One
I lived with several brothers and sisters who all looked like me: white with mottled spots of gray and black. A very tall man with white hair was called Robin, and he took care of us.
His hands often wafted the delicious odor of small treats when he waved them in the air. “Sit,” he would say. Most of my littermates put their rumps down on the floor when he used the word, but I didn’t see the point. Robin would either hand us a treat or he wouldn’t. What did sitting down have to do with it?
When some of my littermates were handed a delicious morsel and I wasn’t, I was very offended.
One day, I understood why Robin kept saying “Ripley” to me. It was because that’s who I am: Ripley.
I chewed on Robin’s fingers and his shoes and was good at it. Then I would chew on my brothers and sisters. I loved chewing them and they would chew me back. Then I would chase them. Then I would bite at the grass. Then I would run. Then I would flop down on my belly to let one of my brothers or sisters climb on top of me.
It was all marvelous.
I was a male named Ripley. The man was Robin. One of my sisters was Riley. I had a brother named Reggie and another named Repo, and a smaller sister named Rio. This was exciting to understand. We all lived in a wonderful place with a big, snow-filled backyard for running and exploring and rolling and wrestling.
A woman younger than Robin, not nearly as tall, with long, dark hair that looked like it would be fun to tug on, often came to speak to Robin. He called her Mrs. Eckerly.
“So, what do we think of our little Ripley?” Mrs. Eckerly asked Robin during a visit. I glanced up curiously at my name. The snow was gone now, but the ground was wonderfully wet. Water and mud splooshed under my paws in a fascinating way.
Robin often displayed a slow, easy smile. His teeth were as white as his hair. “He’s a bit of a handful,” Robin responded ruefully.
Mrs. Eckerly knelt to see me. I chewed on her shoes until she pushed me away, and then I lunged for my brother Reggie and toppled him over to wrestle.
“I’ve never released a dog so early in the program,” Mrs. Eckerly remarked as she watched us play. “But I don’t think Ripley has it in him to be a guide dog.”
Robin chuckled. “Yah, I guess I’ve got to agree. He just can’t pay attention to anything. It’s best to career-change him now, before he’s too far along in the program. We’ve kept the whole litter a couple of weeks longer than usual just to give Ripley an opportunity to catch up, but they’re past ten weeks now. Time to move on.”
Reggie stopped wrestling with me to squat and pee on the ground, so I ran up to Robin and danced around him. It was time for somebody to chase me!
Mrs. Eckerly smiled down at me and at Robin. “We’ll have to think about where we can find him a good home. Border collies are popular because they’re so smart, but people don’t always realize what they’re getting into when they get one for a pet. They have a lot of energy.”
“That describes Ripley for sure,” Robin agreed. “But…”
Robin did not understand about the chasing, but that was okay. Rio obliged. We tore off around the yard together, mud flying under our paws.
Mrs. Eckerly gave Robin a shrewd look. “Why do I think you’re about to suggest something unorthodox to me? You get that look, half excited, half embarrassed.”
Ben laughed. “It is unorthodox. It’s only that Ripley comes from a long line of successful guide dogs. We know he’s smart and intuitive—he just needs a lot of training. Maybe there’s a way he could still be of service, not to the blind, but somewhere else.”
“Go on.”
“My friend Ben Gustafson wants a very smart dog for a program he’s starting. He’s a firefighter and thinks that he could train a dog to assist.”
Mrs. Eckerly frowned in puzzlement. “How? What could a dog possibly do in a fire?”
I was much faster than Rio. I made it back to Robin first, and barked a little so that he’d understand that running was much more fun than standing around.
Robin shrugged and talked a little louder. “What was the word you used? Unorthodox. Well, that’s Ben, always trying to come up with new and better ways to do things. I’ve got no idea what he’s planning. What I’m thinking, though, is that it would be a shame to waste Ripley’s bloodline by adopting him out just as a house pet. If it’s all right with you, I’ll give Ben a call and tell him we’ve got a border collie named Ripley who might be perfect for him.”
That was the first time I heard the word Ben. Later I came to associate it with a man not quite as tall as Robin, with light hair and bushy eyebrows and kind, smoke-smelling fingers. The man brought me a pair of bouncy dog toys and I jumped on the first one, and then the other, chasing them around the yard, running back to the man named Ben, chewing on a stick, and then rolling in the grass.
“For cute!” Ben exclaimed.
“Yah, but like I said, kind of a short attention span,” Robin observed apologetically. “You think that’ll be a problem?”
Ben was smiling down at me, so I went to jump up on him, but I got distracted by the strings hanging off his shoes. Strings are for pulling!
“A fire is nothing but chaos, Robin,” the man named Ben said. “Maybe being focused on several things at the same time will be an advantage.”
“Maybe,” Robin agreed doubtfully. I tugged harder.
“Well, it’s supposed to be a dry May, so house-training this little guy will be a pleasure,” Ben remarked. He reached down to pull the strings out of my mouth. I gnawed happily on his fingers instead.
“Seems like just last week I was shoveling snow.”
“Yah, that’s Minneapolis.” Ben scooped a hand under my belly and picked me up.
I was surprised when Ben carried me out of the yard. I caught a glimpse of my brothers and sisters in a pile and wondered why they weren’t coming with us.
Ben opened up something that I would learn later was called a car, and he put me in a crate inside it. I didn’t like it in the crate. There was nothing to chew on. And then it lurched a bit and we seemed to be moving!
