Muff n Stuff (Work in Progress CH 1,2,3 Drafts to date)

MUFF n STUFF - Draft of Chapter 'The Playground Trip'

Lalli's sneakerspushed all the way back on the bike pedals.She'd heard something that sounded like a growl.As her feet hit the brakes she glanced down and what she saw made her fingers lift all the way off the handle bars! AGerman Shepard, directly behind her right pedal, curled its muzzle back to show blood red gums and a blur of jagged teeth.Her fingers fumbled for the handlebars to guide her bicycle out of a giant zigzag before it jerked to a stop.The rounded silver of the bars, at first cool to the touch, soon felt slippery from sweat coating her palms that still tingled from impact against the bike’s hard forward pitch. Perched half off the seat, heart bouncing heavy in her ears, Lalli lifted her shaky leg from the pedal and pressed her sneaker toe hard to the pavement. With held breath she waited; certain the dog would lose interest once the bicycle spokes stopped rotating.

When the bike slammed to a halt the dog’s back legs buckled as it attempted to stop alongside the bike. The changed momentumforced the German Shepard into an awkward skid past the bike’s front tire.Before Lalli had time to react the animal had already shuffled footing, swung direction, and now bounded straight toward her. Lalli dared not breathe, she wrapped her hands tighter around the handle bars and watched, blinking back the morning sunlight that bounced off her bike’s blue fender. The dog lunged, spitting growls as it leapt high going for her throat. Lalli covered her neck with both hands.The handle bars tipped askew to the right when she’d released her hold and created a shaky barrier between them. Snapping teeth clamped air close to her skin with a hot snarling sound. Lalli felt her eyes were opened wide but she couldn’t see – blinded by white-heat hysteria - like when direct sunlight is too bright for the eyes. Why wasn’t the Werner girl doing anything? Lalli had biked past her only seconds before.

As if on cue, the girl hollered, “Rex!Get BACK here!”

Lalli’s eyes slid back into focus at the sound.The dog’s ears bent all the way forward mid-leap and the words shouted from the girl seemed to weaken the animal'sattack .The dog quickly dropped to all fours then bulleted away to its yard.

The noisy rattle of her bike’s back fender surprised Lalli.She looked down, confused, to see her bike tires bumping over railroad tracks.She hadn’t even looked for oncoming trains.She’d traveled over three blocks but only when her bicycle bounced over the tracks did she become aware of her surroundings.Bike pedals slowed pumping and Lalli slid back onto the seat.She’d raced all the way to the baseball fields.Lalli braked as she scanned the two-block length of the fields on her left then gazed at the building beyond.The only school she’d known.

HenryMcMillanGrade School’s grounds were empty on this Saturday morning.She heard the distant putter of a motor and Lalli’s shoulders relaxed at the sight of a lime green riding lawn mower that moved along the mid-field stretch.That must be Mr. Cullen.She felt safe then.She’d known the school’s maintenance man since her early years at the school.Often, she’d linger in her classroom after the last bell just to talk to him when he emptied the trash containers and swept aisles between desks.Sometimes he let her erase the classroom blackboards that had been left cluttered in snowy writing.Lalli thought of the booming white cloud she created when hitting dusty erasers together.Seeing Mr. Cullen in the distance calmed her.For a minute or two she stared at the horizontal lines etched in the grass where the mower had been.Feeling a sudden tiredness, Lalli tilted her bicycle to the ground.The ground was too soft at the edge of the baseball field to prop it up using the kickstand so she laid it down and watched the tires spin like a turtle that has been tipped over on its shell.Lalli dropped to the grass alongside it, taking deep breaths that inhaled a sweet fragrance of mown grass, and tried to understand what had just happened to her.That dog had jumped for her throat.

Her heart usually open, childlike, for all creatures – snakes excepted, of course – pulled back that day never to reopen as completely as before.Every day since, her hand retreated now instead of reaching out to any animal in the neighborhood.She held it back in the same way she held what had happened inside, like a terrible secret.Something unsettling, not easily understood.A dog had acted out an attempt to kill her. What did that dog see in her that it wanted to rip out her throat?It gave her deep shame.So deep she didn’t say a word about it to anyone.

When Lalli rode her bike around the neighborhood the following weekend she was careful to stay clear of the Werner house.On Oak Street old Mrs. Thompson waved her over to the curb.

Lalli stopped her bike in the middle of the street and Mrs. Thompson walked over to her, “Aren’t you the girl that Werner dog attacked?”

