“But that’s not what’s happening. Remember what Mrs. Middleton said to do with those thoughts?”

  “I am,” Samantha retorted. Her jaw and throat were tense and her voice was tight. “I know. I’m not panicking. I just don’t want Ripley to go into a burning house! He could get killed!”

  Ben nodded. “For sure.” He paused, pondering. “So could I,” he pointed out.

  Mom and Samantha stared at him in surprise, and he nodded again. “It’s the job. It’s dangerous. We go places that are on fire and we try to save lives and property, and it’s at our own risk.” He gave Samantha a sad smile.

  “I’m sorry I misjudged you,” he told her. “I thought you would fight to keep Ripley, even though he’s not technically your dog. I should have known you weren’t like that—you said you understood Ripley is going to work at Fire Station Five, and I ignored how grown-up you were being.” He sighed. “I would be lying if I said Ripley will never be in danger. But every risk he takes will be necessary to saving people. It’s his job; it’s our job.”

  Samantha stared at him and slowly nodded.

  Our walk home was not as joyous as I’d expected, despite the heat and glorious sunshine and the smells on every side. Once we got there, Ben left and Samantha and I played a fun game of running cones and a not-so-fun game of Stay in the backyard. I was such a good dog during her lunch that she gave me half of a peanut butter sandwich after Mom had left the kitchen. But even peanut butter didn’t lift her mood. I did my very best Stay and that didn’t help, either.

  She wasn’t frightened. She wasn’t anxious. I knew what to do about such feelings.

  She was simply sad, and nothing seemed to help. Not even her dog.

  Late in the afternoon, she was sitting with me on the couch. “Oh, Ripley,” she murmured.

  My ears perked up at my name. I put my head on her lap.

  “You’re going to be a fire station dog, Ripley.”

  She rubbed my ears and I sighed with pleasure. Samantha was the very best at ear rubs. Nobody else did it just like her.

  Samantha sighed too.

  “It’s important,” she told me. “You’re going to save people. Just like Ben saved me. But, Ripley, this means you have to work so hard at your training. You have to do just what Ben tells you in a fire. It’s the only way you’ll be safe.”

  I leaned my head into her hand so she’d keep rubbing. Her sadness seemed to be easing a little at last. Maybe she liked ear rubs just as much as I did.

  “We’re going to work harder and harder,” she added. “I’m going to train you so well, Ripley. I have to.”

  As we sat together, I sensed Ben outside, approaching the house. Then he pushed the door open.

  “Hello?” he called.

  I jumped down and trotted up to him, my nails clicking on the wooden floor. “Well, hello there, Ripley. I’ve missed you all day,” he greeted me.

  Samantha joined us. “You just walked in the front door,” she noted, as if she were thinking about something very hard.

  Ben gave her a wry smile. “Yah, I’m taking a college extension course in home burglary.”

  Samantha treated him to a weary look.

  Ben laughed. “Okay. That was lame. No, I texted when I pulled up and your mom said I should just come in. Is that okay with you, though?”

  Samantha eyed him carefully. “You and Mom are really good friends, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, yah, of course, you betcha,” Ben replied easily.

  “Then how come you only come here?”

  Ben frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, don’t you ever want to go out to dinner with her? Go to a movie, maybe?”

  Ben shuffled his feet uncomfortably. I regarded him curiously.

  “Yeah, no, yeah,” he finally agreed.

  “Now that she’s out of the hip cast, she could go, and Emily would come over to watch me. When’s your next night off shift?”

  “I go to work tomorrow, Thursday, and I get off Friday morning.”

  Samantha brightened. “Friday night, then. I’ll call Aunt Emily. It’s a date.”

  Ben fixed her with a bemused look. “Should we maybe talk to your mom about this? Seems like she’s sort of involved, don’tcha know.”

  “Oh, of course, but I know she’ll want to go,” Samantha said.

  Just then, Mom came around the corner and halted. She looked suspiciously back and forth between Ben and Samantha. “What’re you two talking about?”

  “Oh,” Samantha answered innocently. “I was just explaining that Aunt Emily is coming over on Friday night.”

  “She is?”

