Emily's parents wouldn't actually let her spend the
night
at the veterinary hospitalâand Dr. Kasanofsky probably wouldn't have, eitherâbut, as long as she ate and slept properly, and took lots of breaks during the day, they agreed that she could stay there with him during most of the hours that the clinic was open.
Over the next few days, Zack continued to improve steadily. Her parents drove her back and forth constantly, and every single time, her dog would perk up as soon as she walked into the room. Dr. Kasanofsky wanted them to encourage him to eat, so each time, Emily would bring some kind of special treat with her like Milk-Bones, or beef jerky, or some special freeze-dried liver bits that Ms. Sheldon, who ran the pet store, recommended. Zack
really liked
the liver bits.
One of her parents always kept her company, although mostly, they just sat and read quietly or
worked. She would mostly pat the dog, and talk to him. It always
felt
like he was listening to every word she said, and she told him all about Josephine, and what their house was like, and how she couldn't wait until it was time for him to come and live with them for good.
Usually, she liked to spend some time every day drawing or painting, so she would bring a sketch pad along with her. Her parents had enrolled her in lots of different after-school and summer art classes, so that she could learn different techniques, but a few simple pencils and erasers were still her favorites. Zack was a good subjectâwith his alert eyes and his floppy earsâand she drew him from lots of different angles, filling up half a pad of paper in about three days.
Sometimes, especially in the late afternoons, she would doze off, and as often as not, Zack would fall asleep, too. The nebulizer treatments seemed to make him extra tired, but every day, his breathing was getting better, and he had stopped coughing as much. The other good news was that none of the animal shelters or other veterinarians in the southern part of Maine had had
anyone
report a missing white dog!
To help Zack's lungs heal, Dr. Kasanofsky
taught her a technique called coupage. She would bend her hand partway and then move it around his chest with gentle taps, which was supposed to loosen the moisture inside his lungs and help him cough it away. Usually, Dr. Kasanofsky or one of the vet techs did the coupage themselves, but sometimes, they watched her try it for a couple of minutes, too, to make sure that she was doing it right.
Dr. Kasanofsky also wanted him to start exercising a little bit, so twice a day, they would walk very slowly around the room a couple of times. Emily was afraid that it would hurt him too much to put weight on his cast, but Zack seemed comfortable using only three legsâand very happy to be moving around. She felt claustrophobic just sitting
next
to the cage where he was recuperating, so she couldn't imagine how confined it must feel to be
inside
it.
Even though the walks were so short, Zack would wag his tail the entire time. Then, when he started to get tired, he would lean the side of his head against her leg, and she would know that it was time to stop, and would get someone to lift him back up onto an examining table or into the cage.
On Friday afternoon, Dr. Kasanofsky said that it
would be okay for them to try going outside for the first time. So the three of themâalong with her motherâtook a very slow stroll around the parking lot.
Zack wagged his tail nonstop, moving along with lots of energy, and he even stopped once to bark at a seagull. He also sniffed the air for a long time, and then walked directly over to her parents' car, nosing the passenger-side door curiously.
Emily looked over at Dr. Kasanofsky, who had a broad smile on his face. “What do you think, Dr. K.?” she asked.
“I think I'm going to send him home first thing tomorrow morning,” Dr. Kasanofsky said.
Emily was so excited that she bent down to give Zack as bigâand carefulâa hug as she could. “Do you hear that?” she said. “You're coming home!”
Zack wagged his tail even harder, and barked again.
As far as she could tell, he was as happy about it as she was!
Â
On their way back to the house, she and her mother
stopped at the pet store to buy a bunch of supplies. They picked out a red plaid collar with a matching leash, a big fleece bed with a blue cotton cover,
canned and dry food, beef and cheese-flavored biscuits, a couple of bones for him to chew, a brush and a comb, a hard rubber ball, and a package of tennis balls.
“How about these?” her mother asked, pointing towards a set of chrome food and water dishes, which looked a lot like the ones in his cage at the vet's.
Emily shook her head. “He doesn't like metal. It hurts his teeth.”
Her mother blinked. “Oh. Well, okay. Which ones do you think he would like, then?”
