Read A Dog's Way Home for Free Online

a swallow of Coke. It burned my throat. Maybe Mama was right.
    I set the Coke on the floor and unzipped my pack. Instead of all my schoolbooks, notebooks, and stuff, I had: a clean shirt, a clean pair of underwear, a whistle, a picture of Tam, my lucky baseball cap that said Shelties Rule! , the lunch Mama packed that I never ate, my old beat-up copy of The Secret Garden , which I must’ve read a million times, and my map-drawing sketch pad.
    I glanced at the clock. Just two more minutes. Two more minutes and I’d be on my way to find Tam. I wasn’texactly sure how it was all going to work when I got to Virginia, but I figured it would come to me.
    I propped my sketch pad on my knees and studied the map I’d been working on since the accident. I’d drawn in the mountains, and the song Mama and I had been singing, and the winding, winding road, the long shadows of the late afternoon sun, and the deer they said had likely darted in front of the truck. It made me sick to think about it, but I had to draw in Tam and the screeching tires, the smell of burning rubber, shattering glass, how the trees must’ve somersaulted as he and the crate were thrown from the truck. My heart beat in my throat. Sweat popped out on my arms.
    â€œAbby.”
    I looked up. My heart froze.
    Mama.
    I was in for it now. I braced myself for the kind of tongue-lashing only Mama could give.
    Instead, she sat down next to me and took my hand. After a long moment she said, “A relative from Virginia, huh?”
    I looked away. I guess I wasn’t such a good liar.
    I thought Mama was going to tell me how sinful it was to lie, how thoughtless I was being.
    Instead, she stretched her legs out in front and leaned her head back against the tiled wall.
    The silence stretched out between us, taut as a fiddle string.
    Then the bus pulled into the front of the station. Above the windshield was the word ASHEVILLE in big letters.
    I started to slip my hand out of Mama’s. She gripped it tight. “No, Abby,” she said.
    I watched the people get off the bus. “But Mama, I have a ticket.” Mama purely hates wasting money.
    She shook her head. “I can’t let you go.”
    My heart pounded as the bus driver helped the woman with the baby onto the bus. The old man gathered up his plastic bags full of who-knows-what and shuffled to the waiting bus.
    Mama gripped my hand so hard it hurt.
    â€œMama, please ,” I said. A tear slipped down my cheek and over my lip. “I got to find him.”
    Mama wiped the tear away with her thumb. “I understand, Abby. Really I do. But no.”
    The bus driver mounted the steps and climbed into the driver’s seat. Those doors would close any second.
    I jerked my hand away and lurched to my feet. I didn’t even bother grabbing my pack.
    I crutched as fast as I could across the room.
    â€œAbby, stop!” Mama’s voice rang out.
    I hesitated for a sixteenth of a second, then pushed through the door.
    â€œWait!” I cried.
    The driver revved the engine of the bus. His hand clutched the handle to close the door. He looked from me to Mama.
    â€œDrive on,” Mama’s voice said behind me. “She’s not going.”
    The door folded shut.
    I watched with pure frustration as that bus, the bus that would help me get to Virginia, pulled away. If it weren’t for those stupid crutches and the stupider cast, I could have run that bus down.
    Mama touched my shoulder. “Time to go home, Abby.”
    I whirled away from Mama’s touch like it was fire.
    â€œStop it!” I said. “Stop telling me what to do!”
    Mama jerked back like I’d slapped her.
    â€œIt’s all your fault,” I said. “If you’d let Tam ride up front with us in your putrid, putrid truck, I’d never have lost Tam! But no, all you cared about was how nice your brand-new truck was.”
    Mama held out a hand like she was trying to ward