speed to a flat-out run, houses and people whizzing past in colorful blurs. An icy feeling crept up Copper’s spine as he ran, but he knew it wasn’t snow that had piled up on his back. It was fear. The feeling increased until Copper felt himself tensing up, his muscles tightening, his breath coming in short labored gasps. He willed himself to relax, but knew he couldn’t. His emotions were too strong. They always built up every time he practiced with the team, and they choked him now. His thoughts started to fall into a familiar pattern:

‘Why am I racing? Johnson’s forcing me to. Why am I so afraid? Everyone thinks I love racing, mainly because my father and my grandfather were sled dogs, and because I tell everyone I love being on the team…I even told Kaila today I love racing, and she believed me. But it’s a lie. I hate it. But I’m so afraid that someone’s going to find out I hate racing, and then they’ll tell Dad. It’ll hurt him, I know that much. Racing’s such a big part of his life, of everyone’s lives in this town. Why do I hate racing?...There’s no real point to it. I’ve heard of dogs that have been killed during a race, out in the wilderness, whether by drowning or freezing or getting attacked by a wild animal. Dogs all over Alaska risk their lives to be the first in a race, but the glory only lasts so long. Soon there’ll be another race and the winners of the last race will be forgotten. There’s no real point in racing. A dog can train really hard, work his limbs off, and he can win a race, but in the long run it won’t matter. And racing isn’t enough to die for. A golden collar isn’t good enough to kill yourself over. Yet thousands of dogs race, and do these things…it’s all so pointless.’

Copper suddenly realized he had slowed down and was nearly bumping into the dog behind him, Rebel. He sped up, but not before the black husky with brown eyes ringed with red fur, and red paws, snorted and gave him a slight shove in the side.

“Copper, would you pick it up? Get your butt outta my face!”

“Yes, master,” Copper said with heavy sarcasm as he sped up only enough to make sure Rebel couldn’t say he wasn’t going faster, but slow enough so it would still annoy the husky. Rebel grumbled something under his breath, but didn’t say another word. Copper unconsciously began to slow down again as he considered the possibility of what his father would do if he ever found out about his son’s hatred of racing…then he realized once again he was going slow, and tried to pick up the pace, but soon realized it wasn’t just him that had slowed down. It was the whole team. Johnson was stopping them in the middle of a run! What was going on?

“Whoa!” Johnson cried in a bitter voice, an angry tone Copper had never heard his owner use before. “I said STOP!” All the dogs slid to a stop in the soft snow, and the new musher jumped off the sled and trudged over and started unbuckling the harness. Copper slid out of the straps and stood by the other unharnessed dogs with questions whirling through his mind. Why was Johnson doing this? What was happening here?

“Go on, go home! Every one of you, just go!” Johnson cried, waving his hands. He glanced down at Copper. “Except you, Copper. Everyone else, just get out of here! You’ll never make me a good sled dog team! Now, git!” He kicked a small spray of snow at the rest of the dogs, and after a moment they all looked at each other, and turned and ran. Copper saw his brother Dusty go, conspicuous with his unusual coat coloring, and he thought about calling after him, just to check up on him, but Dusty was gone before Copper could open his mouth. Instead, Copper watched in silent suspicion as Johnson rubbed the frozen icicles in his blonde beard and kicked at another clod of snow. “They’ll find their own way home,” he muttered. He started to walk away. “C’mon, Copper.”

Copper, after glancing over his shoulder at the trail of pawprints the huskies had left, uncertainly followed Johnson, wondering why in the world his owner was acting so insane.

That night, Copper lay half-asleep on the carpet in front of the window where he could see the empty street and burning yellow lights in houses. ‘The lights look like eyes,’ he thought drowsily, ‘Like yellow wolf eyes. A whole pack of wolves lying in wait out there in the dark, their yellow eyes gleaming. Kaila’s eyes…’

A crackle and pop from the glowing fire in the fireplace made Copper turn his head quickly to see Johnson withdraw his hand from throwing yet another crumpled-up piece of paper into the flames. Copper watched the paper fringe in black and slowly start to evolve into a fireball. Johnson sighed and scribbled over something he had written, and Copper lay back down again.