Emily glanced at the different kinds of dishes displayed and knew the right answer immediately. “The blue ones. And they'll match his bed.”
Her mother shrugged, and put the plastic bowls into their shopping cart.
“I know it's a lot of stuff, Mom,” Emily said. “But, is it okay if we get something for Josephine, too? So her feelings won't be hurt?”
Her mother smiled. “That sounds like a good idea.”
So they bought Josephine something called a catnip mat, which Mrs. Sheldon assured them cats
loved
to sleep and play around on, and a new ceramic food dish with tiny flowers on it. Maybe Josephine
didn't actually care one way or the other, but Emily had always thought that her cat preferred things that were
pretty
.
She and her mother had called ahead to tell her father the good news, and when they got home, he had already cleared out a large space on the den floor to put Zack's new bed.
“Um, thank you,” Emily said, “but isn't he going to sleep in my room?”
“Oh.” Her father frowned. “I don't know. Is that what dogs do?”
She and her mother nodded.
“Okay, then,” her father said, then shrugged and carried the fleece bed upstairs.
After supper, it occurred to Emily that Zack might not feel strong enough to climb the stairs, or that trying to do it might make his leg hurt. So, while her mother was working on a syllabus for one of the political science classes she was going to be teaching that semester, Emily and her father decided to
make
an extra dog bed, which they would put in the den, just in case.
“And this way, he can be in here with us when we watch movies and stuff,” Emily said.
“That's right,” her father said, and indicated the television, where the Red Sox were losing by nine
runs in the fifth inning. “We certainly wouldn't want him to miss things like
that
.”
Emily grinned. “Maybe he'll heal quicker if we don't ever let him see really bad scores.”
Her father nodded. “I know it would improve
my
health.”
It took a pretty long time, but they carefully cut an oversized cardboard box down until it was the perfect size for a dog bed, and neatly piled old beach towels inside for padding. When they were finished, Emily used different colored Magic Markers to write “Zachary” on the outside, and drew a few bones and balls and birds and things on the cardboard, too.
Josephine ambled downstairs, sniffed at the bed, and then curled up in the middle of it, on top of the towels. Emily had expected that, since she had completely ignored her new catnip mat and gone to sleep on the fleece bed the second her father had put it in her bedroom.
“I think old Zack's going to have some competition,” her father said.
Emily nodded. It sure looked that way.
She was just finishing her drawings when her mother came down from her office to see how they were doing. “What do you think, Mom?”
Her mother bent down to examine the bedâand give Josephine a pat while she was at it. “Very nice,” she said. “I'd sleep in it myself.”
Which Emily thought was really funny to picture.
After the Red Sox lostâby only one run, after
almost
coming back to win in the bottom of the ninth, they went out to the kitchen to have some ice cream. Her father always said that it was very important to seek some small comfortâpreferably in the form of sweetsâafter demoralizing defeats.
She was pretty sure that it would be impossible to get to sleep at all that night, but she must have been more tired than she thought, because she dropped off in the middle of reading a chapter in her latest book.
When she woke up, the book was still lying across her chest, and the sun was shining through her windows. She lifted her book, to pick up where she had left off, and then remembered that this wasn't an ordinary, lazy summer morning.
Today was the day that her dog was coming home!
Emily and her parents drove over to the animal hospital so
that they would be there right when it opened. In fact, Emily had been so eager for them not to be late that they ended up arriving half an hour early. Rhoda, the office manager, laughed when she saw them waiting in the parking lot.
“Pretty excited?” she asked, as she unlocked the front door of the building to let them in.
“
Very
excited,” Emily said.
Once Zack had had one last examinationâand passed with flying colors, Emily put on his new collar and leash. In the meantime, her mother wrote down detailed home-care instructions and gathered together the antibiotics and other medications he was going to have to take for the next few weeks, while her father mostly stood around looking as though he thought they were getting in
way
over their heads. Zack would also have to come back for regular check-ups, to make sure that
his lungs were staying clear, and that his injuries were healing.
When they came out to the waiting room, Emily hanging tightly to Zack's leash, the people waiting for appointments must have heard the whole story from Rhoda or someone, because they all clapped.
