There was no way in this world — or any other — that that grandmother had gotten a dog
As we carried some of the more fragile items into the new house that we didn’t want to trust to the moving truck, we kids decided that living in Jackson couldn’t be so different. After all, this wasn’t a cross-country move. We would attend the same school, shop at the same supermarket, and take a short drive to visit our old neighbors, instead of just walking down the block to knock at their door.
But we were wrong — Jackson turned out to be pretty different from Lakewood! There were blue jays and bright crimson cardinals flitting through the huge trees in our backyard, and flocks of wild turkey in the road — you sometimes had to wait to cross the street because of all the turkey traffic! Families of deer appeared at dusk in the backyard to nibble the tiny wild strawberries that grew there.
Those animals were beautiful, and I loved watching them from the deck. But I have always been very afraid of dogs, and Jackson is full of dogs. There were dogs that barked loudly from their gated lawns as I walked home from the bus stop, and, even worse, unleashed dogs that sauntered down the street on their own. Seeing them would always make my heart race.
Two days after we moved in, my older sister drove us to Target where we checked items off Mommy’s list as we put them into the shopping cart: temporary window shades, check; a new doorknob to replace the broken one, check; a dog toy for Bobby’s new puppy.
Create a free account to keep reading.
