The Storm (3 page)

Shep pulled down every tray and box and bowl he could reach. They clattered to the ground, spraying bits and syrups and juices every where. Some tasted good, some awful. But by the end, both Shep and the floor were covered in muck.

Having emptied every thing he could reach in the cold box, Shep stepped back and sat. His belly was stuffed; he panted gently. Eyelids low over his eyes, he scanned the floor. The full weight of his exploration hit him like a rolled newspaper: He had ruined the entire room. The woman would be furious!

Shep ran out of the food room and crawled inside his crate, trembling from nose to tail. Why did the boy leave him? And why for so long? If they hadn't left, Shep would never have opened the cold box and found all that yummy kibble, and he would never have gotten excited and eaten it all. He licked his paws and sulked, thinking of the trouble he would be in once his family returned.

But the humans did not return. The first tails of dawn wagged in the sky, lighting the thick coat of cloud above, and still Shep was alone in the den. Rain fell lightly onto the street below.

Shep hoped this meant that his humans could come back. The air in the den was hot and stuffy — the cold-air blower in the window was off, and all the windows shut. Shep's tongue lolled in his dry mouth. He trotted into the food room and discovered that when he'd pulled the trays from the cold box, he'd knocked over all the bowls of water that the woman had left him. He licked the empty bowls, desperate for even a drop of water, but they were dry. The floor around them was sticky with the various goos and gobbets that Shep had pulled from the cold box. There was no water anywhere!

The Bath room
, Shep recalled. He always heard water rushing in the Bath room, and it was where he was given his Baths, which involved a lot of water. Shep scrambled down the hall. The stones of the Bath room's floor felt cool on his paw pads. He sniffed the water in the white bowl. It smelled of chemicals and flowers — and was a strange blue color. He would
not
drink that water.

Shep stood on his hind legs and licked the silver paw that stuck out of the tall white bowl; it was dry. So was the silver paw in the white tub where the boy gave him his Bath.

Shep dragged himself back the entry door and whined. He knew there was no one around to hear him, but it made him feel better to call to his boy.

My boy will return soon
, Shep thought.
He has to.

The patter of rain against the windows woke Shep. It was light out, probably near midsun, but clouds obscured the sun's rays. The rain was falling harder now than it had been at dawn and Shep heard a growl of thunder in the distance. He scented the air under the entry door — no humans had passed as he slept.

Shep stretched, first bending back, rump in the air, then forward, belly to the ground. When he looked again at the windows, there was a small brown girldog with a stunted black snout and bulging brown eyes hovering in the air Outside.

Shep raced to the nearest window. He saw that she was in fact not floating, but rather stood on the rickety metal-grate balcony that stuck out from the side of the building.

“This is not your den,” he growled as a warning.

The girldog glanced at him through the window. “What?” she said, her bark strained with fear. “It was the lizard! I didn't mean to! Help!”

Shep knew her bark — for moons, he'd heard her yapping on the other side of the wall at every Car, human, or bird that dared to pass the building. She was not trying to attack his den; the yapper must have somehow escaped her own den, and now was stuck on the balcony. Her paw pads pressed through the holes of the metal grate and she licked her toes, whimpering for them to stop hurting.

“How'd you get out there?” he asked, his bark soft and friendly.

“My human left her window open,” she cried, her thin legs trembling. “I saw a lizard on the grate, so I scratched my way through the screen to chase it.” She looked around, forlorn. “I was so hungry — am so hungry. The lizard skittered off just as I scratched my way through. Now my paws hurt, and I'm afraid of this grate.” She shivered, her short fur bristling.

“I haven't had a drink in a sun,” Shep whined.

“There's water in my den,” she barked. “If you help me get off this grate, I'll share my water with you.”

Shep sniffed at the window. “I wish I could, but all my den's windows are closed.”

“So break one,” the girldog squealed, sounding desperate. Her eyes were wide with fear and she licked her jowls nervously.

“Windows break?” Shep asked. “How do you know so much about windows?”

“I like to chase things,” she barked, lifting one paw off the grate, then another. “Outside things that land on the window, or near the window. Once I knocked a heavy metal thing into the glass while chasing a bug and the window broke.”

Shep's family would not be happy with him for breaking a window. But he was desperate for water — what other choice did he have?

“What kinds of things break windows?” he asked.

“There,” the girldog said, her nose waving toward the corner of the main room. “That light should do it.”

Shep padded over to the tall light in the corner. The light was like a metal tree: It had a fat base at the bottom, then a thin stick, which stretched up to an open-mouth part that shone with light when the humans flicked a switch on the wall. Shep tapped the light with his snout; it didn't budge. The light was certainly heavy, but the glass in the window was strong — Shep had slammed his paws against it enough times to know. He wasn't sure if the girldog's plan would work, but he was so thirsty. He had to try.

