A Dog's Purpose

“When was that?” Ethan asked.

“At the football game,” Todd said. Then he laughed, a short bark.

Ethan was shaking his head blankly, but Hannah blinked. “Oh. Oh, right,” she said, suddenly subdued.

“What?” Ethan asked.

“I have to pick up my sister. Linda!” Todd yelled, cupping his hands. “Come home now!”

Linda detached herself from her pile of friends and trudged through the snow dejectedly.

“He’s . . . he’s the one I talked to,” Hannah told Ethan. Some worry flickered through Hannah, and I glanced at her curiously, then jerked my head at Ethan when I felt a rising anger from him.

“Wait, what? You? Todd, you were the person who told Hannah I’d been with Michele? I don’t even know Michele.”

“I got to go,” Todd mumbled. “Get in the car, Linda,” he told his sister.

“No, wait,” Ethan said. He reached his hand out and Todd jerked away from it.

“Ethan,” Hannah murmured, putting a mitten on his arm.

“Why would you do that, Todd? Why would you lie? What’s wrong with you, man?”

Though the conflicts and emotions boiling through Todd were hot enough to melt the snow we were standing on, he just stood there, staring back at Ethan, not saying a word.

“This is why you don’t have any friends, Todd. Why can’t you just be normal? You’re always doing stupid things like this,” Ethan said. “It’s sick.” The anger was leaving him, but I could feel how upset he still was.

“Ethan,” Hannah said more sharply.

Todd wordlessly got in his car, slamming the door. His face, when he looked back at Hannah and Ethan, was absolutely blank.

“That was mean,” Hannah said.

“Oh, you don’t know him.”

“I don’t care,” Hannah replied. “You shouldn’t have said he doesn’t have any friends.”

“Well, he doesn’t. He’s always doing stuff, like when he said this one guy stole his transistor radio. The whole thing was a lie.”

“He’s not . . . there’s something different about him, right? Like is he in special education?”

“Oh no, he’s really smart. That’s not it. He’s just Todd, that’s all. He’s always been twisted, you know? We used to be friends, when we were kids. But he had all these weird ideas for what was fun, like throwing eggs at the preschoolers when they were waiting for the van to summer school. I told him I didn’t want to do it—his own sister was one of the kids; I mean, come on—and so he just stomped on the carton of eggs he’d brought over. Made a mess in my driveway that I had to hose off before my dad got home. Bailey liked that part, though.”

I wagged at my name, glad to think we might be talking about me, now.

“I’ll bet he did,” Hannah laughed, reaching down and petting me.

A few days after Hannah left, the snow came down and the wind blew so hard that we stayed inside all day, sitting in front of the heater. (At least, that is what I did.) That night I slept under the covers on Ethan’s bed, and stayed there even when I got so hot I panted, just because it was so wonderful to be pressed up against him like when I was a puppy.

The next morning the snow finally stopped and Ethan and I went outside and dug for hours in the driveway. Running in that deep, heavy snow was tough going, and I would leap ahead for only a few feet before needing to stop and rest.

The moon came out right after dinner, so bright that I could see really well, and the air was thick with the fragrance of fire-place smoke. Ethan was tired and went to bed early, but I went out the dog door and stood in the yard, my nose to the faint breeze, galvanized by the exotic light and crisp night air.

When I discovered that the snow had drifted in a huge pile against the fence, I was delighted to climb right up to the top of the mound and drop over the other side. It was a perfect night for an adventure. I went over to Chelsea’s house to see if Duchess was available, but there was no sign other than a fairly recent patch of urine- soaked snow. I thoughtfully lifted my leg on the area so she’d know I was thinking of her.

Normally when I went for a little nighttime exploration, I ventured along the creek. It reminded me of hunting with Sister and Fast when I was a wild puppy, and the smells were always exciting. Now, though, I was forced to stick to the plowed roads, turning up driveways that were clear to sniff at the cracks between garage doors and the pavement. Some people had already dragged their indoor trees outside, though at Ethan’s house it still stood in the front window, with objects and lights hanging from it for Felix to attack. When I came across the indoor trees lying in the plowed driveways, I marked them with my scent, and it was this, the seemingly endless procession of trees to tag, that kept me out so late. If it hadn’t been for the scent of yet another misplaced tree luring me onward, I would have returned back home and maybe would have arrived in time to prevent what happened.

Finally I was caught square in the headlights of a passing car, and it slowed for a minute, and the smell of it reminded me of Mom’s car whenever she and Ethan came looking for me when I’d been out too long on an adventure, and I felt a quick stab of guilt. I lowered my head and trotted back home.

Turning up the shoveled sidewalk, I was struck by several things at once, all of them wrong.

The front door was open, and the aroma of home was wafting out in great gusts, propelled into the frosty night air by the force of the furnace. Riding on the currents of that air was a chemical smell both sharp and familiar—I smelled it whenever we went for a car ride and stopped at the place where Ethan liked to stand by the back of the car with a thick black hose. And backing out of the house was someone I initially thought was the boy. Not until he turned to shake some more chemical-laden liquid into the front bushes did I pick up his scent.