Howl (5 page)

“But what if it’s too soon?” Robin asked.

Griff patted her face gently. “Just leave the ‘what ifs’ out for now, okay? They’ll make us both worry.”

Robin blushed. She hated being reprimanded.

Squirm pointed to the dog’s tail. “Oh, no — look, she’s having a poo.”

A dark mass ballooned out of a small opening at Relentless’s rear.

“That’s a puppy,” Griff said. “That’s how they come out, wrapped in a little bag.”

Relentless began licking the outside skin on the pouch then nipped it with her teeth. It tore like cling-wrap and she was able to lick off the rest of the covering. Inside was a tiny baby dog. It was only a few inches long and had a pink head and four pink paws. Its eyes were closed, and it was making barely audible mewing sounds and moving its head in a wobbly, drunken kind of way.

Squirm pointed to the string attaching the puppy to Relentless. “What’s that?”

“The umbilical cord,” Griff said, smiling. “You had one attached to your mom too, but the doctor cut it off.” Relentless quickly chewed through the cord. “He just doesn’t do it with his teeth like Relentless!” Squirm laughed, and Griff arranged the tiny puppy so it was close to one of Relentless’s nipples. The puppy made a deep, guttural sound as it began to suck. “I thought that’s what this little fellow was looking for.”

The new puppy suckled for a few moments then nodded off, asleep at the task. A while later, a second bulge appeared, and soon another puppy was deposited on the bed of towels. “Here, Robin, you hold the first one, and I’ll take care of the second.” Griff lifted the first puppy and put it on a towel in Robin’s lap.

Robin felt a rush of air go into her lungs as she held the puppy. She felt almost weightless, as if she’d suddenly been filled with a dozen coloured balloons and might simply float off the ground. She stared at the puppy. Never had she seen anything so tiny and adorable. Could something that small live?

When the third puppy started to arrive, Griff gave the second one to Squirm.

“Wow,” he said in a quiet, awed voice. He cradled it and stroked it gently with the tip of his finger.

Over the next few hours, Relentless delivered four more babies. More time passed, and they waited for the rest of the puppies to arrive. None came.

“I just know there are more in there,” Griff said as she stroked the dog, Relentless began to whine and whimper.

Robin looked at Griff. The deep lines on her grandmother’s face seemed to be all tangled up.

“Is she going to be okay?” Robin asked.

“I’d like to say yes, but I really don’t know,” Griff said. “The poor thing is utterly exhausted.”

Robin winced. When her mom had been sick, everyone always said she was going to get better. When she didn’t, Robin had felt utterly betrayed. But now, for the first time, she understood why people had said what they did. Sometimes the truth was just too hard to bear. Yet still, she was glad Griff had told her the truth.

“Sure wish Dad would get here,” Squirm said as they waited.

It seemed to Robin as if hours had passed when there was a sudden burst of cold air and the sound of a door shutting.

Robin and Squirm shouted at the same time. “Dad!”

Griff’s hand flew to her heart. “Gordon, thank goodness you’re here.”

He strode in, Squirm’s note still in his hand. Ari, who was behind him, took a few tentative steps towards them.

“Puppies!” Elated, Ari sat down and Griff put one of the puppies in her arms. Her face softened with joy.

Their dad pulled out his stethoscope and listened to Relentless’s heart. Then he probed her belly.

“She fell in the lake,” Robin said.

He yanked the stethoscope from his ears and began pulling things from his bag. “We’ve got to get the rest of the puppies out of there.”

Robin watched him fill a syringe and inject it into her dog’s leg. Relentless went limp immediately.

Her father put his hand on Robin’s arm. “It’s okay. She’ll wake up in a little while. Right now, I need to open her up and get the other puppies out.”

“You can do that?” Squirm asked.

“Like pulling apples out of a bag,” he said as he put on some plastic gloves. He did a quick prep of the dog’s abdomen. “Can you hold her in position?”

