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.
For the final stretch of hike, Katasha walked close beside Jimothy. The other hikers sang scramball chants and Paw-Paw songs, but Katasha and Jimothy chatted like old friends. He told her that he was the only boy in his litter. All his sisters would laugh when he told them that the first good friend he’d made at college was a cat. “They’re always telling me how cat-like I am,” he said. “I like to be clean and have things a particular way.” He shrugged. “Oh, and I hate swimming.”
“I’ve never been swimming,” Katasha said.
“You’re lucky,” Jimothy said. “The water gets in your ears, and it’s awful.”
“I don’t know what my littermates will think of me being friends with dogs,” Katasha said.
“Well, they’ve got to kind of expect it, right?” Jimothy said. He gestured to the rest of the hikers with them. “I mean, look around. You’re the only cat here. Who else are you going to be friends with?”
Katasha lashed her tail. It felt good that Jimothy assumed she belonged there with the rest of them. “There’ll be other cats when we get back to Isleywood,” she said. “I think a lot of people expect the few cats to all stick together.” She looked at Howell as she said it. He was singing a duet with Mirabelle. He seemed to be hanging out mostly with Mirabelle since she’d shown up, keeping his distance from the new students. Mirabell had become the de facto team leader for both hiking groups, acting as the liaison between him and anyone else.
Katasha skewed an ear to the side thinking about it. She did not understand Howell’s behavior one bit.
“Are you nervous about meeting your new roommate?” Jimothy asked, seemingly unaware that Katasha’s attention had drifted away. “I’m really nervous about getting to know my new roommate.”
Jimothy’s behavior, on the other paw, Katasha understood perfectly. “Yes,” she said. “I’m terrified. I’ve never shared a room with anyone but Corina.”
Jimothy laughed. “Well, you’re better off than I am. I’ve never had to share a room at all!”
Katasha blinked in surprise.
“The rest of my litter was sisters, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
“So, what if I have a terrible time getting along with my roommate?” Jimothy asked.
“Wait… Are you kidding?” Katasha asked. “Your roommate is Turtle. Who could possibly have a terrible time getting along with Turtle? I don’t think I’ve met a nicer, more easy-going guy in my life.”
Jimothy still looked nervous, so Katasha added, “Besides, if you have any trouble, you can always come hang out in my room.”
Jimothy’s tail wagged. “Cool,” he said. “I can hang out with the cats.”
Katasha wrinkled her nose. “Well, I don’t know about that. I don’t how much I’ll be hanging out with the cats.”
“Hey, look!” Claire cried, pointing up ahead.
Katasha turned to see, and she realized that the trailhead was in sight. A big signboard with information about the different trails in the region stood next to the gravel road the bus had driven in on.
Claire said, “I guess we’re the first ones here.”
They covered the rest of the distance to the trailhead in little time. Everyone took their packs off and leaned them up against the posts holding the signboard up.
“Who wants to go on a short day hike?” Preston said, examining the map on the signboard. “There’s one over that way that’ll loop back in less than a mile.”
“Haven’t you hiked enough?” Jimothy said. “We’ve been hiking for seven days.”
Most of the crowd seemed to agree with Jimothy. However, one of the German Shepherd sisters agreed to go with Preston. Howell and Mirabelle conferred briefly and agreed that one of them should go along too. Howell was elected for that position.
Apparently new students couldn’t be trusted alone. Katasha suspected that she wouldn’t have spent a whole morning lost if she’d been in Mirabelle’s hiking group. Mirabelle was a much better leader. Of course, then, she wouldn’t have been in the same group as Jimothy.
The hikers who planned to stay at the trailhead started sitting down. Jimothy flopped out on his back, paws behind his head. Katasha sat down primly beside him and curled her tail around her haunches.
“Do you know when the bus will get here?” Jimothy asked.
Mirabelle, who was sitting closer to the road, digging through her backpack, answered distractedly. “It could be a few hours.” She glanced up at the sky, probably judging the position of the sun. “Should be around noon.”
“Augh,” Jimothy groaned. His narrow chest was stretched out by the position of his arms. He looked very long and thin. The fur on his arms and legs was closely trimmed. Either, he naturally had very short fur, or he kept it immaculately shaven.
“Impatient to get back to campus?” Katasha asked, wondering if she should risk stretching out beside him. Possibly, if she was very brave, she could cuddle up against his side.
A moment later, Katasha was profoundly glad she hadn’t been brave.
“I promised I’d call my girlfriend this morning, when the hike was over.” Jimothy said it as though he hadn’t said anything strange at all. It was, of course, a matter of simple fact to him that he had a girlfriend. How could he realize that Katasha hadn’t known?
“You… have a girlfriend?” Katasha asked, her voice catching in her throat. She suddenly felt the need to examine her claws very closely and subtly shift herself away, adding a few inches between where Jimothy was stretched out and where she was sitting.
“Do you think she’ll be mad if I don’t call until later tonight?” Jimothy twisted his body, lifting his head until he could look at Katasha with those intense brown eyes.