Down the street at Jenna’s house there were three dark silhouettes of what looked like dogs outlined in the living room window. One was bigger and looked wolf-like, while another was smaller and looked like a delicate husky, and the last dog was the smallest and had a wolfish outline like the first. They were talking, and Copper wished he could hear what they were saying, but his mind was still figuring out who the shadows belonged to. He knew one had to be his father, Balto, but his brain seemed to shut off of its own accord as the heat of the fire warmed his back, making his red fur shimmer like copper, and he closed his yellow eyes as the warmth and softness of the atmosphere curved around and into him, and he could feel himself dropping off…BANG! Copper sprang up onto his paws and half-barked in surprise. His head swiveled to investigate and took in the sight of Johnson’s notebook lying silently at the edge of the fireplace with all it’s pages splayed out to show Johnson’s scribbled handwriting. There was a white scratch in the brick from the force of the notebook’s impact. Johnson stood in front of the fireplace, and when he turned around he looked madder than a grizzly.

“Nothing’s working out!” Johnson cried, “I can’t write anything, my dog-sled team just couldn’t work together, I’m up to my neck in debt…What am I gonna do for money?!!! I thought I’d have my first book written and sent to the publishers by now. Instead, I’ve got writer’s block. I thought my dog sled team would be winning races by now and I’d be winning at least a couple bucks in bets! Instead, I got a STUPID team that wouldn’t WORK TOGETHER! After 6 MONTHS!! None of them wanted to race, they’re all town dogs, not sled dogs. I should have seen it from the start! But Copper…I guess you didn’t inherit your father’s racing gene, didya?” Copper hated the way Johnson sounded, mean and sarcastic, like he was about ready to hit him. Johnson’s rant continued, and Copper began slinking towards the door, chancing anything, just to escape…

“…I owe my friends at least a couple hundred bucks…Oh, man, what am I gonna DO?...So STUPID!” Johnson grunted as he picked up his notebook and hurled it across the room. It struck the chipped wall with a dead ‘thud’ and slid silently to the floor. Copper inched his way towards the door; he’d probably be safer spending the night at some other place. He had never seen Johnson this angry before; come to think of it, he had never seen Johnson angry at all. His owner was usually so calm and confident when it came to money. If he was having a nervous breakdown over it, it had to be bad. Out of the corner of his eye Copper saw the doggy door at Jenna’s house swing open and a wolf-like shape dart out, followed by Jenna’s voice: “Kaila! Kaila, wait!” The flimsy door flapped shut, and all went back to normal again, except now there were only two silhouettes in the lit-up window.

Copper slid his way over to the door as Johnson paced and stormed up and down the living room. The red and white wolf-dog was about to make a run for it, and maybe find out what was wrong with Kaila, when Johnson froze.

“Wait a minute…” The ex-musher rushed right past Copper and began riffling through the ton of papers strewn all over the kitchen counter. “Do I still have it?” he muttered to himself, and as his hands pawed through the mess, papers like snowflakes drifted to the carpet. Copper padded over to the paper that had fallen nearest to him, flattened it out with a paw, and read what was on it. ‘Bill’s address. 15-’

“Copper!” Johnson swooped down and yanked the paper out from under Copper’s nose. “You found it! Attaboy!” Copper backed up a step and watched his owner with his head cocked. Why was Johnson acting like such a nutcase? He was acting like a toy that had been wound up too tightly, like that annoying red cat toy Balto still had on his boat. Copper had played with it enough when he was a pup to know how annoying and crazy it could be. Copper woofed softly to let Johnson know how weird he was acting, but the ex-musher just finished reading what was on the paper, jumped up, pulled on his coat, and dashed out the door. Copper, seriously wondering where all this was going, slid out right before the door shut.

Outside, the bitter cold bit at Copper’s skin and fur as he tried to keep up with his owner as Johnson sprinted through the streets, repeatedly muttering an address over and over under his breath and checking house numbers as he ran past. Johnson seemed unstoppable as he led Copper all through town, twisting and turning and whirling and circling and doubling