Ellie's Story by W. Bruce Cameron

Author:W. Bruce Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466842991
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

12

A car ride! I bounced happily into the backseat as Maya got in the front.

We couldn’t be going to Work, because Maya was happy. Lately she was never happy about Work. Today there was a little buzz of excitement coming off her, and it made me excited, too. I stuck my nose out the window, drinking in the smells that rushed past, and my tail smacked the seat of the car as I wagged.

But it wasn’t until Maya stopped the car and opened the door that I realized where I was.

Jakob’s apartment!

I ran ahead of Maya, bounding up the stairs and barking at the door. I never would have done that when I lived with Jakob. But I was so happy that I couldn’t help myself. Jakob! I was going to see Jakob again!

I could smell him inside and hear him moving to the door. He opened it and I barreled into him, leaping and twisting joyfully. It had been so long since I’d seen him or smelled him or heard his voice!

“Ellie! How are you, girl? Sit!” he commanded.

I dropped my bottom onto the floor, but it didn’t want to stay there.

“Hi, Jakob,” Maya said from the doorway.

“Come on in, Maya,” he answered.

Jakob walked toward a chair, and I bounced up to walk with him. He moved more slowly than he used to, and he held on to the back of the chair as he eased himself into it.

I put my head on his knees. I would have climbed into his lap, even, just as I’d done with Maya in the tub. But I knew better. Jakob wouldn’t allow that, and anyway, I had a sense that I should be careful with him.

Maya and Jakob talked a little, the way people do. I pulled away from Jakob and began to sniff around the apartment. Not much had changed. My bed was gone, but my scent was still in the bedroom. It would be all right. I could sleep on the carpet or even on Jakob’s bed, if he wanted me to.

I trotted back out to be with Jakob, passing Maya on the way. She reached out her hand, with its smell of soap and sweet lotion and tasty food, to stroke my back as I went by.

That’s when it hit me—going back to Jakob would mean leaving Maya.

When Jakob had taken me away from my mother and my littermates, I hadn’t had a choice. When Maya had taken me from the kennel to her home, I hadn’t had a choice. I understood how it was. Dogs did not get to choose where they lived. People decided that.

But that didn’t stop me from feeling like something inside me was tearing in two.

Jakob was far better at Work than Maya. But Maya didn’t carry a dark core of sadness around with her all the time, the way that Jakob did. When Maya laughed, she was truly happy. When Maya hugged her little cousins and nieces and nephews at Mama’s house, joy rippled off of her in waves.

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