of rubbing it in Terry’s face when her idea failed, he coughed slightly and answered, “I must be crazy asking you, but I need help getting a girl.”

Toby shook his head.  “Pete, even Cupid wouldn’t stand a chance of hooking you up.”

Pete started to fire back a vicious retort, but somehow didn’t have the heart to bring it out.  “Look, can you drop the wisecracks and throw me a bone?”

Toby clicked his tongue as his ears slid back and his tail drooped.  ‘I really, really don’t want to do this,’ he thought.  He paused a moment and called up mental images of Luna, Arrow, and his parents.  It helped a little.  Not much, but enough.  “Alright,” he agreed.  “I’ll help if I can, but only on one condition.  You-”

“I’ll stop giving you grief,” Pete assured him.  His word was easy enough to give; he might even keep it.  “You and your girl… I mean mate.”

The blusky shook his head.  “I wasn’t going to say that,” he replied.  “I don’t care how you treat me, although you know I’d kill you if you did anything to hurt Luna.  But all I’m going to ask is that you try to be a decent uncle to my pups.”  He paused for a moment, and out of almost-habit he stuck his paw forward leaving a pawprint between them.  “Deal?”

Pete knew nothing about the wolf custom of overlapping pawprints to signify a contract, but after a moment he nodded.  “Deal.”

The following morning, or what passed for morning in the sunless winters of Nome, Pete and Toby met to discuss Pete’s problem.  “Tell me everything,” Toby urged.  “I want to be sure we don’t miss anything.”

“Well,” Pete explained, “It was pretty run-of-the-mill.  I saw her, asked her out, she said yes.”

“Huh,” Toby muttered.  “Just like that?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

‘Recipe for disaster,’ Toby mentally noted.  ‘Starting too quick.’  “So then what happened?”

Pete groaned.  “Well, we were together for about two days when-”

“Two?” Toby interrupted with one ear and one eyebrow raised.  “Are you sure you’re telling the truth on that?”

Pete growled.  “Very funny.  Yes, it was two days, and I felt pretty good about that.”

Toby had to admit that holding onto a girl for two days was quite an accomplishment considering Pete’s track record.  “Then what happened?”

“Well, I made one little remark and she went sky-high.”

Toby’s ears perked a notch.  “What exactly did you say to her?”

Pete shrugged.  “Something like, ‘You know, we’ve been going for two days solid.  We’re practically mates.’”

Toby’s ears, jaw, and tail all abruptly met the floor.  When he finally spoke, it was in a quiet groan with one paw laid across his eyes in a gesture of utter hopelessness.  “I think I found your problem.”

“What?”

Toby shook his head.  “Pete, you don’t just say something like that to a girl you barely know.”

“We’d been dating for two days,” Pete defended himself.

“Which is good for you,” Toby countered, trying to tone his words as gently as possible.  It wasn’t easy.  “But not so great all things considered.”

Pete rolled his eyes.  “OK, so watch what I say.  Is that it?”

Toby shook his head.  “Not by a long shot,” he answered.  “Your whole problem, I think, is that you don’t take it seriously enough.  Relationships are more than just finding some girl to kiss and stuff.  It’s gotta be from the heart.”

Pete snorted.  “That how you caught yours?” he asked.

“It wasn’t like that,” Toby replied.  “I didn’t ‘catch’ Luna.  You might as well say she caught me.”

“Is that so?” asked Pete, bemused.  “Good for you then, fish.”

Toby rolled his eyes to the ceiling.  “Heaven help us,” he muttered.  “The point is, you have to think.  Why are you going into this?”

Pete shrugged.  “I want a hot girl.”

“OK, red flag,” Toby replied, praying like he’d never prayed before that this would be the only time he had to go through this.  “Relationships can’t be just about making yourself happy.  And girls aren’t there just for you to drool over.  You have to put something into it to make it work.”

Now it was Pete’s turn to roll his eyes.  “You sound just like Mom.”

“I should,” he retorted.  “She’s my mom too, isn’t she?”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Hey, you said you’d be nice,” Toby protested.

“Yeah, but that was before you said I didn’t have to.”

Toby groaned, making a mental note that Pete really needed to learn about keeping his word.  “Okay, back to the point,” he persevered.  “The point is that if you are going to try to find a girl just because you want one, I can’t help you.  Now, are you willing to be serious about this or not?”

Pete nodded.  His posture didn’t show much indication of submission, but Toby wasn’t sure if this was bad acting or simply Pete’s habit of refusing to submit.  “OK,” he conceded.

