to me, but with dads as strict as hers, I am not surprised in the least.
I’m not surprised my mom isn’t here yet, either. I figure she is either late getting off from Lucille’s, or has totally forgotten about me. Either one is as much of a possibility.
I push myself off the curb, prepared to take the long twenty-minute walk home in the dark, minutes from midnight. What’s the worst that can happen, right? It’s Spruce, Texas. Spruce is safe, unless you count the mythical pack of stray dogs who police the streets, growling in the dead of night at any lone passerby. (That would be me.) So unless I’m superstitious, I have nothing to fear.
Still, after I leave the comfort of Biggie’s and the brightly-lit Main Street, my heart rate speeds up. With just the occasional dim streetlamp overhead, I carry on down the sidewalk, my eyes now and then darting left or right at the hint of a perceived footstep or rustling of grass. I tuck my greasy apron tighter under my arm as I pick up my pace. I reach the intersection between Spruce High and the street that stretches on to the suburbs where I live. The high school is a creepy beast in the dark, only one single parking lot light spilling its whitish-yellow murk over an empty concrete desert. The noise of crickets fills my ears as I hurry across the wide road, even in the obvious absence of any vehicles at all. As I pass by the school, my thoughts drift back to Vann and the way he looked at me after reading the cast list. Was he picturing how it will look in rehearsal, the day we have to kiss each other as Kingsley and Danny? Did the notion sicken him? Embarrass him? Or did it annoy him, since he pictured one of the other girls who auditioned as Danielle? I’d thought that at the very least Ms. Joy would have read some of us together in a scene, to see if we had natural chemistry, or to see if we played well off each other. Instead, she seemed to make a snap decision, and now here we are.
I regret my recklessness. Deeply.
When I turn the next corner, I come to a stop. In the pool of light from a nearby streetlamp, a small figure is crouched, poised and waiting, maybe ten paces away.
A dog.
Chills race down my back. I only a minute ago thought of the mythical pack of dogs, didn’t I? Did I manifest this? Is this some kind of karmic joke, teaching me not to make light of suburban legends? Is this my penance?
The dog barks once, then breaks into a sprint.
So do I.
My Biggie’s Bites apron gets lost, flying from my hand as I run down the road. The only noise in the whole world is my feet slapping the pavement. I’m so, so sorry for summoning the dark dog spirits! Please, please don’t hurt me! Please! I can’t stop my feet as I tear around another corner, coming up to the other side of Spruce High, running in the wrong direction away from home. The scary dog is no doubt chasing me. I think it’s barking, but I can’t seem to hear anything except the noise of my own labored breathing.
Something catches my foot.
For one beautiful second, I’m airborne.
Then I slam face-first into a sloppy, gooey pile of mud. Or at least I think that’s what it is, and it’s all over me. Whatever sidewalk I was racing down has ended abruptly, and now a field of dirt, dead grass, and mud stretches in the darkness ahead.
The dog’s panting breath is on me in seconds.
I cower, cover my head, and scream out, “STOP! GO AWAY!”
Until the dog’s tongue laps at my quivering nose, and its foul breath blasts eagerly over my cheeks.
I wrinkle my nose and twist away from the dog, opening my eyes. Caked in mud and reeking of filth, I sit up at once when I get a look at her dopey face. “W-Winona?”
She continues lovingly assaulting me with her big wet tongue, licking and panting and breathing all over me. I break into a laugh of hysteria at once, as I attempt to manage the excited dog, who is determined to climb all over me and make me twice as muddy as I just made myself. I am such an idiot.
And this dog needs a breath mint.
“Hey! Dog!”
Winona and I both look up, like