Waggit's Tale (17 page)

And with that Waggit turned toward the bright lights of the city streets. As he started back, Lowdown said to him, “I would like to walk with you one last time,” and so the two friends moved off in silence, one hobbling painfully, the other walking slowly beside him. When they got to the road that runs around the inside of the park, they stopped, and Lowdown turned to him.

“I never had a friend as good as you, Waggit,” he said, “and I never will. You're a special dog, so no wonder the woman wants you to live with her. No way I can blame
her for that. Make sure she takes care of you, and make sure you give her the love that she deserves. And don't forget me.”

“I'll never forget you, Lowdown,” said Waggit, shocked at the very idea, “and besides, we come into the park all the time, so I might see you again soon.”

“No,” said Lowdown, “this is the last time we'll meet, make no mistake about that, but carry me in your heart and I will carry you in mine.”

The old dog turned and painfully headed back in the direction of the tunnel without looking back. Waggit, for his part, shot out of the park and across the avenue, barely looking where he was going. Cars screeched to avoid him, horns blaring. He raced along the streets back to the apartment, not just because he wanted to get back before the woman returned from work, but also because the act of running seemed to lessen the ache that he felt inside him. He had made his decision, and he thought it was the right one, but he was learning that sometimes the right decision can feel like the wrong one.

B
y the time he got back to the apartment building he was out of breath, and out of ideas as to how to get back inside. He knew that the fire escape he had used to get out was not going to be his way in. Even if the ladder was down as far as it went, there was still a gap between it and the ground. Furthermore dogs are not good at climbing ladders; it was one thing to hang on for dear life as it went down, but quite another to get enough of a grip on each rung to climb up. Even if he did, how was he going to climb in the window? He
was still sore from the tumble when he'd made the trip in the opposite direction.

There were two mailboxes just to the left of the building's entryway, and he hid between these in order to gather his thoughts and consider his options. The problem with options was that he didn't seem to have any, apart from staying wedged there until the woman appeared. Like all dogs he had a very poor sense of time, and he had no idea whether the wait would involve minutes or hours. It was at that moment when he heard voices coming from the building's hallway. Two people, a man and a woman, were leaving, laughing and talking loudly. They had pulled the door open very wide, and now it was slowly closing.

Timing it nicely, Waggit darted through the opening just before the door shut, and into the lobby. It smelled, as usual, of the strange water that the human who cleaned it used, but, more importantly, it was empty. He stood in front of the elevator, wondering what to do next. If he got up on his hind legs and stretched his front paws as high as they would go, he could just reach the button that the woman pressed to open the doors, and as he pushed against it they immediately slid apart. He scurried into the elevator and
sat, waiting for them to close again.

When they did he continued to sit, waiting for the elevator to move, but it didn't budge. Then he remembered that you had to push buttons inside the car to make it go, but which was the correct one? He had no idea. Then it occurred to him that he didn't have to choose just one. Why not hit all of them? As the door opened on each floor he would surely recognize something that would lead him home.

So that's what he did. The task was complicated by the fact that he couldn't reach the top row, however much he stretched up on his back legs, but he didn't worry about this. He was pretty certain that he and the woman didn't live in the top part of the building; he remembered that when he made his journey down the fire escape earlier that night it didn't seem to be very high up.

The elevator stopped at the second floor and Waggit stuck out his nose. He sniffed tentatively. Nothing—no familiar smell tickled his supersensitive nostrils. He repeated the process on the third, fourth, and fifth floors. Now he was getting worried. Maybe he was in the wrong building. It looked like the one they always entered, but like so many things in the
world of humans, to him the buildings all seemed confusingly similar. Then the doors opened on the sixth floor. Yes, there it was, the scent of the woman, faint, but definitely there.

He walked out of the elevator into the hallway. There were six or seven doors on each floor, but he had no difficulty finding the one where they lived. With a dog's amazing sense of smell, he followed the trail as it got stronger and stronger to one of the brown doors, from which poured the familiar odors, not just of her, but of the furniture, the rugs, his bed, and all the other contents of the place that he now called home.

It was clear from the level of the woman's scent that she had not yet returned. Waggit tried and tried to think of a way of entering the apartment, but nothing came to him. If he could only get inside she wouldn't even know that he had been to the park that night. However, it seemed impossible. There was no window that could be forced open, only a door in the wall with a doormat in front of it that said
A SPOILED DOG LIVES HERE
, which fortunately Waggit couldn't read. There was nothing to do but to settle down and wait, and receive whatever punishment she would mete out
when she returned. In all honesty this wasn't a very scary prospect, since the strictest the woman had ever been with him was to stamp her foot and yell “bad boy.”

