Free A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron Page B

and not just because of the lack of drama. I liked to wipe my paws on the lawn after I went, trailing the scent from the sweat on my pads onto the blades of grass. It was also much more gratifying to lift my leg and mark the edge of the yard than, say, the corner of the couch.
    Later, when the cold rain turned from mist to serious drops, I discovered the dog door worked both ways! I wished the boy were home so he could see what I had taught myself.
    After the rain ended, I dug a hole, chewed the hose, and barked at Smokey, who sat in the window and pretended not to hear me. When a large yellow bus pulled up in front of the house and disgorged the boy and Chelsea and a bunch of other kids from the neighborhood, I was in the backyard, my paws up on the fence, and the boy ran up to me, laughing.
    I didn’t really go into the doghouse after that, except when Mom and Dad yelled at each other. Ethan would come out into the garage and get into the doghouse with me and put his arms around me, and I would sit perfectly still for however long he wanted me to. This was, I decided, my purpose as a dog, to comfort the boy whenever he needed me.
    Sometimes families would leave the neighborhood and new families would arrive, so when Drake and Todd moved in a few houses down I considered it nothing but good news—and not just because Mom made delicious cookies to take to the new neighbors, feeding me a couple as a reward for keeping her company in the kitchen. New boys meant more children to play with.
    Drake was older and bigger than Ethan, but Todd was the same age and he and Ethan became fast friends. Todd and Drake had a sister named Linda who was even younger; she fed me sugary treats when no one was watching.
    Todd was different from Ethan. He liked to play games in the creek with matches, burning plastic toys, like Linda’s dolls. Ethan would participate, but he didn’t laugh as much as Todd; mostly Ethan just watched the things burn.
    When Todd announced he had firecrackers one day, Ethan got pretty excited. I had never seen anything like a firecracker and was pretty startled at the flash and the noise and the way the plastic doll instantly had a smoky smell—or at least the part I could find after the explosion. At Todd’s urging, Ethan went into his house and came back with one of the toys he had built with his father and the boys put a firecracker in it and threw it in the air, and it blew up.
    “Cool!” Todd yelled. But Ethan just grew quiet, frowning at the little shards of plastic floating away in the creek. I sensed a jumble of confused emotions from him. When Todd tossed firecrackers up into the air and one came down near me, the percussion snapped against my side. I ran over to the boy for reassurance, and he hugged me and took me home.
    Having such easy access to the backyard had some advantages. Ethan wasn’t always particularly attentive to the fence gate, which meant I sometimes was free to stroll the neighborhood. I’d trot out and go over to visit the brown and white dog named Marshmallow, who lived in a big wire cage on the side of her house. I marked her trees pretty well, and sometimes, caught by a scent that was both foreign and familiar, I would skip off, nose to the air, and wander far from home on an adventure. During those wanderings I sometimes forgot about the boyaltogether and I was reminded of the time several of us were taken from the Yard to the cool room with the nice lady, how the front-seat dog had a provocative odor similar to the one luring me onward.
    Usually I lost the scent and then would remember who I was and turn and trot home. The days that the bus brought Ethan home, I would go with him over to Chelsea and Marshmallow’s house and Chelsea’s mother would feed Ethan snacks, which he always shared with me. Other days Ethan came home in Mom’s car. And some days no one in the house got up for school and I would have to bark to wake them all up!
    It was a good thing they no longer