Ellie's Story by W. Bruce Cameron Read Free Book Online Page A

seaweed in the air, threatening to swallow up the fragile smell of little girl.
    And there were crisscrossing smells of people everywhere. They had been walking all over this sand, coming in and out of the water. I smelled rubber shoes and bare skin and food. So much food! Someone was grilling hot dogs. Jakob sometimes cooked those on the stove and let me have a taste. So delicious! It was hard to resist the temptation to lift my head up and take in a big breath of that lovely smell, but I kept my head down. I was Working.
    I paced back and forth, making my way down toward the water. It was very strange water. The smell of salt from it was strong. I’d thought that the fountain Jakob had jumped into was big, but this—it was huge, and it moved. It growled, too, as though it were angry. I would rather have stayed far away from it, but the girl’s trail was leading right toward it. I had to follow.
    Then the water, to my surprise, swept up close to my paws! I’d been following the trail right across the sand, and all of a sudden the water rolled up to me and then back. The smell had been washed away. I jumped back in surprise.
    â€œIt’s okay, Ellie,” Jakob said. He’d followed close behind me. “Find.”
    That wasn’t fair, the water coming up to wash the smell away! Irritated, I set to Work harder. The trail must be somewhere. I found it again in less than a minute. The little girl had been wandering close to the water’s edge. The water kept moving, trying to trick me, but every time I lost the trail I found it again. My nose stayed right down near the sand.
    â€œDoggy! Doggy!” a high voice said, and little hands were patting me. A tiny boy grabbed at my fur and giggled. His hands were sticky with salty water and drips from a Popsicle, and ordinarily I would have licked them clean.
    â€œWill he bite?” asked a woman nervously.
    â€œShe won’t bite, but she’s working,” Jakob said from behind me. “Could you please—”
    But I could already tell this wasn’t the child I was supposed to Find. So I gently walked around him and kept going, moving quicker and quicker. Jakob was falling behind.
    Something round landed in the sand beside me, and I looked up, startled. “Fetch!” a teenage boy yelled. I nosed at the thing. It was hard and plastic and looked like it might be nice to chew, but it wasn’t Work. I kept going.
    The girl’s smell left the water. I followed it up the sloping sand and felt it growing stronger. I looked up to see a playground with more young humans than I had ever seen running wildly around. They slid down slides and climbed up ladders, just as I had learned to do. But they didn’t seem to treat it as seriously as Work should be treated. They were playing, and making a lot of noise doing it.
    The tracks of so many children crossed and crisscrossed the sand, and the smell I was following was buried. I paced back and forth, turning in a half circle. Where had it gone? I lifted my nose and tried the air. She was close; she must be close. I’d find the smell again if I just didn’t give up.
    And I did! There she was, sitting on a seesaw with a little boy at the other end. She flew up in the air, giggling, and then thumped down in the sand. I turned back to Jakob. “Show me!” he said, looking at my face.
    I dashed across the playground. “Dog!” “Doggy!” “Can I pet your dog!” children called out as I ran. The girl thumped down in the sand, bouncing on her seat, as I came up to her.
    Jakob followed me. “Charlotte?” he said. “Are you Charlotte?”
    â€œUh-huh.” The little girl looked up and laughed. “I want to play at the playground!” she shouted happily. “I want to stay!”
    When Charlotte was back with her parents (her mother cried some more and Charlotte cried when her parents said she had to leave the playground and go