Robin helped Griff ease Relentless on her back, then watched as her dad made a long incision into the dog’s belly with his scalpel. Squirm gasped, and Ari put the dog she was holding into Robin’s lap then went back to the farmhouse. Robin, however, watched in fascination as her father blotted up the blood then eased the skin on either side of the incision apart. With the dog’s innards exposed, he reached in and pulled out what looked like a long sack. With his scalpel, he cut into the bag and extracted a puppy.

“Wow!” Robin whispered.

Her father snipped the umbilical cord then took a plastic instrument and suctioned out the puppy’s nose. Smiling now, he passed the puppy to Griff.

“Give it a good rub with the towel,” he instructed. “We want to replicate what Relentless would have done with her tongue. That will get everything working!”

Griff massaged the new puppy, but it showed no signs of life.

“Rub harder,” he instructed.

“I’m scared of being too hard,” Griff said, but she rubbed more vigorously. “Come on, little one. Your life is waiting for you out here. There’s a lake, woods, and skunks to chase. Come on, take a breath!”

“It’s moving, look!” Squirm cried.

His dad nodded, but he was concentrating on pulling out another puppy. When he’d cleaned this one up, he passed it to Robin. She received it like a holy thing. These puppies were the most precious things she’d ever touched. Griff helped her rub it into life.

Squirm got the next puppy and began massaging it the moment it was placed in his lap. When the puppy did not move, Griff took over, massaging it as strongly as she dared. Then their dad tried. After a few moments, he shook his head.

“I’m afraid this one isn’t going to make it.”

Squirm looked up at him, alarmed. “It’s dead?”

His father nodded gravely and turned to deliver the next puppy.

Neither of the next two puppies could be brought to life. Their dad put a towel over the three inert bodies.

“Oh well,” Griff said. “We saved most of them.” She gave her son a weak smile. “That’s more than we would have saved if you hadn’t shown up.” She touched his arm gratefully.

Robin wanted to get up and hug her dad, but she didn’t.

Soon he yawned and stood. “I’m going to get some formula for the puppies.”

“Can’t she feed them?” Robin asked.

“She doesn’t have enough teats,” he said. “But also, she’ll recover faster if we supplement.” He brought in small feeding bottles and filled each one with formula. Robin set one of the tiny puppies in the crook of her arm. Its eyes were closed and its whole body throbbed every time its heart beat. Gently, she eased the nipple of the small bottle into the puppy’s mouth and smiled as it made little grunting noises and began to suck. A warm happiness spread through her, a happiness she hadn’t felt for a long time.

Her father started packing up his bag. “These puppies are going to be a lot of work.” He looked at Robin and frowned. “They’ll need feeding every four hours. That means someone will have to get up at two or three in the morning and again at dawn.”

“I’ll take the night shift,” Griff said.

Robin turned to Squirm. “And we can share the early morning one.”

Squirm nodded quickly. “Hey — if we sleep here, we can feed them in the morning, then go right back to sleep.” He looked from his father to Griff. “Can we?”

“I don’t see why not,” Griff said. “That way, you’ll hear them hollering….”

“We’ll move them out to the barn when they’re a bit older,” their father said.

Griff looked at her son fondly. “Remember all the animals you used to keep out there?” She looked at her grandchildren. “Your father used to take in every stray animal that came his way.”

He suppressed a smile. “Don’t give them ideas.” He looked at Robin and Squirm. “The last thing I want is a bunch of animals at home to take care of. I have enough at the clinic. But these won’t be here for long. In a few weeks we can find homes for them.”

Did he mean Relentless, too? Robin didn’t think so but didn’t want to ask. It was never a good thing to ask her father anything when he was tired.

Her father went back to the farmhouse, and Squirm followed to get his puffer. Robin lay down on the floor. She felt so sleepy, she could hardly keep her eyes open.

“Good idea,” Griff said, lying down beside her. “I’m whacked right out.”

