Dog Whisperer

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Authors: Nicholas Edwards

BOOK: Dog Whisperer
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Emily was drowning. It was very cold, and dark, and—
where
was
she? The water was choppy, and deep, and seemed to be swirling around her. She tried to swim, but the current was too strong. Then, a huge wave came rushing towards her, and she felt herself being sucked under.
She fought her way back to the surface, gasping and choking and fighting for air. Okay, okay, she shouldn't panic. It would only make things worse, if she panicked. Even though she couldn't breathe, or think, or—the water was salty. Very salty. Ocean water. She was somewhere in the ocean!
She tried to yell for help, just as another wave washed over her, and she gulped a mouthful of seawater, instead. It tasted awful, and she coughed as hard as she could, trying to spit it out. The surf was so rough that it was hard to stay afloat, and she paddled frantically, trying to keep her head above water. She knew how to swim—she was
sure
she knew
how to swim—but, for some reason, she couldn't seem to remember any of the things she had been taught. So, she just thrashed around wildly, hoping to find a rock, or a buoy, or
anything
she could reach out and grab.
How had she gotten here? Had they been out on a sailboat? Or one of her mother's kayaks? Her parents
never
let her go in the ocean by herself, even in the daytime! There was no moon, and she couldn't see any lights, so she must be
way
far out. Alone. In the middle of the ocean. The thought of that was so scary that she screamed for help, but only managed to choke on more water. She gasped and coughed until she could breathe again, paddling frantically the entire time.
“Mom!” she shouted. “Dad! Where are you?”
But, the only thing she could hear was the pounding of the waves, and the only thing she could
see
was the pitch-black night.
She was going to drown. Right here, right now. Her arms and legs were getting weaker, and she
knew
she was going to drown. She was so tired—and scared—that she wanted to give up and let herself go under, but she decided to call for them one more time and see if they could save her before she—
“Emily,” a voice was saying.
Her mother's voice. She wasn't alone! Emily twisted around in the water, trying to find her. There was too much water in her lungs for her to be able to speak, and she coughed violently, her whole body convulsing with the effort.
“Emily,” her mother said, sounding gentle. “Emily, wake up.”
Her mother was a
really
good swimmer, so they would be safe. Her mother would figure out some way to—“Where's the boat?” Emily gasped.
“
Wake up
, Emily,” her mother said. “Everything's okay.”
Emily looked around, trying to locate her in the dark water—but, it
wasn't
dark. And, suddenly, they
weren't
in the water. They were in her room, with the light on. Her mother was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking worried, and her cat, Josephine, was staring at her from on top of the dresser. Now, her father was coming into the bedroom, too, looking sleepy and confused—and very nearsighted as he fumbled to put on his glasses.
“What happened?” he asked. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing,” her mother said calmly. “Emily just had a bad dream. Everything's okay now.”
Her father frowned. “Another? Were you drowning again?”
Emily still felt scared and trembly, but she definitely
was
in her room, safe indoors. Not in the ocean. Not lost. Not alone. And, most important, she
wasn't
about to drown. She checked her t-shirt, which felt dry, so she must not have been anywhere
near
the water, even though the dream had seemed completely real.
Incredibly
real. “I-I think so,” she said, and coughed some more, because her lungs still felt—weird. Congested.
Her father frowned again. “Three nights in a row?”
The nightmare had been a little bit different each time, but yeah, she had been having bad dreams for several days, and almost all of them were about drowning. “Is it weird to have it more than once?” she asked uneasily.
Her mother shook her head. “No, of course not. You're probably just overtired from the game.”
Emily was still trying to wake up, so she wasn't sure what that meant, but then she remembered. She and her father had driven down to Portland to watch the Sea Dogs play, and the game had gone into extra innings, so they had gotten home much later than they had planned. Her father hated exercise—of all kinds, but he loved to
watch
sports. Her mother, on the other hand, was surprisingly athletic—but, did not enjoy being a spectator.
“And, you know, we ate quite a lot,” her father said thoughtfully.
That
was for sure. Her father had had a hot dog, a lobster roll,
and
a fish sandwich, and she'd gotten popcorn, cotton candy, some fried dough, a huge soda, and two Sea Dog Biscuits—which were ice cream sandwiches made of vanilla ice cream and chocolate chip cookies. On top of that, their team had lost, after the bullpen gave up a whole bunch of runs in the twelfth inning, which had made her feel kind of sick. Then, when they turned on the car radio on the way back home, they found out that the
Red Sox
had lost, too—which was always upsetting news, for people who lived in New England.
But, at least they had gotten bobbleheads.
“Maybe you had the nightmare because of the bullpen,” her father said, and shuddered a little. “I know
I
had trouble falling asleep.”
Emily's mother laughed. “Go back to bed, Theo, okay?”
While her father gave her a hug good-night,
her mother went out to the bathroom and came back with a wet washcloth. She sat back down on the edge of the bed and used the towel to sponge off Emily's face.
