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The reason Slinkster Dog loved belonging to Weetzie Bat was because she understood. She wasn’t like the boring people at the house where she used to leave him. She didn’t try to feed him smelly meat from a can, or leave him in the small outside fenced place all day with nothing to do. She didn’t sit watching a glowing screen for hours on end, with the sounds of shouting people echoing from it. When Weetzie watched the glowing screen, the light and the voices were soft, and she made a big pile of blankets on the squishy cushion seat, and she let Slinkster Dog hop up there with her and roll himself into a little ball and press up against her leg. Weetzie’s leg was little but warm, and she never yelled at Slinkster Dog for being on the sitting places. Sometimes she put all the blankets in the machine that made noises and they came out smelling clean and fresh, but she just put them back down and let Slinkster Dog curl up in them again.
Weetzie was the best. She wasn’t like him—she was tall and had much less hair and sometimes she sprayed herself with stuff that made her smell like the flowers outside their cottage—but she was more like him than anyone else he’d ever met. Weetzie loved to go places and she always took Slinkster Dog with her. They went walking along the hilly streets, Slinkster Dog stopping to smell the flowers and the plants and the places where other animals had been. They went to big open spaces where Weetzie would let him off his leash so he could run and tumble with other dogs.
Weetzie had little hands that could scratch perfectly behind Slinkster Dog’s ears and on his belly and right under his jaw. That was his favorite spot. Weetzie would scratch him there and make a delighted sound when he leaned into it.
Weetzie made lots of sounds. She talked to Slinkster Dog a lot when they were alone, and her voice was soft like the blankets. Sometimes it was a silly voice, like when she called him “good dog.” Sometimes instead of that she’d call him her “dog star.” Slinkster Dog didn’t know what that meant, but it was his favorite sound. Weetzie would point to the darktime sky and say he was just like that bright point, the brightest one that they could still barely see.
Then Slinkster Dog would start barking Weetzie would make her delighted sound and bark along with him, her voice high and strange and funny.
Slinkster Dog didn’t remember when he met Weetzie. It seemed like she’d always been there, feeding him bites of her yummy burrito from that place they love, letting him curl up in bed with her. Sometimes if Slinkster Dog thought really hard, he could remember a time before. That time was dark and cold and the ground was always hard. He remembers being lonely. It’s a bad feeling. But then Weetzie appeared. She glowed. She was all light and brightness and weird but good smells. And then life was sunshine and chasing squirrels and running up and down hills. Life was clean, cool water to drink. Slinkster Dog would rather think about that. So he did.
Eventually, Weetzie brought other tall and mostly-hairless people to meet Slinkster Dog. First there was Dirk. The first thing Slinkster Dog noticed was that Dirk was big. He was bigger than Weetzie, and stronger. He had bigger hands but he would pet Slinkster Dog just as softly on the top of the head.
“Hey, little man,” Dirk would say. “You been a good dog today?”
“Woof,” Slinkster Dog would reply.
For a while it was Slinkster Dog and Weetzie and Dirk. With Dirk they went to fewer big open places, but that was okay because instead they went for rides in Dirk’s big machine pet named Jerry. Dirk would open the doors and Slinkster Dog could jump into the back. He put his face out the window and the dry air would rush past and blow all his fur back. Slinkster Dog would let his tongue loll out and taste the smells as they raced around the city. Some parts smelled like oranges and lemons and other tart, crisp things. Some parts smelled like the bins where people put stuff they didn’t want anymore, fascinating smells turning from one thing to another, slowly going bad and getting more and more interesting. Some parts smelled like muck and grime. Slinkster Dog’s favorite parts smelled like burritos, or soupy, tangy spices, or green green green.
Weetzie and Dirk took Slinkster Dog to places he wasn’t supposed to go. Dark rooms full of sweaty people and loud music and bitter, astringent liquids he was told not to taste. Those places were okay. The best part about them was curling up between Weetzie and Dirk and being warm on both sides.
But his tall people friends seemed sad at those places sometimes. Slinkster Dog would never say it out loud, even if he could speak Weetzie-language, but he was really happy when Dirk met the boy who smelled like sunshine. They stopped going to those dark and crowded places so often.
Sunshine Boy was named Duck. Slinkster Dog thought Dirk was awfully lucky, to have caught him after so many nights spent duck hunting. He didn’t understand how Duck was a duck like the ones down at the pond, but he liked Duck just the same. And since Slinkster Dog had never been able to catch one of the pond ducks, he was proud of Dirk.
