Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy by Hailey Piper

Author:Hailey Piper [Piper, Hailey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781990082023
Publisher: The Seventh Terrace

Daisy

Daisy encountered the boy years before she found him smiling in the barley field. She was minding her business in a store’s lot at town’s edge, poking at garbage that might hide treasures. A dirty, skinny little thing, not so different from her, the boy toddled out of the store holding the hand of an older woman. This was the morning Daisy could not forgive.

“Look, Aunt Delia!” he shouted. “A puppy!”

Daisy was young and small, but she hadn’t been called a puppy in a while. She approached the boy.

Aunt Delia bent over, hands on both knees. “Isn’t she cute? That’s a yellow lab. Her hair’s almost tawny as yours.” She reached into her shopping bag.

Daisy’s ear perked at the sound of tearing plastic. Yes, there was treasure here.

“Your mom won’t mind if we share a little.” Aunt Delia reached out, a piece of sweet-smelling meat in her hand.

Daisy hurried to devour it, and then licked the residue off Aunt Delia’s palm. She didn’t tremble when the boy’s chubby fingers stroked the fur across her head. These seemed like decent people.

“Isn’t it funny how some people look like their dogs?” Aunt Delia asked. “Such a happy girl. I bet her owner looks happy, too.”

The boy smiled around a missing tooth. “I want to look happy.” His petting hand curled into a tiny, tugging fist, its fingers clenched around Daisy’s left ear. “My puppy!”

She yipped and darted back. The boy was still smiling, the dark gap in his teeth telling her to run before he did something worse than yank her ear. She dashed home, fast as she could, where she hid.

And waited.

She found him again in the withering barley field near the old railroad tracks, where conifers marked the line between town and lingering wilderness. Years had left her young, but wiser. He was older, but still the same. She recognized him by his hair likes hers, by the gap where a tooth had been knocked out or never grew, and by the vicious smile around that gap. He was no longer a small boy, but a lanky man, smiling through tears. He was in some kind of trouble, but proud of it.

Daisy scratched at her ear and barked once. He looked at her. Then his face brightened and that gapped smile widened, as frightening now as outside the store years ago.

She ran. He chased her.

It was easy. He had a shambling gait, his shoes ill-fitting. His body seemed out of shape while Daisy’s was ever strong as she wanted. She kept just ahead of his grasping hands. Mouthy, he called to her like she would stop if he talked enough.

She led him around the barley field a few times, to tire him, and then took off down the slope and across the overgrown railroad tracks toward home.

His footsteps paused when they reached the dirt trail. It winded around reddened maple trees and yellowing underbrush to a small wooden stoop beneath a half-open doorway. Nature had retaken this place and left

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