Diamond Willow (4 page)

I'm sorry! I knew that
blind
curve was coming up.

I should have slowed down sooner.

Roxy licks my face,

sniffs my leg

where I'm

hurt,

too.

 

I

know

Kaylie must be

wondering where I am.

At 11:48, when we have lunch, she

calls from school. (We always eat together.)

Willow, what happened? Your dad said you got hurt!

I don't want to hear about my dad right now. All the kids

think he's so great—they can't wait to get to eighth grade and have

him for science. I'm dreading that. What if he gets mad at me at home,

and then at school
I
have to sit through science class with him?
Thanks,

Kaylie, but you don't
need
to feel sorry for me.
I say,
What Dad meant

was, Roxy got hurt.
You
know—his favorite dog? He's had her since I

was Zanna's age! Oh,
Kaylie
, he's been training her for … forever,

to be his lead dog! And now I think she's blind! Nobody

will say so, but her eyes are all bloody and gross!

Kaylie interrupts:
What about you, Willow?

What happened to your leg? Why

aren't you here today? I don't

have anyone to sit with.

She's good at changing

the subject.
Sit with

Richard,
I suggest.

Make someone

happy
.

 

Dad

comes home

right after school

and goes straight to Roxy.

I go to my room and close the door.

Willow,
he calls to me, but
I can't
tell if he's

going to get mad (
Willow,
get out
here and look

at the once-beautiful eyes
of
my best dog
) or be nice

(
Please, can we talk about
this
?
). Probably, he's mad.

Who wouldn't be? Zanna comes in and sits on the

edge of her bed, looking at me like,
Boy, are you

in big trouble.
I start to say shut up, but at the

last second I realize she didn't actually say it.

After a while, Mom knocks. I let her in; she

sits beside me, asks if she can see my leg.

It's not too bad,
I say. I roll up my jeans

so I can show her where the bruise has

turned some ugly shade of purple-

brown. She touches the swollen

place with her cool fingers.

Bad enough,
she says.

And here's what's

so great about

my mom:

that is

all she

says.

 

I

can't

avoid Dad

forever. We do live

in the same house together,

after all. When Mom calls me

for dinner, I take a deep breath and go

out to the kitchen. Dad's with Roxy, and I

don't look at either of them. Well, I try not to.

Dad calls me over.
Can we talk about this, Willow?

He's looking at Roxy's
face
, not mine.
Shall I tell you

what the vet said?
he asks.
It
isn't really a question, and

I can't exactly say,
No, Dad, don't tell me.
I just shrug.

Dad says,
Roxy is blind. There's nothing they can do.

The exact two sentences I do not want to hear. I know

I should say I'm sorry. I try, but the words get stuck.

I turn away from Dad and Roxy. Mom lays her arm

across my shoulder for a second, and I twist out

from under it, heading for the door.
Sit down

and eat, now, Willow,
Mom says, so I sit

down, but I can't eat. I stare at my plate

and push some beans from one side

to the other. Nobody but Zanna

says much of anything

the whole entire

meal.

 

 

 

Isaac, Willow's great-grandfather (Mouse)

Willow didn't leave me anything tonight. But I can always count on Zanna to start talking with her hands, and drop a lot of crumbs on the floor.

After both girls leave the room, I scurry out to get those crumbs. I'm under the table when I hear their parents talking.

No one shrieks,
A mouse! A mouse!
and jumps up on a chair. (Why do they do that, anyway? They're so big and we're so small.) They're too caught up in their conversation to even notice me.

My ears perk up when Willow's mother asks her father,
Are you going to have Roxy put to sleep?

He doesn't answer right away.

I don't know,
he finally says.
I hate to see her like this.
When he was a child, he couldn't stand to see an animal suffer. Once he found a nest of baby mice whose mother was caught by an owl. He brought them in and fed them. When they were big enough, he took them back where he found them and let them go. The way I heard it, all but one survived.

The vet bill for her eyes could be over a thousand dollars,
he says.

Her mother answers,
Yes, that's true. We'd go into debt again.

But that's not how we should decide,
her father says.
Roxy won't ever pull a sled again, and I've never seen a dog that loves to run like she does. What kind of life will she have?

Her mother thinks about that.
Could she be a house dog? Maybe she'd help keep the mice down.
(That's funny—who's afraid of a blind dog? Roxy would never catch us, even if she could see.)

It's hard to imagine Roxy being happy as a mouser,
her father answers.

Her mother nods.
Should we ask Willow to help us decide?
she asks.

