Felicity

By Mary Ryan

I flew up the stairs two at a time, furious. Six more weeks in a cast? That’s my entire baseball season ruined.  Flopping into my desk chair, I swept my casted arm across the top of the desk, sending everything either flying or thumping to the floor. Look magazine peeked out from under homework and a tissue box. I picked it up and ripped out pages one by one, crumpling them with my good hand and batting them across the room with my cast. I was mid-rip when I noticed a photo showing Mr. Buck walking six dogs down a street in New York. Dog walking was a job? Intrigued, I read the article more closely. “I can do that!”

Exhaling the last of my self-pity, I thought up a to-do list as I searched for my Mr. Sketch markers and retrieved blank paper from the floor. I created my signs—Reliable Dog Walker. Call Gary at 5318—then hung them up all over town. Now all I had to do was wait.

On Saturday, Mom called up the stairs, “Gary? Gary! Phone call.”

“Hello?” I was surprised to hear an older woman’s voice.

“Hello Gary, I am Mrs. Kirkhem. I saw your sign. I have Ladies’ Aid Society on Tuesday, Circle Club on Wednesday, and Social Culture Club on Thursday. My little Felicity just can’t bear to be alone on those afternoons. How much do you charge?”

I cringed into the phone. I hadn’t thought of that! The article had said Mr. Buck was making three dollars a walk so I blurted out, “Two dollars?”

“Ridiculous!” Mrs. Kirkhem replied. “I will pay you fifty cents an afternoon. Be here promptly after school on Monday so I can explain Felicity’s needs.”

“Yes, Mrs. Kirkhem.”

Monday, after school, I dallied my way to Hildreth Street instead of the baseball diamond. I had envisioned a lady like her would have a nice Collie or even a German shepherd for safety. Instead, I found a quivering bowl of tan colored Jell-O named Felicity—a tiny little Chihuahua with a tiny little jacket and a tiny little jewel-encrusted collar that I learned she was prone to slip in her panics. On Tuesday, it was a gentle game of tug-of-war to even get Felicity to go around the block. Despite how sorry I felt for her, she was exhausting.

Wednesday was oppressively humid, stifling me as I tried to make progress with an obstinate, shivering Snoopy on the end of a short leash. “Come on, Felicity,” I cajoled. “You’ve come a long way, baby!”

Ominously, thunder rumbled from the southwest, sending Felicity bolting between my legs. As I was stepping free from the leash, Chief Gordon pulled up to the curb, lights blazing. He bellowed, “Gary! Get inside! There’s a bad storming coming!”

As he sped away, the tornado sirens went off. My body lurched like I had just touched an electric fence. Scooping up Felicity as I would a low line drive, I bolted.

Reaching the Kirkhem house, I ran to the back and nearly surfed down the storm cellar stairs, howling as I hit the landing, “A lock? A padlock? Who leaves the house open and the cellar locked?” I sprinted back up the stairs and burst into the house. Dropping Felicity on the rolltop desk, I began frantically hunting. “The key! Got to be here! Come on!”

My fingers fell on a paper clip, and my mind flashed to Boy Mechanic. I could pick the lock! I ran back outside and down the cellar stairs with Felicity practically sailing at the end of her leash like a kite. “How do I do it? What did it say? Think, Gary! Think!”

My casted fingers fumbled, and I fought back rising panic as I heard what sounded like a fast-approaching train rumbling, increasing—two trains, five, ten, fifteen! I dropped the clip. With surging terror, I clumsily retrieved it, shoved it in the key slot, and wiggled it around. Then horrified, I realized, “I needed two paper clips.”

I collapsed against the door and cowered in the scant cover of the stairway. Looking down at the leash, I choked. It was totally slack. The rhinestone-encrusted collar was empty. The storm’s pandemonium was deafening, and the pressure was intolerable as I gasped for air and longed for shelter. But where was Felicity? Clawing the door frame for stability, and against all reasonable sense, I stood, just in time to see the frightened dog begin to lift off the top cellar step. Launching myself as if I was trying to keep a home run ball from going over the fence, I lunged to pluck her out of the air, crying, “Felicity!”

Together, we rag-dolled into the wind—

—and that’s all I remember until Chief Gordon smacked my face. “Gary? Gary! You awake, boy?”

Blinking awake, I sat up and found Felicity still enfolded between me and my cast. Chief helped me to my feet, and I took inventory of my body. Somehow, I was okay.

Felicity licked my chin as the Chief asked, “You alright? I’ve got to keep searching!”

I nodded, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

He patted my shoulder. “Be careful, son,” he said before leaving us.

I took in my surroundings and, awestruck, realized I was two blocks away from what used to be Mrs. Kirkem’s house.

All over Iowa, people heard at 6 p.m. on WMT-TV, “Good Evening. It is May 15th, 1968, and we are going straight to the weather desk.”

“Hello, I am Conrad Johnson with details of a massive tornado that has destroyed Charles City.”

Mrs. Kirkem never made it home that day, so Felicity stayed with me. You know, she never quivered after that. She would occasionally slip her collar, but only when I had a home game. I’d always find her patiently waiting at the edge of the dugout.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Ryan has been telling stories for a very long time and appreciates that her Dad tolerated her tales and encouraged her creativity. Author of Diary From the Desert and Momentz with Mary blog, Mary enjoys sharing the what her imagination sees!  She loves hiking around her home in Central Oregon as well as reading, gardening, and creating art.

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