How to Look for a Lost Dog (11 page)

There's a long silence. I look out my window. I think about homonyms: toe/tow and toes/tows.

Finally I hear a voice in my ear again. “We do have a dog like that here,” says the man. He sounds excited. “Someone brought her in several days ago. A young blonde female dog with seven white toes, just like you described. We've been trying to—”

My hands start to shake. I drop the phone and it rolls onto the floor. I can't think. I put my hands over my ears and jump up and down on my bed. Then I jump off the bed and pick up the phone. I can hear the man saying, “Hello? Hello?” I click the phone off. Then I click it on again. I dial Uncle Weldon's number before I remember that he's still on his way back to work. I click the phone off. I get out the map and draw a large red circle around Elmara, New York, where Happy Tails is located.

I sit on my hands and try to remember every single thing that's in my mother's box. Finally I phone my uncle again.

He answers on the first ring. “Everything all right?” he asks.

“Rain might be in Elmara!” I cry. “There's a blonde dog with seven white toes at the shelter. Someone brought her in a few days ago. Can we go to Elmara, please? Please?”

“I'll pick you up tomorrow morning at 9.00 a.m.,” says my uncle.

By 8.45 the next morning I am sitting on our porch, just in case Uncle Weldon arrives early. He arrives at 8.55, and I jump up from the couch, call goodbye to my father, and run across our yard to the truck.

Uncle Weldon and I are in a good mood on the drive to Elmara. We talk about homonyms and prime numbers, and I tell him about Parvani's mother. “Parvani cries a lot at school,” I add. “I think she's very sad. I cheer her up with homonyms.”

The closer we get to Elmara, the more I talk.

“Uncle Weldon! Uncle Weldon! There's a sign for ‘Happy Tails Animal Shelter'! ‘Tails' has a homonym. ‘Tales'. That's a good sign, isn't it? Isn't it a good sign? I think it is. I'm sure Rain is the 23-pound blonde dog with the seven white toes that someone brought in. Both 23 and 7 are prime numbers.”

“Rose.” My uncle interrupts me. “Don't get too excited. Just in case.”

“Just in case what?”

“Just in case the blonde dog with white toes isn't Rain after all. Okay?”

“Okay,” I say. But I'm bouncing up and down in my seat, feeling happy.

Uncle Weldon puts on his indicator, and we turn left and rumble along a dirt road. I see a sign that says “Happy Tails – just ahead”. Soon the road ends in a parking lot by a long low building. Now I see a bigger sign that says “Happy Tails”. Under the words are a painting of a dog and a cat curled up together, their tails entwined.

“Where do we park? Where do we park?” I cry.

“Rose, calm down,” says my uncle. “Here's a parking space. And over there I see a sign that says office. Let's go.”

I run ahead of my uncle, through the parking lot, and along a walk to the office sign. I pull open a door. Inside I see a waiting room with a desk and a lot of hard plastic chairs. Some of the chairs are occupied. Most of them are empty. I don't pay any attention to the people in the chairs. I'm only interested in the man behind the desk.

“Rose, slow down!” my uncle calls after me, but he's laughing.

I step up to the desk, stand on tiptoes, and say to the man, “My name is Rose Howard. I called yesterday about my dog.”

I explain about Rain again, and the man begins to smile. “Yes,” he says. “We were hoping you would come in. Just a moment. Let me get the shelter manager.”

He speaks into a phone on the desk and a few minutes later a door at the back of the room opens and a woman walks through it. She's holding a leash and saying, “Come on. Come on, girl.”

I watch the leash as it follows the woman through the door, watch and watch, until finally I can see what's at the other end.

“Rain!” I cry.

I run to her. Rain seems confused at first. Her eyes dart around the room as she looks at the strange people.

But then they settle on Uncle Weldon and me, and she begins to leap and jump and yip and bark.

I slide onto my knees and throw my arms around Rain. She wiggles so hard that her entire body vibrates. Then she puts her front paws on my shoulders and licks my face.

“Rain,” I say again. I look behind me at Uncle Weldon. “It's really her,” I whisper.

I see that my uncle is crying. Then I see that the woman with the leash is crying, and so is the man behind the desk, and so are two of the people sitting in the hard plastic chairs.

Tears are running down my own face, but Rain licks them away, so I don't have to worry about them.

When Rain and I finally settle down and everyone has stopped crying, the shelter manager holds out her hand to Uncle Weldon and says, “My name is Julie Caporale.”

Uncle Weldon and Julie Caporale talk for a while. I don't pay much attention to what they're saying. I sit on the floor where Rain has climbed into my lap and I stroke her ears and paws, and examine her closely. She looks thin, and she has some cuts on her face and some marks on her belly that might be insect bites. But she is still my Rain.

After a long time I hear Mrs Caporale say to my uncle, “It's clear that this lucky pup has found her owners, but I have to follow procedure before we release her to you. Could you please show me some identification? I need to make sure that the information on your ID matches the information on the microchip. I'm a little confused because the chip says the dog's name is Olivia, not Rain.”

I twist my head around to look at Uncle Weldon.

“I'll be happy to show you my driver's licence,” he says, “but I should tell you that I'm Rose's uncle, not her father, and—”

I have to interrupt the conversation.

“What's a microchip?” I ask.

It turns out that a microchip is a tiny chip, about the size of a grain of rice, that a veterinarian injects into a pet, and that contains information such as who the pet's owners are and how to contact them.

“We scanned Olivia – excuse me, Rain – for a chip when she was brought in,” Mrs Caporale tells Uncle Weldon and me.

