I wake up early, like I’ve had to do all summer, and like I’ll have to do when school starts up a week from tomorrow. I turn over on my side and kick my leg out from under the sheet. There’s a nice breeze coming in through the window screen, and I start to drift back to sleep. But just as I’m going under, I hear something.

It’s a quick beat of footsteps coming up the stairs. At first, I think it must be Mom, but then I hear the dog’s nails on the wood. I turn over and face the door. I can hear the clicks getting closer as he heads down the little hallway.

My door is open a crack and I watch the narrow gap as the sound gets closer and stops. The door isn’t open wide enough for the dog to get in, but from what I saw last night, it would be no problem for him to push it open. He’s built like a cement truck.

After a few seconds, his nose appears in the gap. He pushes it in as far as he can without touching either the door or the frame. He sniffs twice and then pulls his nose back out of sight. More quiet.

Man, I think, that dog definitely got the wrong impression. Normally, this room would be rank enough to repel anything with a functioning sense of smell, but this morning it’s all fresh air and clean laundry.

I expect to hear his feet — or paws, I guess — padding back down the hallway, but there’s no sound at all. I’m starting to wonder if I dreamed the whole thing, and then: Bam! He jams his whole head through the door. It swings open at least a foot, giving him enough space to turn and look at me.

Holy crap.

His head is like a black-and-brown cinder block. The top is all black, except for two little brown dots, one over each eye. They sort of make it look like he’s thinking bad thoughts. The muzzle is all brown, except for a black stripe on top, which leads down to his black nose and black mouth. His jaws look insanely powerful, like Mom had adopted an alligator.

I remind myself of how skittish he was last night, how he went and hid behind Mom. He’d been all big talk in the dark: Bark! Bark! Bark! But as soon as the lights came on, he ran out into the hall like a two-year-old, looking back at me from behind her legs, with his head held low. He was literally all bark and no bite.

So I’m telling myself what my mom told me: that he’s just a dog, a rescue dog that’s still afraid of people. But looking at his face now, I can’t tell what he’s thinking. We’re just looking at each other. I watch the skin bunch up and shift around his eyes as he watches me — even his face has muscles.

He swipes a thick pink tongue across the side of his upper jaw. It lifts the gummy black skin around his mouth, and for a split second, I see the flash of one extra-long white tooth. I guess that’s what they call a canine tooth. He pulls his head back out of the room and disappears. A moment later, I hear him heading down the hallway. He pauses at the landing, then avalanches down the stairs.

I let out a long, slow breath. That was weird — and that was a big frickin’ tooth! There’s no way I’m getting back to sleep now. I throw the sheet off and get up. I open the top drawer of my dresser and look at row after row of clean socks and underwear. It looks like a picture in a catalog — and not a catalog I’d shop from.

I pick out my outfit and get dressed. My jeans feel tight, like they always do after they’ve been washed. My black T-shirt feels so crisp, I wonder if it’s been replaced with a new one. It’s a clean start for my clothes — and maybe for that dog — but that’s about it. Today is the day I return to my regularly scheduled life, already in progress, not going so great.