Free Not the Best Day by Brynn Stein Page B

jerk and the kid.” I juggled things around again in my arms and grabbed a leopard. “Well, Katie, you’re just gonna have to start a leopard collection. I am not going to chase down a little old lady and steal your lion back.”
     
     
    F INALLY I stood at the front of the store, peering out the plate-glass window, waiting for my turn. I always liked to watch people, and at this time of year, there were plenty to watch: old ladies with their arms overloaded with boxes and bags, thirtysomethings with armfuls of children, young lovers with arms full of each other. But my attention was drawn by a mangy mutt darting from person to person. Whether she was searching for a handout or a warm coat, I couldn’t tell, but she was obviously a stray. I doubted she actually had mange, but her fur was noticeably dull, even from this distance, and her behavior was certainly not that of a dog that was loved but lost. She was the size of a small shepherd but thin and gangly, so maybe a young dog. Not a puppy, but not full-grown. She weaved in and out of the people and was eventually lost in the crowd.
    Before long it was my turn to pay for gifts that hadn’t been stolen from me. As I grabbed up my bags and plodded back out into Antarctica, the dog eventually slipped my mind entirely. The snow had turned to a wintery mix of snow and rain, and the snow on the sidewalks was turning to slush. It was already muck on the roads, and the traffic made that familiar sound of slopping the half-frozen mess all around every time a vehicle passed.
    I ducked into the next doorway but didn’t stay long. It was one of those artsy-fartsy stores that wanted an arm and a leg for a tie-dyed shirt with holes in it that I could probably reproduce in twenty minutes with paints and scissors if I was so inclined. So I tried the next building down.
    I had managed to get into and out of a couple more places without loss of life or limb or too much money, but I was running out of promising stores on this side. All there was for the next block or so were restaurants and places to buy hardware. So I stood at the corner, waiting for the light to tell me to walk when a beat-up Jeep Wrangler drove too close to the sidewalk and filthy, snowy mush splashed all over the front of my pants. They weren’t particularly expensive pants, and I knew the stuff would most likely come out in the wash, but I had been planning on going straight from here to Erin’s. I didn’t have time to go home and change. I had instinctively inspected the mess at first, but then looked up to yell at the bastard who wasn’t watching where he was going.
    When I saw that red and black trapper’s hat and that stupid scarf, I was livid.
    “Is it just your mission to make my life miserable today?” I screamed at him, but he was already around the corner.
    The “walk” sign was finally lit up, and I—and my now soggy pants—shuffled across the road, aimed at the jewelry store, where I was hoping to find something nice for Mom.
    When I glanced down again, to step up onto the curb, there was the little dog I’d seen earlier. Up close, she was even more mangy and scrawny.
    “Sorry, buddy,” I told her. “I don’t have anything to eat.” I had my arms full with bags, so I didn’t reach down and pet her. She peeked up at me with those big, sad eyes, and I wished more than anything that I had a sandwich or crackers or something in my pockets, but no, I didn’t have so much as a stick of gum on me. Not that I would have given gum to a dog anyway.
    I went into the jewelry boutique, and the dog stayed at the window for a little while, then finally went away. I found a beautiful necklace within my price range that my mother would love, and when I came back out, the dog was nowhere to be seen.
    What I did see, however, was the guy in the trapper’s hat again, driving around the block.
    “What? Are you circling so you can get me again?” I said in an angry voice but pitched so that he couldn’t