Her eyes smiled at him to cover the pain. “I don’t see how she could be,” she said. Her voice was brittle, but she didn’t think Jimothy could tell. If he couldn’t tell what she’d been feeling before — in the snow, in the tree, all morning long — she didn’t see how he could tell now. “It’s not like you have a choice.”
“That’s true,” Jimothy said. He laid his head back down, and he looked like he felt better. “It is nice having a week away from computers and everything else electronic,” he said. “Though, it’s too bad it meant being out of touch with Kimber for so long.”
Katasha didn’t trust herself to talk to Jimothy anymore right then. She was too stunned by his apparently unimportant revelation. When enough heartbeats had passed for Katasha to feel like she wouldn’t be revealing anything by doing so, she got up and moved over to sit next to Mirabelle, Claire, and the remaining German Shepherd sister. They were all sitting together, talking about the dorms.
Mirabell turned to Katasha and asked, “Do you know anything about your assigned roommate?”
Katasha sat down and shook her head. “Just her name. It was in the registration materials,” she said. “Daria, I think. Oh, and she’s a cat. Of course.”
“I don’t know anything about my roommate either,” Claire said. “Her name’s Ivy.”
Katasha looked at the German Shepherd who said, “My sister and I are roommates.”
Katasha nodded. “Of course.”
She still felt shaken from the unfortunate conversation with Jimothy. She felt branded by her misunderstanding of the situation, as if her foolish feelings were etched into her fur for all to read. The worst part was realizing that Howell must have known. Thus his cryptic advice the night before. He could have warned her. Instead, he’d chosen to be cryptic. Thinking about it all, made it hard for Katasha to concentrate on the conversation at hand. So, she was surprised when Claire suddenly asked her, “Isn’t Jimothy’s roommate Turtle?”
“That’s right,” Katasha said.
“He’s the brown-freckled Spaniel?” Claire asked.
Katasha nodded, remembering Turtle’s perpetually surprised looking face. She wondered what kind of week he’d had, hiking through these mountains. Maybe she could sit beside him on the bus back and hear about it. That would be nice.
As the rest of the groups trickled back through the forest, Katasha kept watching for Turtle. She was really looking forward to seeing him again. He was going to be roommates with Jimothy, so she’d probably get to see a lot of him during the year. Since, apparently, she and Jimothy were such good friends. Even though friends isn’t exactly what she’d wanted to be.
The bus came rumbling down the gravel road not long after Preston and the others made it back from their quick day hike. The sun was high in the sky, and the small collection of Intro to Isleywood hikers had blossomed into a full crowd. The bus pulled up beside the crowd, and the bus driver, a shaggy old English Sheepdog, got out to help the students cram their backpacks into the storage compartment under the bus.
“Oh gosh!” Turtle’s husky voice cried, cutting through the milling crowd of students. His hiking team had clearly just arrived. “You all weren’t going to leave without us, were you?”
Katasha purred to see Turtle’s surprised face again. A number of students closer to him assured Turtle that it was unlikely the bus would have actually left without them. However, he didn’t really look worried. He was already busy telling anyone near him about a salamander he’d seen during the hike. “Now, he really is going to get left behind!” Turtle exclaimed. “Cause, I didn’t bring him with me. I meant to, but I forgot him this morning. But it’s probably okay. See, a salamander would have a fast reproductive cycle, but my aquarium isn’t really set up to handle such a fully aquatic animal. My turtles are mostly tortoises, you know. Land turtles.”
Students were already filing onto the bus, but Katasha held back, hoping to join Turtle. “Oh hi!” he said when he saw her. “How did the hike go for you? I simply had a blast!”
Katasha was about to answer, but Mirabelle’s voice cut across the crowd.
“Come on, everyone!” she called from inside the bus. “Let’s get ourselves back to dear old Isleywood!”
They were among the last to get on the bus, and Katasha walked down the aisle right alongside Turtle. He was telling her more about the salamander he’d found. It had a red back and a yellow underside. Turtle wondered if the limp nature of its body structure could be preserved in a larger, sentient version. “That would be interesting,” he said. “Don’t you think?”
Katasha started to mew an answer, but suddenly Turtle was busy turning about, looking for a good place to sit. Katasha was going to suggest he sit with her — there was an empty pair of seats a little further along — but, then his eyes lit on Claire. He sat down beside her without another word. Katasha hadn’t seen him speechless before. Surprised, yes. Without words? No.
Katasha took a seat across the aisle and one row back, beside a bushy furred girl who’d already leaned her floppy-eared head against the window and fallen asleep. It would be a long bus ride back.
Katasha was disappointed, but she couldn’t begrudge Claire the look that Turtle was giving her. Overhearing their conversation, it was clear that they had everything in common. A bizarre passion for Paw-Paw music. Gentle, sweet-natured dispositions. Claire had even raised tadpoles in a tank as a puppy.
Besides, they simply looked right together — an easy-going brown-freckled spaniel boy, staring adoringly at a shy, quiet, black and white shepherd girl. It wasn’t hard to see how gorgeous Claire was — with her tufted ears and flowing, mid-length fur — in Turtle’s eyes.
Katasha was envious, but she couldn’t be jealous.
Continue on to Chapter 18…