me, calculating something.
I decided to bite at the base of my tail a bit, and when Iturned back I was intrigued to see that Smokey was batting at a bag of food. He hit it once, twice, and on the third smack toppled the thing out of the cupboard and onto the floor!
I bit through the plastic and into some salty crunchy things, which I ate hurriedly in case Smokey tried to come down for his share. He watched impassively from his perch and then smacked down another bag, full of sweet, doughy rolls.
I decided then and there that I had been wrong about Smokey all along. I almost felt bad about eating his cat food earlier, though it was hardly my fault that he didn’t finish his meal when it was served. What did he expect would happen?
I couldn’t open the cupboards myself; the science somehow escaped me. I did, however, manage to snag a loaf of bread and pull it off the counter, carefully removing it from the package, which I chewed separately. The trash can in the kitchen didn’t have a lid, so it was easy to access, though a few of the items—some bitter black grit that coated my tongue when I gave it an experimental lick, along with eggshells, and plastic containers—were inedible. I chewed the plastic anyway.
I was outside waiting when the bus pulled up, and although Chelsea and Todd both got off, there was no sign of the boy, which meant he would be arriving home with Mom. I went back into the house and pulled some shoes out of Mom’s closet, though I didn’t chew on them much because I was feeling pretty lethargic from all of the snacks Smokey had given me. I stood in the living room, trying to decide whether to lie on the couch, which no longer had any sun on it at all, or lie in the patch of sun on the carpet. It was a tough decision, and when I finally chose the sun I lay down uneasily, not sure I’d picked the right thing.
When Mom’s car door slammed I tore through the houseinto the garage and was out the dog door in an instant, wagging at the fence so no one would be the wiser. Ethan ran straight over to me and came into the yard to play with me while Mom went up the walk, her shoes clicking.
“I missed you, Bailey! Did you have fun today?” the boy asked me, scratching under my chin. We gazed at each other in adoration.
“Ethan! Come look what Bailey did!”
At the sound of my name, pronounced so sternly, my ears fell. Somehow, Smokey and I had been found out.
Ethan and I went into the house and I approached Mom with my tail in full wag so she’d forgive me. She was holding one of the shredded bags in her hand.
“The door to the garage was open. Look what he did,” Mom said. “Bailey, you are a bad dog. A bad dog.”
I hung my head. Though I’d technically done nothing wrong, I realized that Mom was mad at me. Ethan was, too, particularly when he started to pick up the bits of plastic off the floor.
“How in the world did he even get up on the counter? He must have jumped,” Mom said.
“You are a bad dog, a bad, bad dog, Bailey,” Ethan told me again.
Smokey strolled in, leaping languidly onto the counter. I gave him a glum look—he was a bad cat, a bad, bad cat.
Amazingly, no one said anything to Smokey about his role as instigator. Instead, they gave him a fresh can of food! I sat expectantly, figuring I should at least get a dog biscuit, but everyone was still giving me cross looks.
Mom pushed a mop around on the floor, and the boy carried a bag of trash out into the garage.
“Bailey, that was bad,” the boy whispered to me again. Apparently, everyone was having a much harder time getting over the incident than I was.
I was still in the kitchen when I heard Mom shriek, “Bailey!” from the back of the house.
I guessed she had found her shoes.
{ TEN }
Over the course of the next year or two, I noticed that when the children all played together Todd was often excluded. When he came around, an uneasiness went through the children, a mood change that Marshmallow and I
I decided to bite at the base of my tail a bit, and when Iturned back I was intrigued to see that Smokey was batting at a bag of food. He hit it once, twice, and on the third smack toppled the thing out of the cupboard and onto the floor!
I bit through the plastic and into some salty crunchy things, which I ate hurriedly in case Smokey tried to come down for his share. He watched impassively from his perch and then smacked down another bag, full of sweet, doughy rolls.
I decided then and there that I had been wrong about Smokey all along. I almost felt bad about eating his cat food earlier, though it was hardly my fault that he didn’t finish his meal when it was served. What did he expect would happen?
I couldn’t open the cupboards myself; the science somehow escaped me. I did, however, manage to snag a loaf of bread and pull it off the counter, carefully removing it from the package, which I chewed separately. The trash can in the kitchen didn’t have a lid, so it was easy to access, though a few of the items—some bitter black grit that coated my tongue when I gave it an experimental lick, along with eggshells, and plastic containers—were inedible. I chewed the plastic anyway.
I was outside waiting when the bus pulled up, and although Chelsea and Todd both got off, there was no sign of the boy, which meant he would be arriving home with Mom. I went back into the house and pulled some shoes out of Mom’s closet, though I didn’t chew on them much because I was feeling pretty lethargic from all of the snacks Smokey had given me. I stood in the living room, trying to decide whether to lie on the couch, which no longer had any sun on it at all, or lie in the patch of sun on the carpet. It was a tough decision, and when I finally chose the sun I lay down uneasily, not sure I’d picked the right thing.
When Mom’s car door slammed I tore through the houseinto the garage and was out the dog door in an instant, wagging at the fence so no one would be the wiser. Ethan ran straight over to me and came into the yard to play with me while Mom went up the walk, her shoes clicking.
“I missed you, Bailey! Did you have fun today?” the boy asked me, scratching under my chin. We gazed at each other in adoration.
“Ethan! Come look what Bailey did!”
At the sound of my name, pronounced so sternly, my ears fell. Somehow, Smokey and I had been found out.
Ethan and I went into the house and I approached Mom with my tail in full wag so she’d forgive me. She was holding one of the shredded bags in her hand.
“The door to the garage was open. Look what he did,” Mom said. “Bailey, you are a bad dog. A bad dog.”
I hung my head. Though I’d technically done nothing wrong, I realized that Mom was mad at me. Ethan was, too, particularly when he started to pick up the bits of plastic off the floor.
“How in the world did he even get up on the counter? He must have jumped,” Mom said.
“You are a bad dog, a bad, bad dog, Bailey,” Ethan told me again.
Smokey strolled in, leaping languidly onto the counter. I gave him a glum look—he was a bad cat, a bad, bad cat.
Amazingly, no one said anything to Smokey about his role as instigator. Instead, they gave him a fresh can of food! I sat expectantly, figuring I should at least get a dog biscuit, but everyone was still giving me cross looks.
Mom pushed a mop around on the floor, and the boy carried a bag of trash out into the garage.
“Bailey, that was bad,” the boy whispered to me again. Apparently, everyone was having a much harder time getting over the incident than I was.
I was still in the kitchen when I heard Mom shriek, “Bailey!” from the back of the house.
I guessed she had found her shoes.
{ TEN }
Over the course of the next year or two, I noticed that when the children all played together Todd was often excluded. When he came around, an uneasiness went through the children, a mood change that Marshmallow and I
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