Seaglass Summer (8 page)

I tell Hawk about Bremolo. “One minute, he was happy. The next minute, he got hit, and his leg got amputated.”

“If anyone can save an animal, Doc can, whatever it takes.” Hawk shades his eyes and squints in the sunlight. “But sometimes, there’s nothing he can do. I remember a chow dog that got hit by a car. Not a mark on him, but inside, the dog was bleeding to death. We were too late. Doc did his best, but the dog died anyway. The injuries were massive.”

“That’s so sad.” The poor chow. I keep an eye on Stu. He stays close to the waterline, away from the road.

“Another time, a man brought in a golden retriever with a big black tire mark down her back. He didn’t see her sleeping on the driveway, backed the car right over her.”

I gasp. “Oh no!”

“He said he felt a bump under the tires. He couldn’t believe what he’d done. He put her in the car and raced to the clinic. He thought he’d killed her, but she was perfectly fine. Not a scratch on her. No broken bones, nothing.”

My mouth drops open. “But how could that happen?”

Hawk shrugs. “Who knows? Maybe it was the way the dog lay on the concrete, or the way the car went over her.”

“I guess Bremolo was lucky, too.” I reach down and grab a handful of sand, let the grains slip through my fingers. “I hope I get lucky today. I need to find a clear,
round piece of seaglass. Toni told me so. I have to stare into the stone and meditate. I’m supposed to search for my inner self.”

“Can’t you look in the mirror?”

“You’re making fun of Toni.” I breathe in the smells of salty air and seaweed.

“No I’m not. She gave me a psychic reading once, too. She said I have to be more truthful.”

“Are you a liar?”

“Only white lies. The kind that don’t matter. Like when my mom colors her hair, she asks how she looks. I always say she looks great, even though her hair looks as red as a fire engine.”

“Maybe she wants to know the truth.”

“Nah, she just wants me to tell her she’s beautiful.” He throws a stick, and Stu runs after it, all the way into the water.

“Hey! What are you doing? Stu! Come back!” I chase after him, but I can’t run fast in the sand, and I keep tripping over driftwood.

“Don’t worry!” Hawk shouts. “Have a little faith, Poppy. He’ll come back.”

In a moment, Stu trots back with the stick in his mouth. He flops onto his belly and stares at his prize.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Hawk throws the stick again, and Stu gallops off into the surf.

“Don’t throw it too far.” I crouch and sift through a pile of rocks.

“What about this?” Hawk picks up a flat piece of clear glass with part of a paper label still hanging from the corner.

“Not smooth enough yet.”

“Probably came from a beer bottle.” Hawk pulls a crinkled plastic bag from his pocket and drops the shard of glass inside. “This bag is for garbage and dangerous objects.”

We pick up everything from cigarette butts to bottle caps and a couple of empty soda cans. I don’t know who could mistake this beach for a garbage dump. Maybe litter bugs need glasses so they can see the true beauty of nature.

We find a few chunks of rough glass, but nothing smooth or round. We also find chunks of pink and black quartz and red and green rocks. Hawk points to round brown spongy shapes embedded in the sand. “Those are anemones. They’re alive.”

I try to avoid them, picking my way across the boulders. Hawk squats near a small tide pool. “Look, you can see a whole world in there.”

The longer I stare, the more I see. Tiny brown crabs scuttle through the water, and red and orange starfish cling to rocks. When I lift a flat stone from the sand, a
crab scurries away. The beach is full of living treasures hiding in nooks and crannies. I fill my pockets with smooth white clamshells and ridged pink cockleshells, all empty and abandoned by their owners.

We walk a little farther, and that’s when I spot something glinting up at me from the sand. A shiny stone, half buried. When I kneel and pick it up, I’m holding a smooth piece of clear green seaglass, the size and shape of a large marble, but flat on the bottom, like a dome. I can see through the glass to an emerald world on the other side.

“I found it!” I yell, jumping to my feet. “I’ve got my seaglass.”

