But I never knew why she saw me. I didn’t know what value it could possibly have for her.
At the time it just seemed like some freak accident or really just a mistake. But now I thought I knew, or at least had an inkling, you know, that I might know, because of all that nasty talk I heard coming from her mom, which had sort of given me certain ideas.
So, do you know why I thought she saw me?
You know why I thought she could?
Because she was good at hiding too.
I got up from the dog bed.
My shoes felt a little squashy, but not too bad, and they didn’t make any noise or leave any tracks. I went across the room and up the stairs again, and when I was at the top, I rapped on the door, very lightly.
“Dobey?”
For a second I didn’t hear anything. Then the chain shook a little.
“Dobey?”
I heard the chain drag. The floors were hardwood, I guessed, or tile, and that chain went from room to room in a big semicircle.
Yes. Laura was really good at hiding.
Too good, I thought.
Because I’d never even noticed.
I never noticed that there was a whole person she was hiding, and even though I consider myself to be such a hiding expert, she did it so well it was impossible for even me to detect.
So I wondered.
What does she have to hide?
I figured now was my chance to find out.
I raised my hand and put it to the knob. Once again I called Dobey’s name, and I don’t know how he did it, what with the chain and everything, but he’d sneaked up without making a sound and was right outside the door.
He started to growl.
It was a low rumble, pretty angry-sounding, and I must admit it totally freaked me out.
“Hi, Dobey!” I said in this really chipper voice.
He barked, once, sharply.
I flinched.
“Hey, Dobester!” That’s what Laura had always called him. “Remember me?”
Very slowly I turned the knob. I opened the door an inch. I heard his chain shake.
“Hey, Dobey! I’m here! Remember me?” I was still very chipper.
I saw part of his head through the crack. His eye was dull black. I guess it didn’t look too unfriendly. He was still growling, though.
I put my hand through.
Amazingly, he didn’t bite it off.
I won’t say he was super excited about me petting him, but he let me. Then he sort of got into it, turning his head all over the place and letting me scratch behind his ears. When he started licking my hand, I opened the door the rest of the way.
At first he backed up and sort of checked me out, and his ears went up a little, I’d say halfway, like maybe he was on half alert, but nothing special.
“Come here, Dobester!” I said, chipper as hell. I put my hand out again. He watched me for a few seconds and then came up, his whole body sort of galumphing straight at me. I must say, my need to pee had returned exponentially. He sniffed my hand, then sort of jolted forward, stuffing his snout in my crotch. I stood pretty stiff and just let him. After a few sniffs and wiggles I guess he remembered me, because he pulled his head out again and let me pat him some more.
I looked around. It was the kitchen like I’d thought, with one of those nifty islands in the middle with stools all around it.
I looked in the corners of the ceiling and saw no cameras. I chalked that up to luck.
Over in the corner by the back door was Dobey’s dog dish.
I kept patting his head as I moved toward the dish.
It was on the floor beside a counter. On top of the counter was a bag of dry dog food, and next to that a plastic dispenser full of dog bone treats. As I moved, I bent low, sort of synchronizing all my movements and still petting him, so he’d stay calm. I must admit that when I picked up the treats he got pretty excited.
“Treats, Dobey! Treats!” I felt like a moron.
I held the dispenser high and he got really excited, jumping up and digging his paws with these big black nails pretty hard into my chest. I kind of walked backwards, staring down at Dobey with an idiotic grin.
“Treats! TREATS!”
When I was back at the basement door I tossed the whole dispenser down the steps. The treats exploded all over the place, but I figured ole Dobes would clean up the mess, because sure enough, he charged straight down, his paws slipping and scratching on the stairs, and I shut the door right after him.
Chapter
Ten
For a second I just stood there, kind of getting over it.
Then I looked up through the room.
I must admit I was feeling pretty good. That whole trick-Dobey-down-the-stairs-with-the-treats routine, I thought that was pretty clever. That was fast thinking, for me, at least, though I seemed to remember seeing something similar in an old horror movie where the character tricks the demon-dog into going downstairs the same way, which is probably where I got the idea in the first place.
But don’t think I was feeling good just because I was clever.
The truth is, I was super excited about being in Laura’s house. For the first time in months I felt really close to her. I mean, all my feelings were reactivated like I said, and if you’ve ever really been in love, you’ll know exactly what I mean, so just seeing the sink where she might go to get a drink of water or the table where maybe some days she sits and eats her lunch—I mean, I was really excited to see all that.
But first I checked again for video. There wasn’t any I could see. At least not in the