I don't think so. She already feels responsible for this, and if we decide to have Roxy put to sleep, I don't want her to feel responsible for that, too.

They're both quiet until her mother says,
It sounds like you've decided.

Her father looks at the floor and doesn't answer. I keep still. He doesn't see me.

Willow will not like this.

How can I let her know?

 

I'm

sitting

in a corner

of the kitchen

after everyone has

gone to bed. Roxy's finally

asleep. I'm sanding the diamond

willow stick with all my might, working

on one diamond, trying to find its deep-down

center, thinking,
What
would it be like to be blind?

I hear something … What
is
it, scuffling under the table

just a few feet away from
this
chair? I'm completely quiet,

and a brown mouse comes
all
the way out into the room, stops

and looks right at me. I'm
about
to tell myself to leave it alone;

it isn't bothering me—maybe it thinks my sawdust is bread crumbs.

But then it does something odd: it climbs up on the telephone table!

I get up to shoo it away. We don't like the mice to chew up paper

for their nests, and this one has its feet on a piece of paper.

I pick up the paper, and it runs off. Brave little thing.

It actually tilts its head and looks at me. (Or did I

imagine that?) I glance down at the paper:

Old Fork Veterinary Services.

“Prognosis.” “Options.”

“Probable outcome.”

“Recommendation:

1. Euthanasia…”

Does that mean

what I think

it does?

 

Here's

what it says

in the dictionary—

“Euthanasia: 1. The act

of killing a person painlessly

for reasons of mercy. 2. A painless

death.” It says “person” but I bet it means

dogs, too. How do
they
know it's painless?

Or merciful? Roxy
can't
even talk! How

can someone decide to
kill
someone else

without asking? Does
Roxy
get a vote?

Do I? I can't believe they're even

thinking about this! How can

I stop them?
Come on, Roxy,

you sleep in my room

tonight.
I'll figure

this out in the

morning.

 

I

know

Dad's the one

who took Roxy to the vet,

but I bet anything Mom's in on it.

From the way they don't look at me

when I bring Roxy back into the kitchen,

I can see they aren't going to ask my opinion.

I pick up the paper from the vet, wave it at them.

I found
this
,
I tell them.
I know what euthanasia is.

This
means
you're going to kill Roxy, doesn't it?
Dad

looks at Mom.
It's
so obvious they think this is one of

those grown-
up
, don't-tell-the-children conversations.

Willow, listen
to
me
,
Dad says. Okay, I'm listening.

Even for us, this is a hard thing to decide.

See? That's what I mean:

“even”!

 

So

who

besides me

is on Roxy's side?

Grandma and Grandpa

would take care of her, I know it!

But
how can I
get Roxy out to them?

I need someone to
hold on to her
in the sled

while I mush the other dogs. If only Marty

would come home. If only Zanna were

a few years older, and not such

a little blabbermouth.

There has to be

someone …

Kaylie?

 

I

have to

plan this exactly.

If Kaylie and I leave school

right at 11:50, we'll get home just as

Mom leaves to take Zanna to kindergarten.

This is the day she volunteers in Zanna's class,

so we'll have time to pack the sled, hitch the dogs,

and leave for Grandma and Grandpa's house by 1:00.

We can be on the trail for two hours before anyone notices

we're gone, and if all goes well, we can get there before dark.

I find Kaylie beside her locker.
It's
an emergency!
I tell her.

Please! You have to meet me at
the
back door of the school.

Don't say anything to anyone. Come
right
after math class.

She wants me to explain every
thing
, but there's no time.

It will be really hard to get her
to do
this.
Bring your coat

and boots,
I add. She stares at me.
Please, Kaylie, it's a

matter of life and death,
I beg. It sounds so dramatic,

but Kaylie has had perfect attendance since third

grade, and I need her to skip an afternoon of

school without telling her mom, and she's

one of those people who tells her mom

everything. If we can just get Roxy

out there where she's safe, I know

tomorrow morning Grandpa

will bring Kaylie back on

his snowmachine, and

I'll mush home.

It has to

work.

 

We

meet

like we

planned. I don't

go by Dad's classroom

on the way to meet Kaylie

with my coat on,
so
nobody asks

any questions about
what
I'm doing. Kaylie

could have slipped out, too,
if
Richard didn't have

such a major crush on her.
We
try to distract him with a

not-quite-lie:
We're going to
get
lunch at my house today.

Kaylie's nervous. She has been
grounded
exactly once in her

life, almost two years ago now,
for
something like seven hours,