Mountain Dog by Margarita Engle Read Free Book Online Page A

places—lost hikers often call
    forest rangers
    to ask which trail to choose
    at a crossroads.
    With all the modern technology,
    wilderness searches are needed
    only once in awhile, but they’re
    still just as urgent as before.
    Life or death. All or nothing.
    One night, an autistic teenager
    wanders away from a cabin.
    The next week, two fishermen
    fail to find the trail back downhill
    from a high mountain lake.
    A Swiss thru-hiker is rescued
    when he gets disoriented
    from dehydration.
    There are crime scenes, too,
    searches so gross that Tío won’t
    let me hang out at base camp.
    All I know is what I hear later,
    when he and B.B. talk,
    holding hands.
    As soon as I see
    how their fingers
    touch
    I start to wonder
    what will happen to me
    if they
    get married.
    My uncle’s cabin is too small
    for all of us.
    How long will it be
    until he sends me away?
    Every time I start believing
    in safety,
    something happens
    that makes me feel
    like an old toothbrush
    in the lost-
    and-found
    box
    at school.
    Nobody wants someone else’s
    trash.

 
    26
    GABE THE DOG
    SHARING
    Tony smells
    so lonely
    that I try
    to share
    my food
    my water
    my toys
    but all he wants is company
    so I take him outside and we run
    round and round in dizzy circles
    until finally, we fall down
    and laugh
    together.

 
    27
    TONY THE BOY
    SHORELINES
    Summer turns into a season
    of mysterious migrations.
    One morning, there are thousands
    of bright red ladybugs.
    The next day, it’s shiny blue dragonflies,
    swooping across soft green meadows.
    Suddenly, only the tiniest spiders
    float overhead, each one dangling
    from a natural parachute
    of silky white web.
    Roaming wild creatures
    don’t worry about where
    they’ll end up, but I do,
    I really do worry, so when Tío
    invites me on a vacation road trip
    to a distant beach, I’m excited,
    but I’m also not sure how I feel
    about leaving the comforting
    mountains.
    We ride with open windows,
    Gabe and I both sniffing the breeze
    as we zoom right past the prison,
    turning west, then driving, gliding,
    until we finally reach the bright,
    endless ocean, and the warm,
    sun-gold sand.
    When Gabe chases shore birds
    into frothy waves, I follow, running
    and splashing, even though I know
    I’ll never be able to catch any creature
    with wings.
    I don’t even want to catch birds,
    but it feels so great to act like a tiny
    kid again, romping with new puppies
    that have never
    been hurt.
    Pelicans slide across the bright sky.
    Sea otters roll around on blue water.
    Everything is so peaceful
    that I wonder if it’s possible
    to feel sad and scared
    on any beach
    anywhere
    in the huge world.
    That night, under brilliant stars,
    I ask my uncle a question
    that I’ve wondered about
    for a long time.
    How did he feel when he floated away
    from his home island? What was it like,
    drifting on a raft in a storm,
    then wrecking, being washed ashore
    in a nameless place, without food
    or a dog.…

    I can’t picture my uncle before Gabe.
    They belong together—how did Tío survive?
    After a long, quiet moment, he speaks
    of his childhood on the troubled island
    where he had to be careful about rules.
    Strange rules. Censored books.
    Rationed food. Secret police.
    Neighborhood spies.
    By the time he was a teenager,
    he was in trouble with the authorities
    for buying bread on the black market
    and for reading forbidden stories
    and listening to outlawed radio stations
    that played illegal foreign music.
    Illegal music? No wonder my uncle
    and Mom both fled their homeland.
    Did she listen to the wrong songs too?
    Was she always a rule breaker?
    Was there a time when she knew
    which rules deserved breaking?
    Tío goes on to describe his parents—
    my grandparents. They aren’t alive
    anymore, but when I ask, my uncle says
    maybe someday he’ll be able to take me
    back to the island, to meet all my cousins.
    The story of Tío’s youth