  “Sure. Maybe I forgot to tell you. Okay, I got to go to my room.” She turned to me. “Bye, Ripley. I’ll see you Friday morning.”

  With a sunny smile, Samantha skipped down the hallway and turned in to our room. I made to follow, but with a snick, a leash slipped into my collar and I realized this was one of those times where I was going to go and be with Ben for a while.

  Mom turned back and frowned at Ben. “What’s she talking about? My sister’s coming?”

  “Oh yah. I thought that maybe you and I should go to dinner on Friday.”

  Mom raised her eyebrows. “Oh, so you and Samantha decided this between the two of you?”

  Ben shrugged. “We were going to include you in the conversation, eventually.”

  “All right,” Mom agreed softly. “Dinner on Friday. Sounds nice.”

  Ben nodded, but he was looking at her carefully. “It’s a date,” he said deliberately.

  Mom smiled.

  I went home with Ben and found that I wasn’t happy. I circled his small home restlessly, jumping up to look out the window in case I could spot Samantha coming up the sidewalk. I did not see her and could not understand why we were doing this yet again. Having the two of us, Samantha and me, spend the night apart—it did not feel natural.

  The next morning, we were, of course, supposed to go to Samantha’s, but we didn’t.

  Instead, Ben said, “We’re going to work now, Ripley. You’re going to like everybody there.”

  It was very early in the morning, close to dawn. Even when I could smell we were not going to Samantha’s house, I was still thrilled to be in the car. Car rides are always wonderful. Ben never forgets to open the window a bit for me, and I put my nose up and sniff and sniff as the air rushes past, packed so full of scents that it makes me dizzy.

  Today we wound up in a big house with a few cars parked nearby. This building was not as large as the place with all the smells of food and people, the place that sometimes made Samantha frightened and sometimes sad. But it was much bigger than the house where Samantha lived and by far bigger than Ben’s tiny place.

  Doors yawned way open in front, revealing an enormous vehicle I would learn was called a fire truck. Roxie’s big car was parked next to the truck, looking small in comparison.

  I wondered why anyone would need a vehicle as huge as a fire truck. Perhaps there would be a lot of dogs to drive around for car rides? Except there weren’t. I could tell when my nails clicked across the slick cement floor that I was the only dog to be in this place for quite some time.

  “Ripley, sit,” Ben instructed me unexpectedly. I sat. He forgot the click and treat.

  “This is Willets,” Ben told me. I found myself looking up at a ridiculously tall, very thin, sandy-haired man. His skin was freckled, and he was smiling down at me. I’d smelled him before, I realized, when I was a puppy and Samantha had been playing on the roof of a smoky house.

  “Nice to meet you, Ripley. Is he, what, Australian shepherd?”

  Ben shook his head. “No, he’s a blue merle border collie. That’s why his face is so light colored.”

  “Aah, well, he’s a lot more handsome than his owner,” Willets commented, and Ben snorted.

  Another man, of normal height, walked over to us as Willets departed. For the first time, I noticed that he and Willets and Ben were all wearing clothing that smelled and looked exactly the same: dark, solid-colored pants and a lighter shirt.

  “This is Alvis Anderson. His parents didn’t know how to spell Elvis,” Ben said to me.

  The man put his hand through his very dark hair and then bent his knees and held his hand out for me to sniff, because he wanted me to know what his hair smelled like. Then he scratched me delightfully on my stomach and chest. “Ripley? What’s he, about a year old?”

  Ben shook his head. “Little more than seven months.”

  “Still a puppy, then,” Alvis observed. I noticed he spoke more slowly than Ben, each word easy and elongated.

  “Yah, still got a lot of puppy in him. I told you about that girl, Samantha. She’s been doing an excellent job training this guy since her mom broke her leg.”

  “Fer sure,” Alvis agreed. He stuck a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. “Fer sure,” he said again. “Well, you told me a lot about the girl, and also the mother. What’s her name?”

  Ben paused for a moment. “Lizzy,” he finally admitted.

  “Fer sure,” Alvis repeated a third time. I wondered what he was trying to communicate to us. Was “Fer sure” some kind of command? Did this new man want Ben to do something like Sit or Heel or even Stay?

