to where he lay in bed
and said,
“Here you go.
Come on up now.”
And the dog who lived
in his mind
always jumped
right
up.
But when he asked his mother again,
she still said,
“No!”
Most of Mark’s friends
in the town of Erthly
had dogs.
Mark didn’t mind that they had dogs
and that he didn’t.
Well,
maybe he did mind,
a little,
but he didn’t w
ant their dogs
to go away.
He just wanted a dog
of his own.
Alex had a pure white German shepherd
named Blizzard.
Ryan had Cinder,
a schnoodle.
(A schnoodle,
in case you don’t know,
is a cross between a schnauzer
and a poodle.)
Cinder was short
and square
and,
to be perfectly honest,
rather chubby,
just like Ryan.
Samantha had a dachshund.
His name was Hotdog.
Trent didn’t have a dog.
He had a large orange-marmalade cat
named Fido.
Fido walked on a leash
like any proper dog,
and he was friends
with every dog in town too.
But that was because every dog in town
knew how to behave
around Fido:
tail down,
head down,
ears down,
eyes down.
When they approached Fido that way,
properly respectful,
he touched noses with them,
politely,
and then let them be.
However,
if a new dog came prancing by,
head and tail high,
not knowing his proper place in Erthly,
Fido hit the end of his leash
like a runaway freight train,
pulling himself free.
What followed
could have come right out of a rodeo.
Fido,
tail puffed and pointing to the sky,
rode the dog’s back
the way a cowboy rides a bull.
The difference
between Fido
was that Fido had more spurs.
If the new dog had merely
been exploring,
he’d never be seen in Erthly again.
If he’d come to Erthly to stay,
he would have learned his lesson.
The next time he met Fido,
he’d tuck his tail,
lower his head,
drop his ears,
cast his eyes down,
and pretend to be very interested
in a good smell
far,
far
from Fido.
Lia didn’t have a dog either,
but she walked her aunt’s dogs,
two golden retrievers named Polly and Daisy.
She walked them every day
for fifty cents.
Practically every one of Mark’s friends
had a dog.
And they all
shared their dogs
with Mark.
But it wasn’t the same,
sharing a dog,
when the leash
was attached
to someone else.
One bright summer morning
Mark woke,
thinking about dogs.
That wasn’t unusual.
He often lay in bed,
listening to his mother
clink about in the kitchen
and thinking about the dog he wanted:
big or small,
rough-coated or soft,
black or brown or white or red or brindled.
This time,
though,
he found himself thinking
instead
about his friends’ dogs.
He found himself thinking
how much fun it would be
to have a place in Erthly
where dogs and kids
could run free,
a place
where he could run free with the dogs!
“What we need in this town,”
he said,
right out loud to the light fixture
hanging above his bed,
“is a dog park.”
He could see it all!
He and his friends
would step through the gate
of the dog park,
unsnap the leashes,
and watch the snarl of dogs
untangle and bound away,
scattering rabbits and squirrels
like leaves
before a rowdy breeze.
Mark’s scalp,
beneath his bristle of brown hair,
tingled,
just thinking about it.
He would ask his mother.
Not for a dog this time.
He knew the answer to that.
He would ask for a dog park
instead.
His mother,
you see,
was the mayor of Erthly,
and if anyone could get them
a dog park,
she was the one.
Back to Buddy.
She’d had a family once.
But then you know
about her boy.
She had a mom and a dad, too.
Grandparents.
Aunts and uncles.
Cousins.
She even had a dog cousin,
a raggedy terrier named Rikki.
Buddy and Rikki used to play chase
around Rikki’s backyard
whenever Buddy visited.
They’d tussle and tumble,
growl and grin,
grab each other by the scruff of the neck.
(Do you know what “scruff” means?
I’ll tell you,
just in case you don’t.
“Scruff” is another word for “nape.”
Oops!
You don’t know “nape,” either?
How silly of me.
It means the back of the neck.
Yes, I know.
I could have said so.
But “scruff” is such a satisfying word,
don’t you think?)
Scruff or nape or back of the neck,
however you name it,
Buddy was a very happy dog.
But all that was before.
Before Dad said, “We’re moving.”
Before Dad said, “We’re moving far away.”
Before he said, “We’re moving
to an apartment in a big city.”
Then he looked down at Buddy’s airplane ears
that drooped just at the tips
and said,
“An apartment in a big city is no place for a dog.
We’ll have to find a new home
for Buddy.”
The boy cried.
Mom blew her nose.
Even Dad took a deep breath
But when he turned back
again,
he had nothing more to say.
Everything the family owned
disappeared into boxes,
except Buddy’s bowl,
her bed,
her bone,
her ball,
the orange-marmalade stuffed cat she liked to toss
into the air
and
catch
again.
The orange-marmalade stuffed cat
she always rested her chin on at night
when she slept.
Everything disappeared into the moving van
or into the car.
Even Buddy piled into the car
with her bowl,
her bed,
her bone,
her ball,
and her stuffed cat.
Buddy was excited.
She loved car rides.
Maybe she was going to visit her cousin,
Rikki,
the ragged terrier.
And they did
indeed
drive to another town,
but not to the one where Rikki lived.
They drove to a town called Erthly,
though no one bothered
to tell Buddy
the town’s name.
When the car stopped
in front of a strange house,
the boy got out
with Buddy on her red leash.
Mom got out too,
carrying Buddy’s bowl
and bed
and bone
and ball.
Buddy carried her own
orange-marmalade stuffed cat.
A woman
with salt-and-pepper hair
opened the door of the strange house.
She looked down at Buddy,
at her airplane ears
and the sweet ruffle of brown fur
on her bum.
“I’ll take good care of her,”
she said.
And then she added,
“What did you say her name was again?”
“Buddy,”
the boy and his mom said together.
“Buddy,”
the woman repeated,
like someone memorizing a difficult poem.
Then the boy gave Buddy
a scratch
behind her left ear
where she always had an itch.
And he gave her
a kiss
on the lips.
Buddy got in
one
last
lick.
And the boy and his mother
walked slowly
back to the car.
The woman waved good-bye
and shut her door.
She looked down at the little black dog
with a brown mask.
She looked at Buddy’s bowl
and bed
and bone
and ball.
She looked at the orange-marmalade stuffed cat.
“Oh, my,” she said.
“I know nothing about dogs.
How will we manage,
you and I?”
“A dog park?”
Mark’s mother
turned from the eggs she was frying.
A crease dug deep
into the pale space
between her eyebrows.
“Erthly is a small town,
Mark,”
she said.
“The budget has no room
for dog parks.
We’d have to buy land.
We’d have to build a fence.
Someone would have to take care of it.
It would take too much money.
Don’t you see?”
Mark didn’t see.
He didn’t want to see.
He refused to see
anything.
He slumped in his chair.
“The park we have
needs new playground equipment,”
his mother went on.
“Those rusty old swings are a disgrace.
And there are potholes
all up and down Walnut Street.
Besides,”
she added,
“the sheriff needs a raise.”
Mark sighed.
The sheriff was Trent’s dad.
It would be fine
if Trent’s dad