The next morning, she awoke with something slimy and wet lapping against her face. Opening her stinging eyes, she saw the German Shepherd standing over her. He pulled the sleeve of her hoodie in the means of getting her to sit up.
They both examined each other letting everything sink in, and then the girl finally spoke.
"My name doesn't matter," she stroked the back of the dog "but I'm going to call you Luca for now, okay?"
Luca abated his panting and gave a look of reassurance.
"I guess you can call me Serenity, but of course, you don't speak English."
Serenity fiddled with the cage lock out of habit knowing no matter what she did it wouldn't unlock.
"So how are we going to get out?"
Luca gave out a grunt to catch her attention, then started throwing up. She turned around in a confliction of concern and disgust.
"Ew! Are you okay!?"
From the jaws of the canine popped something silver. A key!
Serenity picked it up with her bandana, which had her name and address written on it, and she scrubbed off the slobber before trying it on the lock.
"So that's why you were so close to his pocket! Clever boy!"
There was a click, and the cage creaked open. They both bailed out and stretched their aching limbs.
She saw that her father's truck had vanished, so she headed inside the shack for a change of clothes.
A brown blur darted past Serenity, and suddenly, her pockets felt lighter.
Turning around she found Luca was gone; his tail disappeared back into the bushes.
"Hey!! Come back! You took my stuff!!"
With the cage key, Serenity's bandana, and father's ID in his mouth, Luca ran through the verdant forest like he owned it. He was leaping over logs, dodging miscellaneous bramble and rogue branches, hurling himself towards the police station one lunge at a time. He couldn't just leave what he experienced behind him. Soon there will be hope.
Back at the shack, Serenity stood with the mud against her bare feet. Before her was that mountain of trash. She clenched her fists as her father's words repeated in her head in a mat of negativity.
"Nothing but trash, no matter how hard you try it'll never be anything else!"
She picked up an empty water bottle and gazed at it with gentle eyes.
"No, you're more than that. You just need a little push."
Soon she found herself picking up all the water bottles and planks of wood creating six wall frames and a door.
The project took Serenity all day and all night, but once it was done, before her was the most beautiful greenhouse she had ever seen. Sunlight breached through the plastic, illuminating the bottles like stained glass once more.
She filled the house with hanging shelves, potted plants, books, and a hammock. The girl collapsed into the net, proud of her work. A tranquility short-lived she heard the engine of her father's truck pull into the driveway.
"What the hell is this!?" He snapped, noticing Serenity's masterpiece.
Before he could say anything else, two police cars drove onto the road from the ditch. Luca leading the way, tail wagging and high in the air. He growled at the crude man as he was cuffed with little words passed between the two parties. Yet, he still continued to ramble at his daughter.
She ignored his words of protest and grinned.
"I don't need your piece of mind, nor do I need serenity because that's who I already am."
Luca attacked Serenity with wet kisses and joy, pinning her to the ground.
"So he's not your dog?" she questioned the cop with some difficulty pushing Luca off her chest, still ignoring her dad.
"Nope, he's a stray. A very intelligent one at that. It would be a shame to just let him go instead of adopting him."
"Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt if he stayed for awhile longer!" Serenity's laugh was muffled by a big wet dog tongue.
"Pathetic trash!" his words struck like a viper, but still mananged to ricochet.
Serenity carefully picked up a tree sapling which was planted inside a scrap milk carton.
"Just because you're a pile of piss-filled garbage doesn't mean you can't do great things. That's why it's called a trash can, not a trash cannot."
