Waggit's Tale (13 page)

S
pring was in the air. You could feel it and smell it. Even the humans could smell it.

As the days became longer and warmer, the pace of life in the park picked up. Now instead of hurrying, shoulders hunched and collars pulled up around their ears, the humans strolled at a more leisurely pace. For the dogs, life became a bit easier, and yet more difficult at the same time. Because there were more people around, there was more food, but also more rangers, or so it seemed. As far as they were con
cerned, getting the park ready for spring included not only blowing away the dead leaves with noisy, smelly machines, but also taking a much more aggressive approach to any dog off a leash. A couple of loners who had ventured too close to the Skyline End had already been captured, and Cal and Raz had to make an undignified escape while foraging near the Bigwater when they were chased by a female worker brandishing a spade.

The big question was, What would happen to the restaurant in the park now that Tashi's team no longer existed? The Tazarians had seen neither hide nor hair of Tashi and his evil lieutenant, Wilbur. It was assumed that the restaurant and its magnificent, often overflowing Dumpsters would be handled on a first-come, first-served basis by the rest of the dogs, now that it was no longer in anyone's realm. It was going to require very fine timing. You couldn't get there too early, while the restaurant workers were still filling the containers, but if you arrived too late all of the good stuff would be gone.

Waggit still thought they should've moved to the Goldenside and taken over Tashi's realm for themselves, but Tazar continued to reject this idea. For one
thing they had not been able to find a shelter there that was as safe, dry, and comfortable as the tunnel, although Waggit and Lowdown had spent many hours looking for one. Tazar also felt that the restaurant should be available to all of the dogs in the park, not hoarded by one group or another. In his opinion there was more than enough food to go around, and that the huge amount they had found in Tashi's stash was evidence of his greed. Waggit, remembering the many days of the recent past when they had no food at all, didn't agree. To him it was good planning on Tashi's part to have prepared for the lean winter days.

As for the rest of the team, Little One and Little Two had grown enormously since they had been adopted. They were obviously going to be big dogs, but nobody had bothered to rename them, and Waggit suspected that they never would. It would soon be time to send them out on their first hunts to test the skills that they had developed at play. Lowdown was feeling much better with the warmer weather, his joints no longer as creaky as they had been during the bitter cold. However, Gruff was predicting a wet spring according to the feelings in
his
bones. Alicia spent most of her time washing her coat with her ele
gant tongue and generally preening herself—for what, nobody knew, because she rarely left the tunnel; when she did she looked magnificent. Actually she was the dog that could move most freely through the park, with the least amount of harassment; she was such a fine and expensive-looking creature that everyone who saw her assumed that she must have an owner. This would have been a great benefit to the team had she ever condescended to go anywhere on their behalf, but when asked to do anything, she either decided that the request was beneath her or she was too tired. Why they all put up with her behavior they were not quite sure, but that was the way she had always been, and she was a kind of fixture now.

Alona was the opposite of Alicia in almost every way. Had she been on a leash led by the mayor she would still look like a park dog. She moved like one, always avoiding open spaces, hurrying into the thick undergrowth. Her coat was always matted and covered with leaves or bits of twig, and she was suspicious of everyone and everything except her fellow team members, whom she had come to love. She was really halfway between a team dog and a loner, and would often disappear for days at a time, then return and
sleep from sunrise to sunset. She was a good, although not a great, hunter, but her biggest contribution to the team was the information she brought back from the far reaches of the park. Although loners lived solitary lives, they nevertheless had a strong network among themselves, and surprisingly were the most terrible gossips. It was through Alona that the team got most of its news about park happenings.

Magica and Gordo had fully recovered from their near-death experience, which, in a strange way, had brought them closer together, and they were rarely seen apart. As the team had predicted, Gordo no longer played the role of security officer. Either he had forgotten or become bored with it. The other two dogs who were rarely apart were Cal and Raz, the perpetual adolescents, who goaded each other into taking the biggest risks and were always courting disaster. They were the best scavengers on the team because they would always get closer to the food vendors or the customers outside the snack bar than the other dogs dared. On many occasions they had avoided capture by inches. Although they teased each other with accusations of cowardice or weakness, in reality they were the two animals who were most closely bonded;
they would have died to protect each other.

