An excerpt from In a Dog’s World. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.
The Intro to Isleywood hiking groups were supposed to meet in the college recreation center at three in the afternoon, one week before fall quarter started.
Katasha stood on the nicely trimmed lawn in front of that squat, concrete building, preparing herself to go inside. She had her single duffel bag with a change of clothes and a rolled up sleeping bag slung over her shoulder. The registration materials said that everything else would be provided.
Katasha sucked the warm afternoon air through her teeth. She felt like she was only two twitches of a tail from fluffing out like a terrified porcupine. She knew Howell was in that building. She hadn’t talked to him in real time since that awkward conversation during finals week, though she still had a slightly rumpled copy of her digitally edited prom picture stuffed in her pocket. She now wished that she’d traded it for a copy of the picture with all her littermates in it. She wanted her freedom from them very much, but it was also lonely standing there, knowing that Dominic was already driving home.
When he got home, they’d have dinner together, all of her family… Without her.
“Hey,” said a hoarse, deep voice behind her. It was exactly startling enough to fluff Katasha’s fur out. “Woah,” said the hoarse-voiced dog, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Struggling to reign in her emotions enough to let her fur smooth back down, Katasha looked this dog over. He was a medium sized dog. Taller than her, but not as tall as Howell. He looked like some kind of spaniel, covered in rusty brown speckling on otherwise milky white fur. He was a lean, rangy looking dog, slightly shaggy.
“Hi,” Katasha said, finally finding her voice again. “Are you here for the Intro to Isleywood hike?”
“Yeah!” he said, grinning. The grin suited him. He looked her over, noticing the duffel slung over her shoulder. He had one slung over his shoulder too. “Why, are you here for it too?” he asked.
She nodded up at him.
“That’s great!” he said. He looked surprised, but Katasha got the impression he looked surprised a lot, so she didn’t take offense. “Shall we go inside?” he asked.
Katasha nodded again, and the two of them headed toward the glass-windowed double doors in the front of the building. Katasha was too nervous to chit-chat much, but her new companion seemed to be a conversational sort of fellow. He carried the flow of conversation for her, and she quickly learned that while he was named Augustus, everyone called him Turtle; he grew up in a small town down South, and he spent all of his free time breeding and studying tiny freshwater turtles (thus the nickname) while listening to Paw-Paw puppy band music. He was also a new student, and he hoped to study reptilian genetics.
“I think my turtles enjoy the music too, you know,” he said, speaking rapidly with few pauses, “So, I always make sure to have it playing when I’m studying them. I’ve been trying to breed them for increased intelligence, but I’ve had better luck with frogs and some lizards. They live shorter lives, you know, so I can make more rapid progress on their breeding cycles.”
Katasha and Turtle followed taped up signs that pointed down the hallways of the building. The sound of their paws hitting the floor and the quiet scratching of their claws echoed as they walked. Finally, they made it to a large gymnasium with polished gray concrete floors painted in red and yellow lines demarking the quadrants of the scramball court. There were a few low bleachers along one wall. In the far corner, a group of dogs gathered around a mountain of stuff. As they got closer, Katasha could see that the stuff was all hiking supplies — frame backpacks, extra sleeping pads and sleeping bags, tons of packaged foods, lightweight aluminum pots and pans, portable camp stoves, and lots of flashlights.
“Wowza!” Turtle said. “Somebody takes their camping seriously! Now, don’t they?” He looked around at the other dogs — there were no other cats in the room. “Who’s gonna be carrying all this stuff? Eh?”
A black lab-looking dog, wearing khaki shorts and a lightweight tunic, stepped forward. He looked Turtle and Katasha up and down, and said, “You are, of course. Everyone has to carry a share. We’ll divide it all up by weight.” He must have been one of the upperclassmen in charge.
Katasha shifted her paws uncomfortably. She wondered if the packs would be evenly distributed or if stronger individuals would get heavier ones. She wanted to hold her own here, but she was pretty sure she couldn’t carry as much as most of these dogs. They were all bigger than her.
