I’m the one who sees the sign on the display board in front of the Broomville Humane Society. We’re in the car: Mom is driving Kylee and me to our Thursday-afternoon ballet class.
I’m not very good at ballet, but Dad says I have to do a sport, and I got him to agree that ballet is athletic enough to count. Even though Dad tried to make Hunter do a sport, too, Hunter didn’t do any extracurricular activities his freshman year, as in none at all. Dad made this big speech last summer about how what you do after school is just as important for getting into a good college as how you do during school, so this year Hunter signed up for cross-country, which doesn’t require competitive tryouts like football (Dad’s favorite sport) or soccer or tennis. But Hunter quit after the first week of practice, which started in August the week before school began; in fairness to Hunter, it was the hottest August ever recorded in Broomville. Dad, who usually rolls with life’s punches pretty well, stalked out of the room when Hunter broke the news to him, just like Hunter stalked out of the room on the healthy-Asian-dinner night.
Kylee isn’t very good at ballet either, and her parents don’t care about sports, but they said she has to do something besides knit all the time.
So twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, Kylee and I go together to this funky, run-down dance studio on the other side of town from the Dr. Jaws office. We have to pass the Humane Society building on the way there, and they have this sign in front that says things like ADOPTION SPECIAL THIS WEEK! or (on the week Hunter quit the cross-country team) DON’T LEAVE PETS IN A HOT CAR!
“Mom, stop!” I call from the backseat, where Kylee is sitting next to me.
Mom slams on the brakes, which is not what I meant for her to do, especially with a huge SUV right behind us.
I guess I should have made myself more clear.
Thankfully, she manages to pull over to the side of the road. Wouldn’t it have been ironic if I survived Hunter’s driving only to get myself killed in a rear-end collision with my safety-obsessed mother at the wheel?
“Autumn, don’t shout things like that while I’m driving!” Mom scolds.
“I’m sorry,” I say in a small voice because I really truly am. “I wanted Kylee to see the sign on the animal shelter.”
Kylee reads it aloud: “KNIT FOR DOGS! DETAILS INSIDE!”
I expect Kylee’s face to light up with excitement. The only thing Kylee loves as much as knitting is animals. Her parents won’t let her get a pet—her mom’s allergic—so this could be next best.
But she wrinkles her little button nose. I like Kylee’s nose so much better than mine. Hers is cute. Mine is more what you’d call regal, which really means big and pointy-ish.
“Remember that penguin-knitting thing you found for me?” she asks. “Where I was supposed to knit sweaters for penguins who were injured in that oil spill in Australia or somewhere? You showed me pictures of penguins dressed up in sweaters, and so I knitted three whole penguin sweaters, and then we found out that penguins hate wearing sweaters, and being made to wear a sweater stresses already stressed-out, oil-soaked penguins even more?”
Okay, so knitting penguin sweaters had been a bad idea.
Even if the picture of the penguins in their sweaters had been quite possibly the most adorable picture in the history of the world.
“We should go in and get the details at least,” I say. “Mom, can we? You know we’re always super early for ballet.”
“Kylee?” Mom asks.
Kylee shrugs. “Okay.” But she crinkles her forehead in a skeptical way.
The lady at the front desk is knitting when we walk in. A good sign!
Margo—that’s what it says on her name badge—explains that the warmth and snugness of a sweater is comforting for dogs who have been abandoned to an animal shelter. She says the shelter believes in taking their dogs out on exercise walks in all kinds of weather, and sweaters will be needed with cold weather on the way. She says the dogs can take their sweaters with them to their new homes when they’re adopted, and the familiarity of the sweater helps ease the transition.
It makes perfect sense to me.
“Are all of you knitters?” Margo asks.
“Just Kylee,” I say. “But Kylee is a totally amazing knitter.”
“So what do you think, Kylee?” Margo asks. “We have a variety of patterns I can give you, sized for small, medium, and large dogs. And we have yarn donated by local merchants.”
At that very moment, a shelter volunteer comes through the front door with three small dogs on leashes. The dogs are wearing hand-knit sweaters.
Kylee gives a big, deep, rapturous sigh. I sigh with relief at hearing her sigh.
Three minutes later she is clutching a folder of photocopied dog sweater patterns in one hand and a shopping bag filled with skeins of brightly colored yarn in the other.
“Girls, we’re going to be late for ballet,” Mom says, but she, too, seems dazzled by the adorableness of the dogs in their sweaters. Knowing my mother, now she’ll try to teach herself to knit from some YouTube video—maybe we’d be a happy family if we all had matching hand-knit sweaters—only to give up on it a couple of weeks later. During which time, my best friend will have knitted sweaters for every dog in the Broomville animal shelter.
“See?” I say to Kylee after we’ve dashed back to the car. (Madame Fidelio’s nostrils flare in this awful angry way if anyone isn’t standing at the barre at exactly four o’clock on the dot.) “Do I have good ideas or what?”
Seat belt buckled, Kylee reaches over and squeezes my hand. Already she’s studying the first pattern in the folder. The photograph shows a poodle wearing a sweater with blue and yellow zigzag stripes.
“Some of your ideas are better than others,” Kylee says. “But this idea is going to be great.”