Shelby's Story by W. Bruce Cameron

Author:W. Bruce Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

9

Not long after that day near the water where Gusto and I did all the digging, I got to take a long car ride with Teresa. Just me—not the rest of the pack. They stayed home.

It was because I was Teresa’s most special dog, of course. I sat in the backseat and Teresa left the car window open just a little for me. I loved being the special dog! I put my nose up to the crack and joyfully breathed in all the scents from the world outside and felt so happy to be going somewhere—anywhere—with Teresa.

As the car rolled on and on, I noticed that the land around us changed. At first it was hot and dry and mostly flat. Then I began to feel the car going up and down more and more hills, and I noticed a new odor coming in through the window.

It was a smell that was fresh and chilly and damp and new to me. It made my tail wag and my ears perk up. What was this? When would I find out?

When Teresa stopped the car at last, I learned what the new smell was.

She opened my door for me and I scrambled out to find my paws buried in something white. My first thought was that it must be something to eat. I took a bite. It tasted like the water in my bowl—but cold! Freezing! My teeth and tongue ached. I shook my head and most of the white stuff fell out of my mouth.

“Snow, Shelby. It’s snow!” Teresa said.

Snow? Was she talking about the white stuff? It was cold on my feet! I lifted each paw, one after the other, and shook it. But that didn’t help, because I had to put my paws back down again, right into the white stuff.

“Well, you were born in Tennessee, and you’ve been living in the desert—I guess snow does come as a shock,” Teresa said. “Come this way. I want you to meet somebody, and we thought a park was a good place.”

She’d said that word again. I was beginning to understand that the white stuff was called snow. What was it used for? Clearly it wasn’t to eat.

I lifted each foot high as I followed Teresa out of the parking lot and into a place with swings and a slide and a structure made of bars. Lots of children dressed in brightly colored, puffy clothes were running and climbing. Some were clambering up small mountains of the white stuff and sliding back down.

Someone waved to Teresa and me—a tall young man with fair skin and dark hair. He knelt down right in the snow and held out his hands to me. Teresa let go of my leash, so I knew I had permission to run to him.

I liked him! He had strong fingers that knew how to scratch my fur and he talked to me in an excited voice. Later on I heard a lot of people calling him Lucas, so I figured that was his name.

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