Henry didn’t know how many days it had been since he had crawled under that fence and run away from Wonderland.
But each day seemed to get harder.
He wandered through woods during the day, sometimes napping on damp moss in the cool shade of the sycamore trees. At night he searched for food in alleys behind the diners and markets of Landry. Once in a while he wandered through neighborhoods, sniffing around garbage cans and occasionally coming upon a bowl of food left out for somebody’s wandering cat.
But Henry wasn’t just hungry.
He was lonely.
At least at Wonderland there were other dogs to keep him company.
He used to hate staying cooped up in a kennel so much, but now that he was free, that kennel didn’t seem so bad.
And although he’d never had one person to call his own, there had been trainers and handlers around most of the time. And then there was that bald man named Roger who called him “naughty Rocket Boy” and gave him a pat on the head once in a while.
But now that Henry was out of Wonderland, he realized that what he really longed for was someone all his own.
He often thought about those girls.
The wild-haired one and the quiet one.
How they had called him Henry and stroked his sides and kissed his nose.
As the sun began to sink and the fireflies twinkled among the ferns and mayapples scattered through the woods, Henry scratched at the leaves and pine needles to make a soft bed for the night. By the time darkness had settled, he was dreaming. A peaceful dream of being stroked and kissed and loved by someone all his own.