Mutt's Promise Page 4

  Luna barked, to let Mr. Thomas know they were there.

  The farmer said awkwardly to Gilbert, “That one is Luna.”

  Gilbert nodded. Luna was surprised that the farmer knew her name. He never seemed to pay attention to her and her siblings.

  As if he read her thoughts, Mr. Thomas said, “I remembered she was the one with the mark over her eye.

  “Like Mutt,” the man added.

  He stood there stiffly and then said to Gilbert, “I’ve gotten a kick out of watching you and those puppies.”

  Gilbert looked at the man and smiled.

  He said, “Luna, dance for Mr. Thomas.”

  Hesitating, Luna lowered her head.

  “For me?” Gilbert asked.

  Luna looked back and forth between the man and boy and wished she could tell Mr. Thomas to make Gilbert’s family stay. Then, without thinking, she was up on her feet and they were moving all on their own. As long as she was dancing, she couldn’t feel sad. As long as she was dancing, she felt that she would find her way, just as Mutt had promised.

  When she finished, Mr. Thomas clapped and Luna bowed.

  Mr. Thomas reached over and patted her head.

  “Good dog,” he said.

  “Gilbert!”

  At the sound of his mother’s voice, Gilbert said in a sad voice, “I have to go.”

  Luna couldn’t believe her ears. Gilbert was actually leaving! She was in a daze as she felt Gilbert hug her and heard him say good-bye, his voice shaking with sobs. The next thing she knew, she was standing in the driveway with Mr. Thomas and Mutt as they watched Gilbert, Lorenzo, and Silvia climb into a truck packed with their things. When the truck backed onto the road, Luna saw Mr. Thomas raise his hand. She felt Mutt’s nose touch her head and then saw her mother’s paw lift in farewell.

  Luna didn’t want to say good-bye.

  Don’t leave, she thought as she reluctantly lifted her paw.

  A few seconds later, as if her wish had been granted, the truck reappeared in the driveway.

  Luna’s heart leaped. Maybe they had changed their minds!

  “Wonder what they forgot,” Mr. Thomas muttered.

  The back door opened and Gilbert jumped out. He ran over to Mutt and Luna and held his hand out to one, then the other.

  “I saw you lift your paws and didn’t want to leave without shaking hands,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave without saying I love you.”

  He gave each of them a hug, even Mr. Thomas, and then gathered Luna in his arms one last time.

  “Don’t forget how to dance, Luna,” Gilbert cried out as he ran back to the truck. “Don’t forget me!”

  As the family drove away, Luna forced herself to move her feet, three steps forward, three steps back, her way of promising her friend that she would never forget him.

  chapter nine

  SIGNS OF CHANGE

  Autumn had arrived. As nights grew colder, the puppies and Mutt began to sleep in the barn, finding warmth among the hay bales. They went up to the farmhouse once a day, to eat the food Mr. Thomas put out for them in large bowls. Sometimes Luna saw him watching them from behind the screen door.

  From time to time she stopped by Gilbert’s cabin, hoping he might show up—but he never did.

  Luna was becoming more self-sufficient every day. Though she missed her friend, she didn’t mope. She joined Chief and their sisters as they made their rounds. She barked at chicks and dipped her paws in the pond full of muck. She practiced her dance steps, always ready for the moment Gilbert would reappear.

  Meanwhile, they all noticed that Mr. Thomas had changed for the better. Penny the chicken remarked that he was happier than she could remember.

  “How can you tell?” Luna asked.

  “Haven’t you noticed?” Penny said. “He still spends most of his time indoors with Butch, just as he always did. But he must spend a lot of time fixing dinner for you puppies and your mom.”

  Mutt answered. “That’s true,” she said. “We’ve been getting more variety than we used to.”

  Luna chimed in. “It’s just his leftovers, Mom,” she said.

  Mutt shook her head. “But he cooks it, and there’s definitely more meat and vegetables than there used to be.”

