away.

Later while he was playing in the lot, Toby heard a sound on the other side of the boxes.  It sounded like a cat, but he imagined that it was Steele, Balto’s arch-enemy.  He crept up to the corner and listened, not wanting to give away his location by sticking his nose into view.  Then he shot around the corner, barreling straight toward his prey.  But instead of catching it and knocking it to the ground, he and it smacked heads.

“Ow!” protested his victim.  “What do you think I am, a goat?”

Toby realized that he hadn’t been stalking a cat.  Instead, he had crashed straight into a girl pup about his age.  She looked like a mix of malamute, chow, and husky.  “Sorry,” Toby said, shaking his head to get rid of the ringing in his ears.  “I thought you were Steele.”

The girl looked at him as if he had completely lost his mind.  “Steele?  What would give you a crazy idea like that?”

Toby shrugged.  “My imagination runs away with me sometimes,” he admitted.

“Somehow I guessed,” the girl retorted, rubbing the top of her head.  She stared at him.  “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Toby,” he answered.  “Who are you?”

“I’m Luna.”

“Wanna play with me, Luna?”

She raised an eyebrow.  “Promise not to use me to practice your mountain goat impression?”

Toby rolled his eyes and promised.  “You wanna play Balto?” he asked.

“Is that what you were playing when you whacked me on the head?” she asked.

“Will you drop that already?” Toby was getting frustrated.  “You don’t have to be a bad guy- er, girl.  You could play…”

‘Oh, great,’ thought Luna.  ‘Anything but Jenna.’  “Could I be Aleu?” she asked quickly.  “You know, the daughter Balto had who looked even more like a wolf-“

“Yeah, I know about her.  Okay, you run off and hide like you’ve run away, and I’ll try to find you.”

               Toby and Luna became fast friends, and they met to play every chance they got.  One day they were playing in the lot.  Luna was pretending to be in a canyon cornered by bears, and Toby was Balto, ready to jump in and save the day.  But when he tried to jump, he accidentally dislodged the pile of crates he’d been standing on.  He fell helplessly through the air, followed by about twenty boxes and crates.  He landed with a thud, and the entire pile came crashing down around him.  Luna had just enough time to scream before she too was buried by the falling cargo.

Toby was lucky.  Most of the boxes missed him and the ones that didn’t were empty.  He crawled out from under the pile and shook himself.  “Luna?” he called out.  There was no reply.  “Luna!” he yelled again.  ‘Oh, man.  Please don’t tell me I smashed you,’ he thought.  He ran around and around the pile, calling Luna’s name over and over.  ‘Please, please be okay.’

He put his nose to the ground and started sniffing.  Maybe she had been clear of the avalanche and simply hadn’t heard him yelling for some reason.  His tail started to wag when he picked up her scent, but his hope died instantly when he realized that the trail didn’t lead away from the pile, but into it.  ‘I’ve gotta do something,’ he thought.  Finding an opening in the pile, he wriggled through, working his way in deeper and deeper, wherever he could squeeze through a gap.

“Oww,” came a quiet whimpering.

“Luna?” Toby hurried towards the sound.  Sure enough, there was Luna, half-buried under a crate.  “Hang on!” he told her.  “I’m getting you out of here!”  He grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and pulled.  Nothing happened except that Luna started to groan with pain.

“Stop,” she said, sounding as if she were barely conscious.  “It hurts.”

                “I’m getting you out of here,” he said.  He pulled harder and managed to move her an inch.  But as soon as he moved her, the boxes began to shift.  ‘Oh no,’ he thought.  ‘If I keep this up I’ll bring the whole pile down on top of us again.’  There was only one thing to do: get help.  “I’ll be back,” he promised.  “Just hang in there.”

Following his nose to fresh air, he ran out of the lot and into the street, yelling his head off.  “Help!” he barked.  “My friend’s in trouble!  Hurry!”  His calls produced instant results.  About a dozen dogs sitting or walking around came running.  “This way!” Toby yelled, leading them back to the pile.  “She’s right under here!”  He sniffed around the pile, trying to find where he’d come out.  “Here!” he said, pointing to the opening.

At once the other dogs started in on the pile, pulling away the boxes.  Soon they had uncovered Luna, and Toby’s stomach tied itself in a knot.  She looked even worse than before.  Her back legs were caught under a heavy crate.  “Ouch,” commented one of the dogs.  “That can’t be very comfortable.”

“Come on,” said another.  “Let’s get her out of there.”

“How’d this happen?” asked someone else.  Toby guessed what was coming next and ducked inside what remained of the pile.  Right now, questions were the last thing he wanted to face.  ‘If everyone knows this is my fault, I don’t know what I’ll do,’ he thought.

Luna had to go to the vet’s office.  The vet identified her by the tags on her collar and sent his assistant to get her owners.  Toby, who had snuck in under the building and was hiding under the floorboards, listened anxiously.

“Is this your dog?” asked the vet.

A man’s voice replied.  “Yes, she’s ours.  But what on earth happened to her?”

“I don’t know,” said the vet.  “Some dog came here and wouldn’t stop barking, then led us to that empty lot by the harbor.  That’s where she was, half-buried under a pile of cargo.”

“How is she?”

“Both back legs broken, I’m afraid.  And there’s some damage to her spine.”

Toby drew in his breath sharply.  ‘It’s all my fault,’ he thought.

“Is she gonna be OK?” asked a little girl.

“Yes, she should be fine.  But she’ll have to stay here for a few weeks until she recovers.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

As the family left, Toby thought over and over again, ‘It’s my fault.  She’s hurt and it’s all my fault!’

Some dogs came in to see Luna as well.  Toby heard them talking with her above his head.  Her parents, an uncle or two, an aunt, and her grandparents all came by to see how she was doing.  All of them wanted to know what had happened, but Luna was too tired to give much detail.  All she told them was that she’d been playing and got into an accident.  ‘Oh, man,’ thought Toby as he listened.  ‘I can’t let word get around that I did this.  They’ll be so mad at me.  And why shouldn’t they, after what I’ve done?  Well, I’ll at least get a chance to apologize to her.’  He listened as one of the dogs got chased out by the vet.  ‘I’ll wait until night, when the people are gone and the place is locked up,’ he decided.

During the night, Toby put his plan into action.  As soon as the lights were out and the place was silent, he pushed up one of the heating grates in the floor and crept into the room.  “Luna?” he called into the darkness.  There was no reply.  ‘She must be asleep,’ he thought.  ‘I hate to wake her, but I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t apologize right now.’  He sniffed around and found his way to her cage.  “Hey!” he whispered.  “Psst!  Luna, wake up.  It’s me.”

Luna stirred.  “Toby?” she asked.  “What are you doing here?”

“I snuck in.  I had to apologize to you, and I couldn’t risk being seen.  I… I don’t think I could face your family after what I did.”

“Aww, c’mon, Toby,” she said with a yawn.  “It wasn’t so bad.  Heck, it doesn’t even hurt that much.”

Toby’s eyes had started adjusting to the dim light, and he saw that Luna’s back legs were both bandaged so thickly they resembled bowling pins, and a brace was fastened to her back.  “What kind of dimwit do you think I am?”

“How many kinds are there?”

“Luna, this is serious!  I could’ve killed you!”

“Yeah, but you didn’t.”

Toby dropped his head.  “Well… I’m sorry anyway.”  He looked up.  “Still friends?”

Luna considered.  “I don’t