Fight for Life

Chapter Four

A girl wearing a faded green “Save the Whales” sweatshirt leans against the counter. The fabric looks soft and worn from years of washing. She has a long black ponytail that swings over one shoulder. Maggie recognizes her from school. She also has a pet crow named Edgar Allan Poe Crow. She’s Brenna Lake, and Maggie is surprised when she explains she’s the newest volunteer.

Gran pokes her head into the waiting room, looking relieved. She says she’s glad Brenna made it. Maggie and Brenna look at each other awkwardly, neither one sure what to say.

Gran adds that with Brenna around, Maggie will finally have more time for her homework. Uh-oh, the dreaded H-word. Brenna will help with the clinic chores after school. To start off with, the cages need cleaning, and the newest patients need fresh eyes in the recovery room.

But this is all Maggie’s job, and handing it over to someone else feels wrong. She can tell right away this just isn’t going to work. Maggie makes excuses to try to get out of studying, hunting for any reason to stay busy with the animals. She argues that it’s not fair to give Brenna so much work on her first day. Perhaps Maggie can study in the recovery room instead, so she can be there to help Brenna with questions. Brenna says it would be nice to have Maggie there to show her around.

Shelby, Inky, and Dinky are curled up together, sleeping in a puppy pen on the floor of the recovery room. A heat lamp glows warmly above them. Maggie explains that any patient recovering from surgery or from being sick lives here. The room smells faintly of disinfectant, lined with cage after cage. Gran is strict about everything staying spotless. Maggie shows Brenna to a double-decker row of cages against the back wall. She demonstrates how to pull out the dirty newspaper, disinfect and wipe down the inside, and lay down a fresh layer of clean newspaper. Brenna catches on quickly, cleaning the second cage almost as fast as Maggie cleaned the first. Maggie will have to talk with Gran so that Brenna doesn’t end up taking over more of Maggie’s jobs.

Maggie drags out her backpack and flops down on the floor with her social studies book open in her lap. She has a government exam tomorrow. Brenna warns that on her own exam, she had to write an entire essay on the steps required to make a new law. Maggie already knows laws start with ideas, and that state representatives vote on them. Blah, blah, blah. Maggie finds her eyelids drooping over the dull paragraphs. She needs a break.

Maggie points out that Brenna isn’t using enough disinfectant. She warns that without enough of it, the cages will turn moldy and gross. She reaches out for the bottle, ready to show Brenna how to do it properly again. Brenna holds it out of reach and retorts that she doesn’t want Gran walking in and seeing Maggie doing everything. The two glare at each other like stubborn mules until Brenna spritzes the tray again and wipes it down with a paper towel. Maggie may have met her match.

Brenna tells Maggie that she cleaned Poe’s cage once, back when he was injured and still living inside instead of flying free. He’d been shot with a pellet gun by kids not much older than herself. It’s an act that still makes her frown to talk about. The intent was to set Poe free eventually, but now, he’s simply one of the family.

The two girls sit cross-legged across from each other, with the puppies curled in the warm pen between them. Dinky is still breathing quickly, the same rapid rate as before. His fluid keeps dripping slowly, meaning he needs less of it than he did earlier. Maggie explains she learned everything she knows from Gran, and from a lifetime spent living at the clinic. Her parents died in a car crash when she was just a baby. The clinic is the only home Maggie has ever known.

Maggie tucks a soft blanket snugly around the still-shivering Dinky. He opens his small mouth in a wide yawn, then snuggles his head against Maggie’s warm palm.

Then Gran comes in, her expression serious and hurried. She declares that a whole litter of sick puppies is coming in. Gran will need extra help while she tries to track down another vet or vet technician to come in. Their associate, Dr. Gabe, is busy doing goat vaccinations out at a local farm. It sounds like the new puppies are malnourished and wormy, in need of immediate care. She tells the girls to wash up.