Pepper

Life around the house had been weird in the previous week. The routine had been the same for walks and food, but the amount of attention we received had clearly decreased, and none of us was too happy about it. My brother had always been nervous and needy, and he needed full-time attention. That's what Mum used to say, but she was not around those days to ease my unpaid job of entertaining him.

Dad seemed sad and tired. He never liked us pulling the leash when we went out, but lately his temper had gotten worse than ever. He yelled at me only because I wanted to say hello to our neighbor, and even though I tried to explain that she was calling for me, he didn't listen. That's what he always said to the children: you should listen. But he didn't either. I guess we all had the same problem.

The kids were nervous. We listened to them when they were in their rooms; we tried to go upstairs, but Mum never liked it, and they didn't let us. She said we let our hair fall everywhere and that she had always had to clean up after us, so we rested our heads on the first step and waited until they came to meet us. Everyone was spending more and more time alone, and I didn't know what to do about it. I'm not a kid like those upstairs, nor an adult like Mum and Dad, and no matter how much I wanted to make them happy, I seemed to be too big, noisy, and hairy to be around them all the time. So I stayed with Salt all day, as I always had.

Salt looks like me. The most visible difference between us is my white spots on my chest and paws, which are much bigger than his. Our personalities are very different too. Salts likes everyone. He asks to be petted by kids and adults alike, and he doesn't mind if the men are too big, the little ones too noisy, or the women smell too much like perfume. I mind those things, and most of the time, my barking isn't because I'm angry or bad. It's just that I am afraid of what they can do to me. I don't like my ears to be pulled, my hair to be grabbed, or the tingling I feel in my nose when some ladies come to the house, so I bark and hide immediately after. Mum and Dad don't like it much when I do so because they say I scare people away, as if I were someone to be scared of. I'm a big baby, says Mum when I act up, and people refuse to enter the house until I go somewhere else… but I'm not. I am almost seven years old, which in our dog years seems to be as old as she is. That's what I once heard, and what Salt never understood. I think he is a little bit dumb, but I still love him. We've been together since the first day, when the basket they placed us in was crowded with other puppies, when our family came to adopt us, and when we moved to the house with the big garden. I liked the grass those days, long and fresh, fun to hide, to run, and play.

I like to run; Salt doesn't. I like to jump over Mum's plants and flowers, how they tickle my belly, even if she doesn't love it so much. Salt looks at me and sighs whenever I do so because he knows it means trouble, but I don't care. He's not a saint either. He once ate a baby apple tree, and Mum had to rush him to the vet. Another time, he ripped a little fig tree she had just planted in the garden. He chewed it all and then threw up. He is a vegetarian. Dad laughs whenever Salt eats another plant, but Mum doesn't. I'm not sure if that's because we force her to replant or because of the times she had to take us to the vet.

The garden is a fun place to play in, and most days we're allowed to go there under supervision. The grown-ups don't like it when we pee in the new grass, which feels different from the one we had when we were little. Now it is darker and harder. It is only fresh when wet, and on warm days, it is too hot for our paws. The kids seem to like it, though, mostly the younger one, Sun.

When we arrived at the house, Sun was smaller than he is now, but bigger than we were. One year later, he tried to climb on top of us, and he fell many times while we were playing because Salt was clumsy and ran into him. Humans are weird. They grow a lot but don't seem very strong. It is strange to see one of them crying, as Sun did whenever he fell. Now that he's bigger, he doesn't cry much, but he keeps on trying to ride us like we were his horses. We don't like it much, but we love him, so we let him try it a bit every day… but just a bit.

The older kids feed us. The boy and the girl, Leo and Reina, fight in the morning to decide whose turn it is and then again in the evening for the exact same reason. I don't understand why they fight so much, and something tells me Dad and Mon don't get it either. They fought a lot, but on those days when Mum was out, they didn't. The house was weirdly calm most of the time, and whenever there was a discussion, it was between them and their father. I heard the children ask their Dad many questions, but he didn't answer. Most days, he sent them to their rooms and sat on the couch to watch television while we stared at him, wondering if he would play with us later, but he rarely did.

Today, something happened.

We were napping in the entrance hall, and we heard the car. That's normal, but what happened later wasn't. Leo came downstairs running, and when the door opened, we saw Dad, Sun, Reina, and Mum! Mum was back! I barked at Salt, and he looked at me like he didn't want to be bothered, but I jumped on top of him first and bit his leg second. That always works.

Leo hugged Mum, and we tried to say hello too, but there were too many people in that small place. Dad tried to send us inside, but we wanted Mum to hug us too. Reina had a box in front of her; Sun held a backpack; Leo and Mum didn't move; and Dad kept telling us to give them space. I barked, and no one told me to stop, so I barked a little bit more.

Mum kissed Leo and then looked at me.

"Have you missed me, Pepper?" she said as she scratched my head.

I nodded, but I don't think she understood me. Salt came to our side and asked for some attention too. He's a needy baby; Mum is right… Mum is home.