“That is one lucky dog,” a woman said.
Emily was pretty sure that
she
was the lucky one, but she just nodded and thanked the woman, who had a little black-and-white fluff ball of a dog perched on her lapânamed, as it turned out, Wolverine.
When they were all finally in the car, her father handed a copy of the bill over to her mother, who shuddered and gave it back.
“Let's hope we don't need a new roof or anything this year,” she said.
“Let's hope we don't even need to buy
gas
,” her father said. “Or food.”
Emily hadn't even thought about how much all of this special veterinary care must have cost, and now she felt guilty. “I'm sorry,” she said. “Was it really, really expensive?”
Her father grinned. “Put it this way, Em. I hope you aren't going to need braces. And college is out, too.”
Oh, no. Emily was about to offer to give up her allowanceâfor the next several
years
âwhen her mother shook her head.
“Don't tease her, Theo,” her mother said, and turned around in her seat to look at her. “Are you happy?”
Incredibly
happy. Emily nodded.
“Okay, then,” her mother said. “I can't think of a better way to spend our money. Now, please, put on your seat belt.”
Emily quickly pulled her seat belt across herself and clicked it in place. She would have liked to belt Zack in somehow, too, but he was sprawled out across the rest of the seat, with his muzzle resting on her knee, and she didn't want to disturb him. “Um, thank you,” she said. “I mean, really.
Thank you
.”
Her father nodded. “You're welcome. But no birthday presents. And nothing for Hanukkah or Christmas, either. Andâ”
“Knock it off, buddy,” her mother said, with a grin. “
Drive
.”
Her father grinned back, saluted her, and started the car.
When they pulled up to the house, their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Peabody, was lifting some groceries
out of her car. She stopped, set the bags down on the hood, and walked over to meet them.
“So, this must be the famous Zack,” she said.
Since he had technically washed up on the Peabodys' rocks, Emily and her parents had told them all about it, the first time they had run into them afterwards.
“Yes, this is Zack,” Emily said, feeling very proud.
The dog wagged his tail at Mrs. Peabody in a friendly way.
“Well, now, he's going to be
something
, isn't he,” Mrs. Peabody said, and patted him briefly, before going back to retrieve her groceries.
Even in such a short period of time, the dog's fur was already growing back, and looked thick and fluffy. When he was strong enough, he was going to need a bath, because there were some stains in the white fur, but he still looked good. His legs and tail were gracefully feathered, and his brown eyes were so dark that they looked almost black. He was also starting to gain a little weight, and wasn't nearly as frail as he had been just a few days earlier.
Zack seemed to want to explore everything at
once, and Emily let him wander around the yard for a few minutes before steering him over towards the deck and the back door.
When they went inside, Josephine was sitting on the kitchen floor, washing her face. As soon as she saw the dog, her fur puffed up and she hissed, before leaping dramatically up onto the kitchen table.
Zack just stood near the door, waving his tail pleasantly.
Emily didn't want her cat to feel jealous, or left out, so she went over to pick her up and hug her.
“You're still the best cat in the world,” she said. “We just have a dog now, too, that's all.”
Josephine hissed again, but she was also purring, so Emily figured that the hissing was mostly just for show.
The dog wandered around the kitchen for a moment, sniffing everything, and accepted a Milk-Bone Emily's father offered him, although he didn't eat it. Instead, he stood in the middle of the floor, looking bemused and uncertain, and holding the biscuit in his mouth.
Emily felt a little unsure of herself, too. She had expected the dog to be overjoyed to be in his new house, but so far, he mostly seemedâuncomfortable. Anxious. Shy, even.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“You both relax, that's what you do,” her mother said. “This is a big change for him, all at once, Em. He needs a little time to adjust.”
Emily nodded, but she was still uneasy. Was there some trick to having a dog that she didn't know about? He wasn't healthy enough to do things like chase after balls and Frisbees yet, so they couldn't just start playing around and having fun. So what should they do, instead?
Maybe he was tired. Now that she thought about it,
she
was pretty tired. It had been a really long week.
