That was home.

Baby leaves his bed and his bunny and

trots over to the wire door

of the cage.

The girl did not tell him to stay

like Jewel did.

She did not even tell him to be

a good, good boy.

What is a little dog to do?

Baby sniffs around the bottom of the door.

How will Jewel find him here?

Let’s go! Baby barks.

He pushes his nose and then his head

underneath the door.

The space between

the bottom of the door and the concrete floor

is too small, even for Baby.

He paws at the wire, bites it,

until his paws and mouth bleed.

He looks up and up

at the latch he knows holds the door closed.

So far!

He leaps anyway, high

higher

higher

higher!

until his legs buckle beneath him.

Baby drinks from the bowl,

tags clinking against the metal.

He lies back down on the thick blanket

where his one-eyed bunny waits

and curls up into a tight little ball

of misery.

Finally, Baby sleeps.

He dreams of wings unfurling from his small back,

great wings lifting him up

and out

into the night sky studded with stars

and back to Jewel.

32

The Key

Monday morning. Karina, Daria, and I walk from the middle school to Olympia Elementary.

I tell them all about finding Baby at the Humane Society and what the lady, Tamara, said. “They’ll adopt him out to someone else in two weeks if we can’t figure out a way to get Baby and Jewel together, and then they’ll never see each other again.”

Daria nods. “My mother’s biggest fear was that if the police or somebody found out we were living in our van, they’d take me and my baby sister away from her.”

“That would have been terrible,” I say. I can’t imagine being taken away from Mama and Daddy.

Karina clears her throat. “We had to give up our dog to move into Hope House.”

I stop in my tracks. “Really?”

She nods and looks down at her shoes. “I think that was the worst part of losing our apartment and ending up there, giving up Peaches. I miss her every day.”

I squeeze her hand. “Then you know how important it is that Jewel doesn’t lose Baby.”

Karina nods. “We’ll figure something out. I know we can.”

“Me too,” Daria says in her whispery voice.

Karina throws her shoulders back as we walk across the schoolyard, looking like the Karina who leads Troop 423. I can see the wheels of a plan turning behind her eyes. I think plan-making is Karina’s superpower.

Just before we get to the front doors, she says, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do: after my mom gets home from work, I’m going to borrow her phone and try calling some of those phone numbers in Jewel’s book.”