Stay!: Keeper's Story by Lois Lowry

malicious in their remarks. For the most part I sought my amusement elsewhere.
    We ate side by side, from two bowls (for they shared one) on the kitchen floor. Theirs smelled of tuna, which repelled me, so I was not tempted to sneak a taste. And mine had no appeal for them.
    Frankly, it had little appeal for me, either. It was high-quality horsemeat from a can, but I had been accustomed to pasta with a variety of sauces. I made do with the new diet but tried from time to time, when Emily and her mother dined on macaroni or tortellini, to express my interest in a dietary change. I sat politely, looking wistful and needy, beside the kitchen table while they had supper. It didn't seem to work. Emily slipped me a morsel occasionally, but her mother had no such inclination.
    "If he begged, " her mother said, "I'd send him outdoors. I can't stand a dog who begs during meals. But it's hard to scold him when he's just sitting there like that."
    I was glad to overhear her, because it prevented me from indulging in that appalling behavior: lifting my paws in a supplicating way. Despite my mother's admonitions so long ago, I had actually been considering it.
    "Doesn't he have a nice face?" Emily said to her mother. "He smiles all the time."
    I gulped, without changing my facial expression. Emily was correct about my smile. Since arriving at their house, I had made a conscious effort to maintain a pleasant, cheerful countenance. It wasn't difficult, because in fact it was a pleasant and cheerful household, except for that brief early encounter with the cat duo.
    But the truth—the real reason for my perpetual grin—was that I didn't want them to recognize me. My previous facial expression, sneering and disdainful, had become famous; back in the city, people continually stopped me on the street when I was being walked. People magazine had published a photograph and included a brief biography of my official dog walker, an out-of-work actor originally from Madison, Wisconsin.
    Emily's mother had several times commented on how familiar I looked, how she was quite certain she had seen me before somewhere. I did not under any circumstances want her to recall where. So I conscientiously worked on maintaining a serene and blissful face. Dogs can do that. You see it occasionally when a dog scratches a certain place on his own side and an inadvertent smile appears. I had only to recreate that same smile and make it into a habit.
    For the first weeks I was not certain whether, in fact, Emily's mother would allow me to remain. The plaintive "Can I keep him?" from a child most often brings about a no. So I felt that my tenure was uncertain. Then there began to be hints that I might stay. The bowl, for example. For a number of days they fed me from an old baking dish. But suddenly a new bowl appeared: a heavy ceramic bowl with, I am reluctant to describe, the word FIDO on its side. Heinous though the FIDO was, still, the dish was clearly a dog bowl purchased for me, an investment in my permanent residency.
    Then, of course, the acquisition of a name. One cool evening after dinner, as we sat by the fire, Emily said again, "Isn't he great?"
    Her mother laughed and nodded, agreeing tacitly to my greatness. Then she said, "I guess he's a keeper."
    "Hey, did you hear that, Keeper?" Emily asked in delight.
    It became my new name. First I had been Lucky, then Pal. Now I was to be Keeper, it seemed. Well, there are worse dog names. I had met a dachshund named Kielbasa once.
    They gave it to me, I answered to it, I came when they called me by it, and I tried to live up to it. Being named Keeper meant, I felt, that my future was secure, and I began, in my spare moments, to create a small, casual poem on the subject:
Lucky I was, Pal I became!
Now, at last, Keeper...
    The second line was giving me trouble. Keeper's what I'm called? Somehow it just didn't work.
    Finally, the conclusive event: a license.
    One evening, sitting by the fire, Emily's mother