Chapter Fifteen
A LUMP IN A BOTTLE

I
n the back room, we find Bremolo lying on a pile of blankets in a large kennel. He’s on his side, his back left leg a very short stump wrapped in fresh white bandages. He’s awake, his watery brown eyes watching us. On the other side of the room, a little Chihuahua is sleeping on a fluffy bed in one of the cages.

“Bremolo looks okay,” I whisper to Hawk. “But what is that tube attached to his front leg?” The thin tube leads to a bag of clear liquid hanging from a metal stand outside the cage.

“Intravenous drip. IV. Gives him fluids, a little at a time, so he doesn’t get dehydrated.”

“You know a lot for a kennel boy.”

“I wanna be a technician someday, like Duff.”

She pokes her head in the door. “Hey, you two! Bremolo’s doing great today, huh? He even ate solid food this morning. Doc wants to keep him here a few more hours, get some more fluids into him. You can pet him for a minute, Poppy. He’s a mellow dog. Just don’t touch the leg.”

I open the kennel and step inside, my heart hopping in my chest. I sit on the blanket next to Bremolo and pet his curly fur. I’m careful not to touch the IV tube. His tail thumps, and tears spring into my eyes. “You’re going to be fine,” I tell him.

Hawk leans against the bars of the kennel door. “Yeah, you’ll be just like new.”

“Don’t bother Bremolo for too long,” Duff says. “He needs to rest.” Then she’s gone.

I step out of the cage and shut the latch. Bremolo whines softly.

“We’ll stay with you,” I tell him. “We’ll be right here near your cage. Won’t we, Hawk? We’ll meditate in here.”

Hawk rolls his eyes, but he helps me drag dog food bags over near the kennel, to use as chairs. Bremolo is quiet now.

Hawk sits across from me. “So this huge marble is a window into your soul?”

“It’s not a marble.” I situate the chunk of seaglass on the floor between us. “We have to close our eyes.”

“We’re not supposed to look into the marble? Aren’t we—”

“Hawk, do as I say!”

“Okay, okay. Bossy, bossy.”

I shut my eyes, but my lashes flutter. I take deep breaths. I don’t remember ever sitting still for so long. One minute feels like an hour. The smells come at me—dog and antiseptic and pet food—and the sounds of the phone ringing, Saundra shouting, the slam of a door, a scared meow, and Hawk’s loud breathing.

I open one eye, and he’s staring at me. “Are we done yet?” he says. “I gotta pee soon.”

“You’re not following the rules. You have to keep your eyes closed.”

“You opened yours.”

“I was checking on you. Let’s try again—”

“Wait!” Hawk’s eyes pop open wide. “The marble is making me psychic. I heard a doggy thought.”

“What thought?”

“From that Chihuahua. He’s thinking,
Te quiero, Señorita Poppy Ray!
”

“You have to take this seriously. I need your help. I’m
supposed to meditate with a friend, but I can’t concentrate if you’re going to mess around.”

“Let’s try again.”

I gaze into the seaglass. Hawk’s eyes are closed. Nothing happens.

“Okay, long enough,” I say finally. “I’m not seeing anything.”

Hawk runs off to the bathroom at top speed. Bremolo and the Chihuahua are both asleep now.

A minute later, Uncle Sanjay pops his head in the door. “Come and see this, my dear niece!” His eyes are bright.

I drop the seaglass into my pocket.

In the treatment room, Duff, Saundra, Hawk, and I gather around Uncle Sanjay. He holds a small clear bottle to the light. There’s a tiny lump inside. “Can you believe this? In all my years, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“You’ve never seen a lump?” Saundra asks. She’s chewing gum and wearing a red and white dress. She looks like a candy cane.

“I thought it was just a kidney-shaped sac,” Uncle Sanjay says. “But it’s a fetus.”

“A fetus!” Saundra gasps.

“Cool,” Hawk says.

