Left Behind (8 page)

J
unie, the owner of the huskies, knocks at the clinic door just as we're finishing. She and Jerry, their daughters, and her mother have all come up with a solution about what to do with the fighting dogs. Junie's mother will take Ariel, and Junie, Jerry, and their daughters will keep Elsa. The girls go to their grandmother's house every day after school, so every day they'll be able to play with both dogs. Junie signs some paperwork for Dr. Mac and takes Elsa home. Ariel will stay with us another day. I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the little girls will still have the dogs they named and love. Most important, everyone will be safer with this solution.

A while later, Maggie, Brenna, and I decide to take down the tent. Dr. Mac and Dr. Gabe can handle things without us. Melissa has even gone home for the day. I'm pretty sure that the next time she comes to work at Dr. Mac's Place, she'll get a warm reception from the Vet Volunteers. Well, at least from those of us who have already had a chance to meet her.

We pile our sleeping bags and other stuff beside the tent. Brenna and I pull the tent poles down, and Maggie pulls the tent taut so we can fold it up.

“You haven't told Maggie about your new addition yet, have you?” Brenna says, pulling out the stakes with the claw of a hammer.

“What new addition?” Maggie asks.

“A kitten! My parents are finally allowing me to get another cat,” I say.

“That's great. Wait, how long has this been a thing?” Maggie asks.

“Just since Thursday. We've been talking about it for a year. But then one of my father's partners told him that his son's cat had kittens. We went and looked at them, and they are the cutest things. My parents finally agreed.”

“Congratulations!” Maggie says. “Hey, how come Brenna knew and I didn't?”

“Well, I planned on telling you the first night of this weekend. I had planned on us making a list of kitten names and maybe even watching a cat documentary that I brought. But then things got a little hectic at the clinic. Plus, you were kind of mad about Mrs. Van Hoven that night, and I wanted to tell you when you could be happy for me.

“Then the next night we camped outside, which would have made it hard to look at my kitten-litter pictures and make the list.”

“You should have said something,” Maggie says. “We could have done all that.”

“But you guys wanted to camp out,” I say.

Brenna says, “We didn't have to. We could have at least talked about it.”

“I guess so,” I say. I start folding the tent with Maggie while Brenna puts the poles in the nylon bag.

I'm tempted to stop there and just let it drop, but I don't. “I was going to tell you last night,” I say. “But with everything going on, I didn't want to mention it.”

“Well, I'm sorry if I made it hard for you to tell me,” Maggie says. “But you know, I would have been less cranky thinking of your new kitten.”

Brenna laughs. “That might have helped. But
maybe not.” Then Brenna turns to me and says, “Sunita, as long as we're being honest about things, I'd like to point something out to you.”

“What's that?” I ask. I help Maggie stuff the tent into the larger nylon bag.

“When you want the last slice of pizza, or maybe a peach, you should just say so,” Brenna says.

I laugh.

“Really, Sunita.” Brenna stops dropping the stakes into the bag and looks at me. “I'm serious.”

“A piece of pizza doesn't matter. If someone else wanted it, I wouldn't have starved,” I say. Really, Brenna is making a big deal out of something so trivial.

“This time it's pizza, next time it's saying what you really want to do,” Maggie says.

What? I don't say anything for a minute. I try to think about what they're saying. Maybe they're right. I didn't help with the horse, Tinker, when I wanted to. But Maggie knew I was nervous around horses. So I really didn't mind that she jumped in, did I? And all that business with my telling them about my new kitten—I was just being silly. Then I think about other times when I hold back a little. But isn't that kind of me? To let others go first. Choose first?

“I'm just being nice,” I say.

“You don't have to be nice, Sunita. You are nice,”
Brenna says. “But if you never say what you really want, how can we know?”

I think about Sylvester, how he needed me to speak up for him. And how it didn't upset Mrs. Van Hoven when I did.

“Brenna's right,” Maggie adds. “We can't read your mind. We don't know what you really want. It's like you're deciding for us instead of letting us all decide on things together.”

“I guess you're right. I'm not being fair. To you guys, or to myself,” I say. “I never thought of it that way. It's just hard for me to speak up sometimes.”

“I get that,” Maggie says. “Sometimes it's hard for me to shut up. But we're all cool now, right?” Maggie asks.

“We're cool,” I say.

“Uber-cool,” says Brenna. “Especially compared to the last couple days.”

We laugh and carry the tent to Dr. Mac's garage and shove it up onto the shelf.

I look at these two good friends of mine, and I realize that I can tell them anything. “You know, I've been thinking—” I start.

“Sounds dangerous,” Maggie interrupts, laughing.

“No, I'm serious,” I say. “You know I want to be a vet. But the big animals scare me. Maybe you can help me learn how to get more used to them?”

“Of course,” Maggie says. “Though you know it's totally natural to be scared. Big animals can be dangerous, especially when they're hurt or ill. Even my grandmother gets nervous sometimes. The main thing is to focus on what you can do to help.”

Brenna nods in agreement, and I smile. Getting my fear out in the open—and hearing that it's all part of the job—makes me feel so much better.

“One more thing,” I add. “About cross-country, I'm going to need to think about it,” I tell them. “I'm not going to try out for the team just to be nice, or just because you think I should. I'm only going to do it if I decide I want to.”

Now it's Maggie's turn to smile. “That's the spirit,” she says.

“Hey, you know what we should do right now?” Brenna says. “Make that list of kitten names.”

“Too late,” I say. “I have already figured out what I'm going to call my kitten.”

“Tell us,” Brenna says.

“I'm naming her after the sweetest cat I ever knew,” I say. “I'm naming her Lucy.”

It's the perfect name—we all agree—as we walk back inside the place where we all belong: Dr. Mac's Place.

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