“No.” Lalli had straddled her legs to keep the bike upright but when she heard the question her foot slapped onto the right-side bike pedal.She lowered her head so Mrs. Thompson wouldn’t notice how her face flashed hot.

“Four blocks up - in front of the Werner’s house?”Lalli glanced at her without saying anything.Mrs. Thompson eyebrows arched, her eyes steady on Lalli.

“She looked just like you…”

Lalli pushed on the pedal and her bike moved forward.

“Same blue bike…”

“No.”Lalli said it without looking back.Her front bike tire jerked left then right as both feet slammed down on the pedals to get them moving as far away from nosy lady Thompson as she could.

She hadn’t said a word about the attack to anyone, just thinking of it made her queasy. She certainly wasn’t going to talk to old Mrs. Thompson about it.

Lalli made sure she stayed clear of both the Werner house and Mrs. Thompson every weekend following.

In the middle of the school year one of her classmates mentioned that the girl with black eye patch had moved.That’s how she found out the Werners no longer lived in the neighborhood.Even so, a full summer passed before Lalli dared go near the old Werner house again. They’d moved on but the memory remained.

It stayed in her thoughts whenever she rolled her bicycle out of the garage. The cool surface of her bike’s handle bars in early mornings flashed that moment of snarling teeth.It was there at first sight of a dog.Lalli lifted her sneakers off her bike pedals the moment she saw any dog.She stuck her legs out straight in front so they were lifted high off the ground only inches underneath the bike’s handle bars.That’s how she’d coast past until well out of the dog’s range or, if it took chase, until the dog tired and turned back to its yard. No matter how many times before the dog had chased her harmlessly, Lalli’s feet still shot off the pedals. Just to be sure.

Randy, an older boy who lived a block away, noticed it.“Go get her, Buck!” he’d encourage his inky-black mixed breed dog whenever Lalli biked down Baker Street.

“Stick Legs Lalli - scared as a mouse!” he’d yell the moment her legs lifted off the pedals.

Buck raced after her, at Randy’s urging, and barked non-stop alongside her sky-blue bike.She’d grip the white handle grips and balance on the seat, keeping her legs straight in front of her, for as long as the bike coasted.It wasn’t an easy position to be in.As she tried to keep balanced, her head had to duck to guard against the small alley rocks Randy pinged against her bicycle spokes.Some hit the flesh of her arm leaving red marks that took days to fade.Others bounced off her head with a sting.There were times Randy stood in the middle of the road with arms extended to force her to swerve off the road pavement.Many times her bike tire slid dangerously close to the edge of the sloping ditch alongside the road.

But Lalli rode fast and most times she’d get past Randy with enough coasting speed to keep him and his dog at a safe distance.Then she was free and clear to get to her favorite spot at the neighborhood’s edge, the horse farm.Sometimes the struggle to get to there made Lalli feel it was her safe haven.

The horse farm,over a mile away, was the last building for miles on the outskirts of the neighborhood.A dilapidated fence, four planks high laced with barbed wire, boxed in a large muddy area spotted with patches of green and brown grass.A weathered one-story wood building in the center of it all housed four horses.Weeds and grass were tall and plentiful along the ditch edges of the road bordering one side of the horse farm.The cracked hardtop of that road ended at the furthest fence corner and it continued on as a lonely dirt road that had grass growing in the middle between its dirt tracks.That dusty road snaked through miles of spindly birch trees leading to neighborhood hills, where Lalli with other neighborhood kids dragged their sleds every winter.

On summer days anyone passing would see Lalli’s bike leaning against one of many sprawling oak trees near the horse farm. She was fond of climbing onto a sloping branch to stare at woody acres stretched for miles.Hours passed as she watched the wind play with flapping leaves and branches.She balanced on tree limbs shared with ants and the tiniest crawling bugs she’d ever seen. Lalli simply breathed in her surroundings and let her thoughts spin like swirling dandelion puffs caught up in the wind.She thought about the books she’d read, her grade school teachers, and even how different her brother acted than her.It always surprised her how sudden the noon time sun lowered to mid-afternoon.Sitting without doing anything sounded tedious, she preferred movement, but some of her best moments were those spent motionless in a tree.

Sometimes she arrived at the horse farm with a library book or drawing notebook tucked under arm.If any of the four horses grazed near the fence, she’d perch on the top plank to extend handfuls of grass plucked from the ditch.If she’d brought sugar cubes they balanced timidly on open palm, ready to pull away at any moment, while the horses slurped at them.She’d stay seated atop the fence and watch the horses; many times forgetting to open her book, until the afternoon sun waned.It was different when other neighborhood kids were there with her.Those afternoons were spent balancing on the fence’s top plank to show each other how far they could walk along the top without falling.Lalli rarely fell.She was never sure if it was because she was sure footed or was too afraid to slip and be kicked by the back-end of a horse.

