He was halfway down the hall, beige bralette dangling from his teeth, head held high in the particular way he held it when he'd decided he was the king of something. I'd watched him do this a hundred times in the apartment. Socks. Hair ties. Once, the cap of a bottle of wine he had no business getting near.
He looked back at me from the end of the hall.
He was smiling.
Dogs didn't smile, technically. But Moose did.
"Moose."
He took off.
"Moose, no."
I scrambled out of the bathroom in a towel and a hair towel, the absolute worst possible state for any kind of pursuit. Down the hall. Through the living room. Past the boxes I hadn't finished unpacking. The bottom of the towel slipped against my knees, and I caught it with one fist at my chest. The hair towel rocked dangerously on top of my head.
"Moose. Drop it. Drop. It."
The thing about a yellow lab is that they wouldn't drop it. They had been selected, evolutionarily, for keeping their mouth shut around things they like.
He hit the front door at speed.
Which is when I remembered that I hadn't actually closed it after bringing in the welcome basket Mrs. Halloran had left on the porch twenty minutes ago.
The door swung in. Moose blew through it.
I went after him.
I was barefoot on the porch. Then I was barefoot on the front walk. Then I was barefoot in my own yard, and Moose was already across the lawn, weaving toward the Hallorans'.
A bath towel did not hold up to running. That wasn't what it was for. A bath towel was for standing still. The minute you started sprinting, a bath towel got ideas.
I kept it knotted at my chest with one fist and tried not to think about what the back of me looked like.
"Moose. MOOSE."
He was thirty feet ahead. He turned his head once to make sure I was still chasing him. Smug. Then he cut hard through the Hallorans' yard, past their roses, around the back of their shed.
I followed.
There was a low picket fence on the far side of the Hallorans'. He sailed it like the prince of mediocre dogs. I had to swing one leg over and pray. The towel was holding. Barely. The hair towel was not. It leaned to one side like a sinking boat.
He was crossing the street now. The road that ran in front of my house. The road that ran in front of?—
No.
Anywhere but there.
I broke into a run, cut across the street with both hands at the knot of my towel, and put up a sky-high prayer that no one on Maple was looking out their front window.
Moose hit the bungalow's yard.
The bungalow.
Thatbungalow.
He cut around the side of the house. There was a wooden gate, standing open at the corner, like somebody had stopped bothering to close it.
I stopped at the gate.