  Luna nodded. “You have a point,” she said. “And even old Butch has stopped hissing at me and the other puppies when we come by.”

  The days continued to pass pleasantly enough until Mr. Thomas received a letter that changed everything. It was so upsetting that he read it to himself and then read it all over again out loud to Butch, who felt the need to tell Mutt about it, right in front of the puppies.

  “Here’s what the letter said,” the cat reported, repeating what he’d heard almost word for word.

  Dear Mr. Thomas,

  I hope you are well. I am writing to thank you for giving me a chance to prove myself. Before I came to your place, I had worked for many people who treated me and other workers worse than their animals. You were not like that. So I wanted to let you know that I and my family will not be returning to your orchards. I have saved enough money to do what I have dreamed about. I have joined my brother in New York City and we are opening a small restaurant, together with my wife. We have a location picked out on Broadway—not the one in Manhattan but the one in Brooklyn. I just wanted to let you know in case you wondered where we were, and to give you time to get another foreman before the season begins.

  Sincerely,

  Lorenzo

  P.S. Gilbert made me promise to thank you for watching the dogs for him. As you can imagine, he will miss them very much.

  Luna couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “What is he saying, Mama?” Luna asked Mutt. “Isn’t Gilbert coming back?”

  Mutt shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said sadly.

  Luna’s whole body drooped, and when Chief came over to cheer her up, she put her head down.

  “We should feel happy for Lorenzo,” Mutt said, though her voice betrayed her disappointment.

  Luna sat up. “What did Mr. Thomas say about it?” she asked Butch.

  The cat stretched from the tip of his paws to the end of his tail.

  “Well, naturally he was upset,” he said. “He crumpled up the letter and tossed it on the floor and said something like, ‘A restaurant! Good luck with that!’”

  Luna realized this was the longest conversation they’d ever had with Butch, who usually kept his distance. It occurred to her that the lazy old cat loved Mr. Thomas and was upset on his behalf. Butch said he sensed that Mr. Thomas admired Lorenzo’s willingness to pursue his dreams.

  Luna must have shown her surprise, because Butch kept on talking. “You don’t know it, but Mr. Thomas gave up on his dreams long ago.” The cat sighed. “Not that he could say any of that out loud. No, all he said about Lorenzo’s letter was that he wouldn’t enjoy looking for a new foreman.”

  After that, Luna took a new interest in Mr. Thomas. She soon noticed that he had changed again—and not for the better. Now when the puppies came running toward the house for their supper, the farmer no longer gave them a pat on the head or said hello; he just put their food down. They overheard him grumbling about how much they were costing him and even heard him imagining out loud that soon they would be large dogs, needing more and more food and attention.

  “Why is Mr. Thomas so grumpy?” Luna asked her mother.

  “Disappointment can become like a hungry, living thing,” Mutt said. “It starts eating away at your ability to feel happiness or even think straight and can get so big, it blocks out every other feeling you might have.”

  She looked worried. “I hope that isn’t happening to Mr. Thomas,” she said, more to herself than to Luna.

  Worry could eat at you the same as disappointment, Luna discovered. After hearing he
r mother’s words, the puppy made it her business to keep an even closer eye on Mr. Thomas. She was watching on the morning he showed up on the porch with a large piece of wood and some paint. Without acknowledging Luna, Mr. Thomas carefully dipped a brush into the paint and applied it to the wood. Then he nailed the wood to a stake and carried the whole thing to the side of the road, the same road that had taken Gilbert away from Luna.

  She watched as he pounded the stake into the ground and then stood back and admired the sign he had made. She listened as he read what he’d painted:

  FREE PUPPIES

  ASK ME ABOUT IT

  JUST KNOCK ON THE DOOR

  No sooner had the words left his mouth than a loud noise caused him (and Luna) to jump.

  It was Penny the hen, squawking loudly in disapproval.

