Read Buddy for Free Online Page B

dead!”
    â€œHe ain’t dead,” I say. “He’s alive! And he’s standing up!”
    Then we’re both standing there looking at Buddy.
    â€œRuff!” Buddy says. “Ruff, ruff!” His ears are standing up on his head and he’s grinning like he’s prouder of himself than he’s ever been in his life.
    â€œBut there ain’t no wings,” Tanya says. “Mama! Mama! Come see.”
    And here comes Mama, right through the rain with the baby on her hip and a dishrag in her hand, and she says, “Well, I’ll be.”
    And by the time Daddy and Granpa T get outside, Buddy’s starting to walk. He hops and steps and hops and steps and then he’s standing right in front of me. He reaches up his nose and pokes it in my stomach, and it tickles and I laugh, and I sing out, “Hallelujah!”
    And then I get down on my hands and knees. I hug him around the neck. His fur is warm and soft, and he’s smelling like those old, wet leaves again. He’s shaking all over and his tail is whapping against that torn-up screen propped beside the door.
    I lean back and I look in his eyes. “You’re my buddy,” I say, and he’s licking my nose and my mouth and my eyes and going, “Ruff, ruff!” in my ear, and I’m laughing so hard I fall backwards into the rain and I look up at the sky and I swear I see that old sun just starting to break through.

7
    We can’t let Buddy out of the shed that first day because everything is too wet, but come Saturday, I open that door in the morning and I say, “Today is your day, Buddy. Today you get to come outside.”
    He pokes his nose out the door and his ears go
prp!
—standing straight up on the top of his head. He looks around at the tree waving its leaves and at the top of the fence where the cat’s claw vine is busting out with yellow flowers, and he starts barking up a storm, standing there with his nose pointing at the tree like he’s trying to show me something.
    â€œThat’s just squirrels,” I say. “Ain’t nothing new.”
    He looks at me like he wants to make sure I know what I’m talking about, and then he starts exploring. He’s got his own way of walking. His one back foot has to do double time to keep up with his two front feet. He’s slow and wobbly, but he gets where he’s going.
    First, he hobbles over to where the fence meets up with the shed and he starts sniffing at the ground, poking his nose at every stick that fell out of the trees, cruising across that half-dead grass to check out the pecan tree, pushing a rotten old pecan along the ground. Then he snugs up next to the tree, walks in a circle twice, and lays himself down in a spot of dirt between two roots sticking up out of the ground.
    â€œIs that your place, Buddy?” I say, and he looks me in the eye and goes, “Rrruff,” and I guess that means, “Yes, it is, and don’t bother me when I’m laying here.”
    About that time Daddy bangs open the back door and leans halfway out. “It’s Saturday,” he yells.
    â€œI know that.”
    â€œYou know what it means?”
    I can’t help it. I roll my eyes.
    â€œDon’t you roll your eyes at me.”
    â€œI ain’t rolling my eyes. And I know I’m supposed to mow the yard. But there ain’t hardly any grass.”
    â€œThere’s enough. And the front yard needs it bad.”
    Ever since we moved into Granpa T’s house, cutting the grass has been my job. Granpa T says that’s half the reason he asked us to move in. He says after almost forty years going around and around the same yard, he’s tired of cutting that grass. He figures he’s got a grandson who can do it so it’s time to turn over the reins. That first summer he showed me how to gas up the lawn mower and run it back and forth so I don’t miss any spots. At first I