Free The Return by Dayna Lorentz Page B

about the Black Dog’s treachery and begged them to help her save the boy. But the humans did not listen. They yelled at Lassie and blamed her for the boy’s disappearance. They struck her, called her bad, and demanded that she leave all the clan’s boys and girls alone.
    But Lassie could not abandon her boy. Even if his kin would not help her, even if they hated and feared all dogs, she could not leave him prey to the wrath of the Black Dog.
    Lassie ran back to the hole and crept down into it. She followed the Black Dog’s trail deep under the earth until she found him in his cave. The boy lay limp in his jowls.
    â€œLeave us, or I will kill this boy,” the Black Dog barked.
    â€œYou must kill me first,” Lassie howled fiercely. “I will never leave my boy.” She dove at the Black Dog’s jaws and tore the boy from his grasp.
    Their battle shook the roots of the earth. Dogs heard Lassie’s cries and ran to aid their packmate. The humans heard the boy yell for Lassie’s help and knew that they had misjudged the dog. They, too, raced to save their boy. But all were too late. When the dogs and humans arrived, they found poor Lassie slumped over her boy and the boy dead in her paws. The Black Dog disappeared in a foul mist. All that remained of his evil was a nasty pant that echoed throughout the cave.
    The Great Wolf shone into this darkest cavern and his misery rained down as a soft, silver light. “What has happened to my Lassie?” he howled. “You humans did not believe her barks, yet she woofed the truth.”
    The Great Wolf wrapped his fiery paws around Lassie’s fallen form and raised her up into the sky. But Lassie’s spirit cried out, “Please, bring my boy with me!”
    The Great Wolf then took up the boy, too, so that he and Lassie could sparkle as one golden fire in the sky.
    The humans and dogs looked at one another. In their sadness, they came together, and in coming together, they felt that golden glow that Lassie and the boy had found. But the Great Wolf punished humans for their folly and took away their ability to understand dogs. And so we muddle along, happy together, but unable to fully express our devotion as Lassie and her boy once could.
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    The pack was silent after Ginny finished her story, they were so absorbed in the tale. Even Shep wished to live in that world — he could almost believe in the Great Wolf again the way Ginny woofed it.
    â€œWow,” yipped Pumpkin. “Where can I get more stories like that?”
    Ginny beamed, tail waving at the compliments of every dog. “Well, how did you meet your family? There might be a story there.”
    â€œMy girl came to where I was born and picked me out of the whole litter of pups to be her superstar show dog,” barked Pumpkin, preening as she pranced in the dirt.
    â€œI was the pup of two show dogs,” woofed Ginny. “But you all could probably tell that from my coat.” She flicked her tail, sending its long hairs sailing over the dust. “Alas, that’s not much of a story. What about the rest of you?”
    Dover, Boji, and Rufus had all been picked from their litters like Ginny and Pumpkin. Daisy and Oscar both came from the store.
    â€œI was rescued from a shelter as a puppy,” Callie barked when asked where she came from. “I was born there to a shelter dog.”
    â€œDid you have any littermates?” asked Pumpkin. “Maybe that could also be a story? ‘A Pup and Her Littermates.’”
    â€œI don’t remember,” snuffled Callie, tail low.
    â€œMy first family gave me away when they had a baby,” Zeus growled from the shadows. Apparently, the story had lured him to the edges of the pack. “They pretended to love me until they found something better. Turn that into a story.”
    â€œThat’s a terrible story,” yipped Pumpkin. “Can a story be terrible?” She cocked her