  “I may not want those puppies around my chicks,” she scolded, “but you have plenty of room on the farm. Why do you have to give them away?”

  Mr. Thomas couldn’t understand her, but Luna stood frozen in horror as Penny’s words began to sink in. She heard Mr. Thomas mutter to himself, “I was only keeping those puppies for the boy. Now there isn’t anyone to take care of them. Old Mutt is almost more than I can handle.”

  Penny squawked again. “Gilbert took care of Mutt almost since the day she got here,” she cackled. “And because of Mutt the fisher cats haven’t been back. Some bargain you made!”

  Mr. Thomas kept right on talking to himself, as if Penny weren’t there.

  “I’ll make sure they go someplace good to live,” he told himself. “Someone will be happy to take them.”

  That’s all Luna needed to hear. She raced down to the barn to find her family and tell them what was going on.

  But only Mutt seemed to share her alarm.

  Chief always stayed calm, and Happy and Alegre were actually enthusiastic about the prospect of living somewhere else. They immediately began to chatter about who might adopt them, pausing only to run over and lick Mutt and tell her how much they loved her.

  “It isn’t that we want to leave you, Mother,” said Happy.

  “It’s just so exciting to imagine where we might go,” added Alegre.

  Chief interrupted. “What makes you think it will be ‘we’?” he asked. “What if you get separated?”

  The two of them dismissed the thought with a giggle and ran off.

  When Luna looked at Mutt with a question in her eyes, Mutt gently sat down next to her and said, “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. Within a day, a little girl arrived at the farm with her parents. She spotted Happy and Alegre right away.

  “They’re identical twins!” she exclaimed.

  The two puppies responded to the glee in her voice by showing off all their tricks. Happy bounded over Alegre, who rolled on her back waving her feet in the air.

  The girl didn’t seem to notice Luna and Chief, who were there too.

  “Can you believe this?” Luna asked Chief. Then she added grumpily, “They aren’t really identical. Happy has a white circle around her left eye and Alegre’s is around her right.”

  “They are twin clowns,” Chief said with a sniff. “They’ll do anything for attention. It’s undignified, the way they never stop bouncing around. They might as well scream it out: ‘Look at me! Look at me!’”

  Luna worked up her courage to contradict the brother she adored.

  “I think they’re really funny,” she confessed. Then she added, under her breath, “I wish I could be more like them.”

  “Shh,” said Chief, perking up his ears. “Let’s see what’s going on.”

  Mr. Thomas had come outside to greet the visitors.

  “Sorry, folks,” he said. “They just get excited when people stop by.”

  The little girl’s mother laughed.

  “We don’t mind,” she said. “Lisa hasn’t stopped nagging us to come out here since we passed your sign. We promised her we’d get her a puppy, so here we are.”

  Mr. Thomas nodded slowly.

  “You folks aren’t from around here?” he asked.

  The mother replied, “I grew up here, but we’re just visiting.”

  Mr. Thomas nodded again. He didn’t have much practice talking to strangers.

  Lisa was down on the ground rolling on her back like she was another puppy. Happy and Alegre jumped on top of her while the others kept a slight distance.

  Luna and Chief watched as the girl jumped to her feet and motioned for her obviously adoring parents to lean down so she could whisper in their ears.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” her father said.

  “Honey, that isn’t what we’d discussed,” said her mother.

  Lisa talked some more in a low voice.

  Then her mother and father talked to each other in whispers.

  Lisa’s father knelt down to pet Happy and Alegre, who responded by nuzzling his hand.

  Chief watched with a thoughtful look on his face.

  “You have to give those two credit,” he said to Luna. “They know how to get their way.”

  Lisa’s parents excused themselves and stood to one side, whispering and glancing over at the puppies.

  “We’ll take two puppies,” the father said. The words were barely out of his mouth when Lisa almost knocked him over, she was so excited.

  Lisa’s father put out his hand for Mr. Thomas to shake.

