It was a yellow rope.
It was the yellow rope that he had seen in that German shepherd’s—Lucy’s—mouth in the truck at the parking lot.
Stick Dog snapped his head around.
He saw her there.
His heart raced.
His heart fluttered.
Lucy leaped toward him.
She stopped right in front of him. She picked up the rope with her mouth and pointed urgently toward the door at the back of the store.
Stick Dog understood.
Lucy was helping him.
He got down low and scurried on his belly as fast as he could toward that door. While he did that, Lucy ran around the front of the case with her rope. She jumped and yelped and wagged her tail.
Scott, the customer, jumped back a bit and stared at her.
Mike the meat man came to a halt. He looked over the opposite glass case at her. He seemed surprised too.
“Lucy-girl!” he called happily. “What are you so excited about? You want to play? I thought you were taking a nap in the back room!”
Lucy jumped and barked and wagged her tail even more.
“All right, all right!” Mike said, and changed direction, coming out from behind the glass cases on the other side. Stick Dog saw this and hurried into the back room.
Inside the back room, Stick Dog saw a desk, a chair, a back door with a belt hanging on it, a blanket, several cardboard boxes, and two big silver refrigerators. He picked out the darkest corner of the room and backed into it. He listened to what happened out in the store.
He heard Mike the meat man play tug-of-war with Lucy for a minute. He heard the two male humans discuss the proper way to cook hamburgers on a grill. He heard Mike package up some hamburgers and hot dogs for Scott. He heard two more customers come in.
And then he heard Lucy pad her way toward the back room.
He watched the doorway.
He saw her come in—and he knew he had to trust her. He was trapped. And she had already helped him. He stepped from the darkness of the corner.
“I’m Stick Dog,” he said. He felt the words catch in the back of his throat for a second, but managed to get them out. “Thanks for helping me.”
“I’m Lucy,” she said. “You’re welcome.”
Stick Dog lowered his head and stared at the floor. He didn’t know what to say. He was confused. He had never felt flustered before. He had always been confident. And now he was nervous. A weird nervous. A kind of nervous he hadn’t felt before.
“Where are your friends?” Lucy asked.
“My friends?” Stick Dog asked, lifting his head.
“Yes,” Lucy answered. “I saw them in the woods past the parking lot when we pulled away in the truck. When I was looking for you.”
“You were, umm, looking for me?”
“I guess I was,” Lucy answered slowly. Now it was her turn to look at the floor. She shuffled her front paws a little as she spoke.
“Sort of. Kind of. Umm. Yeah.”
It was quiet then.
Like, awkward quiet.
But just for a moment.
Because right then something smashed into the back door.