Dog Whisperer Read Free

that sometimes, she did. And they didn’t talk much about the fact that she was biracial, and her parents—weren’t. Her mother had blond hair, even. Well, greyish blond, but still blond. It totally didn’t matter, and it was mostly just funny, like when her father got all into celebrating Kwanzaa and everything, and she had had to make him promise never to wear kente cloth in front of her friends again. She had also told him that if he ever showed up in a dashiki, she was going to run away and join the circus—or maybe get a job working for a hedge fund. Her mother had laughed, but her father had just seemed disappointed about having to limit his holiday celebration.
    â€œDo you have questions?” her mother asked, her expression very serious. “Would you like to talk about it?”
    Yes—and no. Emily thought it over, and then shook her head.
    â€œWe can always talk about it,” her mother said
earnestly. “Whenever you want. Especially if anything is bothering you.”
    Lots of times, it felt like her parents were more comfortable talking about it than she was. Emily shook her head. “No, I don’t really want to right now. I mean, thank you, but—no. I just—think about them, sometimes.” Her birth parents. Whoever they were. Wherever they were.
    Her mother started to say something, but then just nodded and sipped her tea, while Emily ate her peanut butter toast. They stayed up for a while longer and talked about what kind of new clothes she was going to need for school, and whether it was possible to watch too many movies starring Julie Andrews, and other relaxing things like that.
    But Emily was starting to get very sleepy, and they went upstairs so that they could both go back to bed. After she brushed her teeth, they discussed whether she was too old to be tucked in. Emily definitely thought she was, but always let her mother do it, anyway, because she knew it made her happy.
    Her mother kissed her good-night. “Sleep well. And don’t turn the light back on and read all night!”
    Emily grinned sheepishly, since sometimes she did that, and ended up falling asleep with the light on. Then, whichever parent came in to wake her up
the next morning would know that she had stayed awake reading when she was supposed to be asleep.
    Tonight, though, she was really tired. Josephine curled up next to her, purring enthusiastically, and Emily patted her until she finally dropped off to sleep.
    Then, it was later—she wasn’t sure how much later—and it was cold, and there was water everywhere, and she couldn’t breathe, and—
    She was drowning again!

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    This time, part of her knew that it really was only a dream, but she still felt as though she was drowning. The waves seemed bigger than ever, and there were rocks around, too, because she kept crashing into them—which hurt . It seemed to take forever, but finally, she managed to wake herself up. She pulled her quilt closer, shivering and scared. Water seemed to be pouring all over the place, and at first, she was very confused. Then, she realized that it was raining outside.
    Rain wasn’t scary. She had probably just had the dream again because of the sound of it pounding against the roof.
    It seemed to be very windy—her shade and curtains were flapping back and forth. A big storm must have whipped in off the bay, because it sounded really wild outside. Lots of times, her mother liked to go for walks during storms, but Emily and her father would usually just say, “Yeah, okay, whatever, have
fun,” and stay in and eat cookies and read by the fireplace.
    Actually, no, they would start by reading—or Emily would sit in the big, blue easy chair and draw. Since her parents were both academics, they spent a lot of time reading and doing research. But Emily could almost always talk her father into playing a couple of Wii games, instead. They would jump around, and