She's been talking for a long time now, explaining microchip technology, and I'm trying hard not to interrupt again, but finally I can't help it. “We didn't have Rain microchipped!” I burst out. “We've never even taken her to the vet.”

“But she does have a microchip,” says Mrs Caporale.

“Are you sure?” I'm getting a strange feeling in my stomach.

“Of course. We scanned it, and that's how we know her name is Olivia.” Mrs Caporale is frowning now. She sits in one of the chairs and opens a folder she's been carrying. Then she turns to Uncle Weldon. “So you aren't Jason Henderson? From Gloverstown?”

Uncle Weldon shakes his head.

“We've been trying to contact the Hendersons, but we haven't had any luck,” says Mrs Caporale. “That's why we were so pleased when you called yesterday, Rose – even though you hung up before we could get your number. Our phones have been misbehaving ever since the storm,” she adds, and smiles at me. “We thought you were one of the Hendersons. We assumed they'd had to move because of Hurricane Susan. Gloverstown got hit badly and we just get a fast busy signal whenever we call the Hendersons' home number. And they didn't include a cell phone number on their contact information, so…”

She spreads her hands.

I slump onto the floor with Rain again. I put my arms around her and feel her fur against my neck. She's so soft that I think maybe she's been given a bath recently. I rest my cheek next to her face.

“Who are you, Rain?” I whisper.

Mrs Caporale and Uncle Weldon continue their conversation. I sit on the floor and think about Rain and my father.

I remember the night my father brought Rain home. I wonder if my father didn't know about microchips or if he just didn't want to look for Rain's owners.

I think of my father letting Rain outside during a superstorm without her collar.

I realize that my father hasn't helped me one bit in my search for Rain.

I turn around and say to Mrs Caporale, “My father found Rain in the rain. That's why I named her Rain. Also, it's a homonym.” (Mrs Caporale looks puzzled.)

“Rain was all by herself with no collar,” I continue.

“Did you try to look for her owners?” Mrs Caporale asks.

I shake my head. “My father said we couldn't look because she didn't have any identification. Also, he said if she had owners they must not have cared very much about her.” I pause and then say in a smaller voice, “But they cared enough to have her microchipped.”

Mrs Caporale looks at me and says gently, “Pets can get separated from their owners for all kinds of reasons. Getting lost or separated doesn't mean the owners are irresponsible.”

I wonder if Mrs Caporale is talking about the Hendersons or about my father and me.

I nod. For some reason, I feel like crying again, so I say, “Two, three, five, seven, eleven.” But I say it in my head so that I'm the only one who hears it.

I see Uncle Weldon look from Rain and me to Mrs Caporale. “What happens now?” he asks. “Do we leave Rain here?”

“No!” I cry. (No, no, know, know.) I jump to my feet.

Rain stands up too, looking nervous. She leans against my legs and nuzzles my hand with her nose (knows).

Mrs Caporale lets out a breath of air that puffs her hair away from her forehead. “This is the first time I've run into this situation,” she admits. “Let me talk to one of my co-workers.”

She leaves the waiting room. Uncle Weldon and I sit in the chairs. Rain jumps up and settles herself with her head in my lap and her rear in Uncle Weldon's lap. I say to my uncle, “I'd feel better if Olivia was a homonym name, but it isn't.”

Uncle Weldon gives me a sad smile.

At last Mrs Caporale returns. She sits next to Uncle Weldon and says, “See if you think this is fair: Considering that we've been trying to reach the Hendersons and haven't had any luck, and considering that Rain has been living with Rose for a year and clearly loves her—”

“And I love Rain,” I say.

“And you love Rain,” Mrs Caporale continues, “we've decided that she should go home with you, at least temporarily. It only seems fair, and she'll certainly be happier living with you than living here at the shelter.”

“Thank you!” I cry.

“However,” Mrs Caporale goes on, “we will continue to search for the Hendersons. We're busier than usual just now, because of the storm, but we will search. And if we reach them, or if they contact us, and they want Rain back, well then…” She spreads her hands again. “Rain is their dog after all. I mean, she was. Originally. So, please fill out this form with your information and we'll keep it on file.” She starts to hand the form to me, then looks at Uncle Weldon.

“I'll fill it out,” he says. “I'll put down my information as well as Rose's and her father's.”

Five minutes later Uncle Weldon and I are walking out of Happy Tails with Rain between us.

When Uncle Weldon and I park on Hud Road by the plank bridge over the stream and climb out of the truck with Rain, my father, who is working in the yard, gets a look on his face that is most likely surprise. His eyes grow big and at first he doesn't say anything. Uncle Weldon takes my hand and we start across the bridge, Rain ahead of us. She picks her way slowly because she isn't used to balancing on the planks. When she reaches our yard she catches sight of my father, standing among lots of tools and boards. She gives a little wag of her tail.

Finally my father speaks. He says, “Well, I'll be.”

I'm not sure what that means. I say, “We found Rain.”

“Yes. I see that.”

“Do you feel happy?” I ask my father.

He kneels down as Rain trots closer to him. “I'm just surprised, that's all. I can't believe you found her.”

So I was right about feeling surprised.

“I had a plan,” I remind him. “It was a good plan.”

“I guess so,” says my father, who is patting Rain.

“Except,” says Uncle Weldon from behind me, “there's…an issue.”

My father looks up sharply, and then he gets to his feet. “An issue?”

Uncle Weldon explains about the Hendersons and the microchip.

I look closely at my father when Uncle Weldon says “microchip”. My father is frowning.

“Rain had identification after all,” I point out.

Now my father looks sharply at me. “What are you saying?”

I think for a moment. “I said that Rain had identification after all.”