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  could carry me. Of course the dogs came spilling out.

  They never barked. They never whimpered in their

  excitement, though they were clearly excited to hear and

  then see me. They were always mute. Absolutely silent.

  I loved that about them.

  We ran.

  We ran around in a big arc, so we wouldn’t have to

  stop at the edge of the woods. So we wouldn’t have to

  face the prospect of civilization. We ran past the cabin

  again, but on a path too far away or too heavily wooded

  to see it flash by.

  We ran all the way across the River Road and stopped

  at the bank of the river. I squatted on my haunches,

  panting, and pulled a sandwich out of my pocket. I’d

  had breakfast, but I always needed more after all that

  running, and a sandwich was the only thing I knew to

  make on my own that I could put in a plastic bag and

  stick in my pocket.

  Nobody noticed the missing food. Nobody noticed

  me getting up earlier. Nobody asked why I was leaving

  the house more than an hour too early for school. I was

  like a ghost in that house. Unless I was interrupting their

  warfare, I might as well not have existed at all.

  The dogs crowded close, whacking me with their

  swinging tails, and I fed them each a bite of sandwich

  and watched the pull of the muddy water.

  Then I got nervous.

  They were not my dogs. I had no idea whose dogs

  they were. I wasn’t really supposed to have them away

  from their home with me. What if one of them stepped

  too close to the river and slid down the muddy, slippery

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  bank? What if they darted back into the road? Cars didn’t

  come along it often, but when they did, their drivers al-

  most always took the straightaway much too fast because

  there was no one around to notice.

  “Come on,” I said to them, and they lifted their ears

  and turned them to face me to show they were listening.

  “Let’s go back.”

  I looked both ways at the road. From that spot you

  could see just about forever in each direction. There was

  nobody coming, so I took a chance. I wanted to try an

  experiment.

  I ran with them down the dirt shoulder of the road

  for a tenth of a mile or so. I wanted to see how much

  faster I could go without having to play chess with the

  trees. But the experiment was a bust. Maybe I went faster.

  Who knows? But it wasn’t fun. There was nothing to it.

  It was just slapping my feet down.

  I missed the constant dodging. The blur of tree trunks

  racing past in my peripheral vision. More to the point, my

  brain was so disengaged that I started thinking, though

  after all these years I don’t claim to remember what about.

  I needed the absolute concentration of the on-the-fly

  route finding, but I hadn’t known it. It required every

  ounce of my concentration. It left me unable to entertain

  any thoughts.

  “Come on,” I said to the dogs. “We’re turning around.”

  I’m sure they had no idea what that meant. But I

  stopped and turned, and that they understood.

  Just then something caught my eye.

  I was jogging along past the graveyard. I’d run by it

  once, but I must’ve been looking away. What made me

  look, made me stop my feet, was a spray of bright yellow

  flowers. What kind of flowers, I don’t know. I wasn’t good

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  with that, and I’m still not. But they were the kind that

  bloomed in long stalks.

  Now, at face value, there was nothing so strange about

  it. Just two things made me wonder, and drew me in closer.

  One, nobody had died in this town for a really long

  time. Maybe six or seven years, with the exception of old

  Mr. Walker, whose body was shipped back to Michigan

  to be buried with his family. Granted, you can still miss

  a family member six or seven years later. You can still be

  thinking of them and want to go visit their grave. But

  then there was the other odd thing. Those same flowers

  had been laid on two graves. And the graves were much

  too far apart to be members of the same family.

  I walked through the gate, the dogs wagging behind

  me. Up to the first grave.

  The stone read, “Wanda Jean Paulston, November

  10, 1945–December 18, 1952.”

  Only seven years old. That must have been a heart-

  break for the family. Part of me wondered why I hadn’t

  heard about it. But people don’t like to tell their kids about stuff like that. Besides, it all happened before I was born.

  I walked to the second grave. It said, “Frederick Peter

  Smith, April 11, 1946–December 18, 1952.”

  I stood a minute processing it in my brain. Both died

  young. Both died on the same day. Somebody missed

  them both.

  But it seemed like a mystery that I didn’t have the clues

  to solve, and not a very pressing one at that. So they had

  a mutual friend. So what?

  Besides, I’d been in a hurry to get the dogs home.

  “Come on,” I said to them. “We’re going.”

  And they both gave me this look like it was about time.

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  We sprinted back to the approximate spot where we’d

  burst out of the woods, and we burst back in. I ran them

  home. For every second of those few glorious minutes, I

  thought about nothing at all.

  * * *

  I was in the hallway opening my locker when Connor

  came up behind me and said what he said.

