Bailey's Story (12 page)

“Bailey!” Ethan yelled, rolling to his feet. “Bailey, no! Bad dog!”

But he couldn't really have meant that I was a bad dog, because he was laughing. I danced away with the ball in my mouth, and when some of the other boys tried to get it back, we had a fantastic game of This Ball Is Mine all up and down the big lawn. Finally, Ethan stopped laughing and called to me as if he really meant it. I raced up to him, panting, and dropped the ball at his feet, waiting for him to throw it again so that we could play some more.

“Doodle dog, Bailey!” he told me. Mom came running to the lawn to take my leash again. And then for some reason she pulled me back to the side before Ethan could throw the ball!

“Bailey, you're a bad dog!” she said, but I could tell that she didn't mean it, either. She was trying hard not to laugh. She did keep a firm grip on my leash all the rest of the game, which wasn't fair. Why did the boys get to play and not me?

Chelsea's puppy, Duchess, grew up and learned how to behave, and we became good friends. When it snowed, Ethan and I went sledding; when the snow melted, we went for walks and played fetch. A couple of times the boy pulled the flip out of the closet and stared at it. Each time, I tried to make myself very small and quiet so that he wouldn't think of making me fetch the thing. Then he'd put the flip away with a sigh, and I'd thump my tail on the floor, relieved.

The next summer was another one where Ethan wanted to push lawn mowers rather than go to the farm. Such a shame. And when the weather turned cool again, there was more football. I never got to play again, though. Sometimes I'd whine a little with frustration when I could smell Ethan in the midst of those running, wrestling boys, but I wasn't allowed to run and wrestle with him. Mom would stroke my head, and I could feel that she understood.

One wonderful new thing almost made up for the football. Ethan started to take his own car rides! Most times he would take me with him, and I'd get to be a front-seat dog. I'd stand with my nose out the window, drinking in the fascinating rush of scents as he drove down the road.

When summer came around again, Ethan took both me and Mom on a car ride to the farm. At last!

Flare pretended not to recognize me, and I couldn't tell for sure if the ducks and ducklings down by the pond were a different set or the same ones from last time. But nothing else had changed at all. I sniffed for the skunk in the woods, checked out what Grandma was cooking in the kitchen, and leaped into the pond, coming back to shake myself all over the family, who were sitting on the front porch.

Nearly every day Ethan would work with Grandpa and some other men, hammering and sawing boards. At first I thought he must be building another go-kart, but after a while I figured out that they were putting together a new barn, right next to the old one (which had a big hole in the roof).

Hammering and sawing were not very interesting, so every day I kept an eye out for anything else that might be going on. That meant I was the first one to spot the woman coming up the driveway. I ran down, ready to bark if I needed to. When I got close enough, I recognized her smell—it was the girl, Hannah! She was almost all grown up!

“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 behind 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.