The Stray and the Strangers Read online

“Oh, you wanted yours without onion? Getting particular, I see.” The woman’s eyes were hidden, but the words sounded kind. “If only you were that fussy about having a bath now and then. You don’t smell as sweet as your name.”

  * * *

  The boat strangers kept arriving. They were wet, shivering and caped in blankets, in spite of the heat. The big sleeping tents were always full now. Some people had to lie outside on blankets on the ground.

  Inside or out, they slept poorly, especially the children. Their piercing cries and strangled gasps startled Kanella awake.

  These sounds rarely woke whichever helper was in the food hut. People, she was learning, had very weak ears. So she would have to push the door open with her nose and squirm through. Usually by the time she got outside, the frightened sleeper had gone quiet.

  One morning, some new children were playing in front of the big tents. Their parents, slumped on benches, watched them. They had removed their shoes and turned them upside down to drain water out of them, then set them in the sun to dry.

  The children were kicking a ball around with the bearded man and a few other helpers. The bearded man ran stiffly, a hitch in his stride. Yet his feet on the ball were as nimble as mice. The children thronged around him like puppies.

  Kanella hesitated. Then, unable to resist, she dashed in among those churning legs. The children passed the ball around her while she yelped and gave chase.

  Again she noticed how the boat children never tried to touch her the way tourist children did. These children gave off a slight smell of fear, like the scent of a wet coin between cobblestones. As they swarmed close to her, their laughter grew shrill.

  Finally, she pounced on the ball and bit down. It collapsed between her paws with a sigh.

  The bearded man laughed. Then he knelt down and gently pried the shrunken thing from her mouth. Some of the children laughed, too, but their laughter was uneasy and they kept their distance.

  “Alas, my girl, you have caught and killed our only ball. I will have to go fix it. Next time, I hope you’ll play more gently.”

  * * *

  The sun was peaking lower in the sky each noon. Yet it still left the black road sticky and the brown earth hard and dry. Kanella knew all of the camp helpers now by their smell, voice, face, walk, the different weight of their fingers on her head.

  Sometimes instead of water, they filled her bowl with the best thing she had ever tasted. Milch, the bearded man called it, and the young woman used a similar sound, milk. While Kanella slurped it up, the man would crouch beside her.

  She no longer worried that he might snatch the bowl away at any time. On the contrary, she trusted that he and the young woman would keep filling it.

  * * *

  One cool, sunny morning, she crept to the edge of a ball-kicking game and tried to catch the bearded man’s eye. He met her gaze and nodded. She rushed in and gave chase. When she managed to capture the ball, she resisted the urge to pounce, bite and shake it to death.

  This morning there was a new boy. He was one of the smallest players and certainly the thinnest. Under his dark eyes there were shadows. Bones pushed out against the brown skin of his face.

  As Kanella surged among the shrieking children, he let her come close and even brush against him. Then he ran his hand along her back, which she liked.

  But he grew bolder. He gripped her tail and squeezed. This startled and offended her. She flashed her teeth at him, growling softly. The boy flinched. But then he smiled with gapped teeth and came at her again.

  “Kanella, no!” the bearded man rumbled. He pointed toward the food hut.

  She skulked away. The tail the boy had grabbed was curled between her legs.

  She was confused. What had she done wrong? Could the man not see that the boy was being rude? Then again, the boy was small and very young. He would learn better manners, and she could help teach him.

  The next sunrise, the many strangers who had arrived the day before set out along the road. But this time one of them stayed behind: the boy. He stood between the young woman and the bearded man, whose large hand enclosed the boy’s.

  The man and woman smelled of worry. Kanella was troubled, too. She wanted to herd that group of strangers, but she also wanted to stay close to the child.

  Why had the group left him behind? Where was his family?

  She stood on the edge of the road, looking back and forth between the departing strangers and the boy.

  The boy said something she didn’t understand. Then he said it louder.

  It was her name, though strangely voiced, as if he were clearing his throat with the word. Still, he was calling her, and she went to him.

  5

  The Boy

  The winds grew colder and the seas rougher. Yet the strangers kept arriving until the camp could barely hold them. The lineups outside the food hut grew longer by the day. Many of the children, holding their parents’ hands, cried as they waited.

  Each morning, another crowd of weary people would trek away up the road. Yet the boy remained, and Kanella stayed close beside him. Until now she had never had time to grow familiar with any boat stranger’s face, voice or smell.

  The boy’s smell was like the scent of the baking bread that used to wake her in her burrow as it wafted up from the town. His clothes, though long since dry, still smelled of the sea.

  The helpers brought the boy food and played with him. They made a bed for him in the food hut. He slept between Kanella’s table and a metal box that glowed and hummed and breathed out heat.

  Pointing and shaking their heads, the helpers made it clear to the boy that he should stop giving half of his food to Kanella. The bearded man scolded them both, though he smiled on one side of his beard as he did so.