“Right.  Now this girl, what did you like about her besides the fact that she tolerated you for two whole days?”

Pete shrugged, knowing that if he said what immediately came to mind Toby would give him up for a lost cause.  “Well, she was nice.”

“Nice how?” Toby pressed.

Pete’s face wrinkled slightly.  “I dunno, there was just… something different about her.  Most girls…” he trailed off, his bitterness reasserting itself.  “Gah, why should I tell you what most girls treat me like?” he wondered aloud.

Toby was struggling not to explode.  “Well for starters,” he pointed out, “You came to me for help.  And I can’t help you much unless you supply me with some information.  And second,” he added, trying not to smirk, “I know how most girls treat you.  I saw Luna kick your butt that time she had amnesia, remember?”

Pete’s expression made it all too clear that Toby has touched a nerve.  “Most girls don’t beat me up,” he retorted.  “Most of them just tell me off the first time I do or say something they don’t like.  Always the same – they blow up over the littlest thing.”

Trying to ignore the fact that Pete’s definition of “the littlest thing” wasn’t a match for Webster’s, Toby took it in.  He had a feeling what the husky said about girls’ sensitivity was, in all probability, a bit exaggerated; that some girls probably put up with Pete for a while and only blew up when the dam broke.  Luna had said as much about her experience with him.  “So this Trixie girl is different, huh?”

Pete nodded.  “Yeah.  She was kinda touchy, and she made a stink about a lot of things I said, but when she did she was nice about it.  She never even talked loud until I made the mate remark.”

Privately, Toby was thinking this girl sounded too good for Pete.  “So what exactly do you want to do?” he asked.

“I want her back,” he replied.

Toby clicked his tongue.  ‘Somehow, I was afraid of that.’

Two days of lessons later, Toby was having serious doubts of ever changing Pete.  He could sense motivation, although whether Pete was reluctant to take instruction was far beyond a question.  Not only that, but Toby had the uneasy feeling Pete wasn’t learning anything but pickup lines.  The third day, though, resolved any question when Pete showed up with a black eye and a blacker disposition.

“What happened?” asked Toby.

“You don’t want to know,” muttered Pete.

“Yes I do,” insisted Toby.

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do.”

“No you…”

“Pete, I want to know what happened.”

“OK,” Pete conceded, rolling his eyes.

“That’s better.”

“Then I don’t want to tell you.”

Toby got a sneaking suspicion.  “Pete,” he asked, “did you try to talk to a girl?”

Pete rolled his good eye.  “Trixie,” he muttered.  “I wanted to see if all your tips would work, so I tried to say hi and…”

Toby groaned.  “Pete…” he began.

Pete cut him off.  “What if you talk to her for me?  You know, soften her up a little.”

Toby tried to imagine Luna’s reaction if he showed up with a black eye.  “I think we should wait until you’ve made some improvement.”

Pete persisted.  “Just tell her I’m trying to change, OK?”

Toby shook his head.  “Pete, think about how that’s going to come across to her.”  He changed his voice into a dorky falsetto.  “‘Hey, Trixie, I just wanted to tell you that the guy who suggested you be mates wants you to wait and not date any more guys while I make a decent dog out of him.’”

Pete shrugged.  “Yeah, but you’re good at making stuff like that sound nice.  You can come up with something, right?”

Toby’s ears drooped.  “I probably could,” he confessed, “but I really think it’s a bad idea.  Especially if you’ve been after her lately.”

“That’s why I want you to do it.  I can’t get her to give me a chance.  Maybe you can.”

Toby tolled his eyes heavenward.  “Why me?” he muttered aloud.

“Because you’re the only one who can,” was Pete’s for once reasonable answer.

Toby sighed.  “Alright,” he agreed.  “I’ll try, but only once.  If she’s not interested, I’m not talking to her about you again.  At all.  Deal?”

Pete nodded and slapped a paw down in the snow.  “Deal,” he agreed, lifting it away to show a print.

Toby raised an eyebrow.  ‘I didn’t teach him that,’ he thought.

Toby went to the address Pete gave him and found a simple house like most of the others in Nome: standard architecture with board walls and a slate-shingled roof laden with snow.  Taking into account that they owned a purebred, he guessed that this meant they were perhaps on the higher end of the middle class.  And hopefully, he reasoned, this would mean that Trixie would turn out as approachable as Pete’s first account implied.  ‘What should I say?’ he wondered.  He decided that it would be best to go into it slowly, hopefully gain her trust so she