no one else was laughing.

“C’mon you guys? Where’s your sense of humor?”

“Out having a party, and I wasn’t invited,” Denali spoke in a monotone voice.

Saba couldn’t help but laugh quietly, “But we have our own party right here, and we should be having a good time.”

“I’m with crazy,” Haida chuckled as he nodded towards Saba.

“You always are,” smiled Dingo.

The siblings started to laugh as they heard a shrill bark. Doc lifted his ear and listened. He stood up in front so everyone could see him and he spoke ecstatically.

“Alright everyone! One minute to go before we can say goodbye to 1927!”

Everyone started to cheer as they anxiously awaited the arrival of the new year. Even the townspeople couldn’t wait. They had all gone through the painstaking trouble of setting their clocks as close as they could to each other’s so they could all exalt in unison.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

A black and white husky with a red ribbon attached to one of her paws wandered around Nome. She hadn’t seen this place in years, and so much had changed. As her paws crunched through the delicate drifts of snow, she suddenly stopped and perked her ears up. She listened intently as she felt her heartbeat increase its rhythm, her breathing quickly following suit. She slowly looked over her shoulder and then righted herself.

“Who’s there?” she called warily.

She was only answered by the ruffling of a flag as a small burst of wind hit it. This silence only furthered her nervousness.

“I’m serious. Tell me who’s there, or I’ll come in after you.”

She crept forward until she was at the open mouth of an alleyway. She scanned her surroundings before bolting down the alley. She stopped halfway down and sidled along a wall, immersing herself in the shadows.

‘I know someone’s following me. I heard there footsteps right behind me. What do they want with me? … Are they going to try and-’ Lilith gulped as she thought about this.

She edged farther and realized that two trashcans were right near her. Her tail stood out straight as an arrow as she thought. Did she dare check the cans for this unknown stranger? She dared. She pushed one of the lids off and flinched when it banged loudly into the other can. Lilith peaked into the can and gave a sigh of relief when she found it empty. But something still didn’t feel right. Her ears and mind did love to play tricks on her after all, so they once more made the sound of a footstep ring in her head. She bit her lip and checked the area, and she still saw no one. She was starting to get agitated by this silent treatment, and she couldn’t take it much longer.

She gritted her teeth and barked. “If you don’t show yourself I’ll just rip you limb from limb!”

Normally by now she would have passed out. But the thing she lacked now was her medicine. Her owners had a bottle of pills that would cause her to become extremely drowsy if she ever fell to one of these episodes. But her owners had been incompetent and had forgotten to transfer these pills to Mr. Simpson, so now her paranoia could reign supreme.

Suddenly, something occurred to her. There was a very, very faint smell. It seemed to emanate from right beneath her, and with her curiosity aroused, she started to carefully dig through the layers of snow. She felt one of her claws catch on something, and brushed away more snow as a familiar face became visible. She gasped and quietly whispered the name of her sister Lucy.

“What happened to you?” she murmured as she looked over her face that had been stained with red.

At first she felt remorse and sadness, but that quickly changed. She gripped the scruff of the dogs neck and growled.

“I can never forgive you for what you did! You betrayed us. You ripped our family to shreds…”

Lilith dropped the body of Lucy back into the snow and covered her up with more snow than had been there previously, maybe leaving a paw or two uncovered, but she really didn’t care anymore.

“Serves you right.”

Her lip curled as she surveyed the site. She was suddenly taken out of her thoughts as shouts were heard and her body froze up.

“Three…”

“Two!”

“ONE! Happy New Year!”

She fled away from the alleyway as noisemakers and other loud sounds echoed around her.

Chapter Five:

Two dogs sat staring up at a piece of paper that was nailed to a telegraph post. The smaller of the two was a light purple and white. She looked very prissy and had a gleaming new collar, and she was less than half the size of her friend. Her friend was a blond color and she had long droopy ears which were tipped with brown. Her name was Sylvia, and the smaller was named Dixie.

