Dog Whisperer by Nicholas Edwards

felt—connected. Every time he had looked at her with those sad, deep brown eyes, it had seemed as though he somehow knew everything that she was thinking and feeling.
    She couldn’t stand the thought of losing this dog—but, right now, there wasn’t anything she could do to help him.
    All she could do was hope.

9
    Emily stayed on the rock, in the rain, for a long time, lost in thought.
    â€œI thought you might want this,” a voice said. Emily looked up to see that her mother had come outside and was holding her yellow slicker. “No, thanks,” she said. “I’m okay.”
    Normally, her mother would have told her to put it on, anyway, but she just nodded and set the coat down on one of the other rocks.
    â€œYour father just called, and he’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said. “You didn’t have any breakfast, so I want you to try and eat a decent lunch, okay?”
    She wasn’t at all hungry, but Emily nodded.
    Her mother nodded, too, and climbed up effortlessly to sit next to her on the rock. The rain was still coming down pretty hard, and they both watched as a small lobster boat chugged across the water, stopping every so often at a brightly-marked buoy so
that the man and the woman in the boat could check their traps and set out a few new ones.
    â€œDo you think he hurts?” Emily asked, after a while.
    Her mother shook her head. “No. They’re giving him medicine to help him sleep, and to make sure he isn’t in any pain.”
    Did animals take things like aspirin or Tylenol? Or did they have special medications? Since he’d been having surgery, though, he might not even be awake yet. For a second, it occurred to her that he might never wake up at all , but she wasn’t going to let herself think about that.
    â€œNo matter what happens,” her mother said,
    â€œyou did the right thing by trying to save him. I’m very proud of you.”
    That was a nice compliment, and Emily nodded, a little bit shyly. “All I did was go outside.”
    â€œWell,” her mother lifted an eyebrow, “according to your father, you did considerably more than that.”
    Emily checked her expression to see how much trouble she might be in, before answering. “I didn’t plan it. It just, you know, happened .”
    Her mother nodded.
    â€œDad was really mad at me,” Emily said.

    â€œNo, your father was afraid you might get hurt,” her mother corrected her. “There’s a big difference.”
    â€œI had to jump in,” Emily said defensively. “Are you going to yell at me about it, too?”
    Actually, her parents almost never yelled—at anyone, or about anything. Mostly, they liked to be very calm and reasonable, and discuss things. At length. Sometimes, they had really, really long discussions—like, for several hours—and once, during a lengthy debate that had sounded a whole lot more like an actual argument , her father had even put a kitchen timer on the table to force her mother to wind down a little more efficiently.
    â€œNot today,” her mother said, but then she looked at her sharply. “I know you’re an excellent swimmer, but that water can be very dangerous, especially during a thunderstorm.”
    The currents were often so strong, and the part of the sound in front of their house was so deep, that when she wanted to go swimming, her parents drove down to the beach or took her over to the pools at the college. And if she was ever on a boat of any kind, she always wore a life jacket.
    â€œSo, from now on, I need for you to remember to be much more careful,” her mother said.
    Emily nodded. Her parents worried a lot about
her, and she didn’t know if all parents were like that, or whether hers were particularly anxious. She kind of thought that because her parents had been a little bit older when they adopted her, they spent more time worrying than her