“Didn’t he bark at you at all?” asked Marlin, who sat down at the table and passed a plate of the cookies left from the batch she’d made Al.

“No, I think he was too sad to bark.”

“And he wasn’t mad at you for getting Billy relocated?” asked Fiona, thinking Al hadn’t been too sad to bark at her.

“Well, he said I was the only one he could talk to about Billy. I was the only one who understood.”

“Do you want dinner? I can heat some up in the microwave,” said Marlin.

But Charlie said, “Mr. Pettinger treated me and Miss Webster to McDonald’s on the way home. She said thanks and he said it wasn’t much but he had to get back to his office and turn in a report on the bear but to make up for it could he take her out to a good restaurant tomorrow. But he didn’t ask me. Mom always said if you’re inviting someone in front of anyone else you have to invite that person too.” Charlie looked indignant.

“Of course he didn’t invite you, you dingbat,” said Marlin. “He was asking her on a date. Did she say yes?”

“Oh yeah, she seemed to be really happy about it,” said Charlie. “They talked all the way home. I think they forgot I was there. She seemed to really like him and I like him too. He’d only just met Billy but he was really nice to him and wanted to make sure he’d be happy.”

“Well, conservation officers become conservation officers because they love animals, I guess,” said Natasha. “I’m thinking of becoming one when I grow up if I don’t become an ornithologist only I’m not sure you can do that for a living.”

“And what about Ashley’s mom? Did she seem upset when you dropped off Ashley in a truck with a bear in tow?” asked Fiona.

“No, she just said, goodness, what a lot of excitement. And thank goodness Miss Webster was a family friend and on hand because Miss Webster lied to her too.”

“It’s not a lie, she is a family friend,” said Marlin.

And thank heavens for that, thought Fiona, who had been on tenterhooks about the visit and what disastrous results it might have.

Later that night when Fiona and Marlin were lying in bed doing their usual end-of-the-day postmortem, Marlin said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if Miss Webster and Mr. Pettinger fell in love? He’s really handsome, didn’t you think?”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Fiona, but she wasn’t thinking of how handsome Mr. Pettinger was. She had another handsome face in her mind’s eye those days. For Fiona had met a boy.

Lost

FIONA had seen him first at lunch. He wasn’t in her class because he was a grade ahead of her. He was about the same height as her with a slight build and dark hair, a lock of which fell forward over one eye. He was constantly brushing it back, revealing merry, slightly skeptical eyes. Fiona had noticed him hanging out talking to other kids and without knowing anything about him had felt an unexplainable excitement. Just the sight of him revved her engines a little faster. She’d had crushes on TV and movie stars but he was the first real boy she’d ever felt this way about. She became shy whenever he was near, terrified he would notice her noticing him. She turned her back on him in the school yard and looked the other way at lunch if she spied him. What he looked mostly was smart. Smart, she knew suddenly, was what made her knees go to jelly. But not just any kind of smart. There were lots of ways to be smart. What you wanted was smart in a certain way. Smart that answered to your smart. She told no one about her feelings.