  “You’re trying out for track, right?”

  I turned around and shot him what I’m sure was a

  confused look.

  “School lets out tomorrow.”

  “Right. That’s why I was thinking you shouldn’t wait.”

  He was trying to be helpful. I know that now, and

  I might even have known it at the time. But he wasn’t

  making any sense.

  “But … what’s the point? I’ll just try out in the fall.”

  I wouldn’t. I already knew I didn’t want to. I wanted

  to run in the woods, not on a flat track. I wanted to run

  with those dogs, not guys my age, most of whom I didn’t

  much like or trust.

  “Oh,” Connor said. He sounded disappointed. “Coach

  Haskell might ask you to try out before fall.”

  “Why would he do that? How would he even know

  I’m interested in running these days?”

  “You told me you loved running,” he said. “I was

  talking to Coach. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “I don’t,” I said. But it was a lie. I lied to keep from

  hurting his feelings. It was dawning on me that I was

  likely to try out for the team to keep from hurting his

  feelings as well.

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  I opened my mouth to say something more, but I

  was saved from a reply by Libby Weller. She walked by

  in a huge plaid A-line skirt that swung well below her

  knees. A short-sleeved sweater. She p
urposely caught my

  eye and paused.

  “Lucas,” she said. “Heard anything from your brother?”

  I was always nervous around Libby. Always had been.

  “Um … no.”

  She nodded vaguely and walked on. Then I was forced

  to look up into Connor’s questioning face.

  “If I’d told her I heard from him,” I said, “the next

  question she’d’ve asked is ‘How is he?’ I just didn’t want

  to get into that whole thing.”

  He nodded his understanding. I pulled my math book

  out of my locker and slammed it shut, and we walked

  down the hall together. In silence at first.

  Then Connor said, “I really think she likes you.”

  He’d said it before. On many occasions. I hadn’t bought

  it any of the previous times, and I still wasn’t buying it.

  Thing is, Libby was a very pretty girl. As in, out-of-my-

  league pretty. And if I believed Connor, it would be a long

  way down if he was wrong. And I figured he was wrong.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, as I always did. Then I added

  something that had been true all along but had not yet

  been spoken. “I think it’s just the thing with her brother.”

  Libby’s brother Darren had come home from the war a

  few weeks earlier missing his right leg from the calf down.

  I mean, did Connor really not notice that Libby always

  asked how Roy was and never asked anything about me?

  It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.

  I opened my mouth to say more, but never got there.

  Instead I looked up to see my path down the hallway

  blocked by the enormous Coach Haskell. He was about

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  six five with shoulders like a mountain, standing spraddle-

  legged in sweatpants and a school T-shirt. He had his arms

  crossed over the whistle hanging around his neck. He

  was trying to catch my eye and I was trying to prevent it.

  I made a move to duck around him. But of course it

  was not to be.

  “Painter,” he bellowed.

  I stopped.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Tomorrow at eleven. You’re trying out for track.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better if I just tried out in the fall?”

  “I need to know who I can count on next semester.

  So be there and don’t let me down.”

  Connor offered me an apologetic glance and slunk

  away.

  * * *

  I woke up the following morning before my alarm. Long

  before my alarm.

  I had set it for the normal time. I mean, the old normal

  time—just early enough to get to school. Because it was

  a half day, like I said. I figured I’d go run with the dogs

  afterward. It would be a celebration of sorts.

  But I was wide awake, and it was not only earlier

  than I needed to wake up to get to school on time, it was

  earlier than I’d been getting up to run.

  And it’s funny, looking back. I think about it from

  time to time. A thing happens, and it’s a thing big enough

  to save a life, and you don’t know why it happened. And

  you sure didn’t know it was such a big deal at the time.

  But, looking back, you wonder why things work out the

  way they do.

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  Catherine Ryan Hyde

  I tossed and turned for a couple of minutes, then

  gave up.

  I dressed quickly in sweats and trotted downstairs.

  Everybody else was asleep. The kitchen was dark and

  quiet, and I poured a bowl of cereal without turning

  on any lights. While I wolfed it down, the sky began to

  lighten outside the window.

  I set my bowl in the sink and slipped out the door.

  Jogged toward the entry point where I always picked up

  a trail into the woods. Right away I could feel my lack of

  sleep dragging on me. It felt like something was missing

  inside my gut. But I kept going.

  It was just light enough to make my way over the

  dropped branches, around the trees.

  When I came over the rise and saw the cabin, the dogs

  were already outside. They were not in their doghouse.

  Which was unusual. They were on the porch of the cabin.