Robin smiled. She could hear the puppies making little grunting sounds and feel the heat from the back of Griff’s hand that was touching hers. It felt as warm as a stone in the sun.

“I know you’re tired,” Griff said, “but I need to say something. Can you hear me out?”

Robin opened her eyes and tried to concentrate.

“It may not be something you understand now, it may not be something you understand ever, but I’ve got to say it anyways.”

Robin suppressed a yawn.

“What I want to say is this,” Griff began. “Life can be brutal. It can rip things away from you, even rip away people, people we love.” She squeezed Robin’s hand then let it go. “But I want you to remember that it can also give, give good things like puppies and well, all kinds of other things that you’re going to experience. So don’t go thinking that life isn’t good. It
is
good. At least it can be. Very, very good. Don’t let yourself close down to that, okay?”

Robin tucked Griff’s words into her memory so she could think about them later then let the fuzzy blanket of sleep pull itself over her mind.

For the rest of the March holiday, Robin did nothing but feed the puppies, play with the puppies, and help Relentless heal from the surgery. She still had her stitches in but was recovering well, and Robin believed her father’s assurances that soon she would be her old healthy self.

After the birth of the puppies, Robin had stayed at Griff’s most of the time. Then, suddenly, it was the night before the new spring term at school, so she reluctantly moved back to the room she shared with Ari. The boxes of her stuff from their old house were still piled at the end of her bed.

Ari, whose side of the room was box-free and immaculate, was laying out her outfit for the next day at school.

“When are you going to unpack your stupid boxes?” Ari demanded.

Robin shrugged and didn’t answer. Sometimes it felt good to get her sister mad.

“Your side of the room is a pigsty!”

“Are you calling me a pig?” Robin knew it was dangerous to taunt her sister, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“Oink, oink,” Ari said.

Robin ignored her and began rummaging through one of the boxes in search of something for school. Not that she really cared. She picked out a pair of clean jeans and her favourite apple-green top, the one her mother had given her.

Ari got out her nightdress and took off her clothes. Whenever Robin changed, she always turned away from her sister, shy about being naked. Ari, however, always seemed glad to show off her body.

Robin tried not to stare, but she couldn’t help herself. Her sister had breasts now, and every time Robin saw them, they were fuller and bigger. Robin wondered whether she would have breasts that big. She wanted them and didn’t want them, all at the same time.

She turned away, got into some flannel pajamas and climbed into bed. It felt strange not to be snuggling up with Relentless and the puppies. Feeling unsettled and agitated, she turned towards the wall and tried to get comfortable. Soon she could hear the rhythmic sound of her sister’s breathing.

Robin couldn’t get herself to relax. She kept thinking about the next day. What if the kids were mean? What if she didn’t like her teacher? What if she said something stupid or didn’t know the answer to a question? Her father had told her at dinner that he thought she’d find it easier to make friends in a small school. Robin might have agreed if it had been at the beginning of the school year, but it wasn’t. At this point in time, she was going to stick out like a sore thumb. Everyone would know she was new, and they’d stare at her. She
hated
being stared at. This was a situation where she wouldn’t have minded having Ari along — no one ever looked at Robin when Ari was around. But Ari was in grade nine now and would be going to the high school.

At least she didn’t have to worry about getting there; Griff had said she was going to drive them. Did that mean she was going to introduce them to their new teachers? Something went “glunk” deep in Robin’s gut. What if Griff laughed, and everyone saw her missing teeth? Robin’s eyes stung as if the humiliation were happening at that moment.

If only she could get to sleep. She counted sheep, she counted ice cream cones, she counted puppies, but nothing seemed to help. The next thing she knew, the high-pitched sound of a hair dryer was blasting her awake. What was Ari doing drying her hair in the middle of the night? She opened her eyes, saw the daylight, and pulled the covers over her head. The smell of coconut hair gel filled her nostrils anyway.