Cool washcloths were her mother's cure for all illnesses. “I don't think I have a fever, Mom,” Emily said, although she coughed experimentally, just to make sure she wasn't sick.
Her mother shrugged. “Well, just in case.”
Josephine, who was a small, round tiger cat, landed noisily on the bed. When she was younger, Emily's father had read her a poem about fog—and they had
lots
of fog in Maine—coming in on “little cat feet.” That might be true, but Josephine had always been really, really
loud
. She walked loudly, ate loudly, and
purred
loudly. When Emily had pointed this out to her father, he had frowned for a minute, and then said, “Well, that just makes her the exception to prove the rule.”
Anyway, Josephine sat down on the quilt, yawned a big yawn, and then began to wash her own face very delicately.
“I think she wants you to do it for her,” Emily said.
Her mother shrugged. “Okay,” she said, and
wiped the washcloth lightly across the top of Josephine's head.
Josephine reacted with an expression of complete cat horror, and leaped back onto the dresser to safety. That was pretty funny, and normally, Emily would have laughed, but she still felt—strange. Confused. A little bit dizzy.
“Do you think you're going to have any trouble getting back to sleep?” her mother asked.
Emily looked over at the clock, and saw that it was almost three in the morning. She knew she should be tired, but she wasn't. If anything, she felt sort of jumpy and nervous. Tense.
Alert
. Wide awake. “I don't know,” she said nervously. “I'm not sure. I feel weird.”
Her mother reached down to touch her forehead with the back of her hand. “Well, you don't seem to be warm.”
No, she felt cold. Really cold. And scared, and lost, and alone—even though she was right here, at home, with her parents, and her cat, in her own bedroom. But she was still more scared than she had ever been in her whole life.
“Are you all right?” her mother asked.
Could she have a nightmare while she was still
awake? Because it seemed that way. She suddenly felt like she wasn't even inside of herself—and it was really, really scary.
“What's wrong?” her mother asked, looking at her attentively.
Emily shook her head. “I don't know,” she said, hearing her voice shake. “I think there's something wrong with me.”
Something
bad
!
Then, just like that, the terror went away, and Emily
blinked.
“What?” her mother asked, her expression still very concerned.
“I don't know.” Emily took a deep breath, and it seemed—normal. She felt normal again. Her bedroom looked the way it always did, and so did everything else. None of it made any sense, and she frowned. “I felt like I was still dreaming. Like—I don't know—I wasn't really
here
. It was creepy.”
“I really think you're just overtired,” her mother said. “Should we read for a while, until you're ready to go back to sleep?”
As long as she could remember, she and her parents had had a ritual of reading together, and they each took turns choosing what book they would read next. Right now, they were in the middle of a really great book full of knights and adventures and big, epic battles.
“We shouldn't really do it without Dad, though,” Emily said. Because, of course, that would wreck the ritual.
“Okay.” Her mother stood up. “Why don't we go downstairs and find something to eat? Or I can fix you some hot chocolate.”
That seemed like a good idea, and Emily put on some socks to use as slippers. Her mother, on the other hand, was wearing
actual
slippers—which were yellow with black spots and shaped like dinosaurs—or maybe leopards; Emily had never been able to decide.
Once they were in the kitchen, Emily sat at the table, while her mother opened the refrigerator.
“What do you think you'd like?” her mother asked, rummaging around inside. Her mother wasn't crazy about cooking, but she enjoyed it more than Emily's father, who was from Manhattan and always wanted to get take-out. “Yogurt, maybe? Or I could heat up some of the macaroni and cheese?”
Emily tipped back in her chair—which she
completely
wasn't supposed to do—so that she could see inside. A bunch of blueberries and raspberries, which they had picked at her parents' friends' farm, what looked like lobster salad—yuck, what was left of a roast chicken her father had brought home
from the deli, chocolate pudding cups, eggs, lots of milk and juice, some iced tea her mother always made by putting a big glass jar out on the deck on sunny days, a plastic container of tofu and carrot casserole, and lots of other stuff.
Healthy
stuff. Boring stuff.
“Please don't do that,” her mother said sharply. “I don't want you to fall.”
Emily shifted her weight so that all four chair legs were back on the floor again. “Could I have a drumstick, please?”
Her mother looked startled. “What?”
Emily pointed at the small roast chicken.
“Oh.” Her mother gave her a strange look, but took the package out and put it on the counter. “Sure. Okay. Would you like a sandwich, or—”
“Just the drumstick, please,” Emily said. “I mean, unless Dad was, like, saving it, or something.”
Her mother shook her head, carefully twisted the drumstick off, and then put it on one of the hand-glazed clay plates her friend Tanya, who was an art history professor, had made. “How about some toast, too?”
Emily nodded, feeling more and more hungry. Starving, in fact. She had thought that she would be stuffed for a
week
, after all the food she had eaten at
the baseball game, but it turned out that she had only been full for about three hours.
But, when her mother set the plate in front of her, Emily frowned down at the drumstick. It looked sort of
disgusting
. Crisp brown skin, dark meat,
bone
—it was really gross. Why had she asked if she could have it?
