by Barbara Mccutcheon

Created on: April 08, 2009

My best friend walks a lot faster than I do. Every afternoon we walk our dogs along the creek. Michelle and Pepper walk up and down, running ahead then coming back to join Hoover and me. Hoover, on the other hand, usually likes to go sniffing around, taking his time and making sure everything is all right with each bush before moving on to the next one. His preference suits me fine since I get to walk slowly and pause occasionally.

The path we usually walk is a rutted dirt road cut into the steep side of a valley formed by the creek that meanders south and east of our town. About a mile from its start, there's a fork in the road. One branch is marked, "Private Property, No Trespassing," and the other crosses the creek. After that the road gets worse, finally ending at a dilapidated old farm house with a shaggy, overgrown yard. The place looked abandoned. We'd certainly never seen anyone there.

Trees were beginning to encroach on the fields.
It's a nice place to pick wildflowers in the summer, but this wasn't summer. Autumn had kissed the trees with frost the week before, but temperatures had climbed this week. Michelle and I were in short sleeved shirts, jeans and hiking boots.

Last Wednesday was different, though. That day Pepper was the one who didn't want to run ahead, while Hoover pulled my arm half off until we got to the bridge. He stepped onto the bridge then stopped, nose in the air.

"What is it, boy?" Hoover licked my face then headed back off the bridge and started down the embankment.

"Where are you going? What's down there?" Michelle shouted, "C'mon Pepper! What's wrong with you?"

Pepper didn't want to come. She kept crossing in front of Michelle, trying to turn her around.

I followed, trying to avoid the thorns, "There's a dog down here and it looks hurt," I yelled up to Michelle, "It's also filthy and soaking wet."

"It's probably a stray. C'mon leave it there and let's get home. It's almost supper time."

"She's got a collar with an ID tag, says her name's Princess. I'm going to get an old blanket and some food for her.

"Well we'd better hurry, it'll be dark soon."

We were a little late for supper that evening, but told our parents we'd lost track of time playing with the dogs. We didn't tell them anything about the dog under the bridge. We were afraid they'd ground us for going near a strange animal.

After supper I had to finish my civics report. We had been allowed to pick any current topic we wanted, so I chose to write about the Amber Alert and Code Adam

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