The Beeping Collar

The collar beeped again.

Doo. Doo. Doo-doo.

It didn't stop after one soft note this time. And then something wonderful happened. A tiny light popped out of the silver band and grew into a small green Professor Paws, no bigger than a dandelion, floating right above Doby's neck.

"Ahem. Testing. Is this on?" said little green Professor Paws. "Doby? I know you can hear me. Your nose is probably touching the hologram."

Doby's nose was touching the hologram. It wobbled like a puddle.

"It smells like nothing!" Doby said.

"It's made of light, pup. Light doesn't smell." The little green Professor smiled, and his recorded voice went softer. "Now listen carefully. The time window is getting sleepy, Doby. It closes at sunset. When the sun touches the hills, the sky road folds itself up like a blanket. Be on your rocket before then, or you'll be an Earth pup for a very, very long time."

The message flickered. Then it brightened once more, and the little green Professor gave a slow wink.

"And Doby — bring something back with you. Curious ones always do."

Pop. The light folded itself away. The collar went quiet.

Nobody spoke. The oak leaves went shhh over their heads.

From his dry rock, Robo-Cat stood up very straight. "Complaint number four hundred and twenty-one. Nobody listens to the cat. I said wait. I said it at breakfast. I said it before the launch. I have said it, by my count, forty—" He stopped. His acorn cap slid down over one eye. He didn't fix it.

Bella looked at the sun. It was already leaning toward the hills, the way a tired dog leans toward its bed.

"Sunset," she said. "That's when I chase the sun home, moon-brain. That's soon."

"Then I have to run," said Doby. His voice came out small. "But first I have to do the hard part."

"The running?" said Robo-Cat. "Running is easy. I have wheels."

"The goodbye."

Robo-Cat was quiet for a long moment. "…Oh. That part."

Doby walked to the big oak and picked up his tree bone. It was heavier than it looked. Not because of the wood — because of everything stuck to it now. Bella's sniff of approval. The shade of the oak. The whole long muddy day.

Bella came and stood beside him, shoulder to shoulder, her brown mud touching his brown mud.

"So," she said. "You told the truth the whole time. The moon-brain really is from up there."

"Mars. I told you. Mars."

"Same thing." She bumped him with her shoulder.

"Not the same thing," said Doby, and he laughed even though his eyes were going hot.

He set the tree bone down in the grass so his words would come out clean.

"Bella. Yesterday — I mean a little while ago — you asked me 'Right?' And I never answered." He took a breath. "I don't have a tomorrow here. But I'm going to have a tomorrow there. And in my tomorrow, I'm coming back. I promise on the tree bone. That's the biggest promise a dog can make."

Bella went very still. Then she smiled the way she smiled at the sun — eyes closed, face tipped up.

"You know what I do every evening?" she said. "I chase the sun. I never catch it. Not once, not ever. I chase it anyway." She opened her eyes and looked straight at him. "So okay. I'll chase you too, moon-brain. Even a thousand years away."

From the rock, Robo-Cat whispered to himself, "Filing that under… not a complaint." A pause. "First one ever."

Doby picked the tree bone up again. It was even heavier now.

And that was when the tears came. Just small ones. They made warm little tracks down through the mud on Doby's cheeks, and he didn't wipe them, because his paws were full of tree bone.

Flutter.

A tiny red-breasted bird came down from the low branch. Down, down, down, one branch at a time, closer than he had ever come.

"Pip," Bella whispered. "That's Pip. He never comes down. Not for anybody."

"Green. Green green!" said Pip. Then he cocked his head. "Wet! Wet wet. Why wet?"

"Because I have to go home," Doby sniffled, "and home is very far, and I just made a really big promise."

Pip thought about this. It was a long think, for such a small bird.

"Far," he said at last. "But seeds travel far."

And then Pip did the bravest thing he had ever done. He fluttered up and landed right on top of Doby's head, between Doby's muddy ears, and Doby held very, very still. Something small and hard dropped from Pip's beak and landed in the grass in front of Doby's nose.

A seed. One tiny seed, small as a flea, and it was glowing. Leaf-green. Bright green. It shone brighter than the green under the lab door, brighter than the Holo-Book, brighter than anything green Doby had ever seen. When Doby scooped it up in his glowing paw, the seed and his paw pad glowed together, and the green shone right through the dried mud on his toes, like a lantern inside a mitten.

"Take. Take take," said Pip. "A green that fits in a paw. Plant it where the red dirt is." He puffed himself up and sang his biggest note. "Then Earth grows there too!"

Bella leaned in, and the green light lit up her whiskers one more time.

"Well, look at that," she said softly. "Now green's going home with you."

Pip hopped once on Doby's head, very light, like a kiss made of feathers. Then, very quietly — the bravest words he had — "Come back anyway."

"I promised on the tree bone," said Doby. "It's the biggest promise there is."

The sun was sliding down toward the hills now, turning the puddles orange.

"ROCKET RACE!" Doby barked, and he was off.

"The cat does not race—" began Robo-Cat, but Doby was already gone in a spray of mud. "Complaint number four hundred and twenty-two: races started without the judge. Complaint number four hundred and twenty-three: mud in my acorn cap. Complaint number four hundred and twenty-four: I am… also running. Nobody log that last one."

They blasted across the park together — Doby with the tree bone in his teeth and the seed pressed warm in his paw against his chest like a second heartbeat, mud flying off all four legs in little brown stars, Robo-Cat's wheels humming, his acorn cap on crooked. Bella ran beside them as far as the grass went, matching Doby step for step, laughing her big rolling laugh. Then the fence came, and she stopped there, and she threw her head back and howled one long, happy note after him — a note that followed him all the way to the hatch like a song he could keep.

Pip flew ahead and rode on top of the Chrono-Rocket's blinking green dial until the very last second. Then he lifted off into a tree by the fence, singing:

"Bye-bye! Grow! Grow grow!"

At the hatch, Doby stopped. He had the tree bone in his mouth. He had the seed in his paw. He had mud drying in his ears, mud on his belly, mud everywhere, and he did not care one bit. He looked back once — Bella at the fence, Pip in the tree, green, green, green everywhere — and hopped inside.

Robo-Cat wedged himself under the pilot seat and straightened his acorn cap. He cleared his speaker.

"Complaint number four hundred and twenty-five: I am told the pilot smells like mud and flowers and rain."

A pause. A long one.

"…Withdrawn."

Doby curled up in the pilot seat with the tree bone against his chest and the seed glowing green through his paw, warm and alive and going home.

The hatch closed. It closed green.