Ellie's Story Read Online Free PDF

time. My coat got so heavy it was hard to keep moving. The strange-smelling stuff splashed in my eyes and surged into my mouth and nose. It stung! I couldn’t smell Jakob. I couldn’t smell anything . Panic was creeping up on me. It had been so long, and Jakob hadn’t come up, and I couldn’t Find him. Finding was my job; it was my Work; it was our Work. I was supposed to Find Jakob!

    Bubbles from underneath me tickled my belly. I looked down, blinking hard. There he was! Jakob!
    He surged up, grabbing hold of me. Somehow he could stand, the water up to his waist. He shook the water out of his face and laughed one of his short laughs.
    â€œGood girl, Ellie. You did it. You came in after me! Good dog!”
    He gave me a push back toward the edge of the fountain and heaved me out, following me. We sat there, dripping, and he patted me more, scratching my wet ears.
    â€œHey! Hey there!” Someone ran out to us, someone in dark clothes like Jakob’s. “No swimming in that fountain. What are you doing, letting your dog play around like that?”
    â€œShe’s not playing,” Jakob said, unhooking something shiny from his belt and holding it up for the other man to see. “She’s working.”

 
    5
    I knew Jakob had been happy that I’d gone in the water. I was glad he was pleased, but I was also very relieved when we went back to our old park the next day. I liked Find a lot better than Swim.
    Wally wasn’t around; I was used to that by now. I looked up at Jakob, my ears alert for “Find.” But Jakob did something new. He had carried an old coat with him from the truck, and now he held it out to me. “Find, Ellie. Find!”
    Find the coat? That was strange. The coat was right there over Jakob’s arm.
    Jakob moved the coat closer to me, so that I could smell it. I breathed in the aromas of the person who’d been wearing it. It wasn’t Wally. The coat smelled of someone else, another man. My nose picked up sweat, something sweet that had spilled, coffee, smoke from those strange white sticks people liked to put in their mouths.
    â€œFind, Ellie!”
    I was still confused, but I sniffed around a little on the grass. Find usually started with smelling. And there it was—the same smell that was on the coat.
    I remembered how I often found Wally’s socks or his T-shirts and showed them to Jakob. This seemed to be the same sort of thing. Except that I was not supposed to find this coat and bring Jakob to it; I was supposed to find the person who had worn the coat.
    Now that I knew what to do, it was easy. The trail was fresh and strong, and it wasn’t hard to follow it along the grass, between two benches, under the trees—and there he was. A man in a yellow sweater and a brown hat, with one of those white sticks in his mouth. When I ran back for Jakob, he knew right away that I had something to Show and he followed me to where the man was still waiting. The man got up and shook Jakob’s hand, and I heard Jakob thanking him after I got a good game of tug-on-a-stick.
    The next day was even stranger. Jakob and I went back to the park, and he did nothing but look down at me. “Find!” he said.
    I sniffed. No smell of the man with the coat. No smell of Wally. I looked up at Jakob. What did he want me to do?
    He was watching me intently. “Find!” he repeated. “Find, Ellie!”
    I went back to sniffing the ground, hoping that would give me more clues. There were a lot of interesting smells: the grass itself, the dirt beneath, places here and there where other dogs had peed, some popcorn that had been dropped, a trail where a raccoon had wandered past in the night, another where a rabbit had hopped by a few hours ago. Feet had crisscrossed this area, and so had paws. I sniffed harder.
    â€œSometimes I need you to look for any people you can, Ellie,” Jakob said. I looked at his face when I heard my name.