“Really?” Boss seems surprised. “If I held on to that much anger, I’d never get out of bed. Not that I’ve ever had a real bed.” She sniffs at the towel beneath her feet. “This towel’s kinda nice, actually.”

I look at her in disbelief. “You’re one of those? Those ‘dogs must forgive no matter what’ types?”

She almost looks amused. “Well, it is kind of our thing, right?”

“When someone does something hurtful, they have to admit it,” I say. “Then they have to be punished for it. And maybe then, if they apologize and change, maybe—maybe—then they get forgiven.”

“All I know is, I’ve done lots of bad stuff in my life, Bob. I’ve had to forgive myself plenty, just, you know, to get through the day.” Boss gazes at me with her wise, weary eyes. “And I figure if I’m going to forgive myself, I’d better be ready to cut everyone else some slack, too.”

evacuate now!

“Look,” says the officer, “you need to evacuate now. It’s mandatory.”

“We can’t just leave these animals.” Cowboy sticks his finger in the orange cat’s cage. The cat rubs against it, purring like his life depends on it.

Which it maybe kinda does.

The officer sighs. “You don’t have a choice.”

“We can’t just leave them,” says Boots, and I have to applaud her enthusiasm, even as I wonder why she’d risk her life for us.

There is no explaining humans.

“Just got word the bridge over Big Fork Creek collapsed,” the officer says. “You guys gotta move.”

Boots snaps her fingers. “Wait, you have a cop car, right?”

“Yes, I have a vehicle, ma’am,” says the officer. “But the way the roads are looking, probably not for long.”

“Okay,” says Boots, “so we evacuate. We evacuate every last dog and cat and gerbil we can get in your car.”

The officer purses his lips. “And take them where, exactly?”

“Shelter at the high school. That’s where we’ve been sending people. They’re not really set up for it, but once we started flooding and the elementary school stopped taking pets, they agreed to do what they can.”

The officer grumbles, considers, goes for it.

The three humans load cats and dogs, parakeets and hamsters, one after another, into the police car. Some are in cages, and some, including a couple of unhappy cats, are on tug-of-war strings. Finally, it’s our turn. Looks like there are nine of us left.

“Car’s full and then some,” the officer reports, struggling to shut the shelter’s front door against the rising water. “We are officially out of room.”

Cowboy looks at us, his eyes teary. “Don’t worry, fellas. We’ll be back.” He sniffles. “I promise.”

“You think we should leave the cages open, at least give ’em a fighting chance,” asks Boots, “in case . . . you know?”