“Now this is news to me.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” replied Dixie, “who would have guessed?”

What they were discussing was a poster. It was the third in a succession of posters. The first poster had a picture of five dogs, and the other one had Star. Just about everyone knew that Star probably got lost, and would be found soon, but the new addition was a little shocking to them. It was a brown, stocky chow. It was one of the sled dogs. Sylvia read the words under the picture aloud to Dixie.

“Can you find me? Name: Nikki. Breed: Chow. Gender: Male. If found, please contact Jefferson family. He went missing a few days before New Year’s Eve, and we miss him very much. January 8th, 1928.”

“But Sylvia, it’s been a week since the new year.”

Sylvia nodded, “I know, but I wonder how long he’s really been missing. I say we spread the word. But why would they have waited so long to get something this juicy out?”

“What can you expect? They are humans after all,” she smiled.

“True, I almost forgot.”

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

Jenna barked excitedly as she tugged on Rosie’s coat. Rosie staggered behind her giggling as she slipped her arm through the other sleeve of her coat and swung around the whicker basket in her little hands.

“I’m coming Jenna, I’m coming!” she said gleefully.

Tom and Nancy watched their daughter open the door and disappear as they smiled after her. Tom sidled up to Nancy and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Well, the dog and kid are out. Is there anything, specific, you’d like to do?” he asked.

She smirked and rested her head on his shoulder. “You bet.” She then spun around. “I’ll get the deck of cards!”

Tom paused for a moment. “.. And I call the chess board!” he said excitedly.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

Rosie sang merrily as Jenna triumphantly led her to the outskirts of town. Jenna started to quicken her pace as the familiar derelict boat appeared in the distance, and Rosie found it harder to keep up with her. She looked up into the clear blue sky and saw the sun shining down on them in a brilliant glory, making every drift of snow they passed look like small mountains of sparkling diamonds. By the time she walked up the plank to the deck of the boat, she was already grinning. She saw her wolf-dog still under his tattered, pale-blue blanket, most likely dreaming. She laughed as she walked over and was greeted by Boris.

“Oy! Thank goodness you are showing up! Maybe you can vake this mushugina mutt up. I have been trying all morning, but is no use.”

“Well it’s worth a shot,” she replied cheerfully.

She stepped beside the blanket and knelt down until she was by Balto’s head.

“Good morning sleepy head,” she whispered quietly.

Balto suddenly shot up sending the blanket tumbling through the air. He was breathing quickly as the blanket fell back and covered up his face. He lifted it up and saw Jenna staring and he quickly started to blush.

“Oh it’s you Jenna. I was expecting to see Boris standing in front of me, screaming like usual,” he said hoarsely. He cleared his throat and sat down. “So, what brings you out here?”

Jenna looked at him sweetly and pointed to the plank as Rosie rushed up. “You forgot we were having a picnic here, didn’t you?” she giggled and licked his cheek.

Balto saw Rosie and shrugged the blanket off of him, “You’re not mad are you?”

Jenna laughed and nuzzled Balto, “You know I could never be mad at you.”

He wiped a paw across his forehead and smiled, “Phew, because I heard that you never want to anger a woman.”

“And how right you are being! They have vays of getting even,” honked Boris.

Just then Rosie stumbled over to them, dropping the basket down as she stopped. She patted Balto on the head and giggled as she opened up one side of the basket. She suddenly screamed in delight and surprise as Becca jumped out of the basket, flew onto the deck, and skidded right to Balto. Rosie quickly reached back into picnic basket and brought out a large cloth. She took it at each end and fanned it out, covering the deck with it.

“So that’s where you were hiding! And to think we were looking for you for fifteen minutes!” Jenna laughed as she patted Becca on the head.

“Well I did learn from the best,” the pup chuckled.

“Time for food!” Rosie called as she finished setting out the plates.

Each animal sat in front of a different plate as the nine-year-old called out which plate belonged to whom. Of course, she had one less plate for a reason,