When Lalli’s eyes opened her thoughts were of the horse farm.Subdued light peeked from her bedroom curtains.Lalli closed her eyes in protest.Half the pleasure of the first day of summer vacation was being able to sleep late.But her grade school schedule still bubbled to the surface.Opened curtains revealed the sun low in a brilliant blue sky and an airplane left soft rumbles in the quiet morning.Puffed clouds drifted by that obscured the disappearing white coils of the plane’s trail suspended in the sky.Summer days ahead were like the path of that plane, expanding until it disappeared over the horizon.It was a glorious morning and Lalli was promptly glad she’d awaked early.

Her cereal bowl clattered in the sink.Grabbing her library book off the kitchen table she practically skipped outside to her favorite tree in the yard.The morning was so bright it made her sneeze when she’d walked down the four porch steps.The grass under the tree was still damp, there was the wonderful earthy smell of early summer in the air, but Lalli snuggled into the spot she’d found that wasn’t too uncomfortable.It felt cold where she sat.The seat of her shorts seeped in the ground moisture.She thought about going back inside but the moment she opened her book Lalli smiled.The book, propped on her knees, opened to the page her name, Laurel Mae Lacini, appeared four times in a row with official library date stamps beside each one on the checkout form glued to the book’s inside cover.

It was the same routine every time and this was no different.Lalli turned directly to Chapter Thirty-Five.She’d read it again and again, each time the heartache as much or more than the last.Why couldn’t Jo love Laurie? Lalli had never heard Sonata Pathetique but in that chapter, when Laurie played it passionately on the piano, it was as clear in Lalli’s mind had it been blasting from her own radio.It may not have been the exact melody of the song named in Little Women, but Lalli heard the music Laurie played on that piano all the same, each melancholy note deepened by Lalli’s knowledge that Jo ended up marrying that old guy Friedrich.It wasn’t right when it was Laurie who loved her!Lalli could not reconcile that in her heart, a poignancy heightened by the fact Lalli was a little in love with Laurie’s character herself.

“Keep that door propped open!”

“Give me a hand with this, will ya?”

Lalli hadn’t noticed male voices drifted over Laurie’s piano music playing in her head. More words filtered through the quiet of the morning. Her attention focused on the distant sounds of closing car doors mixed with other indistinguishable voices.Her thumb pressed against the page in her book and she peered between trunks of the trees that lined neighboring blocks. One block away, from what she could see, were dozens of brown boxes and various furniture items scattered in the front lawn of the two story white house where the Anderson’s used to live. Her book dropped against the tree so she could pop to her feet to see who was there.

Possibilities came to mind.In her eleven years Lalli seldom saw new people move into the neighborhood.Her heart flipped at the thought it could be a family of a girl her age.A new best friend!She crept to the edge of her yard then thought if she got her bike out of the garage she could ride past there for a better look; pretend she was just passing by.Lalli hoped the new girl liked to ride bikes.Or climb trees.Or skip rope…

Then her eyes widened. A dog scooted among the legs of adults who carried things into the house. Lalli grabbed a chunk of her hair and chewed the ends.The dog jumped and skipped around moving legs, it ran back and forth across the yard and shot in and out of the bushes that bordered one end of the yard.

The dog was the color of wet sand with several darker golden splotches here and there. The retriever down the street was larger but this new dog was still large enough to rip a chunk out of her ankle. Lalli measured dogs by the ease in which their teeth could reach her bike pedals. At least it wasn’t a German Shepard. That much Lalli knew. From her yard’s safety Lalli calculated how to avoid that block when riding her bike.

Baker Street with its ever-present threat of Randy and Buck was a better route now than the block in the other direction where a strange new dog made its home.It wouldn’t be hard to divert all of her summer bike riding to destinations that always started out on Baker Street. Her most beloved destinations, the horse farm and the school playground, both began in that same direction.

