Listen! (9780062213358) by Stephanie S. Tolan Page A

boy!”
    â€œSarita!” she yells when she gets inside. “You’ll never…” But Sarita must have been watching from the windows by her puzzle table. She is already coming from the kitchen with the sandwich bag full of liver pieces.
    Coyote is still under the camellia. Charley wants to run down the drive and throw herself at him, hug him and rub his ears as if he’s a regular dog. Her regular dog! It is all she can do to walk slowly down to the terrace, keeping her eyes focused on the table and chairs, and sit down. “Good dog!” she says again, amazed and relieved that he is still there. “Want some liver?”
    She has been talking to him about the liver she takes him every evening, saying the word over and over as he comes to get the pieces she puts out so that he’ll know that the word means something he really, really likes. And he’s been coming gradually closer and closer to get it. But still he hasn’t taken the pieces closest to her. She always sees him as she and Sarita drive away, sneaking back to get the last of them.
    She turns to look at him now, and their eyes meet. He doesn’t bolt. She feels the tremor of their connection. “Liver!” she says. “Every time you stay here when Sadie goes home, you get to have liver!” She takes the biggest piece she can find, holds it between her thumb and first finger so that it sticks out away from her hand, turns her head away, and holds the liver out to him as far as her arm will reach.
    Is he coming to get it? She can’t tell. She doesn’t dare turn to see. She holds her breath, makes herself as still as she can. Come on , she thinks at him, you can do it. Come get the liver!
    And suddenly the liver is gone from her fingers. He has taken it so gently she didn’t feel his muzzle near her hand. Just one moment the liver between her fingers and the next moment gone. Moving in slow motion, she pulls her hand back and gets another piece of liver. She extends her arm again, and again the liver disappears. Three more times she does it. Then she holds the last piece out in her cupped palm so that he’ll have to touch her to get it. It takes longer this time, but he gets it, his nose and whiskers grazing her hand.
    At his touch her eyes blur with tears. “Good dog,” she whispers. “Good, brave dog!” The sandwich bag is empty now, so she turns to look at him. He is no more than two feet away. He stands his ground, his ears and tail up, looking at her as if to ask if there is any more.
    â€œAll gone,” she says, and shows him her empty hands. He stands for another moment, and then turns and goes back to the camellia. He doesn’t run, he doesn’t skulk. He just walks back and lies down.
    Charley looks up at the windows of the lake room above her. Sarita is there, watching. She smiles and nods, and Charley holds up both thumbs. “Wild forever,” Mr. Heyward said. Not this dog!
    Coyote stays in the yard the rest of the day. When Charley’s father comes home, he scuttles across the road into the woods for a little, but comes back to his place under the dogwood when Paul Morgan goes inside.
    Charley calls Mrs. Davis and tells her that Coyote stayed when Sadie went home. “That’s fabulous, Charley,” she says. “The kids said they hadn’t seen him, and I was a little worried. I thought something might have happened to him.”
    â€œHe’s fine.”
    â€œLooks like your hard work is paying off.”
    â€œAnyway, if he stays over here you won’t have to keep Sadie inside tonight.”
    Mrs. Davis laughs. “And you won’t have to risk hearing Buddy Heyward tell you how impossible and dangerous this whole project is!”
    After dinner Charley’s father goes back to the office. At the time she would normally have gone around to Coyote’s territory with the liver, Charley splashes on insect repellent again and