Sheila the Wonder Dog and Crow Boy: Chap. 1

Chapter One: Camping

Sheila was black and tan with pointy ears and blue eyes. She was very young, only five months old (that’s about four in human years). Sheila didn’t know what it meant to be a wonder dog. She knew that she liked to chew on rocks. She knew that she liked her humans to take walks with her. She knew that she liked to have her belly scratched. One weekend Sheila learned of more things that she liked. These things were camping, climbing mountains, and flying.

When Sheila was a new born puppy she had lost her family. This was before she had her name, before humans had found her. The other animals called her “Blues” in those days, because of her bright eyes and sad heart. Sleeping outside was nothing new to Sheila. She’d made a home of bushes and meals of garbage that people had carelessly thrown from their cars. The garbage made her feel quite ill.

Camping was very different from those cold lonely nights sleeping on scratchy ground with a sick belly. At camp, her human gave her a delicious bowl of food and plenty of fresh water. She even had her own sleeping bag to snuggle into when the sun slipped behind the mountains. Those mountains. That was the best part of camping. That is where the adventure began.

The first day the humans loaded a pack with water bottles, cameras and sweatshirts. Sheila followed them all over camp, wondering where they were going; hoping she could go too. Finally, one bent over, rubbed her ears and said,

“You ready to go hiking Sheila?”

“Yes!” Sheila barked, jumping around in excitement.

Climbing the mountain was tough work for the puppy. There were steep, dusty trails. There were also delicious rocks and strange exciting animals – little tiny ones that scurried into the crevices of rocks and ones so big that humans could sit on their backs as they walked down the trail. The paths were lined with leafy trees that the sun shone through creating lacy shadows across the ground. There were parts with maroon leaves that had fallen from their branches and lay over the earth like carpet.

Sheila was amazed by everything. Most amazing was when she looked up and saw through the trees to the top of the mountain. There, bare white rocks stood out against the cloudless blue sky. Near the edge of one of those huge rocks was a dark figure. Even though the cliffs were still very far, Sheila’s keen eyes could see this figure was a human. She wondered if the humans that walked on top of mountains were the same as hers who she’d only seen living on low ground.

The human standing near the edge was a 12-year-old boy, “Crow Boy.” His real name was Simon. Simon was born with thick, jet black hair that lay smooth against his scalp like feathers. His eyes too were black, and beady. He had a sharp nose and his fingers and toes curled, ever so slightly, at the tips.

Simon stood at the edge of the white rocks that wrapped around the mountain top. He thought, “Perhaps I am more crow than human. Perhaps I can be like a crow in one more way.”

Simon thought this way for two reasons:

Reason #1: He believed crows were responsible for his birth.
Reason #2: He believed he acted more like a crow all the time.