  Fretting. That’s the word that came into my head when

  I saw them, and I still think it’s the best one.

  The bigger dog, the boy, was pacing on the porch.

  Literally pacing. Padding three long strides to cover the

  length of the boards, then spinning on his haunches and re-

  peating the strides in the other direction. The smaller one, who I now knew was female, was scratching at the door.

  And I do mean scratching. Not the way a dog scratches to

  tell you he needs to go out. Not a little downward swipe

  with one paw. I mean the way a dog scratches when her

  goal is to dig straight through solid oak. And as I walked

  closer I could see she had done some fair damage.

  They both looked up when they saw me trotting

  down the hill. But they didn’t come to me. They just

  looked away again and kept doing what they were doing.

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  That’s when I got that sick feeling in my gut, knowing

  something was deeply wrong.

  Normally I tried to stay as far away from the cabin as

  possible, out of respect to whoever owned it. That morn-

  ing I walked up onto the porch boards for the first time. I

  had to duck out of the way to keep the pacing male dog

  from bowling me over. He didn’t even slow his step or

  change direction for me.

  I took a deep breath, gathered all my courage, and

  rapped hard on the door.

  Nothing. No answer.

  “Hello?” I called. “Everything okay in there?”

  Silence.

  I heard the birds singing in the trees, excitedly.

  Probably they had no idea of any trouble below them.

  The sun was coming up, and they were likely reacting to

  that welcome daily occurrence. The light, lovely sound

  of them was punctuated—and made ugly somehow—by

  the obsessive scratching.

  I rapped again. Harder.

  “Hello? Anybody there?”

  Nothing.

  There was no window in the front of the cabin, so

  I moved around to the side. My feet crunched through

  pine needles as I walked up to the window. I took another

  deep breath and looked inside.

  A woman was lying in the bed, eyes closed. On her

  back, as if sleeping peacefully, a patchwork quilt pulled

  up under her armpits. She was an older woman. Not

  ancient-old like my great-grandmother, but old compared

  to me. Mid-fifties, maybe. Her long, straight gray hair

  fell around her face and shoulders. It would have been a

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  Catherine Ryan Hyde

  peaceful enough scene if not for the reaction of the dogs.

  I would have just figured she was a heavy sleeper.

  I knocked on the window, braced for her to open

  her eyes and scream at the sight of a guy staring through

  her window.

  She did not open her eyes.

  I banged harder.

  “Ma’am?” I shouted. “Are you okay? Is everything
/>   okay in there?”

  No reaction.

  That was when the panic of the thing really set up

  shop in my gut. Because I had banged hard. I’d yelled loudly. Nobody was that sound a sleeper. It struck me with a shiver that I might be shouting at a corpse.

  “Ma’am!” I screamed, my volume powered by the fear

  rushing out of me. “Ma’am, are you okay?”

  Then I stopped yelling, leaned on the windowsill, and

  pulled a couple of deep breaths.

  She was not okay.

  I took off running.

  “I’ll get help!” I shouted as I ran by the pacing, scratch-

  ing dogs on the porch.

  They paid me no mind at all.

  * * *

  My parents were still asleep when I burst back through

  the kitchen door.

  I ran straight to the phone. On the side of the re-

  frigerator my mom had a sheet of emergency numbers

  held up with a magnet. She’d ripped it out of the county

  phone book.

  I dialed the sheriff’s office with trembling hands.

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  “Taylor County Sheriff,” a high female voice said.

  “I need to report a…” But I stalled there for a second

  or two. What exactly did I need to report? Two uneasy

  dogs and a woman who would not wake up? “…somebody

  who might be in trouble.”

  A longish silence on the line, which I took to be this

  woman rolling her eyes at my stupidity. But it turned out

  she was transferring me. After a click on the line I heard

  a bored-sounding male voice.

  “Deputy Warren,” the voice said. “Who do I have

  on the phone?”

  “Lucas Painter. From over on Deerskill Lane.”

  “And what kinda trouble we talkin’ here, son?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “There’s this lady. She’s by

  herself in the middle of nowhere. And she’s in bed like

  she’s asleep, but nothing wakes her up. Nothing.”

  “Maybe she’s just a heavy sleeper,” Warren said, still

  apparently bored.

  “I banged on her window like crazy. Nobody could

  sleep through the noise I was making. And her dogs are

  all upset. One of them is trying to dig through the door

  to get in to her.”

  A silence on the line. Then I heard him sigh. Maybe

  because we had just crossed the border into his believing

  he might need to get up and do something.

  “Okay, gimme her address. I’ll go look in on her.

  Check her welfare.”

  “I don’t have an address.”