Part 8
“I don’t know.”
“All right.” She stepped away from the glass. “You don’t have to manufacture an answer.”
He was nearly out of the corridor when she called him back.
“Mercer. She sounds like a fine kid.”
“She’s the best part of the household.”
“Dogs included?”
“Don’t tell him.”
Vance’s mouth twitched, and she opened the training-room door.
Keene confirmed that evening that Mrs. Whitcomb would have a planning period during Wednesday’s presentation. A substitute would bring the class. Owen didn’t ask whose decision it had been.
Natalie listened while he explained the arrangement, then returned to the book on her lap.
“Want to practice?” he asked.
“I practiced already.”
“I meant with the microphone setup in mind.”
“Dad. I still know it.”
He raised both hands and left her to the book.
Tuesday passed in small pieces: school, homework, dinner, a documentary she insisted she wasn’t really watching. At half past ten, light still showed beneath her bedroom door.
Owen knocked.
“You’ve got a morning coming.”
“I know.”
He waited.
“I’m a little nervous.”
“You’re allowed.”
“That doesn’t make it nicer.”
“No.”
On the other side of the door, Ranger shifted against the rug.
“What if everybody acts strange?” Natalie asked. “What if they just look at me?”
“They might. At first.”
“You’re very encouraging.”
He leaned against the frame.
“I can’t tell you what they’ll do. You get to finish, though. That part’s yours.”
There was a long silence.
“Okay,” she said.
“Night, sweetheart.”
“Night.”
Her light went out before he reached his own room.
The next morning, Owen arrived early to inspect the setup. The auditorium smelled faintly of dust warmed by stage lamps. A custodian had unlocked the side entrance and lowered the microphone stand.
Owen walked the ramp, checking its surface and the small turn at the top. Lydia tested the microphone. Two teachers waited near the aisle while Bell conferred with the substitute at the rear doors.
Natalie sat beside the stage with a few note cards she hadn’t looked at since leaving home.
“You want these?” Owen asked, holding out the cards after she set them on a chair.
“No.”
He put them in his pocket.
The class entered in a noisy, uneven line. Children nudged one another toward seats. The substitute asked for quiet twice, each request producing a brief improvement.
Caleb sat in the third row. His eyes found Owen, held for a moment, and dropped to his hands. A girl nearer the front, one Owen recognized from Natalie’s account, studied the empty stage with fierce attention.
When Natalie moved toward the ramp, a few whispers passed through the rows.
She paused at the bottom and glanced back at her father. He stayed where he was, Ranger beside his leg.
She went up.
At the microphone, she turned the stem slightly. A squeal burst from the speakers. Half the front row jumped. Natalie made a face at the microphone, and somebody laughed.
She waited until the sound settled.
“I’m Natalie Mercer,” she said. “This is the rest of my hero project.”
Owen folded his hands behind his back.
“The person I chose is my dad.”
She began with Ranger.
She explained what made a Belgian Malinois suitable for demanding work, and why suitability didn’t mean every dog of that breed should have the same job. Selection involved health, nerve, interest, and the ability to keep working with a person when there were distractions.
“A dog can leave one program and still be a good dog,” she said. “Sometimes the program is wrong for him. They find something else.”
Children who had been sitting sideways turned toward her.
She described scent training and how long it took. She talked about other people walking through a search area and leaving smells behind, and Ranger learning to follow the one he had been asked to find.
Then she told them about his hip.
“He has stretches. Dad has stretches, too. Neither of them is cheerful about it before breakfast.”
The laughter came easily this time. Owen looked down at Ranger, who seemed willing to let the criticism pass.
Natalie moved on to her father.
She didn’t list the commendations. She described calls that arrived with gaps in them, and learning not to hang up just because the line went quiet. She told them he had taught her to use a map before she was good at chapter books.
Two years earlier, a child had gone missing in another county. Owen had received the call in the middle of the night.
“I heard the garage,” she said. “It was about two. I looked at the clock.”
Owen raised his eyes.
“I counted until he came back. I didn’t mean to stay awake, but I kept looking. When I heard the vehicle again, the family-support person was with him. They were talking about getting the child’s parents there. That was how I knew.”
She adjusted her hands on the chair rims.
“I never told him I did that.”
Owen turned his head toward the blank side wall. The stage lamps hummed overhead. He swallowed once and looked back.
Natalie spoke for nearly twenty minutes. She talked about having a hero who bought groceries and checked homework, who made the dinner she requested and enforced bedtime while making exceptions for programs about animals. Sometimes his work kept him away from events other parents attended.
“If he hadn’t been able to come today, I’d still have picked him,” she said. “When he misses things, it’s usually because somebody needs him.”
She glanced toward the wing where he stood, then back at the class.
“He doesn’t look much like the people in movies when he gets home. Mostly he wants food and clean socks.”
A boy in the front row grinned.
“That’s my presentation.”
The applause began while she was still moving away from the microphone. It came in uneven bursts, then grew until the substitute stopped trying to say anything over it.
Owen let out a breath. Ranger pressed his shoulder lightly against Owen’s leg.
Natalie came down the ramp and stopped beside them. For a moment, father and daughter watched the clapping children without speaking.
“Well?” she asked.
“You nailed it.”
She looked up at his face.
“You’re crying.”
“Stage lights.”
“You aren’t on the stage.”
“Powerful lights.”
Her smile escaped before she could control it.
Owen bent slightly toward her.
“You knew your subject.”
“I told you.”
“Yes, you did.”
The class left slowly. Questions traveled down the aisles, about dogs and scent and whether Ranger really had to stretch. Caleb stopped at the door, looked back, and followed the others out.
Bell approached while Natalie talked with Lydia near the ramp.
“She did beautifully,” he said.
Owen nodded.
“We’ve also opened a formal performance review concerning Mrs. Whitcomb. I can’t discuss personnel details, but the incident isn’t being closed with today’s presentation.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Bell rubbed one thumb against the other.
“We should have begun there. I’m sorry we didn’t.”
Owen looked toward Natalie. She was explaining something with both hands, while Lydia listened.
“Keep following through,” he said.
Bell nodded and went to speak with the substitute.
Natalie wanted to remain at school. She was already there, she pointed out, and there was no reason to miss the afternoon. Owen agreed, took Ranger home, and returned at dismissal.
She came through the doors talking to a dark-haired girl with an oversized backpack. Natalie was smiling without appearing to notice she was doing it.
The other girl waved and went toward the buses.
“New friend?” Owen asked.
“Anika. She’s in the other third grade. Moved here earlier this fall.”
“What were you discussing?”
“How big Ranger is. People told her about him.”
“What did you say?”
“That he was bigger than they said.”
“He’s an ordinary-sized Malinois.”
“I know. Mine was a better answer.”
He loaded the chair, and they drove home through a brief wash of late-October sun. Natalie cracked the window and rested her forearm beside it.
After a while, she asked, “Could Mrs. Whitcomb lose her job?”
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