  “Do we not give you enough, my girl? Ah, I see by your face. You know we do. In fact, I see by your belly. You’re not a wisp of a thing anymore.”

  She wagged her tail and made a sound in her throat to show she was listening. The boy imitated the sound — it was rather a poor imitation, she felt — and nodded.

  “We’re still hoping to find this one’s parents, you see. And if we do, we want him to be as healthy and well fed as you.”

  Kanella wagged her tail, and again the boy grabbed it, laughing. He couldn’t help himself, it seemed.

  She pulled away. But this time she didn’t growl, and the bearded man patted and praised her.

  * * *

  At times after the boy went to sleep, curled under piled blankets, helpers would gather in the food hut. They would sit around the droning stove, drink tea and talk.

  Kanella liked the hut to be packed and cozy this way, but more and more now the voices sounded uneasy. Often the helpers nodded toward the boy while they talked. Kanella watched through half-open eyes as she lay in her den or, at times, on the ground beside his cot.

  One night, the sleeping boy began to whimper and thrash. He threw out his arms as if fending off danger.

  The helpers fell silent. He kept repeating the same sounds, baba and mama.

  The young woman stood up. Kanella was on her feet now, too, the hairs of her ruff hackling. She sniffed the boy’s face and licked his cheek. He continued to squirm. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the helpers watching.

  She hopped up onto the cot beside the boy, then glanced at the young woman, who said, “Good girl, Kanella!”

  She lay down beside the boy and burrowed her nose beneath the layers of wool. The boy’s panting breaths began to slow. Still asleep, he draped an arm over Kanella’s back.

  With her head under the blankets, she couldn’t see the helpers, but she heard them talking again in that uneasy tone. Several times she heard her own name.

  “If they send him to the big camp, I doubt there will be a Kanella there to comfort him.”

  “In Mordor? Fat chance. No comfort there for lov
e or money.”

  “Maybe we’ll be able to keep him here till we find his parents.”

  “Looks like Kanella hopes so, too. Don’t you, girl?”

  Despite the voices, Kanella drifted toward sleep. The warmth of the boy and the blankets revived a good memory of lying in her old burrow, nestled against the other pups and the enormous body of her mother.

  * * *

  When she was beside the boy he always slept deeply, until long after sunrise. If she wanted to play — and she always did — she had to prod his chest with her paw, then lick his face until his dark eyes opened. He would show the gaps between his teeth and reach out to tug her ears.

  She did not love having her ears tugged but decided to tolerate this small liberty.

  In the early light, before the camp filled up again, they would play the ball game. The boy would dance over and around the spinning, skidding ball, somehow keeping it away from her.

  But she was improving. She had learned to fake with her head and swipe with her paws. And when she managed to nab the ball, she would race away, rolling it ahead of her with her nose while he ran laughing behind her.

  She had learned not to spoil the game by biting the ball to death. And he had learned not to grab her tail — at least not as often or as hard.

  6

  Winter

  First came icy rains, then a few sharp-sided flakes of snow that Kanella caught on her tongue. They were wet and fresh like rain but gritty like sand.

  The days seemed too cold now for journeys. Yet the strangers kept coming across the water. In the huge tents they huddled even closer, under coats and blankets, around stoves like the one in the food hut.

  They no longer had to cross the island on foot. Instead they formed lines and waited until reeking buses shuddered into the camp. The tired strangers climbed aboard and looked out the windows as the doors closed with a huff and the machines groaned away. Some of the strangers waved at Kanella and the boy, who liked to watch the buses come and go.

  Whenever a new group of strangers arrived, the bearded man would hurry the boy out to meet them. Sometimes the sun had barely risen. Kanella would try to follow, but the bearded man made her wait inside. Through a crack in the door she would listen and watch, hoping the boy would soon return to his cot. Everyone would be talking quickly, shaking their heads and looking worried.

  In the end, the boy always seemed disappointed.

  The buses were not the only change. Tall people who spoke loudly and walked with a heavy tread now came to the camp. They arrived in large white cars with markings on the side. Those same markings appeared on the front of their coats. They were constantly writing things down or pressing their hands to their cheeks and talking to no one.

  Whenever they showed up, the helpers shut Kanella in the food hut with the boy and told her to stay put. Again she would spy through a crack in the door as the loud visitors spoke to the bearded man, the young woman and the other helpers.

  Once, the bearded man returned to the hut, took the boy by the hand and led him out the door. He signaled Kanella to sit and stay. Then he put his finger up to his beard and said, “Hush!”

  Outside, the man kept his arm around the boy’s tiny shoulders. One of the visiting men pointed at the boy and spoke firmly. This other man, too, was bearded, though his beard was orange, his eyes were cold green and he was very tall.

  Kanella growled softly. The tall man squinted over at the food hut, as if trying to see through the crack in the door. The bearded man moved to block his view. He put a hand on the tall man’s shoulder and steered him away.

  The young woman glanced at the hut with wide eyes and set a finger to her lips.

