The Eyes of the Dragon

98

Although most humans don’t know it, scents are like colors to dogs. Faint scents have faint colors, like pastels washed out by time. Clear scents have clear colors. Some dogs have weak noses, and they read scents the way humans with poor eyes see colors, believing this delicate blue may actually be a gray, or that dark brown may actually be a black. Frisky’s nose, on the other hand, was like the eyesight of a man with the gaze of a hawk, and the scent in the attic where Dennis had slept was very strong and very clear (it may have helped that Dennis had been some days without a bath). Frisky sniffed the hay, then sniffed the blanket THE GIRL held for her. She scented Arlen upon it, but disregarded the scent; it was weaker, and not at all the scent she had found on the hay. Arlen’s smell was lemony and tired, and Frisky knew at once that it was the smell of an old man. Dennis’s smell was more exciting and vital. To Frisky’s nose, it was the electric blue of a summer lightning stroke.

She barked to show that she knew this smell and had put it safely away in her library of scents.

“All right, good girl,” THE TALL-BOY said. “Can you follow it.

“She’ll follow it,” THE GIRL said confidently. “Let’s g0.”

“It’ll be dark in an hour.”

“That’s SO,” THE GIRL said, and then grinned. When THE GIRL grinned that way, Frisky thought her heart might just burst with love of her. “But it isn’t her eyes that we want, is it?”

THE TALL-BOY smiled. “I guess not,” he said. “You know, I must be crazy, but I think we’re going to pick up these cards and play them.”

“Course we are,” she said. “Come on, Ben. Let’s use what little daylight’s left-it’ll be dark soon enough.”

Frisky, her nose full of that bright-blue scent, barked eagerly.