Sticking to the plan, Lalli’s bike sped through the neighborhood those first days of summer vacation not once crossing the block where that unfamiliar dog roamed.She spent time at the horse farm and sometimes sat on her favorite tree branch near the horses. At first, when her bike pedaled onto Baker Street, she’d glance behind to make sure the new dog wasn’t chasing after her.Worries about the dog diminished with each passing day, but not enough to ever turn her bike in the dog’s direction.Lalli enjoyed the sun drenched days of not having to dress up for school or worry about being called on in class.There was such a lightness to her days, like the feeling she got when the tire swing in the vacant lot was twisted as tight as it could wind before she jumped into its center and hung on for dear life as it whipped around and around.Lalli loved the feeling of her long hair flying behind her and how the rope unraveling speed jumbled her face. She was wistful thinking about it and missed going to the tire swing, but it was in the vacant lot two doors down from the new dog.

Although Lalli enjoyed afternoons of solitude at the horse farm she also missed the kids from school.For nearly two weeks she’d loaded library books onto the back of her bicycle and stayed for the entire day at the horse farm on a wooden bench near the barbed wire horse fence.She’d read more about Jo and her sisters, and Dr. Doolittle’s talking animals and solved mysteries with Nancy Drew. On rainy days she’d sat in the house with her older brother who was interested only in putting together his model cars and listening to Country Western music.She didn’t understand her brother; it was like they came from different worlds.

She really wanted to see other kids around her age so her bike headed toward the playground. It was only late June and already the early afternoon heat had made the day sluggish.Big fat flies buzzed lazily by.Even a slight breeze didn’t take away the heat.

Dumping her bike in the school’s rack, Lalli immediately kicked off her sneakers in the grassy stretch that surrounded the school’s courtyard. She sat on the playground cement where a four-square game had been painted onto the pavement in the same color as the divider line down Baker Street. The high brick wall of the school shaded the cement court. It felt good to be out of the sun.Grit from the cement stuck to sweat on the backside of her thighs. She stood to slap off the dirt sticking to her skin but stopped mid-slap when she noticed the young Hudson girl in the distance who shuffled through the grassy area toward the cement. All of the neighborhood kids knew there was something growing in that girl’s brain.That’s why her left leg dragged behind, her entire left side weighted down her movement.Lalli, whose body had always been quick and light, sensed the girl’s death walk and not understanding tried to move as far away from her as possible.As if one could catch death as easily as one caught a cold.She didn’t want to tempt fate by standing too near to it, that possibly walking away could prevent it.The sight of the Hudson girl troubled her. Lalli grabbed her sneakers and ran headlong into the bright sunshine and ended up on the far end of the grass at the zel-ball area.Two poles each with a tennis-like ball tethered to a shiny, white rope hung from their tips. The playing area was empty in the hot sun.

Two paddles had been discarded in the circle of light-colored sand that surrounded the pole. The sand stung her feet but she dug her toes deep into the sand to expose black soil underneath. Lalli bounced the ball against her palm and looked around.It was early afternoon and not many kids were at the playground.

She tossed the ball around the pole, watching the rope coil faster and faster around the pole as she bumped the ball along with her hand.She imagined she was in a tournament with the master zel-baller of the world.Lalli grabbed a paddle off the ground and slammed it against the ball.It swung around so forcefully she felt the whish of air when it whipped past her face.Take that, master zel-baller!

Lalli slapped the ball again and followed its movement. It furled around.After it wrapped the pole the ball bounced against it with no rope left and unraveled several turns in the other direction.She loved that. The motion of the ball speeding around the pole until it had no where else to go but backwards. Showing off to the imagined master zel-baller, Lalli wound and rewound the flying ball, until the taste of salty droplets seeped into the edges of her mouth.Lalli slowed to bouncing the ball gently off her paddle so she could wipe her hand across the sweat beaded on her forehead.The heat of the day had dwindled her energy and she was ready to go…

There was movement behind and before there was time to turn around she was startled by a zel-ball paddle in front of her face.Randy stepped to the sand opposite Lalli, cupped the ball in his left hand, and bumped it a few times to unravel the cord to game-starting position. Lallie’s right foot was positioned to run. Randy’s paddle swung and the ball smacked in her direction. It whipped around the pole twice before she realized Randy was challenging her.The game had started already and she was losing!

She’d lifted her paddle instinctually when the ball flew past above her head. She swiped air and the ball’s cord wrapped a third time around the pole.Three more times she’d lose any chance to beat him. A ball on a short cord was difficult to hit hard enough to get by an opponent – eliminating any advantage of forcing the ball high over an opponent’s head.The ball went by again, missed by Lalli’s paddle. Randy pounded the ball, swinging hard when it flew back around into his playing area. The cord whirled round the pole. Lalli hit the ball but Randy slammed it right back.She swung again but the ball full circled around the pole.Coming at her once more, Lalli banged it with her paddle.Randy made a wild swing and his paddle clinked on the pole when it missed the ball.Lalli’s eyes stung with sweat but she didn’t dare use her arm to wipe her face – one glance down and all could be lost.She jerked her head right, then left, but kept her eye on the ball.

