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“Yes.”
“And you ate meat from a bowl?” Suri’s stomach grumbled, and she was drooling at the thought.
“I did,” her grandmother smiled.
“Where did you do all this?” Suri tried hard to imagine a pipe or a hole in which there could be a soft bed and a bowl of meat. But even Suri’s rich imagination could not summon up such miraculous things.
“All this was at the house of my friend – my human,” grandmother sighed and looked sadly into the distance.
“HUMAN?” Suri shouted in amazement.
Dad and mom had told them about people. After all, it was always around people that they found food for themselves and their children. But there was always danger and anxiety attached to these stories.
“Remember, children,” dad had once said, “you must never get close to people. If you come across them unexpectedly, hide or run for it.”
“Are they really that scary?” the puppies asked, wiggling their ears in fright.
“They are unpredictable. They could scream right out, kick you, or throw stones at you. They don’t like us taking the food that they throw away.”
“Are they so greedy?” asked the cowering puppies.
“Yes. They are greedy. They won’t even give us what they don’t want or need,” Dad said with a frown. “People think we are dangerous and so they chase us away.”
“Are all people like that?” Suri asked timidly. For some reason, she did not want to believe in such scary stories at all.
Dad looked at her closely.
“No, baby, not all people are like that. They say there are good and kind humans,” for some reason, while saying this, dad turned to look at Granny Pea, who was sleeping nearby. “But this is not something you can know by just looking at them, and you should never try to check because it is too dangerous. A person can sound friendly when it calls you, but when you come closer… WHAM!”
The puppies loved their dad so much and, of course, believed him and perceived grandmother’s stories as fairy tales. They believed in her, certainly, but she was always at home; dad was the one who used to go out to get food and he was the one who saw people, which meant that dad’s stories had to be true.
However, Suri still could not fully believe her dad. Something inside her, in her little heart, said that her grandmother was also right, and what she was telling were not fairy tales; there could be such people too!
So, every day Suri and her grandmother lay down ever more comfortably in the shade and talked.
Suri once asked:
“Granny Pea, how come all other dogs have no names – even mom and dad and my brothers – but you and I have? And only you call me by name – well, sometimes mom does too.”
“Because, my little Suri, the rest of the dogs chose to have no name. More precisely, to have no human name. They have seen too much bad and too little good from people. I kept my name, and I gave you your name.”
And, in fact, the dogs in the pack did not really call each other by name. If a dog was black, then it was called so – Black. Big White Dog was hence called exactly that. Everyone called Suri’s dad Red, and her mom was called Fluffy.
In the whole pack, only Suri’s grandmother had an actual name: Busya.
“Grandma, what does your name mean?” Suri asked. “And where did it come from?”
“A human gave it to me,” answered Granny Pea. “Or rather, I always had it, and my human just said it out loud.”
“Always had it? How’s that?” Suri was very confused.
Grandma looked carefully at her granddaughter.
“Well, it’s time for you to know this, since you’re asking.” She moved closer to Suri. “Every dog… Remember this, Suri… Every single dog has its own name. It does not describe it just like Black or White. It may not mean anything, it just is.
And in the life of each dog, a special person can appear who will call it by name. Only that person will know it, and that person will be the first to call a dog by name. And when a person names that dog, they will forever be friends and will be together.”
“Did your human say your name?” A strange sensation crept into Suri’s throat, which made it difficult to breathe.
“Yes, my little Suri. My human found me and gave me my name,” Granny Pea answered quietly.
“How? When?” Suri was barely able to find her voice.
“It was a long time ago. I was still living with my mom and her human. I had brothers and sisters; a big friendly family. And each of us had our own name. My name was Pearl.
“Pearl?” Suri pricked up her ears in surprise. “Isn’t your name Pea?”
“I became Pea here, in the flock. Dogs really didn’t like my human name. They called me Small because I was the smallest. But then they agreed to Pea.
Grandma smiled a little sadly.
“So, Suri, I lived with my mother. When my brothers and sisters and I grew up, different people began to come to our house. They played with us, told us how cute we were, and then someone would suddenly called one of the puppies by name. It was wonderful to suddenly realize that this was your human! And that puppy, whose name was spoken, left with the human to go and live in their house. This is how my human appeared. One day, a very nice lady in a beautiful dress and with a glamorous hairstyle came to see us. She took me in her arms and brought me closer to her face. She smelled of flowers and of something warm. It was such a lovely aroma that I could not resist, and I licked her right on the nose!”
Suri giggled, and Granny Pea laughed:
“Imagine, I licked such a beautiful lady on the nose!” Granny Pea stared dreamily into the distance.
“And what did the lady do?” Suri asked.
“She laughed and said ‘Oh, you are my Pearl!’ And she kissed me back. So I realized that it was she who was my human.”
“And you began to live with her? What about yourmom? Didn’t you miss her?” Suri felt sad for some reason. She could not imagine her own mother not being there. Or her dad. Or her brothers.
