A Dog's Purpose (16 page)

“He’s not . . . there’s something different about him, right? Like is he in special education?”

“Oh no, he’s really smart. That’s not it. He’s just Todd, that’s all. He’s always been
twisted
, you know? We used to be friends, when we were kids. But he had all these weird ideas for what was fun, like throwing eggs at the preschoolers when they were waiting for the van to summer school. I told him I didn’t want to do it—his own sister was one of the kids; I mean, come on—and so he just stomped on the carton of eggs he’d brought over. Made a mess in my driveway that I had to hose off before my dad got home. Bailey liked that part, though.”

I wagged at my name, glad to think we might be talking about me, now.

“I’ll bet he did,” Hannah laughed, reaching down and petting me.

A few days after Hannah left, the snow came down and the wind blew so hard that we stayed inside all day, sitting in front of the heater. (At least, that is what I did.) That night I slept
under
the covers on Ethan’s bed, and stayed there even when I got so hot I panted, just because it was so wonderful to be pressed up against him like when I was a puppy.

The next morning the snow finally stopped and Ethan and I went outside and dug for hours in the driveway. Running in that deep, heavy snow was tough going, and I would leap ahead for only a few feet before needing to stop and rest.

The moon came out right after dinner, so bright that I could see really well, and the air was thick with the fragrance of fire-place smoke. Ethan was tired and went to bed early, but I went out the dog door and stood in the yard, my nose to the faint breeze, galvanized by the exotic light and crisp night air.

When I discovered that the snow had drifted in a huge pile against the fence, I was delighted to climb right up to the top of the mound and drop over the other side. It was a perfect night for an adventure. I went over to Chelsea’s house to see if Duchess was available, but there was no sign other than a fairly recent patch of urine-soaked snow. I thoughtfully lifted my leg on the area so she’d know I was thinking of her.

Normally when I went for a little nighttime exploration, I ventured along the creek. It reminded me of hunting with Sister and Fast when I was a wild puppy, and the smells were always exciting. Now, though, I was forced to stick to the plowed roads, turning up driveways that were clear to sniff at the cracks
between garage doors and the pavement. Some people had already dragged their indoor trees outside, though at Ethan’s house it still stood in the front window, with objects and lights hanging from it for Felix to attack. When I came across the indoor trees lying in the plowed driveways, I marked them with my scent, and it was this, the seemingly endless procession of trees to tag, that kept me out so late. If it hadn’t been for the scent of yet another misplaced tree luring me onward, I would have returned back home and maybe would have arrived in time to prevent what happened.

Finally I was caught square in the headlights of a passing car, and it slowed for a minute, and the smell of it reminded me of Mom’s car whenever she and Ethan came looking for me when I’d been out too long on an adventure, and I felt a quick stab of guilt. I lowered my head and trotted back home.

Turning up the shoveled sidewalk, I was struck by several things at once, all of them wrong.

The front door was open, and the aroma of home was wafting out in great gusts, propelled into the frosty night air by the force of the furnace. Riding on the currents of that air was a chemical smell both sharp and familiar—I smelled it whenever we went for a car ride and stopped at the place where Ethan liked to stand by the back of the car with a thick black hose. And backing out of the house was someone I initially thought was the boy. Not until he turned to shake some more chemical-laden liquid into the front bushes did I pick up his scent.

It was Todd. He took three steps back and pulled out some paper from his pocket and lit it, the fire flickering against his stony blank face. When he tossed the burning papers into the bushes, a blue flame popped up, making an audible noise.

Todd didn’t see me; he was watching the fire. And I never
barked, I never growled, I just ran up that sidewalk in silent fury. I leaped for him as if I had been taking down men my whole life, and surging through me was a sense of power, as if I were leading a pack.

Any reluctance I might have felt to attack a human being was overridden by the sense that whatever Todd was doing, it was causing harm to the boy and to the family I was there to protect. There was no stronger purpose than that.

