The wall was of a nice texture. Ember liked the feeling in her finger pads. Like when you turn on Snapping in a graphic design program – she enjoyed her fingers ‘snapping’ pleasantly to the wall. They were strong fingers, and they carried her light, agile body effortlessly up the wall. 

Ember reached the ceiling. It was bumpier and provided a different sensation in her fingers. She liked it too. She observed the fancy lighting fixture that looked like a clump of exotic mushrooms from Ember’s perspective. She decided to explore it. The mushroom caps were formed by matte glass bowls with elegant lacy etching. Beautiful! And something else … Yes! It smelled enticingly of warm and crunchy yummy insects. The smell reminded her of roasted pumpkin seeds. I hope nobody decides to turn the light on, Ember thought, approaching the fixture slowly. Otherwise, it’s gonna be way too bright.

“Morning!!” An angry and scratchy voice shouted very loudly. “Get up, lazy bums! Breakfast in 20 minutes!”

Why do people love shouting so much? Ember thought with habitual annoyance. The voice jerked her out of the dream where she was a perfectly nimble gecko. The dream was still vivid in her mind. Ember stretched in her bed and soaked the last shreds of the dream in. 

Ember loved dreams about being an animal. She had them not as often as she would like but a fair amount. Most often, she was a cat. She loved cats and could easily imagine herself being one. In a few dreams, she was a bird and flew vast distances. She never looked at herself in her dreams. So she didn’t know what kind of bird she was, but it was something big. She remembered having big, strong wings. Tonight was her first time as a gecko. Walking on the ceiling was definitely something to savor! So, Ember smiled.

She smiled despite the shouting voice, despite the cloudy sky behind the window, despite her narrow and hard bed, and despite her thin and not-so-warm blanket of undistinguished color after too many washes. She smiled despite waking up in this dull room of the orphanage she called home. All of the above was a norm, was her life. But the gecko dream was special. It was a gem, a morsel of happiness. And waking up from such a dream into Saturday morning, with the whole weekend waiting ahead, that was double nice.

“Ember! I had such a dream!” Margaret exclaimed from the bed next to her, seeing that her friend had woken up. She had a kind face and emanated a feeling of warm orange color and a plush texture. (Some people call it aura; Ember didn’t see anything but had a feeling of a person, usually in terms of color and/or texture.)

“What was it about?” Ember asked, thinking more about her own dream.

“I was dancing with Gary,” Margaret whispered dreamily.

“Was he nice or as arrogant as in real life?”

“He was nice and very … gentleman-y.”

“Then it wasn’t Gary, really.” Ember laughed. “It was somebody else.”

Margaret sighed but kept smiling. They went to breakfast together. Ember wasn’t particularly excited about the breakfast that morning – every Saturday they had porridge. She would rather skip it altogether, but the rules required everyone to come down for every meal. Ember placed a symbolic amount of porridge into her bowl and compensated for it with a generous amount of toast, some fruit, and a huge mug of tea.

Saturdays were for housework – cleaning and maintenance. Kids of all ages were mandatorily involved in it. But kids who had a job were exempted from the work for the duration of their jobs. By law, one could do babysitting or petsitting starting at age 12 (but the orphanage didn’t allow that until 13) and take any kind of job at 16.  Accordingly, every teenager at the orphanage was eager to find a job – for money and the exemption.

For example, Elli and Emma – the girls from the room across Ember’s – dropped high school after their sophomore year when they turned 16 and started working in a hairdressing salon. Most 16-year-olds at the orphanage did the same (not the hairdressing part but dropping school).

Ember, on the other hand, had an ambitious plan to finish school and go to college. She convinced Margaret to continue her education too. Ember petsat for her pocket money. She was amazingly good with all sorts of animals. With kids, too, for that matter, but people in general delegate care of their pets to teenagers more willingly than that of their children. Anyway, Ember grew a reputation as a pet whisperer and had a lot of regular customers.

This Saturday, she had 3 dogs for a morning walk. First, Ember stopped at Mrs. Rapport’s place. Mrs. Rapport was a successful businesswoman and had a burgundy and silk feeling to her.  Her German shepherd, Duncan, didn’t like her cleaning lady. Actually, he didn’t like any cleaning people in general. So, taking him out for a walk at 9:30 sharp was imperative for the house to be cleaned in peace.

Duncan loved Ember and their Saturday mornings together. He was right there, in the hall, already waiting for Ember and the walk. He behaved with great dignity, but according to the magnitude of his tail wagging, he was happy and excited as a pup. Ember smiled at him and scratched him under his chin. “Yes, Duncan, I’m happy to see you too. Let’s go.”

