Biscuit was a golden retriever puppy with ears like warm toast and a tail that never stopped. He had one Very Important Job today: carry Grandma's knitting basket from the front room all the way to the garden shed before she got home. Sniff, sniff, sniff. He could do this. He picked up the basket handle in his mouth. It was wicker and tasted faintly of wool and biscuit crumbs. He turned toward the hallway — and stopped. There, in the big hall mirror, was another puppy. A fluffy yellow puppy, holding a basket, looking right at him.
Biscuit put the basket down with a clunk. He crept closer. The other puppy crept closer too. Biscuit's nose touched the glass. The other puppy's nose was cold and flat against his. Biscuit's tail went wag. The other puppy's tail went wag. Very suspicious.
He picked up the basket again — Important Job, Biscuit — and trotted proudly through the front room. The basket swung from side to side. A ball of yellow wool, loosely wound, bounced once and began to unravel. A thin golden thread bobbed along behind him. Biscuit did not notice. Sniff, sniff, sniff.
Into the kitchen he went, claws clicking on the tiles. Under the table, something caught the corner of his eye. The oven door. Shiny. And in it — a small, round, basket-carrying puppy staring back. Biscuit sat down so fast his ears flopped forward. Was this Mirror Puppy's kitchen? He nudged the basket under the table to keep it safe and pressed his nose to the oven door. His breath made a little fog-patch on the glass. The reflection-puppy's breath did the same. Biscuit tilted his head left. The oven-puppy tilted its head right. Biscuit huffed and picked the basket back up. No time for this.
Around the coat rack in the back hallway he trotted, but the trailing wool snagged on a muddy boot and looped twice around the rack's bottom leg. Biscuit tugged. The boot toppled with a thud. The wool looped a third time. He tugged again, harder. Sniff, sniff, sniff. The wool pinged free, and so did Biscuit, stumbling out the back door into the garden. The grass was cool and slightly damp under his paws. The shed was just ahead, its door ajar, smelling of old flowerpots and dry wood. Biscuit trotted forward, lowered his head, and nudged the basket through the gap. It scraped across the shed floor and bumped to a stop against a terracotta pot. Job done.
He followed the golden thread home, stepping over it, under it, around it, until somehow — lopsidedly, wonkily, but genuinely — the wool was wound back into something resembling a ball. He dropped it in the basket just as the front door opened. Grandma set her bag down, looked at the basket on the hall table, and said it was exactly where she'd wanted it. Biscuit curled up in front of the mirror, nose pressed softly to the glass, and let his eyes go slow and heavy.
