The Storm by Dayna Lorentz Page A

its own.
    â€œIt’s not that old timer, is it?” Frizzle’s tail wagged, like he knew he was onto something.
    Shep braced himself for an attack. Frizzle sensed his weakness; Shep knew that any weakness was an opening.
    But Frizzle didn’t attack. He dropped his head, lowered his ears (as far as he could), and wagged his tail.
    â€œDon’t worry about her,” Frizzle said. “She was just a little scared. And she was an old dog. I give her one, two cycles, tops. Her best suns are long gone.” Frizzle panted happily, as if these points made every thing all right.
    These little dogs confused Shep. Here was a clear opening for a fight and Frizzle didn’t take it. Instead, he tried to be friendly. In an awful kind of way, he was trying to comfort Shep. Frizzle didn’t know about the old timer in the fight kennel; he was just a cocky pup who was trying to be nice. Well, Shep didn’t need his niceness. He was the big dog. He was a rescuer. He didn’t need to be comforted by a know-nothing, yappy braggart like Frizzle.
    â€œJust because she’s old doesn’t mean she’s worthless,” Shep grumbled. “And if the law is only the strong survive, how do you expect to make it?”
    Frizzle snorted. “Touchy, touchy, Mister Big Nose. Come on. We have to meet up with Callie.” He waddled toward the entry.
    Shep watched the little dog until he turned the corner, then followed. Things were less confusing for Shep when he was alone. Then there were only his needs, only his fears.
    He looked inside Zeus’s den. The crack in the wall was black with wet, and a new crack had scratched its way across the ceiling. A puddle stretched from below the broken window to the open doorway. Small tongues of water licked at the stones of the hall.
    Shep pressed his body to the opposite wall as he passed, as if dipping his paws in the puddle would infect him with the storm’s destruction. The den’s ceiling groaned like it was in pain. A dog howled somewhere above. There were others trapped in this building. Other dogs desperate for Shep to help them.
    I can barely help myself , Shep thought. He looked out the window at the end of the hall — still dark. Thick sheets of rain glittered in the darkness, warping the light from the buildings across the way. The storm’s smell was every where, and when the wind gusted, the pounding of the rain against the glass was deafeningly loud. He’d never smelled anything like this storm. Was there any chance it would be over by morning? How long until he could leave all these yappers behind and go back to his den and forget their problems and needs and fears?
    Â 
    Callie and Zeus were waiting in the entry room. Callie sniffed the potted palms that stood on either side of the entry doors, while Zeus was collapsed in a pile against the opposite wall. Trembling in the hallway beyond stood a yellowish, medium-sized girldog with a long fat tail, floppy ears, and tapered snout ending in a brown nose. She stared miserably at the single step that led from the hall into the entry room.
    Frizzle scrambled over to Callie and gave her a couple of licks on the nose. “What’s up with the yellow dog?” he snuffled, tilting his head in the girldog’s general direction.
    â€œI think she’s afraid of steps,” Callie said. “She’s a little nervous about doors and steps. Her name’s Boji, short for Beaujolais.”
    â€œNice to meet you, Bo-jellies!” Frizzle barked, tail wagging.
    The yellow dog glanced at him, gave a feeble wave of her tail, then looked back at the step like it might take a snap at her.
    Shep loped over to where Zeus lay, spread out between the blue wall and the counter. Zeus looked at Shep like he was ready to gnaw his own tail off.
    â€œI don’t know how you put up with it,” Zeus whined. “The incessant yapping: ‘Try it this way,’ ‘Let’s get