With Duck, they went to the beach, where the air smelled so strongly of salt and Slinkster Dog could run through the sand with his paws slipping and digging in. Down at the water, he would chase other birds—not ducks but little birds with long skinny legs and wings that actually worked. His teeth would click as he nipped at them. They always flew away.
“What’ll you do if you catch one?” Weetzie asked. She was laughing.
“Woof!” Slinkster Dog replied.
They raced each other down to the water and ran in just enough to get their feet wet.
Then Weetzie met her Man. She had a longer name for him, but Slinkster Dog always thought of him as her Man. There was less room in the bed for Slinkster Dog, but he didn’t mind. Weetzie made her delighted sounds so often.
There were four warm friends to pile onto the squishy cushion seat now. Someone was always around to cuddle.
With Weetzie and her Man, Slinkster Dog went to different places. They still went to the beach, the one with the big hairless men who smelled like oil and chemicals and sweat and sun. Weetzie would ride her rolling board. It was Slinkster Dog’s job to pull her along. He took this job very seriously. But Weetzie and her Man would laugh and laugh.
One day, they took him to a big hill with a windy path. They parked their machine pet—who was not as cool as Jerry—at the bottom of the hill and climbed out to walk to the top. Slinkster Dog ran to the edge of his leash, smelling everything he could. The ground had some grass but also hard-packed tan dirt, and the smells were incredible. Slinkster Dog never understood why Weetzie and her Man didn’t smell things too. But he just smelled everything twice as much, for them.
He smelled birds and other dogs and in one place, a big smell like a wild cat—but much, much bigger than the cats that sat primly on the steps on Weetzie’s street. This cat could hurt them, Slinkster Dog thought, if she found them.
“Woof!” he told them. They laughed, but they didn’t understand.
Slinkster Dog wanted to warn them. There’s a big cat out there, he wanted to say in Weetzie-language, and she could hurt you. There are big things in the world and they can hurt you. But the cat smelled like she had been here and gone, and Weetzie and her Man didn’t seem worried, so he let them tug him away and on up the hill.
At the top of the hill was a big, big building. They didn’t go in. Instead they sat on a bench and Weetzie explained that the building was a place where people could look at the stars. She pointed up in the sky, but it was bright blue right now, and there were no shining points to be seen. Weetzie told him that the building had been featured in a movie, one of Dirk’s favorite movies.
Slinkster Dog whined happily, and set his head on Weetzie’s knee.
On the way back down the hill, they saw a group of people messing with cables and poles and big box that looked at people, kind of like the one Weetzie’s Man had.
“Look, they’re making a movie,” Weetzie said.
Slinkster Dog got excited. He wanted to say hello to the people even though they looked busy. He pushed off with his back legs and ran towards them, and with a jerk, his leash tugged free of Weetzie’s hand. Slinkster Dog ran into the middle of the group of people.
“Slinkster Dog, no!” Weetzie yelled from behind him. But it was too late.
The people scattered out of his way.
“Hey!” one of them yelled.
“Should we cut?” another one said.
Slinkster Dog hopped onto the table where two of them were sitting.
“Wait,” said one woman who was standing near the big box.
The people at the table hadn’t moved. They were holding hands across the flat top, and they were staring at Slinkster Dog as though they were frozen.
Slinkster Dog nuzzled his nose into their hands. They seemed like nice people. He wanted to make them smile.
The nuzzling wasn’t working though. Slinkster Dog wagged his tail and thought about what else he could do. Everyone was looking at him.
He ran forwards, and backwards, as best as he could on the table top. He wiggled his butt and had an idea. He backed all the way up to the far end of the table. Then he ran as fast as he could, jumped over the people’s linked hands, did his best midair dog flip, and landed on the ground.
All the people burst into noise, laughing and clapping their hands together. The way people did when they were happy.
Weetzie rushed over and got hold of Slinkster Dog’s leash again. Her Man was saying something to the woman by the camera.
“We’re so sorry, we don’t know what got into him.”
“It’s okay. It might even make the final cut.” The woman handed him a card. “I think your dog could be a star. Call me if you want to put him in the movies.”
That night, Weetzie told the story to Dirk and Duck, who laughed.
“What a ham,” Duck said.
“My dog star,” Weetzie said, scratching him perfectly on the belly and under the jaw and all over. “My perfect, good-boy, light-in-the-dark, dream-friend dog star.”