Shep pushed at the tall, thin stick part of the light, first gently, then harder and harder until the whole thing began to sway on its base. With one final shove, the light toppled over and hit the nearest window with a loud crack. Now the glass looked like a spider's web.

“Push on the window with your paws,” the girldog said.

Shep reared on his hind legs and pushed at the spiderweb. It gave slightly against his paws — the girldog was right! Shep pushed harder, thrusting off his hind legs.

“Watch it!” the girldog barked. “Jump from the floor and push once with your paws, then jump away. Broken glass is sharp.”

Shep followed her advice, seeing as she'd been right about every thing else. He leapt off his hind legs, shoved his paws into the glass, then caught the wooden edge of the window with his hind claws and thrust himself back into the room. The window splintered and fell Outside, onto the grate.

Shep stood on the couch and looked out through the hole in the window. Shards of glass glinted in the rain, sharp as fangs.

“Now what?” he growled, frustrated. All that work, and he still couldn't get out of the den.

“I don't know,” the girldog yapped. “Get something to cover the sharp bits.”

Shep thought about this: He needed something to protect his paws. Like shoes! The woman had put shoes on Shep's paws once, but Shep instantly pulled them off and he hadn't seen them since. And even if he could find his shoes, he couldn't put them onto his own paws. Perhaps the mat by the entry door would cover the sharp bits?

Shep ran to the entry and pulled up the mat with his teeth, knocking off the newspaper. He dragged it to the window, onto the couch, and then swung it through the hole. He had to push the mat with his snout to get it all the way through, but, once through, it flopped onto the grate and covered the clear bits completely.

“Now jump out and help me!” the girldog howled.

Shep looked at the hole in the window. Glass still hung inside the window frame like a mouth full of teeth. “Wait!” barked Shep. He had an idea.

Shep went into the Bath room and pulled up the mat that lay on the floor beside the tub. He dragged it into the main room, up onto the couch, and, gripping it firmly between his teeth, flung it out the hole in the window. It landed on the glass still clinging to the window frame.

“Did the first mat not look soft enough?” the girldog yipped sarcastically.

“No,” Shep growled. “The first mat won't protect me as I climb out the window.”

The girldog cocked her head, thinking, then cowered. “I should've thought of that,” she whimpered.

Shep balanced on the edge of the couch, then put his forepaws on the windowsill. He leaned back, raised his paws high, and sprang off his hind legs. He cleared the window hole completely and landed on the mat-covered grate.

Shep barked with joy. “I did it!”

“Brilliant!” the girldog yipped.

Shep turned on the mat so that he could give the girldog a proper sniff. Through the wet, she smelled like humans and dirt, good dog smells. He wagged his tail and she wagged hers back.

“My name's Shep,” he said.

“I'm Callie,” the girldog replied. “Now let me onto that mat!”

“Sure thing,” Shep yipped. He pulled the mat from the window hole and flung it onto the grate in front of him. It landed right at Callie's paws.

“Double brilliant!” she howled, leaping from the grate onto the mat. “Oh, that feels better.” Callie sat and lifted her front paws, licking each in turn over and over. Her paw pads were red and swollen from being pressed through the grate.

Now that he was Outside, Shep could see the hole in the screen out of which Callie had jumped. It was far too small for him to squeeze through.

“I don't think I'm going to be able to get a drink in your den,” Shep said. He lapped at the rain — the morsels of water were something, but not enough to slake his thirst.

Callie stopped licking her paws for a heartbeat. She looked at Shep, then at the hole in the window's screen. “We could scratch a bigger hole?”

Shep considered this. It would take some time to scratch a wider hole in the screen. Even then, the window itself was small and would be a tight fit for a big dog like Shep. He licked the grate, lapping up a few more drops of rainwater. “I'm so thirsty, my tongue hurts,” he whined.

“We could go down — hey, there's a lizard! — to the ground,” Callie suggested.

Shep looked through the grate and saw a puddle in the alley below. “Leave our dens?” He was thirsty, but was he thirsty enough to abandon his home and his boy?

Callie peeked over the edge of her mat at the ground below. “It
is
a rather long way down, isn't it?”

Her ear twitched, once, twice; on the third twitch, she attacked the floppy ear with her hind paw, scratching furiously. As quickly as she'd attacked, the itching spell was over. She stood and shook herself, nose to curly tail, then looked at Shep as if nothing had happened, as if he were the weird one.

“Well, for one thing,” said Callie. “I'd like to get out of this rain — look at that black bird! So we either die alone inside our dens — and another! — or try to get into the alley.” Her muzzle flicked back and forth, up and down, eyes peering this way and that.

