Hide and Seek

make her more popular, while the other gift was to console her if it

di~ glitllove,hepupp,

Both her parents had jobs, so the dog was home alone most of the time

during the day, and Kim remembered the girl's car roaring into the

driveway each afternoon at three-thirty and the girl racing up the

steps while the dog barked loudly and scratched at the screen door.

Then there would be a lot of jumping and squealing and hugging, which

even as a kid Kim found pretty disgusting. And finally there would be

a very big puppy tearing crazily around their own and

This happened every day.

Then one day there was none of it. The girl came home and there was no

barking and no scratching at the door. Just silence. Kim was playing

in the yard as usual and noticed that something was wrong. They'd

gotten pretty used to the dog by then. So she watched. The girl went

inside.

A few minutes later the girl came out holding the puppy and raced for

the car. She put the dog inside and quickly drove away. That was all

Kim saw. The rest she heard about later.

When the girl got home the puppy was in the kitchen, choking. There

was something caught in the throat. So she bundled it up and drove to

the vet. The vet took a look at the dog and told her to wait outside.

She did, for a while. But then the waiting started to get to her so

she decided to drive on home, and asked the nurse to call her when the

doctor was through.

She was only in the house a few minutes when the phone rang. It was

the vet. He said the dog was all right and asked her if she was home

alone. She said she was. He told her to get out of the house right

away, to go stand on the lawn or on the street. The police, he said

would be over right away.

She was not to ask questions. She was just to leave as fast as

possible.

They found her waiting on the front lawn, walking in circles, confused

and worried. Two squad cars emptied four officers into her house.