Stay!: Keeper's Story by Lois Lowry Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Lois Lowry
(and, I confess, to my chagrin, since I had just composed such a complex ballad of goodbye), we stopped in front of a brownstone building that was no more than two blocks from my old haunts.
"This is it, pal," the photographer said as he began to unload his equipment from the Jeep. "Your new home, if you feel like it. I don't have a leash, and you're free to take off if you want. Or you can come on in and make yourself comfortable. You look hungry. Could you handle some leftover pasta? If you decide to stay, I'll buy some dogfood in the morning."
I might have been tempted to trot off around the corner, back to the old neighborhood. But like Jack, he had announced himself as a leash-free human. There would be no choke collar, no rhinestone-studded lead such as I had seen on a passing Bedlington terrier (the sight had made me avert my eyes in embarrassment). It would just be me—once Lucky, now Pal—unrestrained, with what looked like a warm and pleasant roof over my head.
And pasta. To tell the truth, it was the mention of pasta that did it.
Legs, be steady! Mouth, get ready!
I trotted behind the photographer up the stairs. From hunger and anticipation I simply dismissed the high art of poetry from my mind and turned to primitive rhyming chant instead. I murmured it under my breath up three flights of stairs:
spaghetti spaghetti spaghetti spaghetti.
Quickly and happily I settled into my new digs. There was a bit of a power struggle over sleeping places until finally, grudgingly, I agreed to sleep on a blanket folded in the corner. In return, the photographer agreed to refrain from kibbles and nourish me with pasta whenever possible.
These decisions were reached, of course, without conversation. Life would be easier for dogs if humans could comprehend our speech as we do theirs. Instead, we have to resort to pantomime and subterfuge.
I won't even bother to describe the on-or-off-the-bed struggle we endured before we came to an understanding. The ultimate compromise was this: during the night, he slept on the bed and I slept on the floor. During the day, if he was at home, I slept on the floor. If he was out of the apartment or closed away in his darkroom, as he often was, I curled up on the bed. When he returned, I got down with a great show of languid boredom, leaving pawprints which he pretended not to notice.
We postponed dealing with the issue of the couch.
It was early afternoon on the third day. "Pal?" The photographer spoke gleefully to me as he emerged from the darkroom in his apartment. "You're not gonna believe this!"
He was carrying a dripping wet photograph; while I watched, he took it over near the window and examined it in the bright light there. He whistled. Startled by the sound, I jumped a bit from the folded blanket in the corner that had been designated my space. Ordinarily when a human whistles, it means that a dog is being summoned.
But this wasn't a shrill, dog-calling sound. It was a low, extended whistle of admiration. Self-admiration, actually, since he was whistling at one of his own photographs.
I could forgive him a little self-congratulation, since I am prone to it myself. I understand the feeling of ecstasy and pride when one has accomplished something. For me it is most often a particularly fine pose, perhaps on a windy day when my fur ripples and my glorious tail is extended with its ornamental fringe parted in waves and I know that I am a magnificent sight. If I could whistle then, I would. But a dog's mouth is not configured for whistles, and so most often I simply emit a low groan of pleasure, unintelligible to humans.
"Look!" he said excitedly, and knelt beside me with the wet photograph in his hands. On his part, it was simply a gesture, since he did not truly expect me to look, or to admire his work. Humans believe (wrongly) that a dog's thoughts extend no further than the basic needs of food, shelter, and reproduction.
If they only knew what complex creatures we really
"This is it, pal," the photographer said as he began to unload his equipment from the Jeep. "Your new home, if you feel like it. I don't have a leash, and you're free to take off if you want. Or you can come on in and make yourself comfortable. You look hungry. Could you handle some leftover pasta? If you decide to stay, I'll buy some dogfood in the morning."
I might have been tempted to trot off around the corner, back to the old neighborhood. But like Jack, he had announced himself as a leash-free human. There would be no choke collar, no rhinestone-studded lead such as I had seen on a passing Bedlington terrier (the sight had made me avert my eyes in embarrassment). It would just be me—once Lucky, now Pal—unrestrained, with what looked like a warm and pleasant roof over my head.
And pasta. To tell the truth, it was the mention of pasta that did it.
Legs, be steady! Mouth, get ready!
I trotted behind the photographer up the stairs. From hunger and anticipation I simply dismissed the high art of poetry from my mind and turned to primitive rhyming chant instead. I murmured it under my breath up three flights of stairs:
spaghetti spaghetti spaghetti spaghetti.
Quickly and happily I settled into my new digs. There was a bit of a power struggle over sleeping places until finally, grudgingly, I agreed to sleep on a blanket folded in the corner. In return, the photographer agreed to refrain from kibbles and nourish me with pasta whenever possible.
These decisions were reached, of course, without conversation. Life would be easier for dogs if humans could comprehend our speech as we do theirs. Instead, we have to resort to pantomime and subterfuge.
I won't even bother to describe the on-or-off-the-bed struggle we endured before we came to an understanding. The ultimate compromise was this: during the night, he slept on the bed and I slept on the floor. During the day, if he was at home, I slept on the floor. If he was out of the apartment or closed away in his darkroom, as he often was, I curled up on the bed. When he returned, I got down with a great show of languid boredom, leaving pawprints which he pretended not to notice.
We postponed dealing with the issue of the couch.
It was early afternoon on the third day. "Pal?" The photographer spoke gleefully to me as he emerged from the darkroom in his apartment. "You're not gonna believe this!"
He was carrying a dripping wet photograph; while I watched, he took it over near the window and examined it in the bright light there. He whistled. Startled by the sound, I jumped a bit from the folded blanket in the corner that had been designated my space. Ordinarily when a human whistles, it means that a dog is being summoned.
But this wasn't a shrill, dog-calling sound. It was a low, extended whistle of admiration. Self-admiration, actually, since he was whistling at one of his own photographs.
I could forgive him a little self-congratulation, since I am prone to it myself. I understand the feeling of ecstasy and pride when one has accomplished something. For me it is most often a particularly fine pose, perhaps on a windy day when my fur ripples and my glorious tail is extended with its ornamental fringe parted in waves and I know that I am a magnificent sight. If I could whistle then, I would. But a dog's mouth is not configured for whistles, and so most often I simply emit a low groan of pleasure, unintelligible to humans.
"Look!" he said excitedly, and knelt beside me with the wet photograph in his hands. On his part, it was simply a gesture, since he did not truly expect me to look, or to admire his work. Humans believe (wrongly) that a dog's thoughts extend no further than the basic needs of food, shelter, and reproduction.
If they only knew what complex creatures we really