Katasha didn’t mind being the only cat in the room, but she’d have felt a little more comfortable if there’d been some smaller dogs — perhaps a Chihuahua or Papillon. Someone else closer to her size. She wished she were big and strong.
Clearly, all the hikers weren’t here yet, since Katasha didn’t see Howell. So there was still some hope that some smaller dogs would show up.
Confused looking new students like her and Turtle kept filtering in with their duffels slung over their shoulders. Everyone looked a little nervous which made sense. This was the first day of college for all of them.
While they all waited, tentatively introducing themselves to each other, Turtle kept talking to Katasha about his tank of turtles and all the genetic experiments he hoped to run on them once he had full access to Isleywood lab equipment. Katasha wasn’t sure that new students got full access to lab equipment, but if there was ever a student who was prepared to use it well, she figured that student had to be Turtle.
Katasha felt a little weird talking to Turtle. He was so plain and forthright. He talked to her like an equal, paid attention to her responses, and seemed happy to continue explaining about his pet turtles as long as she would listen. In the past, Katasha had always had to fight for dogs’ attention which made her feel strident and annoying. When she’d tried talking to Hickory, he’d acted like she was a distraction, not worth his time.
Turtle didn’t act that way. Katasha felt like an equal in their conversation, even if she was the quieter one. He didn’t make her feel like it mattered that she was the only cat in the room. She felt like just another new Isleywood student along with all the rest of them. She wondered if she was really making friends with a dog for the first time. The feeling was nice. She hoped it wouldn’t end.
When Katasha finally caught a glimpse of Howell, she was absorbed enough in the conversation with Turtle that she almost didn’t care.
Howell was an intelligent, handsome dog, but he was far from the only one in the room. For a moment, Katasha found she understood Dmitri’s attitude about Renee versus all those unknown college girls.
Then Howell looked at her with that big, goofy smile. He was carrying a large scale probably meant for weighing the backpacks, so he couldn’t wave. She could tell he’d seen her though, and she felt her heart beat faster. She was excited to see him again, even if she was a little miffed that he’d never called to tell her he was back from Australia. Maybe he hadn’t had time.
Howell set the scale down next to the mound of various camping supplies, and then he looked around at all the students. He conferred with the other upperclassmen — there were four of them. Katasha could tell them apart by the way they stood together near the mound of supplies. They looked confident. They knew what they were doing.
The new students kept several feet between themselves and the intimidating mound of supplies, and all of them looked a little overwhelmed and, well, lost.
Finally one of the upperclassman, a sturdy looking but small, flat-faced dog woman with pointed ears, called for quiet. She looked like a Boston Terrier Katasha was relieved to see that at least one dog was almost as small as her.
The conversations among the new students quickly died down. “Hello, everyone,” the Boston Terrier said. “This is the Intro to Isleywood backpacking group, and I’m Mirabelle. I hope you’re all ready for a really long, hard week.” She stared all the new students down with glittering brown eyes. Her flat, jowly face frowned seriously at them, until all the new students began shifting their paws as nervously as Katasha had been earlier.
Then, suddenly, those jowls rearranged themselves into a beaming grin, “And I hope you’re ready for a lot of fun too!” she barked. “Cause, this trip was the highlight of my first year, and I made a lot of friends who I expect to be close to for the rest of my life.”
The tension broke into nervous laughter as all the new students looked at each other, trying to figure out which of these new acquaintances were going to turn into lifelong friends by the end of the week. Katasha looked at Howell.
“Now, we’re going to break into our hiking groups,” Mirabelle said. “Chloe and I here,” she gestured to another one of the upperclassmen, “took all the information you sent us in your registration forms and tried to design groups who would work well together. It’ll be one upperclassman to three or four new students.”
Mirabelle and Chloe handed rosters to the other upperclassmen. Then the upperclassmen started calling out the names of the students in their groups. It came as no surprise when Howell called out her name.
Katasha went over to stand by Howell and watched to see which group Turtle would be in. Katasha was a little sad when she saw him walk over to stand by Chloe. He was the only person in the room other than Howell who she knew at all at this point. It would have been nice to be in a group together.
