Schoolâs cruel but karmaâs crueller when youâre thirteen and trying to hold on to your best friend.
Chasing Shadow: A Tale of Two Dogs, is a heartwarming coming-of-age story that will stay with you long after you read it. Thirteen-year-old Mitch evades his enemies by hiding out at the local animal shelter when he meets Shadow, a large dog, ignored and passed over time and time again. Mitch and Shadow form an unbreakable bond, but trouble starts when Mitch's mother adopts the wrong dog. Desperate to save Shadow, Mitch must accept the newcomer or continue his search for his beloved companion. If you enjoyed these Netflix treasures, A Dog's Purpose and A Dogâs Courage, by W. Bruce Cameron, or Rescued by Ruby, by Karen Janszen, youâre sure to love Chasing Shadow, book one of the Chasing Shadow trilogy.
Schoolâs cruel but karmaâs crueller when youâre thirteen and trying to hold on to your best friend.
Chasing Shadow: A Tale of Two Dogs, is a heartwarming coming-of-age story that will stay with you long after you read it. Thirteen-year-old Mitch evades his enemies by hiding out at the local animal shelter when he meets Shadow, a large dog, ignored and passed over time and time again. Mitch and Shadow form an unbreakable bond, but trouble starts when Mitch's mother adopts the wrong dog. Desperate to save Shadow, Mitch must accept the newcomer or continue his search for his beloved companion. If you enjoyed these Netflix treasures, A Dog's Purpose and A Dogâs Courage, by W. Bruce Cameron, or Rescued by Ruby, by Karen Janszen, youâre sure to love Chasing Shadow, book one of the Chasing Shadow trilogy.
Thinking back... most of the trouble started, late summer
before grade eight, and almost a thousand miles to the
West. Yes, thereâd been trouble before, for most of of primary school
to be truthful, but those weeks just before grade eight, those were
different. Things heated up one particular afternoon in August 2013,
the 27th or 28th maybe. It was before the labor day weekend and the
start of school. Shadow and me, it was just us, enjoying the quiet of
this abandoned mill weâd found earlier in the season. Iâll tell you more
about the mill a little later on.
We didnât officially belong to each other back then, not on paper,
but on any meaningful level we knew we did. A knowing that might
take a kid and his dog to the ends of the earth if need be. And that
knowing, thatâs the hub linking all the separate spokes of this whole
telling together; cause no matter how crazy things got, it always came
back to him. It was always, really, about him.
As I recall, there were two storms blowing in that hot, grey, August
day and I was hoping to avoid both. We settled, waiting for the rain
clouds to pass over which a person could watch through the open
roof. Iâd put Shadow on a long leash, longest I could find for him, and
in the calm, in what seemed like time frozen still, he was plowing through
the dark dirt, sifting through the freed odors rooted up from
the rotting floorboards. With enough of it turned, he bent and rolled,
grinding his back into the worms, the half sprouted seeds and the
scurrying bugs.
That afternoon I was listening for the snap of a twig, a swoosh of
dry leaves against the cracked stone walkway outside. I was listening
for the kind of sound you might hear when someone was trying to
sweep the leaves aside to avoid detection. I already knew weâd been
seen. What I didnât know was if weâd been followed.
I remember Shadow on his back, his belly to the ceiling rafters,
squeaking his ball. He was a big dog, black and lean with eyes the
color of living coals and a sprinkle of grey around his nose. Shelter
records said heâd been picked up early spring, trotting along one of
the concession roads northwest of Fennwick town proper. And with
no tags and no chip there wasnât much we had of his story, except for
those letters âSadoâ, scrawled in the hand of a five-year-old, on the
inside of his collar, so faded they were almost gone.
I told him to stop making the noise. Itâs important for dogs to
learn how to wait, but he jumped up beside me on the old grinding
stone, dropping it in lap, waiting for me to throw it. He always
dropped the ball gently. Shadow had manners I want you to understand,
which he must have learned in his other life. He was a good
boy, patient and mindful, but I thought it best if we kept things quiet. I
shook my head and he lay down with his nose on my knee as the light
grew dimmer and the temperature dropped a degree or two. Far
above us, lightning stitched through the dark clouds, which I could
see through the holes in the roof. A drop of rain hit my cheek.
Two stories above our heads, the birds fluffed and preened among
the rafters. Trouble was coming, they sensed it too. In the curved
ladder of the great rotation wheel, three half-fledged crows called to
their mama in the cooling air. Mama crow, hearing the ruckus, flew in
to check on what was up. She poked around in the nest, dropping old
twigs and new poop into the spaces below where you could still find
an empty sack or two of Fennwickâs Hardy Whole Wheat Flour.
The old place had fallen back to the birds and the bugs. Everything
else was gone, even the stream which once turned the great wheel.
Town council had forced the water underground back in 1911
according to the last yearâs seventh-grade history assignment (What
Ever Happened to Fennwickâs first Flour Mill?). James Longwood Patterson,
a big real estate tycoon, and a few greedy officials had made other
plans for the land, downriver.
