An Imperfect Miracle Read Online Free PDF Page B

mine was so important that I better at least whisper the words to make sure God heard me. I started whispering that if it was all right with Him and Chewy, I’d sure like it if instead of shuffling her off to dog heaven right away, He could let her hang around with me for the rest of my life. Then we could both fly off to heaven together, or to wherever we were going. I kind of figured that Chewy would go along with my idea, but I asked her permission anyhow just to be polite, like Mom was always lecturing me about.
    It turned out just like I’d been hoping for too, because right away God said it was okay with Him. I didn’t actually hear God say okay. But He must have because Chewy showed up right as we were leaving church, and she’s been with me ever since.
    Now you might ask how I really knew that Chewy had come back to me since, like I already told you, she was invisible to everybody but me. Well, there were signs. For instance, when I was climbing out of the car that morning I saw fresh slobber stains on the upholstery. Chewy was always slobbering over everything, a lot more than I ever did anyway. Then that night I saw dog hairs; at least they looked like dog hairs since Chewy’s hair was a lot browner than mine or even Mom’s, bunched up in the corner of the bathroom near the tub where Chewy always liked to sit and rest herself after supper. And the next morning I saw Chewy taking a snooze down at my feet while I was eating breakfast, just like she always did. I knew I wasn’t seeing things either because I felt her fur brush up against my ankle. Or at least I felt something soft tickling my skin and I didn’t think it was some spider crawling over me either, because when I reached down and slapped my ankle I didn’t see any bug leftovers staining my fingers.
    I wasn’t all that surprised about Chewy returning from the dead either, on account of how our preachers were always bragging that God can do anything if we’d just ask Him for it with the right intentions. After school, when I told Mom about Chewy coming back to live with us, she said that I had to be brave and that she’d get me a new dog so I wouldn’t miss Chewy as much. I told her that I didn’t want a new dog because looking after a dog was too much work. But the real reason was that I didn’t want to hurt Chewy’s feelings. I was afraid Chewy would get jealous of some new dog and take off for dog heaven and never come back. That was when I decided to keep Chewy a secret from Mom. I would have pulled it off too if that nasty Mr. Grimes hadn’t snitched on me.
    Anyway, it had been over a week since I’d first spotted Mary on the concrete, and the line of people trying to see her was still pretty long most of the time. I hadn’t really gotten a good look at her since I’d discovered those two tears on her face. I was beginning to worry that I’d never get to study her up close again, at least not without some pack of smelly old grownups pressing in on me.
    It was Saturday morning and Mom busted into my room real early and threw open the drapes so that the sun burned into my eyes. I wondered what her problem was, because she usually let me sleep in on Saturdays. It was my only day for sleeping in, because we always had to get up early to go to church on Sundays. Then she told me, “Time to rise and shine because there’s big doings down on Main Street, and I don’t want you to miss any of it.” She said she was going too since it was such a nice day, and she’d heard that some of her friends would be there.
    I wondered why she was acting so bouncy and cheerful about getting together with her friends, because Mom was always talking to her friends on the telephone or wherever. And I didn’t see what the big rush was to go outside just because it was sunny and warm out, since the weatherman was predicting it would be nice all week. But Mom was hard to