After many back and forths, the cord grew longer until Lalli was able to hit the ball square-on, getting it to swing high and fast above Randy’s head. He jumped with his paddle above his head to slap the ball back in her direction. She forced it toward him again and he slugged it past her.Lalli gained cord in her direction several swings later but she was weakening.The heat and the exertion pushed her to want to quit.But there was something sticking in her mind, the times he’d pushed her to the ground or slapped snow in her face, or hit her bike with rocks and called her names.She was going to stand her ground and not be beaten by him, especially him.Her fingers gripper harder on the paddle.

But she was tired. He’d already reversed some advances she’d made.

“They’re STILL playing?” She could hear the voices of kids walking by and tried not to get distracted.

Lalli’s arm felt weighted down.When the ball flew into her playing space she had to squint from the increasing ache in her arm but continued to pound the ball.Drops of sweat sprinkled out of her eyes whenever she blinked.Suddenly she realized the ball had just twisted at least twice around the pole in her favor. Randy had been grunting with every swing lately. He’d batted back a few but the cord wound faster in Lalli’s favor than it rewound. Randy held his paddle close to the pole as the cord wrapped tighter around, its length the shortest since the start of the game.

When she saw that shortened cord she didn’t want to get too excited, but she could feel adrenalin course in her veins at the thought.She struggled hard to not lose focus.There was always the possibility Randy could get in a few strong hits and they’d be back where’d they’d been the majority of the game. He bounced the ball back at her and her paddle steadied, held up close to the pole. She bounced the ball by him twice, its cord now less than a foot in length. It was as if the ball was stuck in that position, Randy continued his strong fight for the cord and neither one missed the ball as it flew back and forth.Lalli felt her energy regaining.It felt good.The heat and aches and fatigue dissolved in her resolve to show him, on equal footing, without rocks or snowballs or name calling, she could stand up to him – blow by blow.The words repeated over and over in her mind, you can use rocks and snowballs and words, but that doesn’t make you the winner… She whacked the ball and just like that it whirled two more times around and the ball hit the pole!

At first she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it.Randy flung down his paddle so hard it half-buried in the sand and he scrambled to his bike dumped on the nearby sidewalk. He jerked it upright with one hand and pushed his foot on the pedal using his other leg to give it a rolling start and suddenly he was gone.In her head crowds clapped and whistled and pounded their feet and a roar went up in the stadium.With all of the raucous cheering and yelling still floating in her head, she turned around to bask in her great victory!She was the Roman gladiator who’d just survived the lions.She turned to face the crowds.

A small group of kids sat in the grass near the zel-ball playing area but they were busy braiding leather for bracelets.Other kids were gathered in groups a short distance away, more were back further near the drinking fountain but only one or two heads were turned her way, and it didn’t look like they had any interest in the outcome of the grand battle that had just taken place mere yards from them.

But Lalli knew what had happened on the playground that day… and Randy knew.It was one of the shining moments of her life.

Lalli’s throat felt like sandpaper.She hurried in the direction of the drinking fountain to the other end of the grassy area. She wanted only to lie on the green grass and catch her breath. But first - water. She stumbled by several kids. “I need water,” she told a former classmate, Cindy, who was standing nearby, and pointed at her throat. Cindy stepped aside to let her pass. The drinking fountain, a few yards away, seemed to be miles in distance. Lalli bowed her head to wipe dripping sweat from her face, using the hem of her too-big t-shirt. She was perspiring too much to simply blot it, she had to wipe her shirt hem across her face, twice, that left the lower half of her t-shirt wet. She pulled at the wet section to get it off her stomach for a moment and the next thing she knew she was half kneeling on the ground. She looked back, realizing she’d tripped, rather ungracefully, over someone’s foot. Lalli could have lain on the grass right there and not move for a long while. If only she had a drink of water.

Something soft brushed against her. Dog teeth clamped onto the zel-ball paddle that was still in her hand. Lalli let go immediately and drew back. The dog dropped the paddle from its mouth and ran back and forth in front of her, making strange muffled barking sounds, then it stopped in front of her several times looking expectantly at her.

“He’s not going to bite you.” The boy’s voice sounded defensive.

