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CHAPTER ONE
Lost and Found
    I found the boy at dusk.
    The blizzard was fierce, and it would soon be dark.
    I could barely see him with the snow blowing sideways. He stood at the edge of the icy pond, shivering.
    He had no hat, and his blond hair wasplastered to his head.
    Suddenly a limb cracked and fell down next to him, and when he jumped to one side, he saw me coming through the drifts of snow toward him.
    I nosed his hand gently. He wasn’t afraid of me.
    He was afraid of the storm. I could see tear streaks on his face.
    He led me to his sister crouched under a big tree, a blanket wrapped around her. She was younger, maybe eight. The boy pulled the blanket more tightly around her.
    I nosed her, too. When she stood up, my eyes looked into hers.
    I would take care of them.
    I’m a dog. I should tell you that right away. But I grew up with words. A poet named Sylvan found me at the shelter and took me home. He laid down a red rug for me by the fire, and I grew up to the clicking of his keyboard as he wrote.
    He wrote all day. And he read to me. He read Yeats and Shakespeare, James Joyce, Wordsworth, Natalie Babbitt, and Billy Collins. He read me Charlotte’s Web , The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , Morning Girl , and my favorite story, Ox-Cart Man . So I saw how words follow one another and felt the comfort of them.
    I understand words, but there are only two who understand me when I speak.Sylvan once told me this.
    â€œPoets and children,” said Sylvan. “We are the same really. When you can’t find a poet, find a child. Remember that.”
    Remember that.
    The boy held on to my body to help him stand in the wind.
    â€œHelp,” he said.
    I knew what his word meant.
    Sylvan taught me about rescue.
    I would save them the way Sylvan had saved me.
    The boy took his sister’s hand, and they followed me. We hurried through thewoods, past the big rock, down the path by the shed where I had slept after Sylvan was gone. It had only been three days. I had learned to count:
    Day and night one.
    Day and night two.
    Day and night three.
    Or was it four days? Being alone confuses the truth about time.
    Sylvan’s poetry students took turns feeding me. Ellie, my favorite, knew that I couldn’t sleep in the house with Sylvan gone. She would have taken me home with her, but she knew I couldn’t leave either.
    The boy put his hand on my neck. It felt good to me. Sylvan used to walk in thewoods with his hand on my neck. Sometimes he spoke in poems.
    I felt like crying. But here’s another truth: dogs can’t cry. We can feel sadness and grief.
    But we can’t cry.
    â€œWhere are we going?” the girl asked, her clear voice like a bell. The wind whipped her hair across her face.
    â€œHome,” I said, speaking for the first time.
    She wasn’t surprised I spoke.
    She put her face close to my ear so I could feel her warm breath.
    â€œThank you,” she whispered.
    I wished I could cry.

CHAPTER TWO
Home
    W e reached the clearing, struggling through the snow and wind.
    â€œOh!” said the girl when she saw the cabin.
    There was the light in the window. Sylvan had kept it on all the nights and days we lived together.
    â€œIt’s our beacon,” he’d told me.
    I knew the door wouldn’t be locked. I nosed the lever on the door open. Sylvan had given me the lever so that I could go in and out as I wanted.
    We stepped out of the howling of wind into the quiet.
    The boy and girl stripped off their coats and I shook snow from my fur.
    â€œI’m Flora,” said the girl. “I’m cold. My blanket is wet. He’s Nickel,” she added, pointing to her brother.
    â€œI’m Nicholas,” he said. “Flora calls me Nickel.”
    â€œI’m Teddy,” I said. “I like Nickel.”
    It was dark except for the one beaconlight. Nickel turned on two lamps.
    â€œCan you build a fire?” I asked him. “There’s wood