Born to Bark Read Free Page A

and had me help her clean the house with some especially nasty-smelling cleaner that was dissolved in water. She explained to me that it was a disinfectant and that we had to disinfect the house so that we could bring another dog into the house and the germs from Skipper’s disease would not hurt our new dog.
    I still didn’t believe her. “We can’t have a new dog,” I protested. “When Skippy comes back and finds a new dog he’ll think that I don’t love him and don’t want him.”
    My mother knelt down beside me and quietly said, “Skippy is not coming back because he can’t. He died. He is with God now, and he will wait for you. Because he loves you and knows that you loved him, he also knows that you need another dog as a friend. He wouldn’t want his germs to hurt that new dog. So we are going to make our home clean and safe for dogs. First, we will kill all of the germs with this disinfectant, and then we will air the house out for a couple of days. After that, we will seeif there is another dog in the world that God wants you to have, since he has Skipper as his own pet for now.”
    It sounded like the truth and only cleaning up after a disease could justify using such awful smelly stuff to wash the floors and walls. It was then that I finally began to believe that Skipper was really dead. I turned to the bucket with its malodorous disinfectant solution and began to damp mop every surface of the house that I could reach—no other dog was going to die in that house if I could help it. I cleaned everything so vigorously that I could barely lift my arms at the end of the day. That night I fell asleep dreaming of God sitting on a white throne, with Skippy curled up next to his foot. Skipper was still my dog; he hadn’t run away from me because I wasn’t kind to him. I was sad, but God was a good person whom I could trust to take care of my dog until I got to be with him again.

    My mother clearly had a plan for me, because on Saturday morning she took me to the library, pushing the baby stroller that contained my brother Dennis. On the way she explained to me that if and when we got a new dog, it would be a puppy and I would have to learn how to take care of it and to train it. I would have to learn what I needed to know by reading books about dogs.
    We bumped the stroller up the library steps and entered through the big double set of doors. The high-ceilinged familiar space was filled with dark wooden bookshelves, and I took in that subtle smell of books that I had come to love. Near the doors was the circulation counter and next to it a few desks for the librarians. There were three alcoves off of the main area. The small one to the right was the children’s section, which I was very well acquainted with since it was the only one that I was allowed to go into with the green library card that was issued tokids. My mother didn’t even glance in that direction but went to the counter and placed my library card down on it.

    “I’d like to upgrade my son’s library card to a regular one,” she said.
    The librarian was a thin older lady with glasses and gray hair pulled back into a bun. She recognized me from my twice weekly visits to the library and gave me a slight smile, and then turned to my mother.
    “How old is he?” she asked.
    “Eight.”
    “A child must be twelve years old before we can let them use the adult section.”
    “He can read well enough to use the adult books,” my mother said quietly, “and he needs material that is not in the children’s collection. For example, there are no books in the children’s section on dog care or training.”
    “Well, why don’t you just take those books out on your card and let him read them?”
    My mother sighed slightly. “I work and can’t make it here very often. He needs to be able to select the books that have the information that he is looking for and take them out on his own.”
    “Some of that material in the main section is very