Funny thing about water though is that no matter what you do,
you canât completely control it. Sooner or later itâll make its own way.
Itâs what was happening underneath the damp wooden floors some
hundred years later, âmy timeâ, while I sat watching the baby crows
settling down beneath their mamaâs warm breastâand to the land
north and south of the mill, too swampy now for anything else but
hydro towers.
Didnât matter. This place meant a little freedom for Shadow and
me, with its insides half open to the sky, away from the road and
behind a thick grove of cedars. It was a space where a scrawny kid
might keep some distance from his schoolyard troubles and a big
black dog might soothe his itchy back, at least for a while. I started
thinking it was high time we moved on when those babies clammed
up as sudden as startled frogs. I could drive myself crazy wondering
what Iâd been doing right now if Shadow and Iâd just left a few
minutes earlier.
But we didnât, so there we were when Rusty-Joe Patterson busted
in through the open door.
Ya, thatâs right, Rusty-Joe. JPâs great, great- grandson. JPâs legacy of
corruption and extortion, in the flesh, weaving down through the
years, worming its own dark thread through the newer generations.
From land pirate to banker, banker to politician, politician to schoolyard
bully, JPâs strong-arming ways was still bent on running the
show. Maybe they didnât know it but every family in town had been
affected by the Patterson's in one way or another. Shadow and me
were no exception.
Mama crow swooped down for a well aimed blow. Rusty ducked,
took a swipe and missed as she circled the room a few times, settling
on the wheel just above her nest. When he saw us, his eyes lit up. He
forgot all about the crow. Shadowâs ball fell from my lap as Rusty bent
over and picked it up, whipping it to his buddy, Bryon. Bryon
whipped it back as though heâd been born with a ball in his hand. Heâd
made the Lacrosse team a few years in a row after all, and it was easy
to see why.
Rusty wasnât as good, but he caught it anyway. At fifteen he was
big, bigger than the rest of us, a ginger-haired kid with a face full of
freckles. He knocked the hat off my head, took a good long look at it.
âVolunteer Dog Walker, Fennwick Downs Shelter. Hey Bryon, kidâs a
real doooo... gooder. Who woulda thought?â
âGuess thatâs why we havenât seen him around since end of school,â
said Bryon, pushing a few strands of stringy brown hair behind
his ear.
He set himself down on the other old grinding stone, wadding up
spitballs and laying them down beside himself in a neat row. âGuess
the kidâs been busy with all his new found community spirit.â
Shadow backed up just as far as he could. He lowered his head. He
watched quietly. I could see how confused he was, trying to figure
things out. The voices were soft, but he could surely smell fear
coming off me like stink from a smoldering tire.
Bryon raised a straw and let his ammo fly, hitting my eyelid
squarely. Spitballs was Bryonâs weapon of choice. I let it stick till it
fell off.
Rusty stepped closer. âThat it kid? You been hanging out with the
Jesus types all summer? How about sending a little something my
way?â And with his free hand, he reached for my shirt. âYouâre a little
overdue...â
That was when we heard it. A low rumble, felt it really, knew it for
what it was without looking. The straw fell from Bryonâs lips, still
loaded with a second round. Rusty lowered his hand. Shadow backed
up, stiff and still. For a second, no one moved. I saw Rusty glance at
the ball, his other arm and shoulder swinging back, winding up for a
bone-cracking whip.
Shadow curled his lip, his eyes fixed and hard. The sound coming
from his throat, at first a growl, dialing up to a snarl, then a dry
clicking hitch, a whisper of breath drawn through the snapping of
jaws on empty air. Rustyâs arm dropped a few inches. He hesitated...
âI donât have anything.â I said quietly, pulling Shadow close as I
knew what happened to shelter dogs that bit. He glanced up at me
with a question in his eyes, the hackles on his back still raised. I petted
his shoulder. After a minute he lowered his head, quiet and watchful.
His eyes followed the green ball. He was worried. It was his and I
knew he wanted it, but he didnât move.
Rustyâs mouth grew hard. âTell you what, you little shit, weâll let it
go this time. Next time, youâll owe me double.â
He made a big show of breaking the rest of the glass from two of
the old windows. Then as a parting gift, he turned and whipped the
ball, which missed Shadowâs head by inches. Bouncing off the back
wall, it hit one of the grinding stones and rolled to a stop against my
right shoe.
âCity shelter huh?â He said, pulling my hat onto his own head. It
was more of an observation than a question.
I didnât figure he was looking for an answer so I didnât give him
one. Rusty stopped for a few seconds to study Shadow, who was just
as closely, studying him. Rusty broke the stand off first by flipping me
the bird and following Bryon out through one of the broken windows.
Shadow whined softly, jumped down, and picked up his ball. A
patter of rain had started fall. âShh now...
Itâs okay Boy,â I whispered, trying to put him at ease, but I knew
that it wasnât.