“Of course I missed them at first. Out of habit, I whimpered and cried. But my lady was extremely kind. When I cried, she always took me in her arms, consoled me, and gave me a tasty treat. And at night she put my bed next to hers and caressed me until I fell asleep. This is how our world works – when we grow up, we leave our parents and go to live with the one who is our destiny.”
Grandma, a pensive look on her face, fell silent and Suri was also deep in thought. For a while they just lay there, each turning things over in their minds.
Suri tried to imagine what a bed was like. Is it as soft as grass? Did it also tickle the paws and tummy? And if it was similar, then how could it be moved somewhere else? Because grass always grew in the same place. And what did a person look like? Grandmother said that people walked on their hind legs, and with their front legs – rather, what she called their arms – they touched and did everything, even carrying different things with them. Suri once tried to walk like a human, but it was very uncomfortable. Her paws were all a’quiver, and she fell over constantly.
Suri also tried to imagine what it would be like to be “taken in a person’s arms” and “stroked on the head.” Was it like how mom and dad used to carry them with their teeth to move them from place to place? Did humans also lick one’s face with their warm tongues?
Suri dreamed so much about this, that at some point she even saw Grandma’s beautiful lady. She was standing in the shade of a tree, guarding a large bone in between her front paws, and wagging her fluffy tail. And next to her was Granny Pea.
Suri woke up and shook her head in confusion. What a strange vision! After all, people don’t have tails!
“Grandma, where did your lady go?” asked Suri, staring at her grandmother.
In turn, grandma gazed dreamily into the distance, and it was clear that she was a little sad. Suri’s question brought her out of her reverie. She looked at her granddaughter and said:
“It was not the lady who left, my dear. It was I who left. It so happened that I ran away and could not come back.”
“Why did you run away?” asked Suri, in surprise. “Did you have a hard life with her? Did the lady mistreat you, like all people do?”
“Of course not!” Granny Pea answered, indignantly. “My lady was always very kind to everyone. Like all the other people who lived next to us. She would never hurt me!”
“Sorry, grandma, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Suri’s ears were flushed with embarrassment.
“It’s fine, Suri, I’m not angry,” Granny Pea smiled. “I didn’t deliberately run away from my lady. We lived happily together as friends for many years. We walked, played, went on visits. Once we went to see her friends in the city. There was some kind of holiday, and in the evening we went for a walk. My lady put my favorite collar and leash on me. I never walked where there were a lot of people without my collar and leash. And this time, there was indeed a great crowd of people. We had a nice walk, and as it was already dark we went home. But that was when the nightmare began. The earth began to rumble, for some reason people shouted joyfully, and very bright lights appeared in the sky. There were so many of them, and they exploded so loudly that I almost went deaf and saw almost nothing but dazzling sparks. I jerked to the side, trying to hide from this nightmare. The collar slipped from me and I ran away. I forgot that my lady would protect me if I stayed close to her. I just ran for cover, and the lights continued to explode over my head.
Grandma fell silent.
“What a terrifying ordeal!” Suri felt that her grandmother was trembling a little, and pressed against her to calm her down.
“Yes, it was scary,” grandmother continued with a sigh. “But I was even more scared when I realized that I was lost. That my lady was not around, that I was in an unfamiliar place and completely alone! I had never walked alone and had no idea what to do. At first I decided to follow my tracks back, but they were overwhelmed by all the other smells. It was already night, so I hid in a box. I stayed in it until the morning, and then went out searching for my lady, for my home. It turned out that I had ran to some sort of park. I wandered for a long, long time, but did not find my lady. Several days passed like that. I was very tired and hungry. And then I met your grandfather.”
Suri pricked up her ears in delight. She loved the story of her grandparents so much. Suri never met her grandfather, as he disappeared long before her birth, but her grandmother spoke about him so often and so vividly that Suri loved him as if she had known him all her life.
“You know the rest of the story,” Granny Pea continued. “I still missed my lady. But then your mother was born, and I understood that everything was happening for the best. At some point, your grandfather left, and we started wandering again, and then I met the pack. Now we live here, and that’s that.”
“Would you still like to find your lady? Do you think she still remembers you?” Suri looked into her grandmother’s sad eyes and almost welled up with tears of her own as she wished for grandma’s happiness.
“Of course she remembers me! I’m sure my lady is still looking for me. But it is probably not our destiny.” Granny Pea looked affectionately at Suri. “And I have your mother, after all, as well as my grandchildren. And I have you, my beloved little Suri. I am very, very happy with you.”
Grandma pulled Suri towards her and hugged her with her front paws. Suri licked her grandmother’s little black nose, and both of them, happy and peaceful, continued to lie in the shade on the soft grass. Life is great when there are loved ones around!
Chapter 6. Autumn
Summer passed, almost imperceptibly, and autumn came. Suri had grown up. From a small ball of fur, she had turned into a long-legged, slender teenager. Her fur remained as soft, but now it stuck out in strange bunches, which Suri was not keen on. She had hoped with all her heart that she would resemble her mother and grandmother! Their hair was long, fluffy, and exceptionally beautiful, especially on the chest and neck. But most beautiful of all was grandma’s tail! The coat there was long, almost white, and fluttered like a cloud when Granny Pea happily wagged her tail.
