Downhill

Chapter 8

    I didn't know exactly how many days had passed since I left home. I'd lost track of time. I know it'd been at least four or five weeks. I think my birthday might be coming up soon...

    I'd traveled around a lot of the country. I caught rides on the lightrails and paid with the little money I made from small jobs I picked up. I think I must be in a run-down New York suburb now. There were only a few people living here. I was sitting on the curb, and the night was dark. Pretty much no one was around. 

    I heard a sort of whining sound and looked up. There was a gray shape lying on the yellow grass right across the road. I got up and walked across to see what it was. When I was about a foot from it, it lifted its head. I saw its big, shiny, dark eyes and long fuzzy snout and knew immediately it was a dog. A very skinny dog with clumped up dirty fur, but a dog nonetheless. 

    He sat there for a minute, just looking up at me. Then he whimpered again. I realized I could see his rib cage; he was probably hungry. 

    I'd bought a sandwich at a cheap restaurant that day, but I never finished it and I put it in my bag. I took it out then, got down on my knees, and gave it to him. While he was scarfing it down, I looked at his neck to see if he had a collar. He didn't. 

    "He must be a stray," I said to myself. 

    He finished the sandwich and looked up at me again, wagging his tail. I looked at him for a moment. I didn't know what to do with him. Then I remembered something. 

    When Rosanna was ten, she always used to say how much she wanted a dog. She constantly bugged Mom and Dad about it, but they always said no. Later she told me that if she ever got a dog, she would name it Ripley. I asked her why, and she said if she ever did end up getting a dog, she would choose one that looked like its name should be Ripley, because I guess she just thought they were the best kind of dog. 

    This dog definitely looked like a Ripley to me. 

    Something changed in me at that moment. I knew I hardly had enough money to support myself at the time, but I felt like I needed to take this dog in. 

    I had brought a hairbrush with me on my journey just in case I ever did get a job and needed to look nice at the interview. I bathed Ripley in a nearby lake and then used the brush on his scraggly fur. He ended up looking pretty nice. Well, at least, much cleaner than he had before. He was still pretty messy, but it was the best I could do. 

    I thought it might be a problem that Ripley didn't have a leash and I didn't have enough money for one, but I soon figured out that he was following me everywhere.