Going limp, he was hauled up onto the solid ground. Panting, he looked up into his rescuer’s face. A growl of disbelief and anger almost escaped him. Tomek stood over him, grinning.
“That was quite a fall, there.” He added more seriously, “Really, you could have frozen.”
Kato forced himself to act polite. “Thank you so much. You saved my life.”
“No trouble, no trouble!” was the reply. “I’ll walk you home.”
Kato had been expecting this, and he had already braced himself for it.
“Oh thank you, Tomek!”
It was the first time since his fall that Amber had spoken. She was looking admiringly into Tomek’s eyes. He smiled slightly at her gaze. “No problem. I’m glad to assist you.”
Amber limped on her three good legs to stand beside Tomek. To Kato’s horror, she pushed gently into him and buried her nose into her fur. Smoldering with rage, Kato turned a headed down the street. How dare Amber? How dare she? he thought angrily.
“Come back, featherbrain!” Amber called. “Our house is the other way!”
Laughing, she and Tomek left him standing in the snow, anger burning in his brown eyes. He followed them more slowly, kicking up clouds for powdery snow as he went. What did Amber see in that excuse for a dog? He was annoying and conceited. But, said a snide voice inside his head. He did save you from freezing in a snowdrift. And what’s so bad about him, anyway? He imagined throwing the snide voice out a window. Then he could loathe that stupid Tomek in peace.
During the next two weeks, Kato found himself keeping away from Amber and Tomek. Instead he visited Jada. Talking her somehow calmed him, and sometimes she walked around town with him. He enjoyed this. She was fun to be around, and her jokes made him laugh, something that he was otherwise unable to do. She seemed to enjoy his company, too.
Tomek didn’t seem to miss him, but Amber was always huffy and irritated with him now. One night she asked him, “Why aren’t you coming with me any more?”
The question had caught him off-guard. He had known that getting angry with her wouldn’t help, but somehow he just couldn’t help himself.
“Why do you ask?” he had snarled. “You’d rather be spending time with Tomek, wouldn’t you?”
Then he had stormed out of the room, leaving her looking shocked and angry behind him. He had apologized later, but she still had seemed annoyed with him.
When it came time for him to leave, he found himself relieved at the return to Anchorage. At the sight of Daddy’s packed bags, a bubble of anxiety that had been in his chest since the snowstorm seemed to get a tiny hole in it and deflate. He was really leaving!
But when he heard Zack say to Daddy, “Thanks, Adam. I’ll see you in another month,” the bubble blew back up again, bigger than ever. He was coming back?
The month that was in-between visits to Yentna passed all too quickly for Kato. He spent most of his time shut up in his house brooding anxiously about his return to Yentna. What would Amber say when he returned? How would Tomek react? He went over those questions over and over again in his mind, including possible answers. He would then go over what he would do in each given situation that he made up in his mind.
When it came time for Daddy to leave again, Kato wished with all his might that he would be left at home, but Daddy clipped on his leash saying, “I bet you want to see your friends you made in Yentna, don’t you? Good boy.”
Once again Kato was flung into the baggage car. This time he sat in the back corner, silently cursing to himself. At one stop, a suitcase had been flung on his back. He had whipped around, growling. The men had shut the door quickly with mutters of, “Stupid dog.” He had returned to his corner, angry at the men for their carelessness and angry at himself for his unneeded reaction.
When the train stopped, it was late afternoon. Kato scrambled out of the baggage car. Clipping on his leash again, Daddy began the now-familiar walk to Amber’s house.
When they entered the door, Kato hesitated, not sure of a welcome. Daddy yanked him into the house. While he was catching up with Zack, Kato entered the room where he and Amber slept. She wasn’t there. Not surprised, he curled up on the rug. Grateful for the peace and forgetfulness that sleep brought him, he closed his eyes and let himself sink into nothingness.
Kato looked into Amber’s mocking face.
“So naïve,” she crooned. “Thinking that we actually liked you, when all we really wanted was to deceive you.”
Tomek suddenly appeared, laughing scornfully. “Amber is right,” he chuckled. “You were so stupid to think that she would ever look twice at you. You are nothing, always nothing, compared with me.”
Amber raised her head to Tomek’s, licking his nose briefly with tongue. Then she turned back to Kato, her eyes glinting with malignant laughter. “Listen to Tomek,” she advised him. “He can tell you things that your mediocre mind wouldn’t think of, normally. You are nothing special, but he is wonderful, amazing.”