The “Spoiled Dog” doormat seemed the most logical place to lie down and wait, not to mention the most comfortable. However, lying down for dogs is a three-stage process. First the area about to be lain down on has to be prepared by scratching furiously at it. Following the preparation the animal has to turn around at least three times before the final stage, the actual lying down, can be considered. It was during the turning around part of the process that Waggit bumped his rear end against the door, and to his amazement it swung open. He looked to see if anyone was inside, but as far as he could make out, the apartment was empty. Then he suddenly realized what had happened: when she had come back to retrieve the forgotten cell phone, the woman had pulled the door shut behind her, but in her hurry had failed to check that it had fully closed. It looked shut, but obviously the lock hadn't engaged. His first reaction to this realization was relief that he could now get inside the apartment, but his second was one of irritation. Had he known that the door was open he could've saved
himself the scary and dangerous trip down the fire escape.

But he could now wait for the woman's return on the comfort of his own bed and behind the security of a closed door. He made sure of the latter once he was inside by leaning heavily against it until he heard the click of the lock falling into place. He then went over to the squishy bed, repeated the lying down process, and breathed a sigh of contentment.

He fell asleep almost immediately. Saying good-bye to the team and sticking to his decision had been difficult for him, and now he was exhausted. Lowdown's voice, telling him that it would be the last time they would meet, echoed through his head. At that moment what he was giving up seemed more real to him than what he was gaining, and he was beginning to regret having gone back to the park, even though it was probably the right thing to have done. His slumber was broken by the sound of the woman's key in the lock, and he leapt to his feet, tail wagging furiously, to greet her.

As she came in the apartment Waggit knew that he had made the right decision. She was a large woman, not just physically, but in every way. She was generous,
loud, warm, and affectionate. She didn't just move, but flowed like the waterfall in the park that went into the Deepwater.

“Parker my boy! What a nice welcome,” she said in her voice that had been trained to be heard by large audiences and which she barely modulated for this audience of one.

She sat down on the floor, and Waggit buried himself in her, licking her face, his whole body wriggling with delight. When he first started living with her he had worried that enjoying the comfort and security she provided was a bad thing, that it was in some way shameful. He had since come to realize that most dogs needed to feel safe. That was why teams existed and why loners were so strange. He felt certain that many of his friends in the park would have done what he had done if they could have. In fact Tazar himself had said so. There was nothing to be ashamed about in feeling the way he did if that was what he really wanted. He had proved to himself and to the other team members that he could survive the hardships of life in the park, and that he was as brave as any dog in the team. Choosing a comfortable life with a woman who clearly loved him was not cowardly, and in fact the
decision to stay with her took much of the same courage that he had displayed as a hunter.

The woman looked into his eyes as she stroked that special place behind the ears.

“You have become so important to me,” she said. “You make my life complete. I hope that we're together for a long, long time.”

Waggit looked back at her. He didn't understand her words, and even if he had, they wouldn't have meant much to him. Dogs don't think much about the future beyond the day ahead, or sometimes just the next meal. For them it is the moment that counts, and at that moment it seemed to Waggit that
his
life would be complete if the woman scratched his stomach. He rolled over onto his back and she willingly cooperated. As she watched him enjoy the sensation she could swear that he was smiling. And, you know, maybe he was.

Bad water:
Gasoline

Bigwater:
The reservoir

The Cold White:
Snow

Curlytails:
Squirrels

Deepwater:
The lake

Deepwoods End:
The north end of the park

Eyes and ears:
Sentry duty

Feeder:
Restaurant

Flutters:
Birds

Goldenside:
The west side of the park

The Great Unknown:
The dog pound

Hoppers:
Rabbits

Loners:
Dogs with no team

The Long Cold:
Winter

Longlegs:
Horses

Luggers:
Carriages pulled by horses

Nibblers:
Mice

Petulants:
Pet dogs

Realm:
Area of the park that is the domain of a team

Rising:
Day

Risingside:
The East side of the park

Rollers:
Cars

Rollerway:
Road going through the park

Ruzelas:
Anyone in authority—rangers, police, etc.

Scurries:
Rats

Silver claws:
Knives

Skurdie:
A homeless person in the park

Skyline End:
The south end of the park

Stoners:
Teenage boys

Uprights:
Human beings