Beau was a golden retriever with a very important job.
Every afternoon, the moment Theo dropped his backpack by the front door — thump — Beau was there. He'd lift the straps in his big soft mouth and carry it all the way to Theo's room, where it waited on the rug, ready for homework. Sniff, sniff, sniff. Job. Very. Serious.
But tonight, something was different.
Beau pressed his nose to the front pocket. Crayon-strange. Paint-strange. Something-bright-and-new-is-in-here strange. His nostrils fluttered. His ears went up like two golden flags. He picked up the backpack — it swung from his mouth, heavy and rustling — and instead of turning right toward the hall, his nose turned left, toward the kitchen.
Sniff, sniff, sniff.
The kitchen smelled like dinner and dish soap and one very suspicious banana peel sitting on top of the bin. Beau stopped. He lowered the backpack just slightly, angling his nose toward it. He sniffed it once. He sniffed it twice. He decided: no. He lifted the backpack again and kept going, claws ticking on the tiles, tail spinning like a helicopter in a hurry.
The scent trail curved toward the back door.
Beau nudged it open with his wide golden head — cool evening air rushed in, carrying the smell of damp earth and something green — and stepped out onto the porch. He stopped immediately. Sitting on the bottom step, looking extremely lost and not at all happy about it, was a small brown frog.
The frog blinked.
Beau blinked back. He set the backpack down — very carefully, very gently — and leaned forward on his big paws. One slow nudge with the very tip of his nose. The frog thought about this for one second, then leapt in a long perfect arc into the dark flowerbed, landing with a quiet rustle among the leaves. Beau watched until it was gone.
Then he picked up the backpack and went back inside.
Sniff, sniff, sniff. Down the hall now. Past the coat hooks. Past the bathroom where the tap was dripping — drip, drip — and past the laundry basket that smelled like tennis balls and mud. The crayon-strange, paint-strange smell was getting stronger. Beau's tail went faster.
He nudged open Theo's door with his nose.
Theo was sitting on the rug in his socks, looking up in surprise. Beau walked straight to the middle of the room and dropped the backpack at Theo's feet with a proud, definitive thud. Then he sat down, ears flopped, chest out, and waited.
Theo unzipped the front pocket.
Inside, nestled between a pencil case and a squashed sandwich wrapper, was a brand-new box of gold crayons — given out at school that afternoon, already forgotten. And tucked right between them, folded once, was a piece of paper. Theo unfolded it. It was a drawing: a golden dog with very large ears and a very round nose, tail a wild blur of crayon strokes.
Beau sniffed the drawing carefully. The tip of his nose touched the gold crayon lines.
He sat back. He thumped his tail once, slow and certain, on the rug.
Theo set the drawing down and leaned against Beau's warm side, the box of gold crayons open in his lap, the backpack slumped and finished nearby. Beau's chin lowered slowly onto Theo's knee. Outside, the frog settled into the flowerbed. The tap dripped once more. And that was that.