She reached her head up to Tomek again, her mouth way too close to his for Kato’s liking…
Kato awoke, panting. His dream had seemed so real. Swallowing, he took deep calming breaths. Annoyed with his mind that it made up such stupid things while he was asleep, he reassured himself that Amber would never say such things… would she?
Forcing his mind away to something else, Kato drifted off to sleep again, but it was fitful and disturbed.
A door opening awakened him. He heard Zack’s voice say, “Hey, Amber, you’ve got a friend in the sitting room,” before Amber padded into the room. He took one look at her and knew that something was terribly wrong.
“Hey, Amber,” he greeted her tentatively, remembering his dream. “I-I’m glad to see you.”
Sighing tiredly, she sat down a few feet away from him. “Hi, Kato,” she returned quietly.
Kato swallowed. That something wrong that he had seen in her was becoming clearer. Looking at his paws, he said, even more hesitantly, “You look…” He searched for the right word. “…Different…than when I last saw you…” He trailed away.
Amber looked up sharply. “What do you mean?” she asked curtly.
“Uh… nothing… It just seemed like-“
Amber cut him off. “I’m expecting Tomek’s pups,” she said harshly.
Kato narrowed his eyes. “I should’ve known,” he snarled. “You selfish idiot!” He hurled the insults at her, raising his voice. “You couldn’t see...” he swallowed before continuing. “You couldn’t see that there was someone, right in front of your stupid face…” His voice was quite soft now, almost pleading. He continued, “…who…loved you-“ His voice broke. He ran from the room, leaving Amber looking confused and upset behind him.
Kato hurtled through the house, not caring how many things that he broke. How could Amber let this happen? Why did that stupid Tomek have to take everything from him that was most important to him? Slowing his pace, he wandered into Daddy’s room. Daddy had left the window opened, letting the warm summer air drift through the window. Kato carefully climbed over Daddy’s sleeping form. Lifting up the screen with his nose, he squeezed out into the night.
As soon as he was out, he pushed the screen down again. No one would know of his nighttime excursions. He took a confident step forward and, with a squeal of fright, tumbled down into some bushes. Cursing himself for his stupidity, he realized that he had been standing in a window box. When he had stepped forward, he had simply stepped out onto thin air. Luckily for him, Daddy’s room had been on the first story.
Kato set off down the street, his paws remembering the path to the park. His first glanced at the old trees, bathed in moonlight, and at the familiar landscape, slightly eerie in the black of night, brought back bittersweet memories that he didn’t want. Pushing them away angrily, he went to lie down under a tree. Pushing his nose into the cold grass, he tried to sleep, but somehow, he wouldn’t let himself. He remembered Amber’s face when he had shouted at her, and he felt anger welling up inside him once more. How could she, when he had loved her?
Kato awoke the next morning, wondering how he could awake when he never remembered going to sleep. He supposed that he had drifted off without knowing it. As he breathed in the fresh, leafy smell of an early summer morning, he began to panic. Where on earth was he? Why wasn’t he tucked safe and warm in the crook of a bent knee back at home? Then he remembered the events of the previous night, and his heart sank.
Kato stood up and stretched, his muscles stiff from sleeping on the ground. His forepaw throbbed. He guessed he had slept on it the wrong way. He hobbled around the park, taking in familiar sights and saying hello to dogs that were adventurous enough to wander the city this early.
After making his rounds, he set off down the street. After walking about a block, he heard the very last voice that he had expected or wanted.
“Kato! I didn’t know that you were back!”
Tomek’s voice sounded from behind. Kato turned around, wanting nothing more than to rip Tomek’s ears out. Instead, he tried to smile. “Hey, Tomek. How’s it goin’?”
The mutt laughed. “Oh, it’s goin’,” he answered. “How’ve you been?”
Kato made a valiant effort not to sound aggressive. “Oh, I’ve been fine, you know…” Thinking that this was probably the hardest thing that he ever had to do, he said, “Look, I heard about you and Amber, and-“ (He forced the word out of his mouth.) “Congratulations.”
Tomek puffed out his chest proudly. “Yeah, she’s great. I’m glad to have her.”
Thinking savagely that Tomek standing there was the sickest sight that he had ever seen, he choked out, “Yeah, you’re lucky.” At least one thing he said he meant. “Look, I’ve got to be somewhere,” he lied. He expected Tomek to be offended that he was leaving so soon.
Instead, Tomek winked knowingly at him. And then he said the oddest thing: “Yeah, she’s been missing you. See you ‘round!”
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