  “What’s that dog doing here?” I heard a booming voice demand. I turned at the word dog and saw another man I had smelled before. He was stocky and wore short, cropped hair. His wide face was dark and carried the pleasant odor of sunshine, and his arms were burly. His light eyes were cold as they looked me over. “I believe we have a no dogs policy,” he stated pointedly, eyeing Ben.

  “No, Lieutenant Hutchins,” Ben corrected. “We have a ‘Captain Bee said it’s okay’ policy.”

  “I’d like to hear that in person,” the stocky man grunted. Still on-leash, I followed Ben as he followed the stocky man across the slick floor, passing the enormous truck and eventually stopping at the threshold of a small room with large windows.

  Unlike every other window I’d ever encountered, these didn’t look outside so that people could watch for squirrels and other dogs. Instead, they faced the big vehicles that Alvis and Willets had started climbing on. I could hear them calling and laughing to each other.

  “Captain Bee, a word?” the shorter man asked.

  A man inside the room looked up from some papers. His shirt was much lighter—white, in fact. He seemed to be older than Ben by quite a bit. He leaned back in his chair with a smile, taking one hand and rubbing it over his hairless head. His smile matched his shirt in color. “’Morning, Hutch,” he greeted. “Hey there, Ben. Who’s this?”

  “This is the dog we’ve been talking about. This is Ripley.”

  I wagged a little at Ben saying my name.

  I could feel that something was going on. The man in the white shirt (I would eventually learn his name was Captain Bee) was welcoming and good humored. Hutch, on the other hand (that’s what the stocky man was called) seemed tense and perhaps a little angry. Ben was agitated, too. The feeling was deep inside him, but I could sense it.

  “Captain, it’s been the rule as long as I’ve worked here—no pets,” Hutch began with a scowl.

  “Ripley’s not here to be a pet,” Ben countered hotly.

  Captain Bee focused his pale, watery eyes on Hutch. “Our friend Ben here has been reading books on the roles dogs can play in fire rescue,” he explained mildly.

  “Books,” Hutch snorted. “You can’t learn firefighting from a book.”

  “Well, maybe that’s so,” Ben allowed. “But dogs can do something people can’t, don’tcha know. They can smell out humans in all the other odors that come with a fire. You know what it’s like, Hutch. We’re in a fire. We can’t see anything because of the smoke, and we’re supposed to locate people who might be anywhere—hiding under beds or in a closet. Why, that one time that kid climbed up on top of a bookshelf, remember that? It was a miracle we spotted him. Now, I’m in charge of the rescue squad.”

  “You’re a lieutenant, same as me,” Hutch interrupted.

  “Yah, sure, fine. I’m just saying it’s our job, our responsibility, to search the house while you and everybody else puts out the fire.”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot,” Hutch barked. “I know exactly what Rescue does. While we’re putting out the fire, you guys are acting like you’re the most important part of the operation.”

  “Hey!” Bee snapped. “Cut it out.”

  Both men regarded him silently.

  “This isn’t debate club, for Pete’s sake. Are you forgetting who’s captain? Either of you two even care to know what the captain thinks?” Captain Bee demanded.

  Thirteen

  “What I think,” Captain Bee continued into the silence, “is that a dog can run through that house faster than any of us. He can avoid the fire and smell for people.”

  “For sure! And when he finds somebody, he comes back and lets us know,” Ben finished triumphantly.

  “How?” Hutch demanded sarcastically. “With, like, a note?”

  Ben smiled. “We’ll train him to give us a signal, probably a special bark, so we’ll know to follow him.”

  “It doesn’t cost us anything if Ben tries to train this dog to help us,” Captain Bee declared. “That’s what we’re going to do, Hutch. We’re going to give this a chance. Understand, Lieutenant?”

  Hutch gazed coldly at Captain Bee for a moment and then nodded, his eyes lowering. “Yes, Captain.”

  We all left except Captain Bee, who went back down to staring at papers. As soon as we were out the door, Hutch reached out and grabbed Ben by the shoulder.

  “You know, Bee’s not here much longer,” Hutch said coldly.

  “I know that,” Ben agreed. He pulled his shoulder away.

  “Probably going to retire in June. That’s only seven or so months away.”

