Bram was a Boxer puppy with a square head, a wrinkly forehead, and a nose that could smell a sandwich from three gardens away. Today, that nose had a Very Important Job. The family was outside on the picnic blanket, and Bram had been given one task. One. Simple. Task. Carry the watermelon. It sat on the kitchen doorstep — enormous, green-striped, and wobbling slightly in the breeze. Bram sniffed it. It smelled cold and sweet and perfectly round. He got his jaw underneath it, lifted, and the watermelon rolled. Sniff, sniff, sniff — then WHOMP. Right off the step and into the flower beds.
Bram galloped after it, ears flapping like two small flags. The watermelon bounced off a lavender bush, spun past the rose, and disappeared entirely into the dahlias. Gone. Bram skidded to a stop in a shower of grass. The watermelon had vanished. Right. Nose down. Sniff, sniff, sniff. Bram pressed his flat nose to the path and zigzagged back and forth. The watermelon smelled cold and sugary and faintly of mud now. The trail went left. Then right. Then left again, past a terracotta pot that smelled of rainwater and one very startled earthworm.
Then Bram stopped. There, in the middle of the path, was a beetle. A small, shiny, black beetle — and he had gotten himself flipped entirely upside down. Six legs waved at the sky. He could not get up. Bram lowered his big square head and looked. Then he lifted one enormous paw and nudged, very gently. The beetle flipped upright. He stood still for a moment. Then he waved all six legs once, quickly, and walked away into the grass. Bram watched him go. Then he put his nose back down.
Sniff, sniff, sniff. The scent trail led under the garden bench, and there — wedged between the legs and the stone wall — was the watermelon. Still cold. Still enormous. Still perfectly, unhelpfully round. Bram tried to grip it. Too slippery. He tried to roll it. It went sideways into the wall. He tried pushing it with his nose, which left a dent but did not help. He sat down on the grass to think — and sat down slightly too far forward, and landed directly on top of the watermelon with a loud, satisfying CRACK. The rind split in a neat ring. The hollow end lifted off the ground. And before Bram could move, it slid — slowly, perfectly — right onto his big square Boxer head like a green-striped helmet.
He sat very still. The watermelon rind fit exactly. It smelled of cold juice and sunshine. Bram stood up. It stayed on. He took one step. Still on. He took another. He began to trot. Sniff, sniff, sniff — except now his nose was inside a watermelon helmet, and everything smelled delicious. He came around the rose bush and onto the lawn, and the whole family looked up. There was a moment of complete silence. Then everyone laughed at once — the sort of laugh that comes out loud before anyone means it to. Bram trotted right to the centre of the picnic blanket, lowered his head, and the helmet plonked down between the sandwiches and the bowl of strawberries.
Someone gave him a chin scratch. Someone else gave him a piece of the cold pink middle. Bram turned twice, walked under the table, and lay down on the cool shadowed grass. Around him, bare feet shifted on the blanket. Ice clinked in a jug. A bee hummed past one ear and kept going. Bram's chin rested on his front paws, his wrinkled forehead smoothed out, and his tail gave one last slow wag.
