Not bad, Chipper thought. Better than that cheap stuff they gave him at The Institute.
Jeff put a hand close to the bloody fur without actually touching it. “You did that going through the window — didn’t you, you dumb dog, you?”
Chipper eyed him with tired, sorrowful eyes. He’d found enough strength to get out of that beanbag chair, jump through a window, and hop into the back of this truck for something to eat, but now he felt very weary. He was starting to waver.
“I think maybe you got up too soon,” Jeff said. “Whaddya say we take you back up to the comfy chair and give you a little more to eat and drink and we take a look at that cut?”
Jeff put one arm around his front legs, just under his neck, and the other around his back, tucking his tail in as he did it. Chipper made no objections. Emily followed them back into the train station and up the stairs, where Jeff gently placed him back in the chair, his head resting over the edge.
Emily got out everything else she had in the bag. She’d brought two bottles of water, cracking one open immediately. “I’m an idiot. I should have brought a bowl.” But when she tipped the top of the bottle up to Chipper’s mouth, he managed to drink it. She gave him more of the steak and a piece of cheese while Jeff looked at the cut on his stomach.
“We need to get some bandages and stuff,” he said.
Chipper wanted to tell them it wasn’t that bad. He wanted to tell them a lot of things. Maybe, before too long, they’d find an opportunity.
“I’ll start making a list of the things we need,” Emily said. “Bandages, a bowl, a brush to comb out his fur, which is all natty and totally a mess.” She got out her phone, opened some app she could make notes on, and tapped away with her thumb.
“Write down a board and some nails,” Jeff said. “We don’t want him jumping out the window again, or anything bad getting in.”
Won’t do that, Chipper thought. Want to stay with you.
Emily said, “I can only get so much in one trip. We can fix the window another time.”
The dog had swallowed his steak and cheese, so Emily gave him some more.
His tail softly thumped.
“You said you checked his collar for a tag?” she asked Jeff.
“Didn’t see anything.”
“Let me have a closer look. Hey, fella, just want to check your collar there.”
Emily worked her fingers under the black fur, found the collar and ran her fingers around it.
Emily looked puzzled. “This is strange,” she said.
“What?”
“Well, you’re right, there’s no tag, but the collar is super tight. I can’t get my finger under it anyplace.”
“He must be choking,” Jeff said.
“Yeah, but, his neck doesn’t feel all squished or anything. It’s like — this is totally strange — but it’s like the collar is stuck right to his body.”
“Let me try.”
Jeff got his fingers on the collar and confirmed what Emily was saying. “You’re right. It’s sort of like the collar is part of him. Maybe it’s like, when you wear a ring for years, your finger kind of grows around it. My mom’s finger was like that.”
“Why would anyone put a collar on a dog that tight? That just seems like such a mean thing to—”
“Whoa,” Jeff said. “Hang on.”
“What?”
“There’s something... there’s something weird on this collar. In fact, this whole collar is kind of weird.”
“How?”
“It feels like... metal.”
Emily brushed her hands up against Jeff’s as she gave the collar another feel. “I see what you mean.”
Jeff put her hand in his — and felt a bit of a shiver when he did — and moved it to the part of the collar on the right side of the dog’s neck. “Feel that.”
Emily did. “That feels like a... ”
“Like a what?”
“I’m not going to say. You’d think I was insane. I have to see it.”
She gently moved Chipper over onto his other side, spread the fur apart the way you might part someone’s hair, looking for a bump on the head. She exposed the collar, which was dark silver and had a soft sheen to it, then zeroed in on what she’d been looking for.
“I don’t believe it.”
“What? I can’t see it.”
“It’s an opening,” Emily said. “It’s a port.”
“A port? What do you mean, a port?”
“Like you’d plug a computer into, or an iPhone, or a USB stick.”
Jeff looked closer at what Emily had found. “That is insane,” Jeff said. “It is a port. But where does it go?”
Emily touched Jeff’s shoulder so he’d turn and look at her. “It goes right into the dog,” she said.
“But why... why would anyone do something like that? Why would a dog have a slot to plug a computer into?”
“I guess I’ll go get my computer,” Emily said, “and we’ll find out.”
Twenty-One
Jeff stayed with the dog while Emily ran back to her place for a laptop computer and a cable. The whole idea of what they were about to try seemed crazy. They were actually going to plug a computer into a dog?
But then Jeff thought, no, they weren’t plugging a computer into a dog. They were just plugging a computer into a dog’s collar. Maybe that wasn’t quite so weird. They made computers so small these days, you could probably fit all kinds of stuff into that band that ran around the dog’s neck.
After all, couldn’t you implant a little GPS chip in your pet these days, so that if it went missing, you could find it? Yeah, that made sense. Of course, you couldn’t really connect to that chip, but maybe this was some variation on that. By putting the chip in the collar, you didn’t have to actually break the dog’s skin, which, when you think about it, is not a very nice thing to do to a dog or a cat or even a gerbil.
That’s probably all this was, Jeff figured. Just a fancy locater for somebody’s pet. And once Emily was back here with her computer, and plugged it into that collar, they’d know who this dog belonged to and could organize a reunion.
The thought of which made Jeff a little sad.
He hadn’t spent a lot of time with this dog, but he liked him. He liked him a lot. But the boy had to face reality. Even if this dog turned out to belong to nobody, there was no way he was going to be able to keep him. Not with Aunt Flo hating pets.
And speaking of Aunt Flo...
She must be having six fits that he still hadn’t returned. He hadn’t even gotten to the dump yet. He was wondering what he’d tell her. The dump was closed? He’d had to go to one in a different county? Flat tire?
Alien abduction?
The dog turned his head slightly and looked up at Jeff from his spot on the beanbag chair. “How ya doin’, buddy?” Jeff asked.
The dog’s tail thumped with slightly more energy this time.
“I guess I never actually introduced myself,” the boy said. “My name is Jeff.”
Another thump of the dog’s tail.
“Jeff Conroy. I’m twelve years old, and I live with my aunt, whose name is Flo. She’s my dad’s sister, or was my dad’s sister, I guess, since my dad is dead. I guess she’s still my dad’s sister, even if he is dead. I don’t know. Anyway, I live with her because both my mom and my dad are dead. It happened last year. Their names were Edwin and Patsy. Edwin is kind of a strange name. You don’t hear it that much. Patsy is sort of normal, although it sounds kind of old-fashioned. I think it’s kind of a nickname for Patricia, which was my mom’s proper name on her birth certificate. Well, I guess it would have been on her death certificate, too. And the girl who’s been helping me and who got you all the food is Emily Winslow. She’s kind of okay, considering when I first met her I thought she was kind of a snot.”