“Well, I don't know about the rest of you,” her father said, “but I'm going to go read the paper.” He reached down to tap Zackâtentativelyâon the head. “Um, good boy. We're glad to have you here.”
Her father
always
read the paper in the morning, so that seemed nice and normal. “Maybe I should show him where his room is,” Emily said to her mother.
Her mother nodded. “Sure. We really don't have anything planned for today, so I think we should all just take it easy. Maybe we can watch a movie or something later, but that's about it.”
“Okay, that'd be good,” Emily said. She still felt sort of formal, and strange, but decided that she
would head for her room and see if the dog followed her. “Come on, Zack, let's go upstairs.”
He immediately fell in right behind her, although she paused to let him go first on the stairs, so she could make sure that it wasn't too hard for him. He lifted his cast for a few seconds, and then hung back.
“Come on, boy,” she said encouragingly.
Zack started to lift himself onto the first step, and then retreated, holding his cast in the air.
She had never really noticed how
steep
the stairs were. And since he was injured, she should have realized that he wasn't going to be able to make his way up there anytime soon. So, they were going to have to think of a new plan. It was a good thing she and her father had made that extra dog bed, after all.
“I'm sorry, Zack, we'll stay down here,” she said. “But, just so you'll know, that's Mom and Dad's room,” Emily said, pointing towards the second floor. “And that's the guest room and the upstairs office. Mom likes to work in there, but Dad usually works in the den. If you go down the other way, that's the bathroom, and that's my room, over there.”
The dog seemed to take all of that in, although she couldn't be sure. Besides, it wasn't as though he was going to be
quizzed
on it later.
She guided him into the den, where Josephine was already stretched out in the cardboard bed, taking up a lot more room than an eight-pound cat
should
be able to take up. Emily patted the towels, to indicate that Zack should lie down there, but the dog looked wary and kept his distance.
Josephine stretched luxuriously, taking up even
more
room.
“No, come on,” Emily said, picking her up and moving her over onto the couch.
Josephine jumped off the couch right away, and went to lie on top of the television, instead. That wasn't ideal, but at least it meant that she wouldn't get in Zack's way. It was kind of funny that a small cat could intimidate a dog who weighed ten times more than she did.
The dog was still standing there, with his Milk-Bone in his mouth, and Emily suddenly felt really, really tired. But then, she knew, just as suddenly, that she was fine and the
dog
was the one who was tired. Which was weirdâ
again
âbut, it was probably just because they had been spending so much time together, and she was starting to understand the way he reacted to things.
“Okay, you really should lie down now,” she said. “Stay here for a minute, I'll be right back.”
She hurried out to the kitchen to get his blue dishes, and brought them into the den. She set the water dish near the bed, and put some dry food in the other dish, in case he was hungry, too.
“There you go,” she said. “Now, you're all set. Lie down now, okay?”
The dog climbed carefully into the cardboard bedâbut still didn't lie down.
He wasn't due for any more medication for a few hours, but maybe his lungs hurt? So she tapped his chest for a couple of minutes, doing the coupage she had been taught.
The dog's tail wagged, but he stayed on his feet.
All right, she was running out of ideas. Maybe it would help if she stretched out on the floor next to his bed? If he thought she was going to rest, maybe he would decide to try it, too.
Her new school had emailed out a list of books they wanted all of the incoming seventh graders to read during the summer, and she was way behind. So she went back upstairs and selected one from the pile on her desk. Once she was in the den againâwhere the dog was still standing uncertainly on top of the folded towelsâshe grabbed a throw pillow from the couch and lay down on the floor.
Zack promptly climbed out of his cardboard bed,
curled up next to her legs, crunched his Milk-Bone, and let out a contented sigh.
Josephine jumped over from the television, peered at him suspiciouslyâand then got back into the cardboard bed, seeming to fall asleep within seconds.
Emily had every intention of reading industriously, but there was something very peaceful about being surrounded by sleeping pets, especially when they both seemed to be so happy. So what would it hurt if she took a little nap, too, even though they were all on the
floor
?
Just for ten minutes, twenty at the most.
Or an hour.
Tops.