Suri’s tail looked more like a shaggy twig; what’s more, her neck was thin and the fur there grew in uneven bunches – sometimes long, sometimes fluffy. Suri was highly disappointed.
“Mom!” Once, it all got to be too much for Suri, and she ran to complain to her mother. “Mom! This is very unfair!”
“What is unfair, my baby?” Mom looked at her daughter in surprise.
“It’s not fair that I am like this!” Suri cried.
“Like what?” Mom was completely at a loss.
“Well, this… ugly.” Suri lowered her head so that her mother would not see her tears, but a trembling voice betrayed her. “You and grandma are so beautiful! And I thought I would be like you! Dad is also handsome, and my brothers take after him. But I…” Suri buried her nose in her mother’s neck. “I don’t look like anyone. I’m like some kind of shaggy branch.”
“My silly thing,” mom gently pressed her muzzle to Suri. “What a fool you are! You are exceptionally beautiful!”
“Not true,” Suri sniffed, but she still looked at her mother with hope.
“It is the truth! So beautiful! And you will become even more beautiful,” mom winked.
“How do you know?” Suri narrowed her eyes.
“Because I myself was a ‘shaggy branch’ at your age,” mom laughed. “That’s right, and I too, would run to complain to my mother, Granny Pea!”
“Really?” Suri brushed away the remnants of her tears and her eyes sparkled with joy. “So, I will soon become as beautiful as you and grandma?”
“Well, I can’t say it will be soon, but in a year you definitely will!”
“A year is a long time!” Suri pretended to be outraged, but in fact she was ecstatic.
The world around Suri also began to change. The nights were longer and cooler. The grass was no longer as soft as at the beginning of summer – it turned yellow and became tough. Thorns and thistles appeared everywhere, which clung to the fur, burrowed deep into it, and stuck fast. One had to constantly pull them out with the teeth. Suri found it terribly annoying. She even tried rolling and writhing around on the grass, thinking that by doing this the thorns would fall off faster, but all she succeeded in doing was sticking them to herself even more firmly.
The worst thing was when thorns clung to her fur. Smooth-haired dad and her brothers had no idea how troublesome this was. Mom and grandmother walked very carefully and tried not to go near the tall grass and bushes. But Suri’s curiosity often got the better of her, and she was constantly forgetting about the thorns as she ran through the bushes with joy, catching lizards and grasshoppers. She paid the price afterwards, though, laying down in front of her mother or grandmother and enduring the tedious process of them pulling all of the nasty invaders out of her fur.
It is worth relaying a couple of stories about grasshoppers. By the end of the summer, Suri discovered that she, too, could hunt and forage. Of course, mom and dad brought food, but the puppies had grown so much that there was not enough of it for everyone. One day Suri noticed something small, something jumping. It leaped so swiftly and so far that none of the puppies could catch it. They all would run after the little jumpers, snapping their jaws loudly, but nothing came of it. The grasshoppers dodged them deftly and hid in the dry grass.
Then Suri decided to try another method. She moved away from the noisy flock of puppies and began to look closely at an especially large grasshopper that jumped on a nearby blade of grass. Suri froze, then approached it, ever so quietly, so that the grasshopper did not notice her. Suddenly, she jumped on it. Crushing it with her front paws and sticking up her behind and wagging tail in a comical fashion. It turned out to be very effective! Suri was quick to bury her nose between her paws and munch on her prey. The grasshopper was delicious!
If Suri had not been so hungry, she probably would not have eaten them, but instead just played with the jumping creatures, trying to catch up with them and outsmart them. But a fast-growing puppy needs a lot of food, and although mom and dad always shared the booty with everyone, the portions turned out to be small. So Suri was happy to run and jump this way and that, all across the clearing, catching grasshoppers with her little paws. Finally, she had plenty to eat!
Of course, she shared her hunting secret with the other puppies. However, none of them had Suri’s skill, and the grasshoppers would still escape from them. Suri began to catch them for her brothers and friends. How grateful they were to her! For the puppies, grasshoppers were probably as much of a delicacy as ripe berries are for children. Everyone began to call Suri a hunter. Suri herself was very proud that she, the smallest one in the pack, could help and feed others just like an adult dog.
As the nights grew colder, the trees around them began to change.
“Grandma, what happened to the leaves?” Suri looked in amazement at her and her grandmother’s beloved tree. “They’ve become kind of strange!”
“They’ve just turned yellow. That’s what happens in the fall,” Grandma replied. “Then they will begin to tumble from the trees and spin ever so beautifully to the ground. You can run after them and try to catch them before they land!”
“Will the trees be completely bare?” Suri was not the least bit keen on this prospect. “And how are we going to lie down together in the shade?”
Granny Pea sighed.
“Suri, you don’t need shade in winter. It will be cold, and we will need to seek out every ray of sunshine to keep warm. But don’t think about that now,” said Granny Pea, noticing that Suri was looking increasingly puzzled. “Winter is not yet here, and it is not too cold to go play with your brothers!”
