Keeping Secrets Read Free

when she heard the sound of tires on gravel. She peered through the front window. A white van was easing up the driveway, and Nikki could read the words on its side: SHELTERING ARMS .
    She breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t known someone from Sheltering Arms would be coming this afternoon, but it was fine with her. She abandoned the idea of a snack and went outside.
    A woman was climbing out of the van, and she waved to Nikki. “Hello!”
    â€œHi, Harriet!” Nikki called.
    Paw-Paw ran to Harriet and gave her the same enthusiastic greeting he had just given Nikki.
    â€œSo, how are things?” asked Harriet, disengaging herself from Paw-Paw.
    â€œGood,” replied Nikki. “Really good. I like school. We get a lot of homework, though.”
    â€œAnd the dogs?”
    Nikki knew that Harriet meant the stray dogs that hung around the Shermans’ yard. They came nearly every day, usually early in the morning and again in the evening, just as darkness was falling. Nikki fed them but couldn’t afford to do much more for them. The previous fall, when so many dogs had been coming by (Paw-Paw was one of them) that Nikki couldn’t keep up with them, she had finally asked the people at Sheltering Arms for help, and since then, they had come by regularly. Often they brought a supply of food for the dogs. And sometimes they set up humane traps for them, brought them back to the shelter, spayed or neutered them, gave them medical attention, and kept the ones they felt were adoptable. The feral ones were returned to continue living on their own. Nikki was grateful, and she very much liked everyone she had met at the shelter.
    â€œThere aren’t very many of them,” she told Harriet now. “Lately, I’ve only seen four dogs.”
    â€œExcellent,” said Harriet. “Spaying and neutering is the key. Do you need anything?”
    â€œMore dry food, if you have it,” said Nikki uncomfortably. She had felt like a charity case many times in her life, and accepting donations didn’t come easily.
    Harriet laughed. “
If
we have it!” she said. “Nikki, come take a look in the van.”
    Nikki peered through the back doors. She counted eleven enormous bags of chow.
    â€œYou’re my sixth stop today, and I have two more to go. Believe me, we’re grateful to people like you who help strays.”
    Nikki smiled.
    Harriet heaved a bag of food out of the van. “
Oof
.” She straightened up. “So, is Paw-Paw going to walk in the dog parade?”
    â€œDefinitely. I promised Mae we’d make his costume soon.”
    â€œThe newspaper ad is going to run at the end of the week,” said Harriet. “Five dollars to enter the parade, and everyone who comes to watch will be encouraged to contribute. We’ll have volunteers up and down Main Street with canisters for donations. Did you see the posters? We put them up on October first. Nikki, you had a wonderful idea.”
    â€œThank you,” said Nikki, patting Paw-Paw and looking at the ground.
    Harriet gazed across the Shermans’ yard. “Are you concerned about any of the dogs that are coming by?” she asked.
    â€œWell,” said Nikki thoughtfully, “three of them look okay. You know, scruffy and they probably have some fleas, but basically okay. The fourth one is limping, though. And I think she has a tick on her neck.”
    â€œWill she let you get close to her?”
    Nikki shook her head. “Nope. And I’ve tried lots of times.”
    â€œDo you think she’s feral?”
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe not exactly feral. She doesn’t run away from me. I think she might just be hand shy.”
    Harriet paused. Then she said, “I guess I should try to trap her.”
    â€œOkay.” Nikki and Harriet both knew what that meant. Trapping a specific dog, even with a humane trap, wasn’t as straightforward as it sounded. Any kind of