Mountain Dog by Margarita Engle Page A

out the wide-open window
    into a wild place
    where only scent
    matters.
    We sniff.
    We share the road,
    the window,
    and clear
    invisible
    air!
    We will always be friends.
    Always.

 
    3
    TONY THE BOY
    SCENT TRAILS
    I’ve slept in plenty of ugly
    splintered
    stinky
    spiderwebby
    nightmarish
    hard
    wooden
    doghouses.
    This place is different,
    even though it’s not a real
    house, just a two-room cabin,
    with one whole room
    for me.

    The knotty pine walls
    are filled with pictures of trees
    and animals—no family photos, no
    pictures of Mom when she was little.
    I wonder what she was like.
    Was she already fierce, or did she
    look shy and scared
    like me?
    Tío’s brown dog claims my bed,
    dropping his weight over my ankles,
    as if to keep me from sprinting
    away
    in my dreams.…
    Life is so weird. Gabe is a happy,
    almost-as-smart-as-any-human
    creature, while I feel like a worn-out
    zoo beast.
    I lie awake for a long time,
    gazing out the cabin window at stars
    that seem to be cradled by branches.
    Our drive up the mountain
    was so long and dizzying
    that I can’t even begin to imagine
    how far away
    from my other life
    I am now.
    When I finally sleep, I dream
    of a funny future. No fangs
    or claws. Just me and Gabe,
    only he’s a serious human,
    and I’m the playful pup.
    Then it’s morning, and Gabe
    starts begging to go outside,
    but when I glance out the window,
    my view of a forest is so unfamiliar
    that I stay where I am, motionless
    and silent.
    Pretty soon, my uncle is up
    and breakfast is ready, the morning
    already a flurry of surprises.
    No one has ever cooked for me.
    Not once. Oatmeal might not be
    my favorite, but today it tastes
    warm and comforting.
    Tío says his cabin is so remote,
    so high in the Sierra Nevadas,
    that I’ll have to go to an old-style
    three-room mountain school—
    grades six through eight together
    in one class. I’ll be with big kids,
    and even though I’m tall, I’m only eleven
    and a half. How am I going to survive
    around twelve and thirteen-year-olds?
    The worst part of picturing myself
    at a new school is those moments
    at the board, showing everyone
    that I can’t ever
    do any
    of the math.
    I’m nervous around fractions
    and percentages, but word problems
    about money are the ones
    that really terrify me.
    The social worker says it’s because
    at home, when I showed that I knew
    how to count, Mom made me keep track
    of greedy bets
    at the growling, snarling,
    bloodthirsty dogfights.
    So instead of practicing numbers,
    I just learned letters, and then
    I figured out how to keep my words
    to myself.
    Now, right after breakfast, Tío invites me
    to help him take Gabe for a rambling walk
    in the woods, where wild pine trees
    smell like Christmas, even though
    it’s springtime.
    The forest is shadowy green,
    with spiky red flowers sprouting
    from bright patches of snow.
    My first snow.
    My first mountain.
    My first off-leash dog.
    No chain.
    No muzzle.
    No scars
    or scabs.
    Gabe follows a scent, nose to the ground,
    nose in the air, back and forth, tracing
    a pattern as he follows a smell
    toward its source.
    He’s so thrilled that I soon share
    his excitement, racing to catch a sniff
    and a glimpse
    of the deer or squirrel
    that left this mysterious trail
    of drifting air.
    I wish my stupid human nose
    understood all the invisible clues
    that Gabe can follow! Dogs inhale
    the scents of sweat, breath, skin,
    poop, and pee, but they can smell
    emotions, too—anger, sadness, fear,
    happiness, love, hope.…
    Dogs can even smell a tricky lie
    or the soothing truth.
    Gabe bounces along the trail
    of mystery scent, leading me
    from a scared-of-life mood
    to one that feels
    like music.
    Tío runs and laughs with us,
    but the next day, on our morning walk,
    when I sit on a tree stump to rest,
    he suddenly turns serious,
    reassuring me that he really is
    Mom’s uncle—my great-uncle—
    a