Free The Dogs of Winter by Bobbie Pyron Page B

flowerpot with a bit of water until it formed a gruel.
    â€œMy Babushka Ina would fix soft food for me too when I was too sick to chew,” I said to her. “She would mix honey with mine to make it sweet. If I had honey, I would do that.”
    I set the pot of gruel down for Grandmother. Rip and Lucky pushed her aside.
    â€œNo!” I said.
    Lucky and Rip looked from me to the pot of food. They inched forward. I stepped between Grandmother and the pot of food and the two hungry dogs. “No,” I said in a low growl.
    I locked eyes with these two dogs who were my friends and who could tear me to pieces.
    â€œNo,” I said again and took one step toward them.
    A look passed between Rip and Lucky. It was brief as a shooting star and full of questions.
    Finally, they lay down and licked their paws as if nothing had happened, nothing at all.

The days grew short and very cold. When the sun was shining, the Glass House was warm as springtime. The puppies played and wrestled. Grandmother watched over them while Little Mother and Rip went out to hunt rats. But at night, the Glass House turned into a house of ice.
    I begged and bought what I could. Perhaps I would have gotten more money if I had begged with one of the puppies. But I knew it would break Little Mother’s heart if I took one of her children away.
    Lucky proved to be my good luck charm again — Lucky and my shoeless feet. It had become so cold that I wrapped them in burlap I cut with my knife and tied them with string from my ragged sweater. Still, by the end of the day, my feet were wet and frozen.
    As the sun faded in the gray afternoon, I hobbled to the bread shop and the butcher shop and the everything-in-it shop. Some days, I had enough to buy bread and sausages and even a pickled egg or two. Sometimes, I did not. On those days, I would swallow my shame and take the long stairs down into the belly of the train station and dig through the trash bins for discarded food.
    â€œThere are no children or grown-up beggars in that train station,” I said to Lucky and Smoke as I nibbled at what was left of the roasted pork shashlyk . I pulled a piece of black meat from the wooden skewer and tossed it to Smoke.
    â€œPerhaps they are living underground like Pasha and the rest,” I said, pulling the last piece of meat from the skewer and handing it to Lucky. I licked the grease from my fingers and pulled on the gloves I had found in the wooden shed. I shivered. I was still so very hungry. And tired.
    Back aboveground, Lucky and I lay down in a weak patch of sun on top of a heat grate. Smoke drifted off to where, we never knew.
    Lucky sighed as I rested my head on his sun-warmed belly. I reached up and touched his face. “I’ll get some money in a few minutes, Lucky.” I closed my eyes. “I just need to rest for a minute.”
    When I awoke, my head still resting on Lucky’s side, the day had turned lead gray. Fat snowflakes drifted down. And in my hand that had laid outstretched as I slept, winked coins and rubles growing wet in the snow.
    Lucky and I hurried to the wooden stalls for our bread.
    The woman who sold the bread huddled deep in her coat. As always, a cigarette hung from her lip. And as always, she took my money and handed me the loaf of black bread without speaking. But as Lucky and I turned to leave she said, “Wait.” She dug through a plastic bag, muttering to herself. She pulled something from the bag. “Here,” she said.
    I gasped. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was a hat. I ran my fingers over and over the rows of knitted wool — brown and black and dirty white — thick and rough. I showed it to Lucky. “See, it’s just like you. It is my Lucky hat.”
    Lucky sniffed the hat and sneezed.
    â€œDon’t just stand there and pet it like a dog,” the bread woman said. “Put it on.”
    Carefully, I pulled the beautiful hat on my head.