  “These two,” he said, pointing at Happy and Alegre. Luna didn’t want to leave her mother, but she felt a pang of disappointment at not being chosen.

  “Do they have names?” Lisa asked.

  Mr. Thomas put his hand on the baseball cap he always wore, a sign he was thinking.

  “You know,” he said, “the Mexican boy who works here summers told me . . .”

  Luna had to hold back a tear.

  The girl looked interested. “Where is he?” she said. “How old is he? What’s his name?”

  “He and his family went back to Florida,” said Mr. Thomas. “They just work here for fruit season. Let’s see, how old is he?”

  “He’s ten,” Luna whispered to Chief. “Gilbert told him! I was there.”

  Mr. Thomas remembered.

  “Ten,” he said, looking at Lisa. “Maybe a little older than you.”

  He fell silent.

  Lisa prompted him.

  “His name?”

  As Mr. Thomas smiled, Luna remembered the warmth of summer and the happiness she had felt when her friend was there.

  “Gilbert,” he said. “He’s a bright boy. Gilbert.”

  The girl asked, “What about the puppies?”

  “What about the puppies?” Mr. Thomas repeated.

  “Their names?” Lisa reminded him.

  “Right,” the farmer said, and looked like he was concentrating.

  “One of them is Happy . . .” he began.

  “Happy!” shrieked Lisa. “I love that.”

  “And I sort of think the other one has the same name, but in Spanish,” said Mr. Thomas.

  “Alegre!” shouted Lisa.

  Her father looked at his daughter with surprise and pride.

  “How did you know that?” he asked.

  “Daaaad,” she said. “We learned that in school. Alegre, happy. Triste, sad.”

  Mr. Thomas cleared his throat. “Smart girl you got there,” he said.

  Mr. Thomas looked down at Luna and Chief.

  “You sure you don’t want these two as well?” he asked. “They’re good dogs too, just like their mother.”

  Luna held her breath, not knowing what she wanted the answer to be.

  She wasn’t in suspense more than a second. A look of alarm came across the father’s face.

  “Two dogs is more than enough
!” he said, then laughed.

  Mr. Thomas didn’t ask again.

  For the first time Luna could remember, Happy and Alegre looked sad.

  “We’ll miss you,” each of them said as they walked over to Chief, Luna, and Mutt to lick their faces farewell. A few minutes later Happy and Alegre were gone, vanished just like Gilbert and his family.

  chapter ten

  A STRANGER ARRIVES

  Mutt would never forget the instant she saw Raymond, a tense, slender man with icy eyes. He appeared in the barn with Mr. Thomas one bone-chilling morning, just before winter. Raymond was pulling a wagon behind him, carrying some kind of contraption.

  Mutt had never seen a cage before but she would soon learn what it was, all too well.

  As the men approached Luna and Chief, Mutt began growling fiercely.

  “What’s wrong, Mutt?” Mr. Thomas asked with surprise in his voice. “Raymond saw our sign and wants to find Chief and Luna new homes with people who can take care of them. He owns a puppy farm that has contacts in the city. Chief and Luna will be with other puppies in a great place until Raymond finds them the right homes.”

  The words didn’t matter to Mutt. Raymond had put her instincts on high alert, as surely as if he were a fisher cat. She couldn’t stop growling.

  “Mutt, stop that!” Mr. Thomas scolded. “What’s gotten into you? Quiet down.”

  Mutt tried to obey her master but she couldn’t stop herself. The hair on her back went up and she began to bark furiously.

  The puppies, who had never seen her in this kind of frightened fury, joined her in a chorus of deafening barks.

  Mr. Thomas looked alarmed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what’s got into them. They usually are a friendly bunch.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Raymond said with a deep chuckle.

  Mutt found that low laugh more nerve-wracking than a shout would have been. Mr. Thomas must have felt the same way. His lips were pressed tightly together.