  * * *

  A few mornings later, with no warning, the tall man burst into the food hut where Kanella was curled up with the boy. The young woman, who had been up serving food for much of the night, lay asleep, breathing heavily, on the other cot.

  Kanella leapt down and faced the man, rumbling her guard-growl. Her heart was thudding.

  The man’s cold eyes rounded. He aimed a finger at Kanella.

  “You can’t have a dog in a food facility!” he said sharply. “And it shouldn’t be anywhere near the boy! It shouldn’t be in here at all!”

  Kanella peeled back her lips, showing her fangs. She was trembling with rage. The skin along her spine was icy cold. Through all of the commotion, the boy and the exhausted woman remained asleep.

  The man’s red face grew redder as he shrank back. Seeing her water bowl in the corner, he kicked it over.

  Then he pulled the door shut with a crash.

  7

  A Kind of Miracle

  That night, the first heavy snow fell. Kanella curled beside the boy under their layers of wool. He was asleep. She lay listening, peeking out.

  Never had the hut been so crammed with helpers sitting around the stove. Again they were speaking in that worried tone she disliked. Earlier, the bearded man had brought in a pine tree and stood it in the corner. He and the boy had draped its branches with shiny objects — spoons, tinfoil birds, a belt buckle, copper buttons — and strings of small puffed nuggets that Kanella had discreetly nibbled off.

  Now the worried talk went on while the boy’s breathing settled. Again she heard her name among the words. Were they angry at her about the tree? She tried to stay alert, but she had eaten so much tonight and they had given her an extra bowl of milk. And the crowded hut was so warm.

  She fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

  * * *

  When she woke up, feeling cold, the boy was gone, the hut empty. She struggled out from under the blankets, nosed open the door and ran outside.

  In the early morning light, two boat strangers were kneeling and clasping the boy tightly as if to crush him. The boy was crying. The bearded man, the young woman and some other helpers just stood watching while these strangers attacked the boy!

  Kanella barked fiercely, lowered her head and charged, laying back her ears, snarling as she ran.

  The bearded man blocked her path. Stretching his arms wide, he roared, “Kanella!”

  She tried to dart between his legs, but his hand flashed down and firmly gripped her ruff. She squealed, trying to twist free. Desperate, she nipped his hand. He gasped in pain and cuffed her nose.

  The blow wasn’t hard, but the shock of it made her yelp and freeze.

  The man crouched down, pulled her close and stroked her head.

  “Ah, Kanella, forgive me. Our tempers are all so short now, even yours. But look! Something wonderful has happened. A kind of miracle.”

  She peered around him. The strangers — a man and a woman — were still squeezing the boy. Their faces were as wet as if they had just been plucked from the sea. Their eyes, though red, were alive with joy.

  The boy was not trying to escape them. He was clinging to them as tightly as they were holding him.

  The faces of the helpers, too, shone wetly.

  Now the bearded man released Kanella. She ran over to join the boy. The man and the woman flinched, but the boy pulled her — up on her hind legs now — into his arms.

  “Khanella!” he said. Then he added words that the young woman often recited. “She is a good dog, but she needs a bath.”

  The strangers regarded her less fearfully now. They spoke to the boy in their throaty language. She licked the boy’s face and seemed to taste the sea that had brought him to her island.

  * * *

  All too soon the boy and the two boat strangers, along with many others, were climbing aboard a rumbling bus. Kanella stood beside the bearded man, who was kneeling and gripping her by the ruff.

  “You stay here with us, Kanella. This is your home, for now. He and his family have to travel on and find one for themselves.”

  With panicked eyes she watched the bus door close. Why was the bearded man allowing
the boy to leave the camp? The boy’s round face appeared in a square window, the woman’s face behind his. As she waved, she smiled, but the boy did not.

  A frantic squeal burst up out of Kanella’s chest. She wrenched herself free and sprinted after the bus as it pulled out onto the road.

  “Kanella, stop! Come back!” yelled the bearded man.

  At first she was catching the bus, closer and closer. She breathed in its dirty brown breath as she gazed up, hoping to see a window and a face looking out.

  The bus was speeding up, snarling back at her. She ran after it with all her heart. But it was pulling away. She tried to run faster, yet fell farther behind.

  For a long time she kept trying, following from a distance until she could barely see it, hoping it might tire out and slow down.

  When she could no longer even hear the bus, she stopped and stood panting in the middle of the road.

  At last she turned and walked slowly back toward the camp. By the time she got there, the sun was low in the sky. The bearded man was sitting outside by the door of the food hut. She could see his breath.

  As she approached, he stood stiffly. His eyes were sad but his teeth showed in his beard. He held the door open for her.

  “It does my heart good to know we haven’t lost you, too,” he said.

  8

  Orphan

  Some boat strangers arrived the next morning. But it was only a small group. There were no children among them.

  That same evening, the small group departed on a single half-sized bus. No one arrived to replace them.