Tazar continued to be the dominating presence in the team and the undisputed leader. He was spending less time away now that his puppies were a little bigger, but their existence and that of Solosa was still a secret. Alona had picked up a snippet of news about Solosa's new family, but not who the father was.

So this was the team at the beginning of spring. They were a tight-knit and strongly bonded group, well led, well housed, and looking forward to the summer months, when they would be well fed. They faced the future with optimism, blissfully unaware how short-lived their cheery confidence was destined to be.

The problem began when Waggit and Lowdown were walking along some paths that led to the Deepwoods. They were supposed to be foraging, but they were just enjoying being together and feeling the balmy breeze and the warmth of the sun. On days like this being a free dog in the park seemed to both of them the best possible life. It was amazing how quickly the hardships of winter vanished from memory with the mildness of spring. As they sauntered along talking about this and that, they suddenly heard the sound of
a human singing. It was a woman's voice, and it would stop every so often while she took a mouthful of something to eat. They could smell the food that was her meal—some kind of meat, that much they knew. They were surprised that she was in this part of the park, because humans hardly ever came here even in the height of summer, let alone this early in the year. Neither dog had eaten much that day, or even the day before, and they were both hungry.

“Let's go and see if she drops some,” whispered Waggit.

“Okay, but be careful,” said Lowdown.

“Aren't you coming too?” asked Waggit.

“No, I'm too old and slow,” said Lowdown. “You go and see, and if you get some bring it back here.”

Waggit thought that Lowdown used the “old and slow” excuse a little too often, but he let it go this time. Very carefully he edged toward the sounds and smells under the cover of some bushes. Then suddenly he saw her; she was sitting crossed-legged on a rock with a package of sandwiches by her side, thick pastrami sandwiches, fat with layer upon layer of thin, sliced meat. In one hand she held a piece of paper with strange markings on it. It was a sheet of music, but
Waggit didn't know that, and neither did he care. All he could see was the meat, and he could feel the drool starting to run out of his mouth.

He was so focused on it that he forgot that the leaves on the bushes under which he crouched were still young and not fully formed. They weren't doing as good a job of hiding him as he had hoped. The woman suddenly looked up and caught sight of him.

“Why hello, little fellow,” she said in a pleasant voice. “Who are you, and where did you come from?”

Waggit froze, his mind quickly planning his escape.

“Don't be scared,” she said. “I won't hurt you.”

Waggit of course could not understand anything she said. All he could think of was the piece of sandwich in her hand and the pastrami that overflowed its edges. She saw him looking at the food.

“Do you want some?” she asked, holding out her hand. “Here.”

Waggit had been told too many stories by Tazar and others of the ways that humans tried to trap you, and there was no way he was going to go closer. On the other hand he was mesmerized by the smell of the meat. When he didn't move, the woman took the pastrami out of the bread and threw it toward him. It
landed about a foot away from his nose, the smell overpowering him, and he couldn't resist. He rushed forward, snatched it in his mouth, and ran back to Lowdown. They divided it up pretty much equally between them, although Waggit did get slightly more, which was only right, considering that he was the bigger dog and he was the one who got it in the first place.

“Boy, that was good,” whispered Lowdown. “It's a pity that's all there was.”

“I'll go back and see if she does it again,” Waggit quietly replied.

“Be careful,” said Lowdown. “It might be a trap.”

“Don't worry,” Waggit said.

Slowly and carefully, he went back to the same spot, all the while looking out for anything that was suspicious.

“Why, you're back,” said the woman. “Was that good? Ready for some more?”

Waggit lay there prepared to run at the first sign of trouble. Then the woman took all the meat from one half of a sandwich and tossed it at him. This time she threw it too hard, and it hit him full in the face.

