A Dog's Purpose Boxed Set by W. Bruce Cameron

Author:W. Bruce Cameron [Cameron, W. Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2014-10-06T11:00:00+00:00

FIVE

I awoke cold and hungry. My brother and I were pressed up against each other for warmth and when I stirred he opened his eyes. We groggily made our way around the box, relieving ourselves and touching each other several times, communicating to each other what was pretty obvious. Our mother and our siblings were gone.

My brother started crying.

Soon the woman called Jennifer came over to see us. We looked up at her, so tall above us.

“You poor little puppies, you miss your mommy, don’t you?”

The sound of her voice seemed to soothe my brother. He stood on his rear legs, his front legs against the side of the box, and strained to raise his small muzzle to her. She bent down, smiling. “It’s okay, little one. Everything will be all right, I promise you.”

When she left, my brother went back to his whining. I tried to interest him in a wrestling match, but he was really unhappy. I knew everything was fine because we had a woman to watch us and she would bring our mother back soon so we could feed, but my brother was frightened and hungry and apparently couldn’t think beyond that.

Soon Jennifer returned. “Okay, time to take care of you. You want to go first? Okay,” she said, picking up my brother and carrying him off.

I was alone in the box. I lay down and tried not to think about the empty ache in my stomach. It was easier to ignore my hunger with my brother off with Jennifer. I wondered if maybe I was supposed to take care of my brother but dismissed the thought. Dogs don’t take care of dogs; people take care of dogs. As long as we had Jennifer, we would be fine.

I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until I felt Jennifer lifting me up into the air. She stared into my face. “Well, that didn’t go as well as I had hoped,” she said. “Let’s hope it goes more quickly with you.”

I wagged my tiny tail.

Jennifer and I went upstairs. There was no sign of my brother, though I could smell him in the air. Still holding me, she sat down on her couch, rolling me onto my back in the cradle of her arm. “Okay, okay now,” Jennifer said. “Nice and still.”

She reached over and picked something up, an odd-shaped thing that she slowly lowered toward my face. What was she doing? I squirmed a little.

“You need to be still now, puppy. This will go okay if you don’t fight it,” Jennifer said.

Her voice was soothing, but I still didn’t know what was going on. But then I caught the delicious scent of warm milk—the thing she was holding was oozing food. The tip of it was soft and when she probed my lips with it I seized it and sucked and was rewarded with a warm, sweet meal.

In a way, it was like being nursed by my mother, except that I was on my back and the thing in my mouth was very large.

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