Seventeen

Samantha was tense, but not in the usual way—there was no fear springing off her skin, just an excitement. It reminded me of how Ben and Roxie reacted when we were driving in Roxie’s loud, fast car. Ben walked behind us as Samantha followed Alvis and I followed Samantha.

Alvis gestured toward a rope coiled on the floor as we passed it. My nose picked up a strong odor of water. “You know what that is, Sam?”

“A hose?”

“You betcha. I’m gonna teach you to wash the fire truck. You know why that’s important?”

Samantha shook her head.

“Cause a clean fire truck’s a happy fire truck.”

Ben snorted, but Alvis ignored him and continued. “Same with a floor. You needs ta be able ta see your reflection in the floor. Well, that’s fer later. Come on.”

Nance, Roxie, Willets, Mom, and Captain Bee were in Mom’s room when I walked in with Alvis and Ben. Everyone was grinning.

Willets picked up a box and set it on the table. It was smaller than my crate, but not by much. “Roxie wrapped it,” he said. “Otherwise it would look as bad as Nance’s lasagna tastes.”

Nance raised his heavy black eyebrows but didn’t reply to this mention of his name. I’d noticed he didn’t talk much and wondered if he was afraid his sharp whiskers would cut his lips.

“Oh,” Samantha murmured shyly.

“Yah, go on, then, unwrap the dang thing. Suspense is killing me,” Alvis drawled.

“You’re just in a hurry because you want to get back to mopping the floor,” Willets told him.

Everyone leaned forward expectantly when Samantha hesitantly pulled at the box, ripping paper. This made no sense to me. We could all smell there was nothing to eat in there.

“It’s a case of toilet paper!” Willets announced triumphantly, when all the paper was removed.

“Oofda, don’tcha listen to that bozo,” Alvis told Samantha. “We had to find a box big ’nough, is all.”

Everyone was excited as Samantha opened the box. I wondered if it contained a dog toy.

“Oh!” Samantha exclaimed. She pulled out a coat with an odor that matched all the other heavy coats people wore around here.

“Can’t very well be an intern with the fire department without the proper gear,” Ben informed her, beaming.

Samantha pulled out a hard, shiny hat and bulky gloves and even some pants with boots already in them. Then she clomped around the room and hugged everyone, even me. She hugged Ben the longest, but I was the only one she gave a treat.

When we left Mom’s room, Samantha was wearing all the clothes from the box. I noticed Hutch watching sourly from atop one of the big trucks as we trooped past.

After a while Samantha took off the heavy clothes because we were about to play Search, this time with my mask on. I could find Samantha no matter where she was hiding and always ran back to punch Ben with my foot for a treat. I understood now that I might get a click, but no treat, until I actually showed Ben where Samantha was hiding, but that I was Good Dog Ripley regardless.

Also they had to take my mask off to give me the treat. Both of those things made me very happy.

“We’re ready for the big test!” Ben declared happily. “Okay, Ripley. Remember Willets?”

I wagged up at Willets, who had come to play too. I was happy not to be wearing the mask in case Willets decided to lean down from way up there to hand me a treat, as he often did.

“Of course he remembers me. I’m the nicest man in the department,” Willets told Ben, lowering his fist for me to sniff. No treat. Still, interesting smells, at least.

“Fair enough. Start out easy, in one of the back rooms,” Ben requested.

I watched curiously as Willets walked away. “Okay. Ripley?”

I snapped my attention to Ben.

“Search!”

I stared at him in confusion. Samantha was right here!

“Search!” she encouraged me.

Her, too? It was another case of humans completely changing their minds on something. Just when we’d decided on the rules of Search, Samantha was standing next to me, and no amount of pawing at Ben’s arm earned me anything approaching a click and a treat.

“Let’s try this,” Samantha suggested. She put a leash in my collar. “Ripley? Search!”

Well, I knew what a leash meant. It meant we should walk. It was strange to take a walk indoors, but apparently all the rules were changing today.

We walked away from Ben, heading down the back hall. We passed the room where Mom was clicking, with no treats. I smelled Willets in the next room and halted hesitantly.

“Good dog!” Samantha praised me. So there was something about this room that made me a good dog. I liked that, so we walked into the room. Willets was standing with a grin on his face, his head up by the ceiling. “Good dog! Good dog!” Samantha told me, with no treats. I wagged hard. I liked being Good Dog Ripley for Samantha, even when it was a bit confusing.

Then she ran with me back to Ben, who waited expectantly. Everyone was tense, probably because the treats were there in the treat pouch and not in his extended fingers. Impatient, I pawed at him.

“Yes!” Ben beamed. I got a click and a treat! At last!

It took me a while to understand, but eventually I figured it out. It wouldn’t always be Samantha who was hiding when we played Search. Sometimes it would be Willets, and sometimes it would be Nance, and sometimes it would be Alvis, but it would not be Hutch—he was never lost. Instead, he sat at a small table and wrote papers and frowned at me whenever I passed by him.

I didn’t get the sense that Hutch liked me very much, but that wasn’t my fault. I had always been very friendly to him.

I was disappointed but not surprised when the mask came back out—my least favorite toy, stuck on my face, the air whistling up my nose. Day after day, we played Search with Nance and Willets and Alvis and Roxie while that mask was in place—in fact, everyone completely forgot how to play without it.

Humans are just much less reliable than dogs.

I liked Search. I liked how excited everyone was when I was a good dog. I liked the treats, of course. And I liked it when Ben followed me to the hiding people. I always preferred it when all the humans were together.

My favorite time at Captain Bee’s house was when the men sat at a table and ate. Sometimes Mom would prepare the meal, which made them all very happy. “You’re such a better cook than Nance, Lizzy,” Alvis told her. “Oofda. Every time he cooks I get appendicitis.”

