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.
Katasha waited until her Jack Russell companion was standing on solid ground, albeit still twenty paces or more beneath her. His triangular, flopped over ears were held alertly. The brown patch over one side of his face gave him a lopsided look. He must be listening for her, because he kept turning his head, incrementally, tilting it for better angles.
That meant he hadn’t seen her yet. Katasha imagined that her dark grey ears and gray striped face, barely peaking over the top of the rock, must have blended in pretty well. He clearly didn’t see the snowball coming.
“Snah!” she cried, throwing the ball of crunchy soft ice with all her strength. She felt it grate against her claw tips as it whirled out of her paw. The aim was true, and Jimothy took the snowball right in his chest.
“What?!” he woofed. Then he laughed, and, taking his pack off to drop it on the ground, he scrambled the rest of the way up to the snow. Katasha pelted him with three more snowballs before he reached it, but when he did, Jimothy scooped up a whole armload of snow. He chased Katasha about until he had her cornered, then he dropped it all right on her head.
Katasha shut her eyes and flattened her ears when she saw the armload coming. She felt the cold, white powder pile on top of her, and when she straightened her ears out, bits of snow tumbled down.
Their snowball fight petered out quickly. Despite the fun and excitement of summer snow, both hikers were tired from the climb.
“It should be faster, climbing back down,” Jimothy said.
Katasha nodded. She felt tongue-tied up here, sitting next to him. Perhaps it was the thin mountain air. Perhaps it was the giddy view of the canyon edge yawning out in front of them. Perhaps it was snow in the middle of August. No matter, Katasha was painfully aware of Jimothy’s warm, straight-backed body beside her. The mist of his breath. She wondered, could there be a more perfect place for a first kiss? She’d never been kissed before…
Katasha extended her hind claws into the snow. “My footpads are getting cold,” she said.
“Yeah,” Jimothy said. “We should head back down soon.” He shuffled his paws in the snow.
Katasha’s heart raced. Was there anything she could do to grab this opportunity? She turned to face Jimothy. Their muzzles weren’t so far apart. Maybe if she just leaned over and touched her nose to his…
The moment passed.
Jimothy jumped up, saying, “I guess we should fill that backpack up with snow then.”
They shoved pawfuls inside until the pack was crammed full.
“I hope it doesn’t melt too much on the way down,” Katasha said.
“It should be fine. As long as we hike fast.”
And they did. They made great time. Though, Jimothy complained he could feel the snow soaking through the backpack and his jacket, right into the fur on his back. Katasha offered to take over carrying the pack for the last part of the hike around the lake. She was a little nonplussed when Jimothy took her up on the offer. Though, she did find the cool water on her back surprisingly pleasant, in spite of its wetness.
“Hold up,” Jimothy said, grabbing onto the pack on Katasha’s back. They were almost back to the camp. “We should make some snowballs.”
Katasha grinned, catching his meaning.
They stormed the camp like snowball wielding ninjas. Howell had woken up, and Claire was apparently done swimming. So, they were simply sitting together and chatting. Then the snowballs hit them!
Sparkling granules of ice clung to Howell’s pelt where Katasha’s snowball hit him. Jimothy’s snowball merely glanced off of Claire’s arm. She was able to gather most of the snow back up and return it to him, square on the nose. Katasha had to admire her aim. Jimothy was less pleased.
The remaining snow was used to make four peanut butter snow cones and a knee-high snowcat. Jimothy tried to claim it was a dog, but Katasha carefully molded the head to have pointed, feline ears. It was definitely a cat. Howell pulled a cheap camera out of his pack and snapped a picture of Katasha and Jimothy crouched on either side of their snowcat, holding its tiny arms, made from sticks of sausage jerky. Jimothy ate the arms after the pictures, but Katasha managed to pocket the pebbles they’d used for eyes as a souvenir.
That night, as the dogs slept by the lake, gently snoring, Katasha lay awake, staring at the stars again. The night air was still and quiet, but Katasha’s own thoughts echoed in her ears. She kept trying to imagine what Corina would think of Jimothy and Howell. She knew neither of them would be Corina’s first choice for her sister, but she wondered which dog Corina would prefer.
The imagined conversations that Corina and Dmitri might have about her situation, if they were here, chased each other in endless circles through Katasha’s thoughts. They’d all got along with Howell, but Katasha thought they might get along better with Jimothy. He was more matter-of-fact. Howell was more like an overgrown puppy.
Katasha sighed. She’d give so much to be wrapped in those giant, blonde of arms of his again. She tried not to look over at him sleeping. Instead, she fixed her eyes on the stars above and tried to fall asleep.
