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Columbus's Journey Home
By Donna J. Mankiewitz, Susan Shorter AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2014 Donna J. Mankiewitz
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4918-3957-7
CHAPTER 1
It was a late summer day when I was born. I had five brothers and sisters, Mamma was a West Highland White Terrier, and Pappa was a Maltese. My brothers, sisters, and I had long snouts, white fur, and curly tails. We would spend or days snuggling close to Mamma in the whelping box, sound asleep. As the days grew shorter, and a crispness was in the air, someone came over to the whelping box, reached down, and took one of my sisters. "Mamma, I yipped, where is sister going?" Mamma replied, "she is going to her new home, and family." I blinked my eyes and they welled up with tears, "Sister is so lucky, she has a new home and a family of her own." Each week, a new person would come in and take one of my brothers or sisters home with them. I would yip goodbye, and close my eyes to hold back the tears. I asked Mamma so many times, "am I ever going to have a new home and a family?" Mamma would always say the same thing to me, "my boy, you will find the best of homes and a great family, you only need to wish hard, and be patient." With all my brothers and sisters gone, I would lie in the whelping box dreaming of a new home, and I would close my eyes with a heavy heart each night. It was getting colder, and the white things people call snow began to fall. I was in the box with Mamma when a man came into the house. He was looking at me, and I began to wag my tail as hard as I could. Finally, the man scooped me up and started to walk toward the front door. I yipped for Mamma, "I'm finally going to have a new home and my own family!" I took one last look at Mamma and gulped back a tear, for I knew then that I would never see her again.
The man put me in a box with a caged door in the back of his car. I had never been outside before, it was cold, and there were so many things to see! Trees and bushes, blinking lights, and big signs everywhere. I could hardly believe that the outside was so big, I wondered how anyone would find their way home if they got lost, "I'll never go far from home, so I will never get lost", I said to myself as we drove to my new home. The man took me out of his car, I was in the cage, and he quickly dashed me down the stairs into a dark basement. He placed the cage down in a corner of the room. I stood up and wagged my tail, hoping that he would open the latch, but he only went up the stairs, and turned off the lights. The first night in my new home, I was left alone, in a dark and cold basement.
I had never been alone in the dark before, and I was very scared, I thought of my warm whelping box, and my Mamma, then, cried myself to sleep. The next day was a whirlwind! There were people coming and going, I could hear them upstairs. They were laughing and talking, and there was music playing, it sounded so nice, not like anything I had heard before. People called them Christmas Carols, to me they were magic. The man came down with a bowl of kibble and some water, he opened the door to my cage and put them in, then he latched the cage and left. As I chewed a few kibbles, I wondered what I did wrong, why was I in this cage, and would I ever get out? As the night went on, the sounds of people got less and less until there was a quiet throughout the house. The man came back down the stairs and took me out of the cage. He opened the back door and said, "go do your business." I didn't know what that meant, so I waited, and scratched at the door, finally the man picked me up and took me back into the house.
What a beautiful house it was! There was a big tree with twinkling lights and pretty red flowers everywhere! Mine is the most beautiful home ever, I thought to myself. There were boxes with pretty red and green bows scattered all over the floor, and a box that had a hole in the top. The man put me into the box, and then placed the lid onto the top. I was never in a closed box before, and I didn't fit very well. Then the man turned off the lights and I was alone again. The next morning there was so much excitement, everyone came down the stairs, and I heard a young voice say, "Santa Claus came!" All at once the lid came off of my box, and I threw my head up and yipped as loud as I could and wagged my tail as hard as I could. The little boy smiled at me and said, "I knew Santa would bring me a puppy!" The little boy pulled me out of the box, and placed me on the floor. I started to wag my tail and yip, and the little boy's mom said, "this is why I did not want a dog, they mess the house and yap all day long." The man turned and said, "Billy has been asking for a puppy for such a long time, and he always gets what he wants." Billy must be the luckiest little boy in the world I thought to myself, he always gets everything he wants. Billy played with me all day, and I was very happy. Soon, I really had to go to the bathroom, I looked around for my wee-wee pad, but I couldn't find one, so I went on the floor. This made the lady very angry, and she started yelling at me, yelling at the man as well. "I told you that I didn't want a dog, look at my carpet!" The man was looking angrily at me and yelled, "bad dog", over and over, then he put me back into the cage in a corner of the kitchen. Billy started yelling and stamping his feet, and the lady began to yell again as well. I crouched down in the cage, as far back as I could, and buried my face with my paws. The next morning the lady and the man were in the kitchen, Billy came down the stairs and said, "I want my puppy now!" The people opened the cage and Billy grabbed me. He took me into the living room and began to play with me. At first he would throw a ball for me and I would bring it back to him. Sometimes, we would play tug of war with an old towel. After a while, Billy would not play very nice with me. Often he would pull my tail, or grab my ears, pulling them so hard that I would yip out loud. There was one time when Billy pulled on my tail so very hard that I nipped at him to make him stop. He ran to his Mother and started screaming, holding his finger saying that I bit him hard. The lady said, "that is it, we are getting rid of that dog as soon as your father gets home. We'll get another dog for you, a much better one." She kissed Billy's hand and walked out of the room. Billy came over to me and kicked my back leg hard. I felt something crack, and went down on my side. It hurt more than anything I had ever felt before. Then Billy said, "who wants you anyway, I'm getting a better dog.
Then he picked me up by my neck, threw me into the cage, and locked the door. I just laid there with my head in my paws, the pain in my leg throbbing. When the man came home, the lady told him what had happened. He was very angry and said, "I'll take care of this mess." The family had dinner and Billy went to bed. At this point the man took me, in my cage, and put me into his car. It was getting dark, and so very cold, he placed the cage on the back seat. He drove until it was very dark, pulled off of the road, and stopped the car. He opened the back door and said, "come on boy, this is your stop." It was hard for me to get out because my leg hurt so badly, but I exactly what he said when he opened the latch on the cage. I hopped out and down onto the ground. He said for me to stay, and got back into his car. He sped off so fast that it caused snow and gravel to hit me in the face. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, he was gone. I stood there alone and cold, and said, "my family forgot that I am here, they will be coming back for me so I better not go far." It was beginning to snow, dropping large, cold, white flakes, and I was getting very cold, my leg hurting so very bad. I needed to get away from the flakes so I found a drain pipe which went under the road, and I crawled in.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Columbus's Journey Home by Donna J. Mankiewitz, Susan Shorter. Copyright © 2014 Donna J. Mankiewitz. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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