“You men are so easy to cook for,” Mom replied, smiling.

“Remember Nance’s tuna noodle casserole?” Willets demanded. “Worst hot dish in the history of mankind. I’d rather eat roadkill. I’d rather eat road alive.”

Nance merely shook his head.

Most of the time Mom and Samantha weren’t there at mealtime, and that was a bit sad. Roxie and Nance and Alvis and the others handed down treats to me, trying to cheer themselves up.

“Please don’t feed him,” Ben would say, and then people would be unhappy with me for some reason and would stop sharing for a little while. Then somebody’s hand would come down with a little piece of food, and once again I would know that everyone at the table loved me.

Well, everyone except Hutch.

The air outside had turned cold and smelled dry and clean. Often when Ben and I arrived at Captain Bee’s house, Alvis would be shoveling snow out of the driveway. “You don’t have to do that all by yourself,” Ben observed once.

“Nah.” Alvis shook his head. “I’m the only one ta do it right, don’tcha know.”

I missed my girl on the days when she wasn’t there, but often she and Mom would come visit. Then one morning Ben came to pick me up at Samantha’s house and told Mom, “Station’s closed all day. We’re doing training.” He focused on Samantha. “Today Ripley’s going into his first fire.”

I snapped my attention to Samantha, who drew in a sharp breath. “What do you mean?” she demanded. “He’s going into a fire? Already? What’re you talking about? You said he needs more training!”

Ben regarded Samantha soberly. “He does, and today’s part of it. The state owns a building that’s pretty much indestructible—all cement and steel. We put wooden framing in it, build in some closets, things like that, and then we burn it and practice putting out the flames. All the fire departments use the same building, so we don’t get to go there very often, but today’s our day.”

Samantha put a hand on my back. Ben knelt, so that he was looking directly into her eyes. I gave his face an appreciative lick—I liked that he was trying to help Samantha.

“Sammie. I know how you feel about fires, and I can’t pretend they aren’t dangerous, even deadly. All I can do is promise I’ll do everything I can to keep Ripley as safe as possible. Going into fires is what we do.”

Samantha sighed. She still smelled unhappy, so I nosed her hand. “When I get scared about Ripley in a fire,” she advised in a low voice, “I put the thoughts away. And then I don’t think about them.”

“And I’m forcing you to think about them now,” Ben guessed, eyeing her.

Samantha nodded solemnly.

“But you’re okay? Even with those thoughts? Is there anything you need me to do?”

“Yes. I mean, yes, I’m okay, and no, there’s nothing you can do. Just … please don’t let him get hurt.”

Ben nodded. “The station’s ten-seven today. Ripley and I’ll be back at the station around dinnertime, and once we’re back, we’ll clean the trucks and the equipment, and then I’ll bring Ripley home to you. Okay?”

Samantha hugged me. I didn’t like leaving her because I could sense that she was sad to see me go, but it was a day to be with Roxie and Ben while strapped to my harness in her big car—we were just doing what we do. That’s how dogs think about the world: We do what we do and are happiest when everything fits into that familiar pattern.

In my harness between Roxie and Ben, I noticed something similar to Samantha’s anxious fear, yet somehow different. Neither Ben nor Roxie was afraid, I realized. It was something else, almost as if they were pretending to be afraid. Their skin radiated an electric charge. Their breathing was a little faster and a little shallower than usual.

What they were feeling was, I decided, excitement. Wherever we were going, it was exciting to them. I wagged a little. As far as dogs are concerned, excitement is a much better human emotion than fear.

We stopped in front of a large house. I lifted my nose to the strong stench of smoke in the air. Outside our big car I saw many people I already knew, Willets and Nance among them, walking around in their big, bulky coats. I could smell water and I knew that the smoke pouring from the open windows of the big cement building in front of us meant there was something burning in there.

Ben carefully unbuckled me from my car harness and strapped the familiar bottle to my back. I wagged and yawned excitedly, tolerating the mask as Ben settled it onto my face. Something was happening! Something that involved me and Ben and Roxie and all the people from Captain Bee’s house.

After some time, Willets lay down on what they called a hose and Alvis lay down behind him. Next, Ben sprawled down behind Alvis, holding my harness.

Whatever was happening, it was starting.

We snaked through the open door and into the thickest, darkest smoke I could imagine. Even wearing my mask, I nearly choked on the powerful odors. I couldn’t see anything at all.

With a tug, I was free of Ben’s grip. “Search,” he told me, his voice muffled by his own mask.

That was it! We were doing Search! I just didn’t know who I was supposed to find this time.

Despite all the fumes, there were people hiding somewhere in this new house. I turned away from the smoke and focused on the job I had been told to do.

We were in a big room right now, but nobody was here except Ben and Alvis and Willets. And I understood now that when I did Search, the hiding people were never in the same room with me.

When we turned down a hallway, there was less smoke. It was a strange house, built mainly of metal and concrete. I moved down the back to where several people stood next to a barrel that was full of burning wood.

I didn’t return to paw Ben because I was pretty sure that these people weren’t the ones I was doing Search for. When I locate someone hiding, they usually react, either by smiling at me or by pretending to be asleep. These people, Hutch among them, just stood and stared at me through their masks.

Ben followed me, now standing. I stared up at him, unsure, barely able to make him out in the gloom, though I could smell he was there. “All right,” I heard Ben’s muffled voice say to me. “It’s Nance. We have to find Nance.”

I heard the name and wondered why he was talking about Nance when I could smell that Nance wasn’t here.

Ben and I kept moving through the strange, smoky house until we came to a small room with a bathtub in it. I smelled Nance in that bathtub. He was lying down, though for once he wasn’t snoring. I turned and pawed at Ben, who peered over the rim.

“We’ve got one,” he shouted urgently.