I whimpered because the car kept giving me a funny sensation in my tummy. But nothing changed, and after a while I fell sound asleep. It seemed like the best thing to do.
I woke up when I sensed something in Ben, a change in his mood that rippled through the air currents inside the car. I sat up, peering through a slot in the crate, watching as he reached for something and held it to his mouth.
“That’s just two blocks over,” he said into whatever the object was. “I’ll go.” The car surged forward. “We’ve got a house fire, Ripley!”
I lifted my head because I heard a faint wailing noise, growing louder.
“I’m ten-seven, took a vacation day to meet you,” he told me, “but we’re going to go check it out anyway. You’ll meet some people who’ll become a big part of your life soon.”
My nose wrinkled as a smoky smell filled the interior of the car. I felt an odd sensation that flung me forward a little bit inside the crate, and then Ben was reaching in for me. I felt a familiar snick in my collar and was disappointed—Robin had obviously told Ben about leashes. It’s very hard to run and wrestle and roll over on a leash.
Ben set me on the ground and I looked around curiously. We were in the front yard of a house, but not the one I had always lived in. Black smoke curled menacingly up into the air from the open windows of this new house.
A man with hair as white as Robin’s jogged up to us. “I’m with the fire department,” Ben called to him. “Do you know if anyone’s in the home?”
The man pointed. “There’s a girl on the roof!”
Ben made a startled noise and ran to the house and I kept up with him, happy to be running, even on a leash. “Hey! You! Are you hurt?” he yelled.
I saw movement and realized there was a young girl rigidly clinging to the highest peak of the roof. She didn’t reply.
The wailing sound was getting louder.
Ben turned to the white-haired man. “Hold my dog,” he requested urgently. I saw the leash being passed over and then watched curiously as Ben opened a big garage door and darted inside. I made to follow and was jerked back by the leash.
This is why leashes are such a problem.
Ben came out carrying something long and thin. “We’re in luck! I was hoping there’d be a ladder.”
He set the thing (a ladder?) so that it was leaning against the roof.
“Want me to hold it?” the white-haired man offered.
“No, just please back down the driveway a bit,” Ben replied.
The man pulled me toward the street as Ben swarmed up the ladder. In the distance, a dog joined his voice with the wailing noise in a long, mournful howl.
I saw Ben scramble up the pitched roof to the girl. He reached out a hand. “You’re safe,” he told her. “The fire truck’s almost here. What’s your name?”
She mumbled something.
“Okay, Samantha.” Ben braced his legs and then held the girl in place. “We’re just going to wait here, all right? You’re going to be fine.”
I turned as a big, heavy truck with flashing lights swerved into the street. The wailing noise was blasting from its roof, and then the tremendous sound shut off abruptly. That was a relief.
People poured off the truck. They all wore long coats. I watched curiously as several of them ran to the front door of the new house, kicking it open. Black smoke flooded out. Two of the new people had brought their own ladder, which they secured next to Ben’s.
All the rapid movement excited me. My paws twitched with the urge to run among the humans, barking and nipping until they were all together in one tight group, with nobody left out. It’s just better that way. It’s how things should be.
But the leash stopped me. I pulled against it with a frustrated whine.
Another vehicle, boxy but not nearly as big as the truck, turned in to the driveway. The people who jumped out—one man and one woman—were not wearing the heavy coats. They dashed to the foot of the ladder while two men in coats climbed up to be with Ben. One of the men on the roof was even taller than Robin!
“Okay, we’re going to carry you down, Samantha,” I heard Ben’s gentle voice announce.
The girl shook her head wildly. “I can’t!”
“It’s okay to be afraid. Can you let go of the roof?”
“No!”
Ben looked up at the other men, then back to the girl. “Tell you what. How about if you close your eyes first. Then just let go for one second. That’s all, one second. Then all you need to do is hang on to my back and we’ll all go down the ladder. Willets and Alvis too. That’s Willets, and this is Alvis. Okay?”
Samantha nodded hesitantly.
“I’m Willets. The good-looking one,” the really tall man added.
I watched, wagging, while the girl let go of the roof and clung to Ben’s back. The three men moved carefully to the ladder, and then Ben gently carried the girl to the ground.
I understood from looking at her that she was young. A young human. I hadn’t known before that some humans were small and young—just like I was! I bet she would understand about chasing and wrestling and how to chew your friends gently to show that you like them. I felt the leash snap out of the white-haired man’s grasp as I darted to meet her.
“A puppy!” The girl sank to her knees.
Licking her face, I could taste the fear boiling within her. This girl was terrified. That meant, I guessed, that we wouldn’t be playing right now.
“Her name’s Samantha,” Ben announced to the man and the woman who were not wearing long coats.
“Are you hurt, Samantha?” The woman knelt down to look at us.
The girl’s name, I decided, was Samantha. She shook her head, holding me tight. I didn’t struggle in her grasp— I could feel the tension in her easing a bit as she held me. That felt like a good thing. She couldn’t play if she was so scared. If I let her hold me, she’d feel better.
“That’s Ripley,” Ben informed her. I looked up at my name. “Would you like to carry him with you as we go to the ambulance, Samantha?”
Samantha nodded. Her hair was much lighter than Ben’s but not as light as the white-haired man’s, and she trembled as we all headed over to the boxy car. I could smell water, now, water and steam—the odor was as strong as the smoke.
A short, stocky man with clipped hair and light eyes intercepted us.
Copyright © 2024 by W. Bruce Cameron
Copyright © 2024 Tor Books
