Free Cracker! by Cynthia Kadohata Page B

sense!” he said.
    Twenty-Twenty just wrinkled his brow. Rick chuckled. But Twenty-Twenty just lay back, took off his glasses, and laid his palms over his eyes to meditate or something. Tristie lay with her head on his stomach. Rick saw several of the dogs like that, and before long Cracker came over and set her head on his own belly.
    Rick lit the last of the four cigarettes that had come with his C rations. The moon was full. Under the moonlight Cody was winding his watch. It was a special gold watch his grandfather had given him. Rick didn’t own anything of value, but if he had, he certainly wouldn’t have brought it here. But Cody had been close to his grandfather and loved his watch.
    Rick tried to imagine a man drowning on a hilltop alone underneath the same peaceful moon now lighting up the sky. He could picture the whole scenario, but only as a movie. He couldn’t imagine it really happening. “Hey, Sarge?” he said. “That really a true story about the guy drowning on a hilltop?”
    U-Haul just laughed at him. “You got a lot to learn about whipping the world, Lanski. A whole lot.”
     

Eight
     

 
    O NCE IT GOT FUN, TRAINING PASSED QUICKLY. One rainy day during formation, Cracker could feel uncertainty in the air. Her paws sank into the mud. Usually, Rick didn’t make her stand out in such hard rain for so long. She kept looking up at him waiting for him to take her away, but he didn’t move. He seemed funny today, not sad exactly and not scared. More like uncertain, like he didn’t know what was going to happen next. And he always knew what was going to happen. What happened tomorrow was just about exactly the same thing that had happened the day before. So what was there to be uncertain about? She looked up at him again. She was so wet, it was hard to see.
    It was the last day of class, and the twenty-four men of the 67th Infantry Platoon (Scout Dog) stood at attention with their dogs. Rain poured. Rick saw Sarge holding a couple of cheap trophies in his hands and felt a twinge of pride and anticipation. The last weeks of training had gone perfectly, as far as Rick was concerned. He and Cracker had not made a single error.
    “This rain is nothing,” said the sergeant to the men. “Get used to it.” He said “This is nothing” whenever any hardship occurred. He held up the trophies, which were about the size of cans of beer. “Willis, trophy for first place. Butler, second.” Cody and Twenty-Twenty stepped forward to get their trophies as Rick felt his face grow hot. U-Haul looked at him. “Not a bad job …, Hanski.” So that was going to be Rick’s only trophy: getting his name pronounced correctly, for once.
    U-Haul didn’t talk long. The rain drenched his face and clothes as he addressed the platoon. Rick had never seen him so sober. The most memorable line of the day was some graffiti U-Haul quoted: “Join the army, meet interesting people, then kill ’em.” He said, “That’s what it all comes down to, men. See you in a month.”
    What did a trophy mean? Rick could’ve made one in his dad’s tool shop that looked twice as good as the ones Cody and Twenty-Twenty got. But he felt his confidence wane—he’d really wanted one of those trophies. His confidence returned as he packed his bag for home leave and thought of Cracker the whole time. His new closeness to Cracker made him feel that it was still possible to whip the world. It was just that maybe doing so was going to be a lot harder than he’d thought. How much harder was the important issue. He looked up and saw Cody standing beside him.
    “We’re gonna make it back safe,” Cody said. “You got a great dog.”
    “Get out of my head, you mind-readin’ freak.”
    Cody laughed. “You don’t need to be a freak to read your simple mind.” Then he added seriously, “We’re gonna make it, I know it.”
    Cody really was the most optimistic guy in the world. Rick pushed himself up and stuck out his hand. The two men