The next stop was at Mr. Cutbrough’s (warm blueish-grey feeling) where a silky-coat golden retriever named Buckster joined the party. Buckster expressed his joy with a couple of barks and jumps around Ember and Duncan. He was on a retractable leash, which he used at its full capacity all the way to their next stop, Mrs. Mulberry’s house, while Duncan kept his noble disposition and strutted importantly next to Ember on her left side. 

There, Ember picked up a very energetic Pomeranian named Albert. Albert ran around, barked, and sniffed both dogs, Ember, his owner, and everything on the porch. In the minute while Mrs. Mulberry was giving Ember his leash and a packet of dog treats, Albert tangled his leash around Ember twice.

“Aww, isn’t it amazing, Ember? Albert is usually intimidated by big dogs, but with you, he is so confident.”

“Dogs like company, and Duncan and Buckster are very friendly.”

Ember had an opinion that dogs usually copied their owners’ attitudes. It was Mrs. Mulberry who was intimidated by big dogs, and Albert copied that. But taken individually, he was very playful and curious about other dogs of any size. The really amazing thing was that Mrs. Mulberry agreed to let Ember walk her precious Albert with other dogs. That was the thing with Ember – dogs behaved amiably under her leadership.

They headed toward Willows Park which had a large off-leash dog section. In Albert’s presence, Buckster became more dignified and walked mostly next to Duncan.

At the park, Ember unleashed the dogs. They ran away to greet the other dogs. Later, they would return to play with her. Albert was crazy about fetching small objects for Ember. He could do that the whole time in the park. Buckster liked to do each and every available activity in the park. He would run, fetch, do obstacles, and play with other dogs. As for Duncan, Ember would give him the most challenging tasks, involving obstacle courses and finding objects. That was her way of showing him that she knew how smart he was. Duncan appreciated it very much.

“Hi, Ember!” a familiar voice called her. She turned to see Dilan Johnson, her classmate, and his Rottweiler Sharp. The boy was aquamarine with a sandpaper texture.

“Hi, Dilan.”

“What was your score on the last math test?” Dilan unleashed his dog, and Sharp cautiously went to the other dogs.

“29 out of 30,” Ember said.

“Good! I got 28.”

“I got lucky. Two of the problems were exactly like the ones my group solved during the class work,” she hastened to add because Dilan was sensitive about getting (or not getting) the best score in the class. Ember didn’t care about her score, she just loved doing math.

“Do you know Gary’s score?”

“Nope.”

“Do you think he could’ve got 30?”

“He could, I guess.” Ember shrugged. “You know, part of it is luck. That’s why an A is anything from 27 and up.”

“You’re right.”

Sharp returned to his owner. Ember thought that he was very similar to Dilan in the way that he did not feel very confident among other dogs and needed constant reassurance of his greatness from his human.

Duncan finished his obstacle course and came to Ember. She poured water for him to drink. Duncan sniffed Sharp in a greeting way and then drank. Afterward, he sat down nobly next to Ember to have a rest.

Buckster came, too, for a drink and to check out the new dog. Sharp tried to look as noble as Duncan. In a few seconds, the fluffy ball of Albert emerged excitedly with a tennis ball he had retrieved. Suddenly, Sharp started barking at him. Poor Albert swerved under such a verbal attack. Duncan stood up and straightened his shoulders. He didn’t growl but showed the tips of his fangs to Sharp. Buckster did the same. Sharp stopped barking and stepped closer to Dilan. Albert dropped the ball at Ember’s feet and barked happily. 

“Good job!” Ember rubbed him affectionately. “Fetch!” She threw the ball again, and Albert rushed after it. Duncan sat down again, and the tension was relieved.

After the park, Ember walked the dogs back to their houses and collected her payments. Mrs. Mulberry also gave her freshly baked cookies, and Mrs. Rapport added a good tip.

Maybe I should buy sausages, Ember thought and stopped at a little store with a big sign: “Meats”. The store specialized in all sorts of meat, including game, and they had especially good sausages. 

Ember bought 4 sausages. The sales lady was fair and plump and smiled kindly; she gave Ember a feeling of warm sand on a beach. On her way out, Ember had to step aside to give way to a man who brought store carts inside.

“Excuse me,” he said and smiled politely.

“Sure, no problem,” Ember smiled back. She didn’t know his name, but the face was familiar – he had been working at the store for many years. He was in his late 40s, with no remarkable features, except for a slight limp. Ember once heard that he was a veteran and was wounded while in service. On the rare occasions when their paths crossed, she had a ‘stale’ feeling from him. She felt pity and always tried to be nice to him.