Read Online Mountain Dog by Margarita Engle - Free Book Online Page A

trail
    will lead toward a future
    and which could carry me back
    into my past.
    I can choose to continue
    feeling like one of Mom’s
    doomed puppies
    or I can let my mind
    take that first step
    toward safety.
    So I tell the social worker
    to stop scheduling me for prison visits.,
    and I tell Tío that I’m tired of waiting
    for Mom
    to grow up.
    I’m ready for my own turn to grow.
    I’m tired of feeling tired, and worried,
    and secretly
    scarily
    furious.
    That night, as I paint my face
    in a snarling bear design, it feels natural
    to be someone else for a change.
    Gabe wears my magician’s hat
    with a stuffed toy rabbit
    hidden inside.
    Even though he can’t see the toy,
    Gabe knows it’s there, because
    his genius-nose always shows him
    invisible secrets.
    Gracie wears a red and gold sari
    from India, and the spotted horse
    is dressed as a funny elephant,
    with a floppy trunk
    made of braided hay
    that keeps vanishing
    into a horse-mouth.
    I’m too shy to say it out loud
    but Gracie looks pretty
    and she’s starting to act
    as if she likes me
    in a teenage way
    that makes me
    feel dizzy.
    The cabins are too far apart
    for trick-or-treating, so we play
    all sorts of hilarious games
    at a Cowboy Church Carnival
    where Gabe and I ride perched
    on top of a giant pumpkin
    in a decorated wagon
    pulled by Gracie’s
    elephant-horse.
    I imagine it’s the last time I’ll feel
    young enough to enjoy acting silly,
    but it’s also the first time I’ve ever
    been old enough to laugh
    at people
    in monster suits.
    In my other life, Halloween
    meant guarding the pit bulls
    from drunk, costumed thieves.
    In my other life
    all the monstrous nightmares
    were real.
    But everything isn’t always
    easy now. Instead, the hours flip
    back and forth between hopeful
    and sad.
    There’s an ugly surprise waiting for me
    at the end of my life’s first happy
    Halloween. It comes in the form
    of a call that makes Mom’s
    phone voice
    sound as poisonous
    as deadly nightshade berries.
    Mom’s in trouble. She’s been fighting.
    A guard was hurt. Time will be added
    to her sentence. Years will be added
    to my foster care.
    Tío doesn’t make me wonder
    what will happen next.
    He tells me right away
    that he wants to raise me,
    one way or another, either
    as my foster dad—or if Mom
    and the family court judge
    can agree—as my really, truly
    adopted dad
    forever!
    But it’s not just him, B.B. wants me too.
    When they talk about OUR family,
    Tío calls her Beatrice, or Bee,
    and suddenly, I realize that she
    has a name of her own.
    She’s not just Gracie’s grandma
    or a bear biologist. She’s herself,
    helping me figure out how
    to be myself.
    Best of all, she’ll soon be
    my foster mom, or maybe even
    my adopted mom,
    because beautifully brave
    Beatrice and my hero-uncle
    are getting married!
    With Gracie’s parents due
    to come home soon,
    I won’t even have to worry
    about becoming anything weird
    like my best friend’s stepbrother.
    Being part of the family seems
    so complicated and exciting
    that I feel like a dog
    in a pack of strays,
    trying to understand
    glances and gestures
    because I don’t have
    enough words
    to express
    my wildly
    wondrously
    mixed-up
    feelings.

 
    36
    GABE THE DOG
    WINNERS
    I don’t know what all
    his fast human words
    mean
    but I love the sound of Tony’s
    happiest voice
    so I listen
    and I sniff his hands
    until I’m sure his mood rhymes
    with winning a shared
    hide-and-seek
    game.

 
    37
    TONY THE BOY
    PUPPY TESTING
    Gracie’s parents are back just in time
    for an engagement party.
    Gabe and I will both be the best men
    at a wedding in the spring,
    but for now, I don’t have to dress up.
    I just wear regular clothes,
    and watch grown-ups dancing
    half-festive island salsa,
    and half-calm, cool, old-folks
    American.
    Everything’s changing
    so fast
    that I