Duff steps back and blinks. “That little thing? But you were spaying that cat, Dimple. She wasn’t pregnant.”

“This kitten—this fetus—is mummified,” Uncle Sanjay says.

A baby kitten. I curl my fingers around the seaglass.

Uncle Sanjay hands me the bottle. “You’re not going to faint, are you?”

I shake my head, although my knees are rubbery. “This doesn’t look like a baby,” I whisper.

“Remarkable to find the remains still inside the mama cat, intact and not absorbed,” Uncle Sanjay says. “This fetus died in its mother’s womb, and instead of dissolving, the little body became mummified instead.”

I’m holding a bottle with a tiny baby cat inside, in a sac shaped like a kidney bean, maybe an inch long. This kitten did not get a chance to have a life.

Duff peers closely at the bottle. “How is the mama?”

“She’s doing fine,” Uncle Sanjay says. “She’s in recovery.”

Hawk doesn’t make fun of the lump in the bottle. He doesn’t laugh. He looks inside, and then he says, “This baby shouldn’t be on display.”

Uncle Sanjay takes the bottle from me. “This will be an interesting educational tool. Hawk, you could take it to school—”

“No!” I say. “This kitten needs a memorial service.”

Hawk glances at me, then at Uncle Sanjay. “I’m with Poppy. We need to have a funeral.”

Saundra snorts. “The kitten is gone, honey. She’s not going to care. She has vacated the premises. Doc needs to—”

“No no, it’s fine.” Uncle Sanjay holds up his hands. “Let Hawk and Poppy have a funeral. It’s only fitting.”

Saundra frowns.

I want to hug Uncle Sanjay.

Duff runs off to an exam room, Uncle Sanjay behind her, and Saundra leaves to answer the phone.

Hawk looks at me. “We need a box,” he says. We rummage in the drawers until he finds a large empty matchbox. He wraps the bottle in a tissue and places it inside. Then we go out to the grassy garden behind the hospital. A soft, salty breeze is blowing in from the sea.

We pick a spot near a tall cedar tree and dig a hole. Then we sit cross-legged in the grass and look at each other.

Hawk holds the matchbox over the hole. “We should each say a few words. You first.”

I take a deep breath. “Dear Universe, please take this kitten back and let her be born again—”

“Kittens aren’t born again.”

“How do you know?” I glare at him.

He shrugs, pushes the straw-straight hair out of his eyes. “Okay, you got me. Maybe they are.”

“Let her run and play and catch mosquitoes like she’s supposed to.”

“We’re lucky. We don’t have many mosquitoes here.”

“That’s probably because kittens eat them. Aren’t you going to say a few words, too?”

“Okay. Dear God, you shouldn’t let baby kittens die and turn into mummies before they’re born. You need to pay attention. Amen.”

“Amen.”

He carefully places the box inside the hole, and we bury the kitten and lay a rose over her grave.

Chapter Sixteen
MARMALADE

E
very morning for the next three days, I meditate on the seaglass. My parents call every night. They’re visiting relatives, and they’re meeting with tax lawyers about property they have to sell. Yawn. But when they mention their journeys to historic monuments, or to the bazaar to buy sandalwood, silk, and jewelry, I begin to miss India.

No! I needed to come to Nisqually Island. Animals are my destiny.

The seaglass doesn’t show my inner self. It doesn’t tell
me how to groom a fragile dog, or how to save baby kittens before they’re born, or how to help an old orange cat named Marmalade.

His owner, Mr. Pincus, brings him in just before closing time Saturday afternoon. They’re both ancient. Mr. Pincus is all wrinkles that ripple across his face when he smiles. The years pile up in Marmalade’s yellow eyes. He’s bony and the hair around his mouth is turning white.

Duff weighs Marmalade and takes his temperature. You do not want to know where the thermometer has to go, and it is not pretty. But Marmalade doesn’t fidget. When Duff hands him back to Mr. Pincus, he settles down and purrs.