This little dog is one kibble short of a bowl
, thought Shep.
And who does she think she is, barking orders at me? I came out here to save her, after all.
Shep shook the rain from his fur. He was about ready to jump back through his den's window and risk death.

“There are stairs!” Callie barked.

Shep squinted through the holes of the grate. It was hard to see anything through the blur of the rain, but Shep could make out a metal staircase leading from their balcony to another just like it two stretches below.

“Perfect!” Shep woofed. They could climb back up the stairs to their dens after they got a drink! The only thing was how to get from where they sat to the top of the metal stairs.

What would my boy do?
Shep remembered how, when he got a Bath, his boy laid towels down, end to end, leading from the Bath room down the hall to keep Shep's wet paws from sliding on the slippery floor.
I've got it!

Shep stepped onto Callie's mat. He dragged his mat along side of them, and then in front of Callie's. The mat reached the first step.

“Super brilliant and a rawhide chewie!” yipped Callie. “Shall I go first?” Her tail wagged so violently that her whole rump waved from side to side.

“No,” barked Shep. Even soaking wet, abandoned by his family, and cowering on a grate, he had pride enough not to follow a small and rather nervous yapper.

“Okay,” she barked, annoyed. “But let's get a move on. I smell something delicious down there.” Slobber dripped from her jowls.

They made their way down the stairs easily — the steps were solid metal and didn't hurt their paws. They dragged their mats behind them, and then placed the mats one after the other along the grate to the next set of stairs.

As they worked, Shep wondered about Callie's fascination with lizards. “You said you were hungry and went after a lizard?” he asked. “What made you think that the lizard would be good to eat?”

Callie sat on her haunches and squinted at the raindrops. “I don't know exactly,” she said at last. “Something inside me just told me. ‘Hungry?' it said. ‘Then eat that lizard.'”

Callie trotted onto the mat in front of her and began her way down the stairs. Shep thought about all the lizards he'd ever seen — none had seemed particularly edible, covered as they were in scales and spiky bits.

“It's like with the Red Dot,” Callie continued. She stopped and looked at Shep, ears pricked. “Have you seen the Red Dot?”

Shep dropped his mat. “Red Dot? Never smelled it.”

The little dog sat back and stared out at the building across the way, her brown eyes wide and unfocused. “The Red Dot is crafty, oh so crafty. It's fast and tiny, so tiny it can never be caught, neither by claw nor fang. It makes no sound and has no scent. My girl waves a metal stick to summon it. It appears out of nowhere and disappears just as mysteriously.”

Shep didn't like the sound of this Red Dot. “Is it dangerous?”

The little dog snapped to her paws. “I don't know. But something inside me says, ‘Chase the Red Dot!' — the same something that told me to eat that lizard.” She trotted ahead, mat squeezed between her jaws.

 

Shep and Callie climbed down three sets of stairs. When they reached the fourth grate, there were no more stairs. Instead, this balcony had a hole that dropped straight down into the alley, which was three or four stretches below.

Callie looked over the side. “I can't jump that.” She began to tremble.

“It's not far,” Shep barked, trying to sound confident. In fact, he was a little nervous about how far the ground was from where they stood on the grate. Once they jumped through the hole, how would they get back onto the grate to return to their dens? What if the boy came back and Shep wasn't there to greet him? But Shep didn't want the little dog to worry. She was so nervous. And he needed water. They would figure something out after they had gotten a drink and some kibble in their bellies.

Callie's trembling was getting worse. “After further consideration,” she squealed, “I've determined that this jump is too far. It's not bad for you, but the drop looks like ten full stretches for me. I can't jump that without breaking like a dry biscuit.”

Shep spotted some large, shiny black bags in the alley. He'd seen his boy jump off his bed onto bags full of dirty body coverings without getting hurt. “Maybe I can jump down, and then roll some of those bags over? They might be soft enough to land on.” Shep wished that some dog would come along and pile some soft bags for
him
to jump onto. But he was the big dog here.

“All right,” Callie whimpered. “I'll try it.”

Shep took a deep breath —
Great Wolf, protect me
. He sprang off the grate and through the hole. He stretched his front paws and landed hard. But Shep was used to falling — he'd been thrown many times in the fight cage, and he'd had to learn how to tuck and roll. He did this now, curling his head between his front legs, rounding his shoulder, and rolling on his back. He tumbled once, then landed on his paws, all in one piece. Amazing! Four strides down! He barked and jumped in a circle.

“Enough celebrating,” Callie cried. “Some help for the starving dog?”

Panting, Shep trotted to the pile of shiny bags and began dragging the softest of them over to the hole with his teeth. Shep piled four bags together, shoving them with his paws into a tight cushion.