Todd yelled and fell and kicked at my face. I took the foot that the kicking offered, biting into it and holding on while Todd screamed. His pants ripped, his shoe came off, and I tasted blood. He struck at me with his fists, but I kept my grip on his ankle, shaking my head, feeling the flesh tear some more. I was in a fury, completely oblivious to the fact that my mouth was filled with the unique flavor of human skin and blood.

A sudden piercing noise distracted me, and Todd managed to work his foot loose as I turned to look at the house. The indoor tree was totally aflame, and thick, acrid smoke was pouring out the front door and up into the night. The electronic shriek was painfully high and loud, and I instinctively backed away from it.

Todd stood and limped away as fast as he could, and I registered his retreat out of the corner of my eye, no longer caring. I sounded my own alarm, barking, trying to draw attention to the flames, which were spreading quickly through the house and were curling upstairs toward the boy’s room.

I ran around the back of the house but was frustrated to discover that the pile of snow that had assisted me on my escape was on the wrong side of the fence. While I stood there barking, the patio door slid open and Dad and Mom stumbled into view. Mom was coughing.

“Ethan!” she screamed.

Black smoke was coming out the patio door. Mom and Dad ran to the gate, and I met them there. They shoved past me, running through the snow to the front of the house. They stood looking up at the dark window to Ethan’s room.

“Ethan!” they shouted. “Ethan!”

I broke from them and raced around to the now open back gate. I darted through it. Felix was outside on the patio, huddled under a picnic bench, and she yowled at me, but I didn’t stop. I squeezed through the patio door, my eyes and nose filled with smoke. Unable to see, I staggered toward the stairs.

The sound of the flames was as loud as the wind when we went for a car ride with the windows down. The smoke was suffocating, but it was the heat that beat me back. The intensity of the fire burned my nose and ears, and in frustration I lowered my head and ran out the back door, the cold air instantly salving my pain.

Mom and Dad were still yelling. Lights had come on across the street and in the house next door, and I could see one of the neighbors looking out his window, talking on the phone.

There was still no sign of the boy.

“Ethan!” Mom and Dad yelled. “Ethan!”

I had never before felt such fear as what was pouring off of Mom and Dad as they shouted at the boy’s window. Mom was sobbing and Dad’s voice was tight, and when I began barking again, frantically, they made no move to tell me to be quiet.

My ears picked up the thin wail of a siren, but mostly I could only hear my barking, Mom and Dad calling Ethan’s name, and, over all of it, the roar of the fire, so loud I could feel it as a vibration through my whole body. The bushes in front of us were still burning, clouds of steam rising as the snow melted with a sizzle.

“Ethan! Please!” Dad shouted, his voice cracking.

Just then, something burst through Ethan’s window, showering glass into the snow. It was the flip!

Frantically I picked it up, to show Ethan that yes, I had it.
His head appeared in the hole the flip had made, black smoke framing his face.

“Mom!” he yelled, coughing.

“You’ve got to get out of there, Ethan!” Dad roared.

“I can’t open the window, it’s stuck!”

“Just jump!” Dad responded.

“You’ve got to jump, honey!” Mom shouted at him.

The boy’s head disappeared back inside. “The smoke is going to kill him; what’s he doing?” Dad said.

“Ethan!” Mom screamed.

The boy’s desk chair came through the window, smashing it, and, a second later, the boy plunged out. He appeared to get hung up on the remaining bits of wood and glass, though, so that instead of sailing out over the flaming bushes he dropped directly into them.

“Ethan!” Mom shrieked.

I barked frantically, the flip forgotten. Dad reached into the fire and grabbed Ethan and pulled him out into the snow, rolling him over and over. “Oh God, oh God,” Mom was sobbing.

Ethan lay on his back in the snow, his eyes closed. “Are you okay, son? Are you okay?” Dad asked.

“My leg,” the boy said, coughing.