Her mother was just standing there, watching her. “You don't want that at all, do you?” she asked.
Not even a little bit. Emily shook her head.
“I didn't think so.” Her mother took the plate away, moved the toast to a clean plate, and spread some peanut butter on the bread before handing it to her.
Emily could have sworn that she wanted some chicken—
craved
it, in fact—but that was totally weird, because she didn't eat meat anymore.
Ever
. Not even bacon, although she had to admit that it sometimes actually smelled pretty good. She had made up her mind that she wanted to be a vegetarian back when she was about nine, because eating animals just seemed—wrong. In fact, she had also decided that she wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up, so she could spend her life
helping
animals.
Actually, she loved to draw, so she kind of wanted
to be an artist, too—but, maybe it would be possible to do
both
.
Her parents didn't like the idea of her not eating meat, because they said she was still growing and needed the protein. But, in the end, her mother had talked to Emily's pediatrician, and then went out and bought about a million vegetarian cookbooks. She had also gone over to Dining Services at the college—her parents were both professors at Bowdoin—to discuss healthy menus they could prepare. On top of that, she had even made an appointment with a nutritionist, and all three of them had gone and sat for an hour and a half with a really tall lady who gave them lots of pamphlets and sample diets and everything. That same night, her father had carefully hung a poster of the vegetarian food pyramid on the wall near the pantry, and both of her parents still consulted it for a couple of minutes almost every time one of them prepared a meal for her.
Her mother sat down across from her with a glass of iced tea. “You know, you don't
always
have to be a vegetarian, if you don't want to be. You're allowed to change your—”
“No, I still want to do it,” Emily said quickly. “I guess I just forgot.”
Her mother nodded. “Okay. But, maybe we should talk about it with Dr. Socoby next week.”
School was going to be starting soon, so she had to go for a full check-up, and get weighed and everything. Emily looked at her anxiously. “Do you think something's wrong with me? Because I've been having bad dreams and all?”
“Of course not,” her mother said. “I think you're probably just nervous about junior high. It's perfectly normal.”
Well, she definitely
was
nervous about having to go to a new school. Most of the other sixth graders from her elementary school would be there, too, but the junior high was much bigger, and there would be lots of people she didn't know. And she would have all new teachers, some of whom might not be nice. Like in kindergarten, when her teacher met her, she had immediately asked if she might need remedial tutoring—even though Emily had been reading chapter books for almost a year by then. Her parents got
really
mad, and had her switched to the other class right away.
She glanced at her mother. “Do you and Dad have nightmares?”
“Sure,” her mother said, with a shrug. “Sometimes. Everyone does.”
But probably not three days in a row. “It could, um, maybe be genetic,” Emily said, avoiding her mother's eyes. “Having lots of bad dreams.”
“Well—” Her mother hesitated. “Yes. I suppose it could be.”
Her parents were
her parents
, and she almost never thought about being adopted—except that sometimes, she did. And they didn't talk much about the fact that she was biracial, and her parents—weren't. Her mother had blond hair, even. Well, greyish blond, but still blond. It totally didn't matter, and it was mostly just funny, like when her father got all into celebrating Kwanzaa and everything, and she had had to make him promise
never
to wear kente cloth in front of her friends again. She had also told him that if he ever showed up in a dashiki, she was going to run away and join the circus—or maybe get a job working for a hedge fund. Her mother had laughed, but her father had just seemed disappointed about having to limit his holiday celebration.
“Do you have questions?” her mother asked, her expression very serious. “Would you like to talk about it?”
Yes—and no. Emily thought it over, and then shook her head.
“We can
always
talk about it,” her mother said
earnestly. “Whenever you want. Especially if anything is bothering you.”
Lots of times, it felt like her parents were more comfortable talking about it than
she
was. Emily shook her head. “No, I don't really want to right now. I mean, thank you, but—no. I just—think about them, sometimes.” Her birth parents. Whoever they were.
Wherever
they were.
Her mother started to say something, but then just nodded and sipped her tea, while Emily ate her peanut butter toast. They stayed up for a while longer and talked about what kind of new clothes she was going to need for school, and whether it was possible to watch too many movies starring Julie Andrews, and other relaxing things like that.
But Emily was starting to get very sleepy, and they went upstairs so that they could both go back to bed. After she brushed her teeth, they discussed whether she was too old to be tucked in. Emily definitely thought she was, but always let her mother do it, anyway, because she knew it made her happy.
Her mother kissed her good-night. “Sleep well. And don't turn the light back on and read all night!”
Emily grinned sheepishly, since sometimes she did that, and ended up falling asleep with the light on. Then, whichever parent came in to wake her up
the next morning would know that she had stayed awake reading when she was supposed to be asleep.
Tonight, though, she was really tired. Josephine curled up next to her, purring enthusiastically, and Emily patted her until she finally dropped off to sleep.
Then, it was later—she wasn't sure how
much
later—and it was cold, and there was water everywhere, and she couldn't breathe, and—
She was drowning again!

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