Say That Again by Gemini Sasson

precious phone — into spreading straw in and around the doghouse in the backyard and filling an old metal bowl with water for me. I might have enjoyed the separation from the family goings-on, but the bowl still had a layer of algae on its surface and so the water tasted bad. The straw was damp and had a moldy smell. And I had not been fed since early that morning.
    There, Scowler tied me, the limit of my world being the length of a chain that went from a hook on the doghouse to a skinny, leafless tree. As the sun dipped behind distant mountains and the cold settled in, I crawled inside the doghouse. I shivered myself to sleep, my belly rumbling for food.
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    D ays and then months passed this way. The collar, that had at first been barely big enough to slip past my ears and over my head, grew tighter and tighter. Whenever I swallowed, the metal links dug into my throat. Sometimes, it even made it hard to breathe.
    Things weren’t all bad. At least I wasn’t subjected to the perpetual disorder and uproar of being indoors at the Grunwalds’ house. In my isolation, I was able to observe many things: cars speeding down the road in the distance; squirrels leaping from limb to limb in the nearby woods; and crows swooping through the sky in great clouds, then down to dot an adjacent field as they pecked kernels of corn from the furrowed earth. I watched as storms rolled in from the west and snowflakes drifted down to coat the hills in a glistening blanket of white.
    And then, as the days warmed, the grass greened, and the tree branches thickened with buds, rain came down to cleanse the world. If only it could wash the unhappiness from the Grunwalds, too ...
    But all was not peaceful. I dreaded whenever I saw the twins coming. They often taunted me, bouncing stones off the side of my doghouse as I huddled inside, or poking me with a stick when I ventured outside as they pretended to be knights with swords and I was the dragon. I discovered by accident that me playing dead gave them satisfaction. Troy would plant a foot on my ribs as I lay still and declare me ‘slain’; then they would run off, laughing. I was grateful when they climbed on the school bus each morning and just as grateful that the other children took no interest in me. As far as I knew, I didn’t even have a name, although I heard Tiffany call me Piss-Pot more than once.
    Always, though, I thought of myself as Echo. Echo the Survivor. Echo the Wise.
    Every morning, I wished for a friend like Tinker or an owner like Mr. Beekman. And at night when I fell asleep, hungry and chilled, I dreamt of the two of them, him in his chair, her curled up beside him, as he read a book, soft music playing from an old radio somewhere.

chapter 11: Hunter
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    T en days after the accident, on a Sunday morning, Jenn and Hunter walked into the hospital room to find their daughter staring at a blank wall.
    “Look what I have, sweetie. It’s Faustine!” Jenn said, taking the giraffe from her oversized handbag. “And see, she’s all nice and clean. I even added another eye and fixed her neck so her head doesn’t flop around anymore.” She held Faustine out. “What do you think, Hannah?”
    Hannah’s head turned toward the sound of her mother’s voice. She smiled and reached out to receive Faustine.
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    M aura placed a necklace of shells that she’d made herself in Hannah’s palm. Two weeks had passed since Hannah had nearly drowned. In that time, Maura had been inconsolable, weighed down by guilt.
    “I want you to know I’m sorry about what happened to you,” Maura said, folding Hannah’s fingers over the necklace. “And I hope everything turns out okay.” Sniffling, she rubbed the back of her sleeve across her eyes. “I miss you and I want you to come home. The house is so quiet without you.”
    Hannah’s lips moved and a