Dismember

FOURTEEN

Bethany Winston sat on the concrete patio behind her house, playing fetch with Alfred while the sun set and occasionally staring down at the pair of nubs under her t-shirt.

She was twelve years old, headed for the seventh grade, and still stuck with the training bras she’d had since she was nine. If she didn’t grow something down there soon, she thought she might as well run off with the circus and star in her own freak show.

Alfred trotted up to the patio with the oversized tennis ball in his mouth, his tail wagging so hard he was wagging most of his back end with it. Beth took the ball from his mouth and flung it across the yard for what must have been the thousandth time in the last half-hour.

Her mom had told her it was totally normal, that she herself hadn’t started to develop until she’d turned almost fifteen, but her reassurances hadn’t comforted Beth. Especially not after last weekend, when she’d heard a couple of boys snickering about her at the pool while she’d lounged on her towel and pretended to nap.

Alfred caught up with the ball before it stopped rolling and almost slid in the grass in his excitement to turn himself around and hurry back to the patio. Earlier, he’d spent a good five minutes exchanging barks with another dog somewhere off in the distance—Ms. McCormick’s collie, Jade, probably, though Beth hadn’t really known for sure—but whether it had been Jade or one of his other canine companions, Alfred had forgotten about it now and was engrossed in the game of fetch. Beth held out her hands.

Sissy Brown was two months younger than Beth, and her boobs had grown into full-fledged knockers. She already wore a bra size bigger than Beth’s mom, and the boys at school were all over her.

Beth took the ball from Alfred again, but this time she flung it in the opposite direction, aiming it for the small doghouse where Alfred liked to laze during the hottest part of the day. The ball came within a foot of bouncing into the doghouse door, but ricocheted off the front instead and came straight back at a fully sprinting and suddenly surprised Alfred.

Beth didn’t get too upset about the lack of attention from boys, because in her opinion most guys were jerks, but she did wonder how her breasts would feel, if they would jiggle like a couple of water balloons or be something closer to flexing muscles. She hadn’t asked Sissy or her mom, though either of them could have told her. She wanted to find out for herself. Hopefully sometime before she turned thirty.

Alfred chugged back to her no less energetically than he had after the first time she’d thrown the ball; the remaining daylight reflected off his golden fur in a way that made him look not only golden colored but actually made of gold, like some kind of moving statue.

He was a Labrador, more or less full bred, and had ears so floppy they almost belonged on a rabbit. Beth couldn’t remember a time when Alfred hadn’t been around. Her parents had gotten the puppy on Beth’s second birthday; the two of them had grown up together. Alfred was the closest thing to a brother Beth had ever had and the closest thing she ever would. Beth’s mom had confessed last year that she’d had her tubes tied, which meant Beth would forever be an only child.

She took the ball from Alfred’s mouth but didn’t throw it again until after she’d given the dog a good head scratching and at least a full minute’s worth of petting. Her dad was working late, and her mom had made a trip into town for some groceries, leaving Beth temporarily alone, something she wouldn’t have done a year before. Beth guessed she should have felt honored that her mom trusted her to stay by herself, but all she really felt was lonely.

Except for Alfred. She gave him a big kiss on the top of his head and ruffled the fur around his floppy ears.

Alfred accepted the attention happily, but Beth felt the tense muscles beneath his coat and knew he wasn’t finished fetching. She scratched him one last time under his chin before throwing the ball with all her strength. It sailed through the air, hit a tree limb and bounced higher, and finally dropped. Alfred had really torn after this one and almost reached it before the ball hit the ground. He caught it on the first bounce and seemed to grin when he hurried it back to his mistress.

Beth clapped for him and giggled. “Good boy,” she said and accepted the damp toy. “How bout this time you throw it to me?”

Alfred wagged his tail and continued smiling at her, but a hungry eagerness had entered his eyes. Come on, he might have been saying. Ball. Throw it. Throw the ball.

Beth wondered just how long he would go on. If she stayed out here for a week straight, gave up bathing and eating in order to endlessly toss her dog his oversized ball, would Alfred ever tire? Alfred was more than ten years old—seventy in human years—and still he often acted like a great big puppy.

We must be feeding him some kind of atomic dog food, Beth thought and threw the ball again. Alfred took off, and Beth considered going inside for a sweatshirt. The day had been warm, but the heat never lasted long up here. In another hour, full dark would arrive and she’d be shivering. It was one of the things she liked about living in the mountains. She could open her bedroom window at night and snuggle up under a pile of warm blankets, wear thick socks around the house and never get sweaty feet, or fix herself an evening cup of hot chocolate in the middle of the summer. It was great. They said you couldn’t handle the cold as well when you got older, which explained why so many fogeys ended up slinking down to Florida; Beth planned to enjoy the cool while she still could. With any luck, she’d be an exception to the fogey rule and could spend the rest of her life with thick socks and mugs of hot chocolate and mounds of cozy blankets.

Beth watched Alfred and pulled herself up from the patio. The dog stopped halfway to her, cocked his head, then dropped the ball and let out a single loud bark.

Beth said, “Oh relax, you big furball, I’ll be right back.”

Alfred barked again, louder this time, and turned his head toward the northern end of the property. His tail had stopped wagging. Beth frowned and walked across the yard to where he’d stopped. She heard what she first thought was the distant grumbling of an engine and moved right up next to her dog. He was trembling.

Not an engine, but a growl, and coming from Alfred.

Beth almost backed away but instead turned her head to see what was worrying him. The only movement came from the leaves on the trees and the clouds in the sky above.

Alfred’s growl picked up a notch, and for just a second Beth had the crazy idea that maybe he’d gone rabid, that any minute he’d foam at the mouth and bite into her face like she was nothing more than a juicy hunk of meat. But then she saw something else, a shape within the trees.

A man. Splatters of something dark covered his shirt and pants and even his face—motor oil maybe, or paint—and there was a boy who looked about her own age with him. The boy walked a step behind the dirty man and seemed to tug on his sleeve like he was trying to hold him back.

Beth touched Alfred’s neck and felt the vibrations coming off him like electricity. She thought about taking Alfred into the house and locking all the doors, but by the time the thought was fully formed, it was too late. The man ran at her, boy in tow, and she was too dumbstruck to move.