There were two other dogs in the group with Katasha and Howell — an Australian Shepherd girl with flowing black and white fur, and a Jack Russell boy with long legs. Their names were Claire and Jimothy.
“All right,” Howell said to the group, once they’d gathered around. “What we’re going to do is pick out seven days worth of lunches and dinners that we can all cook and share together, along with all the cooking supplies we’ll need for them.”
“What about breakfasts?” Jimothy the Jack Russell asked. He had a deck of cards in his paws, and he kept shuffling them.
“Each of you can pick out breakfast and snack supplies for yourselves,” Howell said. “But we’ll do lunch and dinners together.”
All the groups gathered supplies from the big pile into smaller piles. Katasha’s group picked out a bunch of freeze dried meat pies and protein pasta. Howell suggested they all take packs of jerky and flash-cooked pseudo-eggs for snacks. None of it looked very good, but Howell promised them it would all taste fantastic after a full day’s hike.
They divided the aluminum pots and pans, butane stove, and other communal supplies up between their packs. Just as Katasha feared, Howell divided their supplies up evenly. She felt far too embarrassed to complain. He hadn’t even acknowledged that they already knew each other yet. He was treating her just like the other two members of their group, like someone he’d never seen before. It was as if they were meeting for the first time, even though Katasha knew there was a picture of the two of them together tucked into her tunic’s breast pocket.
“How’s the packing going?” Mirabelle said, strolling by. She’d been checking on the other groups too.
“Fine,” Howell said. “I think we’re about ready here.” He handed off the bag he’d just finished stuffing full of freeze-dried food, water bottles, and flashlights to Jimothy who quickly shoved his deck of cards in his pocket so he’d have has paws free to take it.
“Woah,” Jimothy said, “That’s pretty heavy.” He tottered about on his long legs theatrically.
Katasha’s ears flagged watching him. If he was having trouble, she wasn’t at all sure how she’d manage. Fortunately, Mirabelle caught Katasha’s eye and seemed to understand her distressed look. “How have you divided the packs up?” Mirabelle asked.
Howell looked confused. “I just filled them all, and then I moved stuff around a bit until they all weighed the same.” As he said it, his gaze followed Mirabelle’s toward Katasha. “Oh…” he said. “I think, maybe, I should redistribute them a little.”
Katasha’s ears burned with shame. She wanted to object, but she knew from tentatively trying to lift the pack Howell had placed in front of her that she couldn’t possibly hike with it strapped to her back. If she was lucky — and determined — she could possibly crawl.
“I think that’s a good idea,” Mirabelle said, and then she personally took several pawfuls of heavy items out of Katasha’s pack. Most of the redistributed weight went directly into Howell’s pack, but, despite a few minor protests, Mirabelle added a few things to both Jimothy’s and Claire’s packs. Claire, the Aussie girl, was actually quite gracious about it. The Jimothy backed down quickly under Mirabelle’s firm gaze.
“Thank you,” Katasha meowed quietly.
Mirabelle nodded to her and said, “We’re very happy to have you on the Intro Isleywood hike, Katasha. We’re hoping that more cats will join us in future years.”
Katasha dipped her ears politely. She felt weird being treated like a representative of her species, an emissary for cats. But, as uncomfortable as she felt with that, it was still better than pretending to be the dog she wasn’t and trying to carry a pack that weighed more than she did.
When all the groups finished packing, Mirabelle called everyone to attention again. “We’ll be eating dinner in the campus dining hall tonight and starting our hike tomorrow. The bus that’s going to take us out to the mountains will come for us at the crack of dawn, so everyone should make sure to get a good night of sleep.”
A new student called from the audience, “Where will we be sleeping?”
“In here,” Howell said, holding out his paws to encompass the breadth of the gymnasium. His face broke into that big grin of his as he saw students nervously looking at the hard, concrete floor. “Oh, come on!” he woofed. “Think of it as practice for the rest of the week. At least in here there’s a roof and thermostat!”
Continue on to Chapter 11…