Meadowview Acres by Donna Cain Read Free Book Online Page B

and everything in them. Brody wasn’t in his dog bed in the living room. He wasn’t in the kitchen on the tile floor or lying in the patch of sunlight in the hallway. The only other place Eli could think to look was his own bedroom. Brody was there, under the bed. The poor dog looked completely freaked out. Eli got all the way down onto his stomach and reached for the trembling pup.
    “Come here, Buddy. Come see me,” Eli coaxed as he rubbed the Border Collie behind his left ear; the only part of the dog he could reach. He stretched a little farther and tried to grab his collar but Brody shrank back from Eli’s hand.
    Eli empathized with him. Whatever the dog had seen or heard had really shaken him up. Eli remembered his own fear while running in the woods. He still wasn’t sure what it was that he had been afraid of, or what he had been running from. It was just that Brody had seemed frantic to get home, and that had made Eli very nervous. Dogs are known to have a sixth sense; it seemed like there was a reason for the fear. Eli reached the dog’s ear once again and continued scratching it. He was trying hard to remember anything else about what had just happened when he discovered that his headache was gone. He noticed that he wasn’t burning up and sweating any more either. He knew that those things could easily be attributed to chasing the dog through the woods and the stress of trying to find him.
    As he scratched, Brody eased toward Eli, and, in a few minutes, the dog was out from under the bed with his black and white head in Eli’s lap. Eli could tell that the dog was still afraid, though. He smelled too, and the froth from around his mouth was dry and crusty in his fur. Eli decided a bath would make Brody feel better, so he coaxed the dog out into the side yard. He gave him some dog treats to make him stay put while he got the shampoo, the garden hose and a towel.
    At the last minute, while walking back to where Brody was waiting, he veered to the right and went to Hunter’s side door. Hunter answered almost immediately since he was scarfing down cereal in the kitchen.
    “Hey, Bro. What’s happening?” He said as he opened the door to see Eli standing there.
    “I’m giving Brody a bath. Come out here, I wanna tell you about something.” Eli replied soberly.
    “Sure. Give me a sec to finish and I’ll be right out,” Hunter replied.
    By the time he was lathering Brody’s fur, Hunter came bounding down the side steps and crossed the two driveways to where the Red Tomato was parked. Hunter glanced across the street to see Clara Stagg waving. Feeling awkward, he nodded his head then leaned against the car. Chomping on an apple, he said, “Okay, KemoSabe, the wise one is here. Lay it on me.”
    Eli didn’t know exactly how to start telling Hunter about what had happened. He really didn’t know himself. He was about to say forget about it and talk about something else when he noticed he was holding a huge ball of wet hair in his lathered hand. He looked down and saw more clumps of fur on the wet driveway beneath Brody. Hunter followed his gaze and his eyes narrowed. He looked at his friends face and, for the first time, noticed that Eli looked really worried. And something else – afraid? Yeah, that’s it. Eli looked scared.
    “I think you better let me in on what’s happening with you,” he said as he moved closer to where his friend was rinsing the dog. More and more fur was coming off of Brody as Eli washed the soap out of the dog’s coat.
    Eli started at the beginning. He told Hunter about coming home after school and the door being open. He told him about running through the woods to find the dog and about feeling hot, sweaty and headachy. He told him about the clearing and the bulldozer. Then he told him about the dog’s reaction and its foaming jaws as Brody came charging back past Eli. He told Hunter about frantically running through the woods until he was home again. He even told him