The woods became my home. I stayed there for a long time — for as long as it takes the leaves on the trees to turn from green (a color I can’t see, but I have heard Susan and other people talk of green leaves and green grass and other things that are green) to yellow, then drop off; for the snows to fall, then melt; and for my legs to grow long. Since I was still a puppy, all those things were new to me. I didn’t know that the leaves would fall off the trees as the air grew colder. I didn’t know that in the coldest weather of all snow would fall instead of leaves, covering the ground and making food harder to find. I didn’t know that as the air warmed again the leaves would return, green like caterpillars. And I hadn’t realized I was growing. I knew only that everything was new to me, and that being an independent puppy was difficult.

I was very, very lonely.

On that first night in the woods, the first night without Bone at my side, I slept fitfully in the leaf nest. I was afraid to fall too soundly asleep. In our shed I had felt safe, protected from the likes of Mine or coyotes. But here in the woods I was exposed, and I didn’t know what kinds of animals might be about. A strange dog had once wandered onto the Merrions’ property, and Mother hadn’t trusted it any more than she had trusted Mine. I remembered the growling thing at the garbage cans. What had that been? A dog?

But the night passed quietly and in the morning I explored my woods. They were small, but big enough so that I could retreat from the sight of the traffic and the mall. I found a stream with clear water in it. And on the other side of the woods, a good walk from the side that bordered the busy road, I discovered houses — set close together like the ones where George and Marcy lived. The woods faced the backs of the houses, and behind many of them were … garbage pails. Raiding them might be difficult, but I was glad to know they were there. I could reach them without crossing a busy road.

On that first day I nosed around the woods enough to gain an understanding of this new neighborhood. It was similar to the forest neighborhood at the edge of the Merrions’ property. I discovered squirrels, chipmunks, groundhogs, skunks, and many small rodents. I saw owls’ nests and crows’ nests and heard hawks and jays and chickadees and cardinals and sparrows and swallows. I saw several does, three large fawns who hadn’t lost their spots yet, and a mother turkey and her half-grown chicks. I didn’t see any cats, though, and found myself wishing for Yellow Man. I also didn’t see any animals that might prey on me. If these woods were to be my home, they weren’t bad. I missed Bone, but I felt fairly safe now and I could find food and water.

 

So I began my new life. I made a more protected den in the shelter of two large fir trees whose trunks grew so close together that they might have been a single tree, and whose branches spread wide and low, and shielded me from rain as the shed roof had done. Every morning I hunted. I drank from the stream and from puddles. Occasionally I made trips to the garbage cans behind the humans’ houses. If I was lucky, a lid might be left off. Once, I saw a large dog digging through an overturned can. I waited until he left, then ate the scraps he didn’t want.

The change in the weather happened so slowly that at first I didn’t notice it. Then late one afternoon as the sun slunk out of the sky I realized how chilly the air was. I looked above me at the leafy canopy and saw that it was now many hues, instead of the one humans would call green. And I could see more sky than before. The nights seemed to have grown longer and the days shorter. Sometimes my breath turned to mist in the air.

One morning I took a walk to a large puddle that had formed during a rainstorm and found that overnight it had become hard. I didn’t know what ice was, and I licked at it. It was cold. And to my surprise, slippery. I couldn’t drink from it, and I was relieved to discover that the stream was still running, although the water in it was frigid.

Time passed and soon there were no leaves at all on the trees. The branches of the pines that sheltered my den were dense and sweeping, but the branches of the other trees lay stark against the sky, like the skeleton of a fawn I had once found in the woods near the Merrions’ house. On the day snow began to fall I first watched in amazement, then ran into the flakes to play. Bone would have loved the snow, and I wished I could have played in it with him instead of alone. Still … I ran, I pounced, I leapt. It was only later that I discovered how difficult hunting and finding food became in the snow. And exactly how cold my outdoor bed could be.

 

But I survived the winter, my first winter, and was just as surprised to feel the air warm and to see the leaves return as I had been to feel the air cool and to watch the leaves fall. The snow melted, and the ice at the edges of the stream broke away and was carried off in the currents and rivulets. A young doe gave birth to two fawns. The birds built nests and laid eggs. It was a time of sunlight and babies and newness and rich smells from the damp earth.

I was hungry, though. I was lean after the long winter, I was still growing, and lately I hadn’t had much luck hunting. There came a time when I had caught nothing in two days. I began prowling around behind the houses, eyeing the garbage cans, but once a man had run outside, yelling at me and waving his arms. And twice I had seen the big dog, so I had retreated quietly into the shadows of the woods.

On the evening of the fourth day with no food, an evening when the air was particularly warm, I ventured to the other side of my woods. I hadn’t been to the mall since the day Bone and I were thrown away there, but at certain times, and when the wind blew in a certain direction, I could smell the garbage from the pails there. The busy road lay between me and all that garbage, but I didn’t care. I was so hungry that my insides felt as though they were shriveling up. If I waited until full dark maybe I could have one good meal from the garbage, then return to my woods and try hunting again.

I stood by the side of the road, watching the cars with their bright eyes stream by. WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH.

My stomach growled.

I turned and watched the road in one direction for a while. No eyes were coming. I looked in the other direction, and that was when I noticed another dog, also standing at the edge of the road watching the eyes, concentrating on the traffic. I was about to turn and run when I saw that the dog was the same shade of color as Bone, had Bone’s face, was Bone grown up, although he was smaller than I, his proud tail — now fat and fluffy — held high in the air.

I crept toward him, then let out a yip of joy.

At my yip, the dog turned quickly, but didn’t bark, just watched my approach. And I could tell, from several feet away, that this wasn’t Bone at all. This dog was a female.

I jumped back. I let out a growl and my lip curled into a snarl. But the small dog wagged her tail at me and put her rump in the air, chest and front legs on the ground. Then she dropped her rump and crawled toward me on her belly.

I approached her again slowly. I sniffed at her snout, and my own tail began to wag.

 

My new friend was named Moon, and she did look very much like Bone, or at least the way Bone might look now that he was grown. Moon and I never did cross the road that night. Instead, feeling braver with a companion at my side, I led Moon through the woods to the row of houses and we raided the garbage cans there after all. It was a gloomy, overcast night, and by now it was very late, so not many lights were on at the houses. We crept across the yard of the darkest house to find two cans with loose lids.

After a huge feast of scraps and spoiled fruit, my stomach swollen with food, I returned to my den under the fir trees. Moon followed me. She followed me onto the leaf bed, too, and when I curled up, she curled around me, her snout and front paws resting on my back. We slept that way all night, and I dreamed of Mother and Bone and the wheelbarrow.

I awoke the next day as the sky lightened and the birds began their morning songs. Moon was still on the leaf bed, now stretched out on her stomach, head resting on her front paws.

When I saw this, I knew she was there to stay.