Pepper had one job. One single, straightforward, biscuit-at-the-end-of-it job: trot into Bramblewood Dog Park, fetch Mrs. Okafor's forgotten frisbee from the grass, and trot back out before the automatic lights clicked off. Mrs. Okafor had spotted it from the gate. The frisbee was right there. Simple. Pepper pressed her broad, damp nose to the bone-shaped welcome sign and her park pass clinked against her collar. The gate beeped. She was in. The paw-print pavers were still warm from the afternoon sun, and they smelled of seventeen different dogs, two bicycle tyres, and one very confident pigeon.
Sniff, sniff, sniff. Pepper's ears dragged along the ground as she walked, long as two velvet scarves, scooping up grass seeds and a small beetle and a smell that was — wait. Not the frisbee smell. Something else entirely. Something that went left, then right, then looped in a wobbly circle toward the agility tunnels. Pepper followed it, nose down, bottom up, ears sweeping the pavers like a very slow, very determined mop. The smell was small and warm and new. A puppy smell. And underneath it, very faint, like a sound behind a closed door — a tiny whimper.
She lifted her head. Her ears folded flat and flared wide, curling at the edges like two big sound-scoops, swivelling left — right — left. The whimper was coming from inside the big orange tunnel. Pepper circled the tunnel once. The entrance was dark and smelled of rubber and damp grass. She was not especially fond of dark tunnels. She paused. The whimper came again, smaller this time, and wobbled at the end. She went in anyway.
Her nose bumped something soft and warm — something that squeaked in surprise. She nudged it forward, gently, firmly, the way you'd nudge a sock out from under a sofa. Nudge. Nudge. Nudge. Until, with a tumbling, scrambling rush of small paws — out popped a puppy. He was about the size of a slipper. His ears were enormous for his head and one of them was folded inside-out. He blinked at the golden evening light, sneezed twice, and sat down directly on top of — a frisbee. The frisbee. Mrs. Okafor's frisbee, right there under four small paws, slightly damp from being slept on, but otherwise perfect.
The puppy's name, as Mrs. Okafor would later discover, was Fig. He had apparently wandered through the side hedge that afternoon, got curious about the orange tunnel, gone in for a sniff, turned himself around completely, and fallen asleep on the nearest flat thing. As one does. Pepper picked up the frisbee carefully — Fig's paw rested on her back the entire walk to the gate, as if she were a small, low, extremely reliable ferry. Mrs. Okafor opened the gate. She looked at the frisbee. She looked at Fig. She looked at Pepper. She said, "That is my neighbour's puppy," in a voice that meant she had several more things to say but hadn't found the words yet.
Pepper received one biscuit. It was a very good biscuit. Cheddar. She walked home in the cooling dark, ears still full of grass seeds, the beetle long gone, the night air sharp and clean in her nose. She turned three circles in her basket by the radiator, lowered herself down with a long, slow exhale — — and was asleep, paws twitching, ears spread wide across the fleece like two forgotten scarves.
