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face. I pause, wondering if I should just head home. Dr. Mac told David and me that we shouldn’t come in if the weather was too bad. David ... he’ll think I’m a scaredy-cat if I don’t show up.
    The clinic is just a few blocks away. I cross Mrs. Clark’s yard with my head down against the wind, but I catch a glimpse of that puddle in the corner of the yard as I pass by. Is it a little bigger than when I got there? Or is it just my imagination? There’s no way to be sure.
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I’m still thinking about that puddle in the yard—and the ones in the basement—when I get back to the clinic. The phone is ringing when I walk in. There’s nobody else in the reception area, so I throw my body against the door to push it closed against the howling wind, then rush over to pick up the phone.
    â€œHello, Dr. Mac’s Place,” I say. “Can I help you?”
    â€œIt’s an emergency!” a breathless, panicky voice answers. “My little Precious girl won’t eat her food and she keeps shivering, and a tree fell over so I can’t get the car out of my driveway to bring her in, and I just know she’s sick—”
    â€œUm, hold on a second, please,” I interrupt. “I’ll get Dr. Mac.”
    I’ve already recognized the woman’s voice. I hurry back to the recovery room, where I find Dr. Mac changing the gauze bandage on a corgi with a torn toenail. “It’s Mrs. Creighton,” I tell her. “She says Precious is shivering and not eating, and she can’t get her car out of the driveway to come over.” Mrs. Creighton is one of our most frequent visitors to the clinic. She has two tiny Yorkshire terriers, and she gets hysterical if one of them sneezes or coughs or looks at her funny.
    Dr. Mac sighs. “Oh, dear,” she says, looking harried. “Precious is probably just anxious because of the weather. But she’s so nervous, even missing a meal or two could stress her enough to upset her stomach again. I suppose I’d better get over there and check on her. She may need a dextrose injection.”
    I help her return the corgi to his cage. Then, as Dr. Mac hurries toward the phone, I wander into the kennel area, where the other volunteers are doing chores.
    When I tell them about the phone call, Zoe rolls her eyes. “Mrs. Creighton is a nut,” she comments. “Precious is probably on a hunger strike to try to get herself a new owner.”
    I expect Maggie to argue with her—maybe launch into some long speech about dextrose injections. But she just nods. “Mrs. Creighton worries too much,” she says. “And those little dogs know it, so they walk all over her. Precious probably decided she doesn’t like her brand of dog food.”
    As Maggie talks, she’s letting a dog I’ve never seen before out of one of the wire kennels. He looks like a small collie or sheltie mix. “Who’s that?” I ask.
    â€œHis name’s Otis.” Brenna reaches down to scratch the dog behind the ears. “Someone found him wandering around and brought him here for safekeeping.”
    Maggie nods. “Dr. Mac called his owners—the number’s on his tags—but their phone doesn’t seem to be working, probably because of good old Felix. She’s keeping an eye on him here until we can get in touch with them.”
    â€œGood thing he’s wearing his tags.” I watch the little dog cheerfully follow Maggie toward the back door. It would be terrible to lose your pet in a storm and not know how to find him. It makes me glad that Mittens is safe and sound inside my house.
    I wander back toward the front. Dr. Mac is just hanging up the phone. She pulls on her raincoat and grabs her keys from the desk. “Dr. Gabe just called to say he was leaving the Jenkins farm—their llama decided she just had to give birth during this hurricane. He should be back