I could smell his burned flesh. His face was blackened and oozing. I pressed forward, the flip in my mouth, feeling the stabbing pain in him and wanting to help.

“Go away, Bailey,” Dad said.

The boy opened his eyes, and he grinned weakly at me. “No, it’s okay. Good dog, Bailey, you caught the flip. Good dog.”

I wagged. He reached out with one hand and petted my head, and I spat out the flip, which to tell the truth didn’t taste
very good. His other hand was curled up against his chest, blood dribbling out of it.

Cars and trucks began arriving, lights flashing. Men ran up to the house and began spraying it with large hoses. Some people brought over a bed and put the boy on it and lifted it up and put it into the back of a truck. I tried to crawl in after him, but the man at the truck’s back doors pushed me away. “No, sorry,” he said.

“Stay, Bailey; it’s okay,” the boy said.

I knew all about Stay; it was my least favorite command. The boy was still hurting, and I wanted to be with him.

“May I go?” Mom asked.

“Of course; let me help you,” the man replied.

Mom crawled into the back of the truck. “It’s okay, Bailey.” Chelsea’s mother approached, and Mom looked up at her. “Laura? Could you watch Bailey?”

“Sure.”

Chelsea’s mother took hold of my collar. Her hands smelled like Duchess. Dad’s hand, though, smelled of the fire, and I knew he was in pain. He climbed in to be with Mom and the boy.

Nearly everyone in the neighborhood was out in the street, but no dogs. The truck drove off and I gave it a single mournful bark. How did I know the boy would be safe now? He needed me with him!

Chelsea’s mother stood off to the side, holding me. I could tell she was a little unsure what to do now; most of the neighbors were collected in the street, but she’d been close to the house and now everyone acted like they expected her to remain there instead of joining her friends.

“No question but that it is arson,” one of the men said, talking
to a woman who had a gun on her belt. I’d learned that people who dressed like this were called police. “The bushes, the tree, all of it went up at once. Multiple ignition points, lots of accelerant. Family is lucky to be alive.”

“Lieutenant, look at this!” another man called. He had a gun, too—the men in rubber coats didn’t carry guns and were still spraying hoses.

Chelsea’s mother hesitantly eased up to see what they were all looking at. It was Todd’s shoe. I turned my head away guiltily, hoping no one would notice me.

“I got this tennis shoe, looks like there’s blood on it,” the man noted, illuminating the snow with a flashlight.

“The boy got pretty cut up going out his window,” someone else observed.

“Yeah, over there. But not here. All I got here are dog tracks and this shoe.”

I cringed that the word “dog” had come up. The woman with the gun took out a flashlight and aimed it in the snow. “What do you know,” she said.

“That’s blood,” someone else said.

“Okay, you two, see where the trail leads, okay? Let’s tape this off. Sergeant?”

“Yes, ma’am,” a man said, approaching the group.

“We’ve got a blood trail. I want eight feet on either side of it cordoned off. Keep the traffic off the street, and have those people move back.”

The woman stood and Chelsea’s mother bent down, suddenly paying attention to me. “You okay, Bailey?” she asked, petting me.

I wagged.

She abruptly stopped petting me and looked at her hand.

“Ma’am, do you live here?” the policewoman with the gun asked Chelsea’s mother.

“No, but the dog does.”

“Could I ask you to . . . well, wait, are you a neighbor?”

“I live two houses down.”

“Did you see anyone tonight, anyone at all?”

“No, I was asleep.”

“Okay. Could I ask you to join the others over there? Or if you’re cold, please just give us your contact information and you can go home.”

“Yes, but . . . ,” Chelsea’s mother said.

“Yes?”

“Could someone look at Bailey? He seems to be bleeding.”

I wagged.

“Sure,” the woman replied. “Is he friendly?”

“Oh yes.”

The woman bent down. “Are you hurt, boy? How did you get hurt?” she asked softly. She took out a flashlight and probed carefully at my neck. I tentatively licked her face, and she laughed.