Free The Middle of Everywhere by Monique Polak

just a dream. A dumb weird dream.
    I say good-bye to Tarksalik before I leave Dad’s apartment to go winter camping. Though Mathilde keeps saying Tarksalik is getting better, she still looks pretty bad to me. The fur near her hind legs is just as matted as it was after the accident, and when I pet her head, she makes a whinnying sound as if she’s in a dream too—one she doesn’t want to wake up from.
    It’s still dark out. I decide not to wake Dad. It’s the first night all week he’s slept in his bed instead of in his armchair next to Tarksalik. I leave him a note saying I’ll see him and Tarksalik Sunday night.
    When I look out the front window, I notice the lights are on at Steve and Rhoda’s. It’s 5:40. Steve told me to be at their place a little before six. But because I can’t think of anything better to do, I grab my backpack and head over.
    Steve is busy loading his sled with supplies in waterproof packs and coolers. It’s kind of ironic using coolers up here; when you think about it, Nunavik is one giant cooler.
    â€œYou can help me get the dogs ready,” Steve calls when he sees me crossing the road.
    The dogs must sense they’re about to head off on an adventure. Each dog has its own pen, which is basically a simple wooden doghouse. Every pen is enclosed inside its own large wire cage. The cages are about twice the size of the pens. The dogs have left their pens and are pressing their front legs up against the wire. One starts howling, and soon the rest join in. A couple leap into the air as if they can’t wait to leave.
    Steve laughs. “Okay, kids,” he says, “we’re almost ready.”
    â€œHey, Toto,” Steve says, when he unlatches the cage closest to us. Toto is huge, nothing like the little mutt in The Wizard of Oz . Toto rushes out of his cage, practically mowing Steve down. The dog leans forward so Steve can attach him to the fan hitch, a bunch of giant leather leads designed to hold an entire team of dogs. It’s called a fan because the leads fan out from the hitch. The fan hitch keeps the dogs spread out and prevents them from bumping into each other or fighting.
    â€œHere, hang onto these leads for me,” Steve says. “Toto here is the one I told you about. He doesn’t like pickup trucks.”
    It’s hard to imagine Tarksalik ever being well enough to pull a dogsled, but then I remember how Steve said Toto was in pretty bad shape, too, after he got hit by a truck.
    Steve lets another sled dog out of its cage. This one’s a girl, but she’s strong-looking.
    Steve shows me how to attach her to the harness. “The Inuit invented the fan harness. If a dog gets tangled in his lead, there’s enough room for him to get untangled. And if one dog falls through the ice, the others don’t end up in the river too.”
    His words make me shiver. It’s hard to imagine anyone lasting very long in a river up here, even if they’re really good swimmers and have fur coats the way dogs do.
    Steve takes my elbow and hurries me past the next pen. “We’ll get P’tit Eric last.”
    P’tit Eric is the leader of the pack. He’s even bigger than the others, and when he jumps against the bars of his cage, the ground vibrates. Steve explains that once P’tit Eric is attached to the harness, there’ll be no stopping him or the other dogs. “He’s a natural born puller,” Steve says. “The others follow his lead.”
    I almost don’t recognize Etua when he comes running out of the house. “How come you’re not wearing your Spiderman pajamas?” I ask him.
    â€œThey’re in here,” he says, throwing his backpack onto the toboggan. Spiderman’s on the backpack too.
    â€œEver gone out with a dog team before?” Steve asks me as he fastens another dog to one of the leads. He rubs the dog’s muzzle.
    â€œNope, never.