  “Yah, I know that too.”

  “And I’m the most senior lieutenant. I’ll be in charge then,” Hutch finished.

  “We’ll see,” Ben replied, nodding cheerfully.

  I lifted up my nose because I’d caught a scent that I recognized. I began to wag.

  “I’m just warning you, the day I put on those captain bars is the day dogs are back to being banned from the fire department. We clear?”

  “You betcha, I’m clear on that, Hutch. I’m understanding you to say that until I can prove to you that Ripley adds value to the squad, you are disapproving.”

  Hutch shook his head. “I’m saying I don’t care if this dog can fly through the air and pull people from a roof with his butt. Once I’m in charge, no dogs, Ben. Period.”

  “We’ll just have to see.”

  “That’s right, we’ll see,” Hutch repeated.

  We parted from the stocky man and I turned, wagging harder, because now I could see who I’d been smelling: Roxie! I had decided long ago that I liked her. She reached down and scratched my ears, and as she did so the wispy curls on her head flopped forward over her eyes. I’d met dogs with curls like that.

  “Hey there, Ripley,” she said. “How did it go with Bee and Hutchins?” Roxie nodded back to where we had just emerged from Captain Bee’s little room.

  “Oh, about as well as I’d expected,” Ben replied. “Hutch isn’t going to give an inch, don’tcha know.”

  “Least you’ve got Captain Bee on your side until he retires.”

  Ben nodded.

  “So, you know, one day at a time.” Roxie saluted him with a sunny smile. He grinned back at her.

  Then Ben and Roxie led me into a room where Hutch, Alvis, too-tall Willets, and several other men sat at a table talking, laughing, and eating. They ate a lot. They ate chicken and fed me some. They ate ice cream and fed me some.

  I loved these guys.

  There was still chicken on the table when a loud shrieking noise burst through the air, and Captain Bee yelled, “Rescue!”

  Ben and Roxie ran to her vehicle, Ben dragging me by the leash across the floor as I looked back at the chicken. Ben jumped up into the driver’s seat, reached down, snatched me up, and placed me between him and Roxie.

  Roxie wrestled me into a harness that was strapped to several points between the seats. “This will keep you safe, Ripley,” she told me.

  As soon as we were out the big doors, our car began to emit a loud, shrieky howl. I suspected that we were headed, in a very noisy and quick fashion, to Samantha’s house. I heard the engine make loud, surging noises and smelled the dry leaves raining down off the trees outside.

  It turned out that I was wrong. We didn’t go home to Samantha. Instead, we arrived at a house where a man sat on a couch and a woman stood nearby, her hand to her mouth. The man was feeling pain, I could tell that, and he was scared, but not as scared as the woman standing next to him, who was crying softly.

  “All right, sir,” Roxie greeted cheerfully. “Can you tell me about your chest pains?”

  I lowered my nose to the carpet and sniffed. There was a cat in this house. Cats are basically squirrels with bad attitudes.

  A face with wide, blank eyes appeared silently around the couch, the cat staring at me, amazed that anything could be so wonderful as a dog. As soon as our gazes met, she drew the lips back from her teeth and then vanished, darting under the couch.

  She was obviously a thing not worth chasing, so I didn’t.

  Ben and Roxie spent a lot of time with the man. For some reason, they took off his shirt and put little toys on his chest, talking to him the whole time. Then Roxie placed a small mask over his lips. A steady hiss of air from the mask flowed out into the room, carrying with it the man’s odor, which was tinged with fear and pain.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Roxie kept saying.

  She and Ben took me out to the vehicle, grabbed Mom’s bed from the back, pulled it up off the ground until it snapped into place on tall stilts, and then steered that bed back into the house for the man to lie on. They attached a bunch of objects to it, raised it up again, and went back out to the vehicle.

  I didn’t understand any of it—why the man was using Mom’s bed, why he was so unhappy, and why we weren’t all going for a walk or racing through cones? What I did know, though, was that Ben wanted me by his side. I could tell by the impatient jerk he gave my leash anytime a smell distracted me. A male dog had marked in the yard, and my natural instinct was to repeat the process, overlaying his lesser scent with my own, but I didn’t have a chance.