I chased after the dog, who was really fast. I chased him up and down the aisles, though he kept zig zagging. I was pretty sure Crash started to enjoy this after a while, as when he’d get so far ahead I lost sight of him, I’d find him sitting in the middle of the aisle awaiting me, his mouth open and curved up into a smile. When I got to him he’d start running again. I could hardly catch up. My stomach started to cramp, and I needed water. I waved a hand at him and started to walk to the water fountain.
I took a long, good drink. By the time I took a breath and looked up, there the red Irish setter was staring up at me, Tail wagging.
He thinks I’m gonna chase him again. I thought. So I sloooooowly lifted the leash, then jumped on him.
As he tried to wriggle out of my grasp, I put the collar on his neck and hooked on his leash. He seemed to notice his lack of freedom, and started to whine.
“Oh-my-god thanks for catching him.” Ava said to me. She seemed to say ‘oh my god’ alot, but I appreciated the verbal gratitude.
“Yeah.” I said, staring at the poor thing. He was sad now, confined to moving only six feet away before that rope around him yanked on his neck. Poor Crash. But he wasn’t my main concern. Your focus should be getting back home safely, I told myself.
“I’m just worried about getting home.” I told Ava. “My brothers and I only had to get two things from here, you see.”
“I don’t think you can get home in this weather.” said Ava. “The lights have just gone out, and outside it’s flooding pretty bad, so I think you’ll be staying for a while.”
But I barely stayed to hear her say ‘a while’. I was already rushing to the store’s front windows so that I could see what I was dealing with outside.
Outside I saw a blanket of water covering the parking lot, the rain feeding it droplets that would make this flood taller and taller.
I told mom! I warned her that a flood was coming! But Nooooo! She didn’t believe me! ‘It won’t rain hard’, she had said! Now look! Who knew how high the flood water would get!? 5 inches? 5 feet!? 10!? And what if the glass cracks!? I’m too young to die!
I took a step back from the window, my eyes never leaving the water.
“I can tell you're getting worried, but don’t.”
My brother’s voice almost made me jump. I turned to see Shawn behind me.
“As soon as I saw waters getting a little too high for comfort, I looked at a news article on the flood. They said the water will only get as high as about 6 inches, then the rain should stop. We’ll stay here while the rain finishes up, which shouldn’t be too long from now, then we can get out of here.”
“No we can’t just ‘get out of here’ once the rain stops! There will still be a flood outside!” I yelled at him. Then I immediately felt embarrassed, since everyone seemed to be looking at us after my panicked outburst.
“We’ll then well just wait until the flood disperses.” Shawn said as if that solved all the world's problems.
“Oh yeah? And how long will that take? An hour? A day? A month?” I angrily whispered to him. I wasn’t about to yell that out and have everyone stare at us again.
“Relax Lisha. If a flood that took a month to go away was coming to this town, I’m sure we would have gotten tons of flood warnings weeks before now. It’ll probably take an hour or two to fully dissipate.”
Two hours!? That was a lot of time to spend at a store for just a couple of errands. I felt angry, but there was nothing more to say. “Okay,” I said to my brother. After all it wasn't him I was mad at. It was our excuse of a mother, making us go to the store at the start of a flood!
No, I can't get mad at her because I'm not holding grudges anymore. I told myself. I’ll just focus on getting the errands done.
“So, did you find the perfect leash yet?” I asked my older brother.
“Yep. this green one looks nice,” He told me. “Now, all I have to do is find Shibitsby with dog treats, and pay for this stuff with mom’s credit card.” said Shawn digging through his pockets for mom’s wallet, which contained her credit card that she had lended to him for the errands.
When he couldn’t find it in his left pocket, he dug in his right and his eyes widened to the size of quarters.
He started to dig in his back pockets.
“Please don’t tell me you lost mom’s wallet.” I told him. “She will kill you. You won’t be leaving your room until you graduate.”
“We’ll uh, You mind yo’ business!” Shawn told me, his face getting hostile.
I didn’t like that he was taking his anger out on me, but I had mentally put myself in his shoes, and immediately understood he felt scared and insecure. I decided to stay quiet and give him time to figure this out.
“Uh, must’ve just dropped it in the aisle with the leashes or something. I’ll go find mom’s wallet while you go get Shibitsby. It don’t take this long to get some dog treats.”
“I told you he wasn’t gonna get him. But I’m on it.” I told my brother. I was glad I let him cool off a bit instead of just replying to rudeness with more rudeness. One person’s all it takes to make a difference.
Anywho, I rushed off to go get Shibitsby. I hadn’t heard from him in a long time and was starting to get suspicious. I hope he isn’t petting some random cat the rescuers just found off the streets. Him getting sick would just add more to worry about than just the flood.
I went to the edge of the right side of the kennel to where all the pet treats were and I saw all kinds of dog treats.
I didn’t see Shibitsby though. I heard him laughing somewhere on the left side of the store, where all the pets were held.
“Ooh, that kid!” I muttered under my breath as I walked over to where he was laughing and petting an animal.
But I knew this particular animal. It’s long, reddish-brown hair and Hazel eyes stuck out to me as the thing that had ran into me and made my back slam into one of the shelves.
Crash the Irish setter.
I didn’t know who to be more mad at, the dog or Shibitsby. I decided to deal with my own clan first.
“Shibitsby! Why ‘you over here and not back at the pet treat’s aisle?” I asked him. He must have thought he was slick, escaping over here to go see the animals.
“I just wanted to pet this dog. He’s scared of the storm.” Shibitsby told me, and Crash had the nerve to back him up with an innocent grin.
“Yeah, but Shawn told you to go get dog treats, not go petting random animals! You thought it was smart to be over here!?”
That’s when I saw Ava come over and grab Crash’s leash. “You should go on with your sister little dude, Jessie was just about to go back to his room anyway.”
Crash/Jessie’s ‘room’, turned out to be a little rectangle near the front of the in-store pet kennel. He was whining and would hardly budge. He knew where he was headed and wanted to resist. It took major effort for Ava to try to pull him to his tiny jail cell she called his ‘room.’
Crash looked at me with those sad puppy-dog eyes, the irresistible ones. Aw, I thought. It isn’t your dog, be strong! I argued with myself.
Ava saw us watching this awkward scene. “Uh, the storm is scaring him. Plus, he’s just cranky. He didn't get his walk today. He and the other dogs usually get a walk around this time, but we knew the storm was coming so… yeah, sorry.”
Wow, that lady apologizes a lot. Shibitsby turned to me sadly, his face stating ‘do something’. Like I could do something about it! But I knew one thing.
I just couldn’t watch this.