The Adventures of Zoe, the Wonder Dog
Loosey
By Carrie Jacobson
Chapter 22
The story so far: James Dunning lost his job, and then, to save his house, had to move in with his wife’s mother. She is allergic to dogs, though, and so James took Zoe, his mostly blind lhasa apso, to the Pike County shelter. He left her there in the middle of the night. But before the shelter opened, Kaja, a big red dog who’s been on her own for a while, found Zoe and freed her. The two set out to find James. On the way, they picked up a cat, Loosey, who’s helped them on part of their journey. Loosey has decided to stay at a farm where they just spent the night, and so Zoe and Kaja have pushed on. But, crossing the road away from the farm, Zoe has darted out and been hit by a car.
It starts to rain. Kaja looks at the woman who was driving the car that hit Zoe. The woman is weeping. It wasn’t her fault, Kaja knows. It was the fault of the big dog, the big white dog behind the fence in that yard, the big white dog that lunged at Zoe and scared her into the road. Kaja leaves her friend’s side and walks to the fence. She growls at the big dog, growls and snarls and barks at the dog, and he stares at her for a moment, and she stares back, stares him down, and he slinks back to the porch, climbs the steps and stands there.
And then she hears gasping from the little crowd of people. And she hears crying, wailing and sobbing, and she trots back over, knowing that her friend is gone. Her sweet, happy little friend. They were close to where she used to live, Kaja knows. They were almost there.
The rain falls harder, and the wind picks up. Kaja pushes in past the legs of the people, knowing what she’s going to see.
But instead of seeing her little friend dead there on the pavement, she sees Zoe sitting up, breathing. Her unseeing eyes are open, and she’s panting and holding her head a little to the side, and then Kaja sees Loosey, sitting beside Zoe, licking the side of the little dog’s face.
“It’s a miracle,” one of the women says. “That cat! Where did that cat come from? How did that cat do that?”
“It’s like she breathed the life back into her,” another woman says, and reaches down to pick up Loosey, but the cat skitters away. She sees Kaja, and comes up to her and rubs against the big dog’s legs. Loosey smells good, like hay and dirt and sun-warmed wood. She smells like the Piersons’ barn, and the horses in it, and she rubs against Kaja and the big dog knows that the cat has found her home.
And then she touches noses with Kaja, and turns and lopes off across a field, and in a moment, she’s gone from sight.
Zoe is up on all fours now, and Kaja pushes through the little crowd to get to her. The big dog licks the little dog’s ear, and licks the side of her face, and Zoe knows how glad Kaja is to see her again, and the two begin to walk off together.
“No! Don’t go, don’t go, dogs, come here! Come here!” a woman’s voice calls.
Kaja wants to go on, wants to push on their way, but the woman’s voice stops Zoe. She remembers being called, and getting cookies for going wherever they wanted her to go. She remembers being called, and being patted and picked up and hugged when she came to them. Being called had everything in it, everything from her old life, and when the woman calls her again, everything in her pulls toward the woman. But then, she looks at Kaja, and though she can’t really see the big red dog, she can feel the big dog’s heart.
Zoe aches where the car hit her. She’s bruised and sore. She’s tired and thirsty. But the big red dog is her friend and her guide, and Zoe realizes right there how much she loves her, how much she trusts her.
“Come here, dogs!” the woman’s voice yells again.
But Kaja and Zoe turn away, and head out through the cold November rain, toward the house where Zoe used to live.
Carrie can be reached at carrie@zestoforange.com
Tags: carriejacobson