Katasha awoke to the sound of splashing. The sun hadn’t crested the horizon yet, and the world was drenched in pale, indirect light like a watercolor painting. She sat up and rubbed her eyes with her paws.
“They wanted to get a swim in before we start the day,” Jimothy said. He was still huddled in his sleeping bag too. Howell and Claire’s sleeping bags were already rolled up and stowed in their packs.
“I can’t believe we keep getting up this early,” Katasha said. “We haven’t even started school yet.”
“It’s because we don’t have artificial lights,” Jimothy said, pulling out his deck of cards. He must have had the deck stowed right there in his sleeping bag with him. “When it gets dark, we can’t see. So, we go to sleep.”
“I can still see,” Katasha said. “Maybe that’s why I have more trouble falling asleep than the rest of you.”
Jimothy looked confused, and Katasha pointed an extended claw up at her clear, blue Siamese eyes. “Cat eyes,” she said. “Night vision.”
“Oh, right.” Jimothy began shuffling his cards. Then he smiled. His small, sharp teeth looked very regular in his pointed muzzle. Katasha purred at the sight of that happy smile, but then she felt embarrassed and the rumble in her throat caught, cascading its way to a cough.
“You okay?” Jimothy asked. His happy face turned into concern. Though, his card shuffling wasn’t affected.
“Yeah,” Katasha said, curling her tail around herself inside her sleeping bag. Except, she wasn’t. She felt horribly flustered. There’d been no indication since she’d arrived at Isleywood that her prom date with Howell had meant anything to him at all. She didn’t owe him any loyalty. Yet… She’d spent her summer expecting — or, at least, hoping — that he’d be her boyfriend when she got to college. She couldn’t change gears this fast. She needed someone to talk to, and her littermates weren’t here.
Looking Jimothy directly in the eye, she said, “Remember how Howell said we’d met before?”
“Last spring, right?” He kept shuffling the cards. “At some Isleywood recruitment event.”
Katasha nodded, turning one ear and then the other away from the noise of the shuffling cards. She couldn’t decide if she found Jimothy’s nervous tick annoying or kind of endearing.
“We did meet there,” Katasha said, turning to watch Howell and Claire swimming laps in the lake. The water was turning gold in the rising sunlight. “That much was true.”
“That much was true?” Jimothy asked. “It wasn’t all true?”
Katasha looked down at the ground, and her ears dipped to half mast. “It left a lot out,” she muttered. She didn’t know why she should be embarrassed that she’d gone to prom with Howell. Except, he must be embarrassed by it, or else he’d have said something. To the others. To her. Anything at all. “He went to prom with me,” she said.
Jimothy stopped shuffling. The sudden cessation was startling, and Katasha looked up to see what had happened. Jimothy’s brown eyes were focused on her. “Really?” he asked. “That’s weird. I mean, I never would have guessed from the way you two act together.”
“I know!” Katasha mewed. “Right? He acts like it never happened.” She trailed off, as she was overcome by the memory of Howell snuggled up with her on her family’s couch, watching the movie in the dark. “How could he treat me this way?” she cried. “I thought…” A sob caught in her throat.
All these days of hiking, silently through the wilderness, each of them keeping to their own thoughts except for casual conversations at dinner time and the occasional song while they hiked –it was so different from home where everyone analyzed every detail and nuance of what anyone else said. Katasha felt like she was screaming inside from not knowing what anyone else meant or whether they meant anything at all. Did dogs think more slowly than cats? Or were they simply reticent? Keeping all their own thoughts to themselves?
Jimothy leaned toward Katasha, shimmying his sleeping bag to move closer. Once he was within reach, he put down his playing cards and awkwardly placed a paw over hers. He patted the back of her paw twice, and then squeezed her wrist reassuringly.
It wasn’t analysis. It wasn’t conversation. But… It was contact, and Katasha felt better. That was all she wanted. After all, she had wanted to get away from her claustrophobically over-involved littermates.
“If you don’t like the way Howell is treating you,” Jimothy said, staring into her blue eyes with his cloudy brown eyes, “Maybe you should consider your other options.”
His stare had such intensity. It took Katasha’s breath away. Then, she heard the sounds of splashing water again at the lake. Turning that way, Katasha saw Howell standing in the waist-deep water. Claire was still swimming laps, but Howell had finished. He was walking toward the shore, dripping and watching the scene that had just unfolded in the camp.
Jimothy pulled his paw away. Katasha wondered if Howell had heard them. She knew her ears could have picked up Jimothy’s words at that distance. Could his? He’d certainly seen Jimothy’s paw on hers.
Did it matter though? He wasn’t interested in her. So what if he knew that someone else was?
Continue on to Chapter 14…