Another clue.

The car smelled wonderful, like Sam and Benny multiplied by a hundred. And lots of other things, especially McDonald’s, that fabulous greasy-h amburger smell.

The ride was short. As soon as Sam parked, Benny unbuckled himself, shoved open the car door, and ran off. “Wait-” Sam called, halfhearted. He sighed, then hauled me out very gently and carried me toward a low brick building. Inside, the predominant smell was panic.

Benny was already jumping up and down in front of a counter, yelling, “We hit a dog! We hit a dog!”

Dog.

I was a dog.

As I said, the clues were abundant, but it wasn’t until Benny said the actual word that the truth hit. I started to shake.

Nothing like a vet’s exam on a cold metal table to knock the nonsense out of you. I credit it with shortening considerably what would otherwise have been a long and tedious period of No, it’s impossible! How can this be? I don’t believe it! Is this a dream? Et cetera, et cetera. I’m not saying I accepted what seemed to have happened to me in half an hour. But there’s just something about having your temperature taken rectally that really wakes you up to reality.

Blood was drawn. X-rays were taken. I was poked, prodded, listened to, felt, and, in the end, the doctor, who smelled like tick poison, said what I could only partially agree with.

“It’s a miracle.”

“Nothing wrong with her?” Sam asked.

“Nothing serious. Bruises, mostly, and the scrapes you can see. But no broken bones or internal injuries, and that’s pretty amazing if you were going as fast as you say.”

“Can we keep her?”

“I was going the speed limit.”

“And to hit her head-on and throw her as far as you did-that’s just amazing.”

“Can we keep her?”

“She must belong to somebody,” Sam said. “What kind of dog is she?”

“No collar,” said the vet, “no ID. Hmm… some sort of Lab-golden mix is my guess. And maybe something else smaller-she only weighs about sixty pounds. I’d say she’s four or five years old.”

This was helpful. All I’d seen of myself so far was my feet, basically. Good to know what I was. A big, middle-aged mutt.

“So can we keep her?”

“She must belong to someone,” Sam tried again. “I’m sure somebody’s-”

“No, Daddy, they’ll put her in the pound, then they’ll put her to sleep! They’ll kill her!”

That’s right. I read a story to Benny last spring about a dog with no collar who gets taken to the pound and is almost euthanized before a little boy comes in and saves him. You tell him, baby.

“They won’t kill her,” Sam said, putting his hand on top of Benny’s head. “Um, what does happen here, Doctor? Do you put up flyers or something, keep the dog until she’s claimed-”

“We don’t have the facilities for that, unfortunately. No, she’ll go to the humane rescue and they’ll keep her there. As long as they can.”

“Then they’ll kill her!” Benny wriggled away from Sam and ran to me. I was still on the metal table-he had to stand on tiptoes to put his arms around my neck. “Please can we keep her? Please?”

“Benny, you know your mother never wanted…” Sam trailed off, looking pained.

Benny took the words out of my mouth. “But Dad-she’s not here.”

I don’t know why I was worried. My heart was pounding, I was trembling uncontrollably, I had more saliva in my mouth than I could swallow. “The pound” was no abstract concept; I knew what would probably happen to me there. But that wasn’t what I was afraid of. Abandonment was.

It’s me, Sam! It’s Laurie!

Everything hurt-miracle or not, get thrown twenty feet in the air by a car, believe me, everything hurts-but when Benny let go of my neck, I gathered all four slipping, sliding paws under me and made a lunge for Sam.

Who has good reflexes. He stepped aside in shock.

The vet’s were even better, luckily. He caught me-otherwise I’d have flown into the wall. “Whoa,” he said without surprise, and calmly set me on the floor. “Looks like this one really wants to go home with you.”

Sam never had a chance, I see now, but at the time it felt like touch and go. I had sense enough to hold still, not jump on him again, and let Benny wind his arms around me. What we must have looked like, cheek to cheek, four brown eyes yearning up at him. “Pleeeease, Daddy?” Beel zebub could not have resisted that plea. I echoed it with a warbly, “Arroooo?”

The vet laughed.

Sam put his hands on top of his head. “All right, all right, all right. But she’s going to have to be spayed.”

Home!

My house, oh, my house. I couldn’t get enough of it. My muscles still ached, but I ran into every room; I sniffed everything; I peed in the foyer-

My God!

Nobody saw. Oh, thank goodness, they didn’t see, and on the dark part of the Oriental it didn’t even show. It was just a little pee, anyway, only a drop, really. From the excitement.

Behave, I thought, letting Benny catch me. We wrestled on the rug in the living room-“Gently,” Sam kept saying-and it was pure bliss, utter contentment. As myself, I’d have been in a lot of pain from the accident, but as a dog I couldn’t stay focused on my body long enough to care. There wasn’t a thought in my head. Whenever Benny laughed, I wagged my tail-or rather, my tail wagged, a completely involuntary response, like crying when somebody else cries. We lay on our backs, panting and grinning up at Sam, whose cautious look slowly faded and turned into a smile.

He’s making sure I’m not dangerous, I realized. Making sure I won’t hurt Benny. Good; I’d do the same. I turned my head and licked Benny’s face very gently, for Sam’s benefit. Play with us! I thought, but he was already heading for the kitchen, mumbling about dinner.

“Hey, dog. Hey, girl. You like it here, don’t you?” Benny patted me on top of the head, pat pat pat, making me blink. I yawned in agreement. “Want to see my room?”

We ran upstairs.

Fabulous room, I thought, and then, Good Lord, where is the cleaning lady? But so many things to smell and taste and roll around in, toys and clothes and food, a smorgasbord for the senses.

Except sight. Strangest thing, but it was like seeing sepia in blue instead of brown. I couldn’t see red, and everything was muted, like the loveliest twilight. Except blue. With flashes of yellow. Hard to describe, but I liked it. I found it very… calming.

Benny showed me his dinosaur floor puzzle and his new Batmobile that lit up, made sounds, and shot out a weapon. He showed me all his dump trucks and bulldozers. I heard about his best friend, Mo, his second-best friend, Jenny; first grade was starting soon; Dad built him the coolest playhouse in the backyard; wait’ll I saw it. He had a new bike; he could write the whole alphabet and count to “a billion.” He had two loose teeth. “And my dad can throw his voice.” Music to my ears, every word, even when my attention wandered. “And my mom’s in the hospital” grabbed it back.

I worked my nose out of an old tennis shoe and joined Benny on top of the unmade bed.

“She fell in the river and hurt her head and she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t drown but now she’s got a coma. It’s like sleeping a really long, long time and not waking up.”

I nudged him with my head until it was under his arm. We sat like that awhile.

“Dad says she’ll wake up. He promised. We do prayers at night. We go look at her. He pretends like she can hear and reads stuff to her.” He flopped down on his back. “She can’t move or anything.”

He stretched his arms up and played with his fingers. Dear, stubby, dirty, little-boy fingers. “She worked a lot, but we used to ride bikes. And run and stuff. We played games. She talked a lot. Spaghetti!” He bolted up and scrambled off the bed.

I’d been smelling it, too. “He makes it all the time,” Benny said, “but it’s good.” His mood changed again and he stood still in his wreck of a room, staring into space. He’d grown in two months, or maybe it was all the curly hair making him look taller. But it was his face that broke my heart. Not as round, the bones more prominent. And this new silence. How many times I’d wished he would put a cork in it, my nonstop talker, my sweet If-I -think-i t-I – must-say-i t son.