“I get it,” Suzy interrupted. “Yeah, it freaks you out because you’re not expecting it. Like when you see a dog, and you’re only expecting it to have one head, but then it has two, and you’re like, ‘Hey, that’s terrifying.’“
Jeff chuckled, then went on, “But seriously, wouldn’t it be awesome to have a two-headed dog?” He rushed on, ignoring Suzy’s exasperation, “I mean, we’d totally be the most popular kids in school.”
Suzy shook her head slowly, her face a mask of disbelief. “What planet do you live on that you think a two-headed dog would make you the most popular kid in school? Seriously!”
As Jeff was opening his mouth to respond, he caught his mom’s voice from outside. “Well, if there were a two-headed dog in your home, wouldn’t YOU think it was an emergency?” Pause. “No, it is not currently attacking anyone.” Pause. “No, no one needs medical attention; it didn’t actually bite any of us.” Pause. Angry growl. Then, “Fine. Can you connect me?” Pause. “Fine,” and with threadbare civility, “Thank you.”
Jeff peeked out the window as his mom exploded, “They didn’t think it was enough of an emergency, and we have to call Animal Control! And they wouldn’t connect me!”
Distractedly, she called up, “Okay kids, I’m going to get Animal Control, and it’ll probably be a few minutes. Do you want to just wait up there or should we get a ladder so you can climb down?”
“If I can make friends with the dog before Animal Control arrives, can we keep him?” Jeff asked.
“No!” three voices answered in unison.
Jeff was standing on an ornamental brick placed carefully in his mom’s flowerbed, looking through the kitchen window and shouting updates to his family: “Now it’s sniffing around the pantry!”, “Now it’s got its front paws on the counter, and it’s nosing through our stuff. Woah! It’s eating the butter! No, it didn’t like that.”
Almost the moment they had climbed down the ladder to the front yard, Suzy had begged Jeff to climb back up and retrieve her phone from her room. Now she squeezed onto the brick next to him and reached her phone up over his shoulder to take a picture. She looked at the picture, typed for a moment, and held it up to him, smirking in a pleased-with-herself kind of way at her caption: #pestcontrolfail – before posting it.
“That IS pretty good,” Jeff admitted as he turned back to watch. “Hey! It got the cupboard doors open! Wow. Dang. Look at it DESTROY that garbage can.” He watched for a while in mute wonder. Inside, the dog abandoned the garbage and returned to sniffing around the kitchen.
“Oh no! No! Get away!” Jeff yelled at the dog. It had discovered the dragon, so carefully pinned on the cardboard square, still sitting on the counter. It knocked the cardboard to the floor and pawed at it.
“I’m going in there,” Jeff declared, jumping out of the flowerbed.
“You are NOT,” his mom glared.
At that moment, a blue-and-white van with “Animal Control” printed on the side pulled into the driveway.
A man in padded coveralls climbed out, pulling from the van an eight-foot aluminum pole with a loop of cable dangling from one end. Jeff fidgeted while his dad explained the situation.
“You say it’s got two heads?” the Animal Control man drolled out. “DWIGHT” was printed over one pocket, and his accent was pure country bumpkin.
“Yes. It’s some sort of deformation, or a, uh,” Jeff’s dad rolled his hands expressively, trying to think of the right word.
“A Siamese dog!” Jeff supplied helpfully.
“A conjoined dog!” his dad said, seeming pleased at remembering the word, “Or conjoined twin dogs, I guess.”
Dwight furrowed his brow, shook his head and said, “Well, that’ll be one for the picture wall. We caught some weird ones before, but never one with two heads. But I s’pose it don’t matter how many heads it’s got, if it’s a strange dog, and it’s in your house. Let’s get it out of there.”
“Be careful,” Lori warned, “It’s a BIG dog.”
“And if you see a piece of cardboard on the floor, with a fly pinned on it, could you just bring it out with you…” Jeff trailed off, wilting under the combined weight of several glares. “Yeah, never mind. I’ll just get it after. Go ahead.”
Dwight hefted his catchpole and headed for the door.
SIX
Jeff’s face was against the front room window, his hands cupped at his forehead to block the glare. Dwight was crossing the entryway toward the kitchen. He was steady and didn’t give off a hint of fear. Jeff was impressed.
At the kitchen, Dwight stopped, lowering the catch pole to waist height, the loop dangling, ready.
Jeff could just make out Dwight’s voice through the glass, his tone soothing, “Hey there, doe-gie. I’m comin’ in thar. I’m not gonna hurtchya. Just gonna help ya get outta there. Gonna take ya to a good ol’ place where there’s plenty of food, and water, and...” Then either his voice got quieter or he stopped speaking.
From his angle, Jeff couldn’t see more than a few feet into the kitchen. Should have gone to the other window. Too late now. Dwight was standing at the limit of his field of vision, and now Jeff perceived a change in his stance. Not so calm, not so confident.
The catch pole began to shake.
Dwight took a step back. Then two, three more, quickly. He began swinging the pole back and forth, more protectively than tactically. And then as Dwight back-pedaled again, the dog stalked into Jeff’s view, its teeth fully bared, its heads and body strangely low to the ground.
It looked like the dog was trying to pass under some low barrier, and Jeff thought for a second, crazily, that maybe his dad had installed a laser security system in the house, and