When Lalli turned to look behind the boy’s head tilted a bit and his eyes, widening, darted back and forth across her face. Lalli felt warmth splotch her face.She wondered if he’d been the one whose leg she’d tripped over. She had to believe him about the dog since she was half-kneeling, still, on the ground.

“He thinks you want to play.”The boy’s dark brown eyes and smiling mouth pushed all fears of the dog out of her head for the moment.

“Come ‘mere, boy!” The boy patted his jeans as he said it. The dog lifted both ears and it piled into the boy, wagging its tail furiously and yelping excitedly, not quite barking, it was more of a muffled sound.

“That’s my boy!” The boy shook the dog’s head and scratched behind its ears. Lalli recognized the dog’s markings. It was a sandy colored dog spotted with golden splotches.

The boy hugged the dog. “He just wants to play.” That caused the dog to half bark again in that muffled sound.

The boy smiled. “His name’s Muff. Can you guess why?”

That’s exactly how the bark sounded. Muff. muff… muff… muff… muff muff muff.

“He only does that when he’s excited.” The boy released Muff. The dog bolted across the playground and Lalli managed to position her lips into a smile of sorts but her eyes stayed on the dog. Muff raced back to them and tumbled into the boy again. The boy’s laugh had a smooth, exuberant sound to it.He lifted the dog’s paws off his shoulders and patted Muff behind the ears again. The dog’s eyes closed and it panted in the hot sun. Lalli could swear that dog had a look of contentment.

“You can pet him.” The boy said. Lalli, still supported on one knee, hesitated then inched her body, using her hands to help stretch her body closer to the dog, and at a comfortable distance reached her hand toward the dog. Muff opened his eyes. Lalli’s hand stayed where it was, suspended in air.

“I’ve seen you riding your bike.” The boy said.

Lalli eased her hand away from the dog. What should she say to this boy?His hair, the color of tree bark darkened after rain, curled in places and hung almost to the top of his eyelashes.He looked like one of those boys pictured on the teen magazines in the grocery store. When he shook his bangs to one side it revealed a faint scar near his left eyebrow.

“..and sometimes I see you sitting in that big tree by the horses.”

Lalli’s face blazed hot.

“Hey there, Jasper!”Jasper’s head turned at the sound of his name and Lalli, thankful for the interruption, put her hand against her cheek but when she looked up again her face paled when she recognized the group of smiling girls that approached.

“Hi,” Jasper twisted around again to flash a smile at Lalli then turned back as the girls stopped at his feet, half surrounding him.That’s just how they were in school, always in the same little group, even in the school bathroom.They even lived close to each other, in houses halfway between Lalli’s house and the horsefarm.One of the girls, Polly, looked down at Lalli sprawled on the grass.

“Look at her feet!”Polly said it as if Lalli wasn’t sitting within hearing distance.“They’re so dirty.”Another girl, Sheryl, scrunched her nose, “…so are her clothes.” All three stepped back as if the area was contaminated.

Lalli glanced down at the pale blue t-shirt she’d put on earlier that morning and instantly regretted that she’d used the hem to wipe grime from her face.Dirt was streaked across her shirt from the zel-ball hitting against her during the game.Her other knee, caked with dirt, had patches of dried blood that’d bubbled out of a scrape, and her feet… her feet were black from the zel-ball pit. Even underneath her toenails.

It was no wonder those girls had stepped back. All three sparkled, like the icy sheen of moonlight on a frozen lake, in white cotton sleeveless shirts, Polly’s shirt had green metallic thread decoration along the hemline.Even her sandals had tiny pink and green flowers that decorated the straps.

Lalli pushed herself up from her knees, wincing from the pressure on her cut knee, but she was careful to make a dignified rise to her feet and brushed grass from her shorts while those girls continued to stare.Too embarrassed to look at Jasper’s face, she stumbled along to the water fountain.Were they making fun of her?Was that boy, Jasper, laughing with them?Did he like those haughty girls? Lalli didn’t dare look back.Something soft bumped her leg.

Polly’s voice could be heard cooing from behind her, “Isn’t it cute?” and all of the girls voices beckoned, “Come ‘mere, doggie!”

Lalli couldn’t help thinking those girls were nicer to an unknown dog than they were to her, who’d lived near them for years.The dog, Muff, twisted his head to look behind when the girls started calling but stayed at Lalli’s side as she hurried to the drinking fountain.If Lalli hadn’t been a little afraid of that dog, she would have bent down and hugged his beautiful neck right there.

Note: Pictures taken from Google images.