“No, this isn’t real,” I tell the dog, shaking my head back and forth.

Stop thinking that—and I told you, it’s Dewey! She barks twice, and that gets my attention. Listen to me. I did something wrong, and now I’m in trouble. I only have until the end of the week. You have to get me out of here!

“Why only until the end of the week?” I ask, adding uncertainly, “Dewey?”

I feel my hands moving to the latch on the door of the crate. But just then, I hear Mom’s voice yelling, “Sadie, no!” Mom pulls my arm away from the latch and gets in between the door and me. Dewey starts lunging and growling and barking, throwing her body against the bars, and all the while, I hear her voice screaming no in my head, like a howl but worse—sadder, lonelier, more desperate.

“But Mom,” I begin. “This is her. This is the dog I was telling you about. She needs us.”

“Sadie, you’re not even supposed to be back here. What are you thinking? She could have attacked you!”

“She wouldn’t—” do that, I was going to say, but Mom interrupts.

“I see you’ve been giving a lot of thought to what we talked about earlier,” she snaps at me, with her hands on her hips, her voice sharp. “How actions have consequences.”

“I have been thinking about that; I just—”

“Go get ready to leave.” Mom points to the door, and when I look back at Dewey, she adds, “Right now!”

Chapter 7

IF ALL OF THIS IS REAL

We’re having spaghetti with veggie meatballs for dinner tonight. Gramps makes a face as he takes his first bite. Normally that would crack me up, but my head is too full of other thoughts to find anything very funny right now.

“Sadie, you’ve been awfully quiet tonight,” Mama says to me.

I shrug.

Mom replies, “That’s probably because she’s been doing some thinking about what happened today.”

I was thinking about what happened today, but not in the way Mom means. She was talking about school and consequences, but I was thinking about what happened today at the shelter. I was thinking about Dewey.

“I can’t believe you got kicked out—who gets kicked out of class in fifth grade?” Noah says.

Sometimes I really hate my brother.

I stab a veggie meatball with my fork and stuff it into my mouth to stop myself from saying that out loud. Once I finish chewing and swallowing, I dab my napkin to the corner of my mouth, and then I say, in my most grown-up, responsible voice, “Moms, I want to ask you both a very serious question.”

Mama sets her fork down and looks at me, and then Mom says, “Yes?”