“Oops.” She laughed. “Sorry!”

Waggit didn't care. The only thing he was worried about was collecting all the pieces as quickly as possible and then making his escape. He ran triumphantly back to Lowdown, holding his head high, the pastrami flopping up and down.

“My oh my,” said Lowdown admiringly when he saw all the meat in Waggit's jaws, “that's way too much for us to eat here. We have to take that back to the team.”

Waggit knew that he was right. It
was
too much to eat on the spot, and so they started back toward the tunnel, where they would add it to the communal meal that night.

The following day Lowdown was feeling stiff and achy and told Waggit that he thought he would stay in the tunnel and rest. Cal and Raz invited Waggit to join them instead, but he politely refused. He had a hunch that the woman might be there again. There was no reason to think that she would be, but in the time that he had lived in the park the young dog had come to rely on his instincts and had found that they were rarely wrong.

Sure enough, as he got closer to the spot where they had met the day before, he could hear her singing
again, only this time there was no evidence that she was eating. There were no pauses in her song, no noises made by her chewing, and no muffled notes. There was, however, a strong smell of meat again, and a delighted smile when she saw him.

“Well hello,” she said. “You're back. I hoped you would be.”

He lay there, tense, but not quite as tense as yesterday, his eyes focused on a large kielbasa sausage that lay on the rock by her side.

“Looks good, doesn't it?” she said and broke off a piece, holding it out in her hand for him to take.

He was still wary of going too close to her, even though she seemed nice enough. He was moving slowly toward her when he heard a twig snap nearby. He leapt back, his heart pounding, but nothing happened. It was probably a raccoon or a squirrel breaking a branch as it went by, but it was enough to make him stay exactly where he was.

“You still don't trust me, do you?” said the woman. “I'm okay, honestly.”

She threw the piece of sausage to him and this time it landed perfectly, right between his paws. He wolfed it down without moving.

“Wow,” she said, “you
are
hungry. I wonder who you belong to? You don't have a collar on.”

Waggit didn't understand any of her words, but he did understand that there was still most of a kielbasa left next to her on the rock.

“Well, my little friend, you can have all of this,” she offered, picking it up, “but you're going to have to come and get it.”

She held the sausage out, and Waggit waited for her to throw it, but she didn't.

After a while she said, “Come on. Come and take it. I won't hurt you.”

He moved forward a couple of paces.

“That's right,” she coaxed, “come on.”

He crept a little closer; she didn't move; again a few inches nearer the sausage; again she didn't move. Finally he could stand it no longer and ran forward, snatched the food out of her hand, and ran back to the tunnel as fast as his legs could carry him.

When he arrived, panting and out of breath, he dropped the sausage onto the evening's supper pile. Lowdown looked at it and turned to Waggit.

“It's from that Upright again, isn't it?” he said.

“No,” said Waggit, “I just found it.”

“Are you sure?” asked Lowdown.

“Absolutely sure,” said Waggit.

He had no idea why he lied to his best friend, but he did. Something inside him wanted to keep the woman for himself; it wasn't a plan or anything as complicated as that, but just a feeling that this was what he should do.

It was the same instinct that told him to go back the next day by himself, and then the day after that, and the one after that. Each time she was there, sitting on the same rock in the same cross-legged position and singing. And each day she had some delicious treat. She knew he liked meat, and the food she brought was always different from the day before. He became more trusting with every encounter, and by the third day he allowed her to stroke him and tickle him under the chin, both of which she did very well.

On the sixth day he turned up at the same time, but there was no sound of singing as he approached their usual meeting place. He continued more cautiously, keeping beneath the bushes as much as he could. She was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he was too early or too late, or maybe she was. He thought he had better wait for a while in case she turned up. As he lay there
his nose started working. He was definitely getting a faint scent of meat. Maybe she had turned up early and, when she saw that he wasn't there, had left a package by the rock.