Jellybean Barked

Our terrier bared his teeth and his tail went taut. He snarled and howled at the curtained window with every scrap of ferocity his twelve pounds could summon.

“Jellybean is barking again!” I announced. “Which means tonight we play…”

Luna dropped her crayon to her plastic table and clapped. She shouted, “Spook! Or! Squirrel!”

“What do you both think?”

Kristy lay reading on our couch, the sunken one we had stretched at least three years past its useful life. “Squirrel,” she said. When Luna turned to her, she smiled. “Squirrel for sure.”

Jellybean reared back for another volley of barks, so I raised my voice. “Mommy says squirrel. What do you think, Luna? Is she right?”

“Yessss.”

“You always say squirrel.”

Luna giggled. Jellybean’s growl rumbled in his white belly, which I knelt to rub. He was a good boy.

“Anya!” Luna whined. “You have to say, too!”

“Well—” The growl snapped into a snarl, and I stood. “You both said squirrel. So I’ll say… spook.”

Luna’s pigtails flew as she shook her head. “Nooo… You’re wrong, Anya!”

Jellybean howled and barked at the window. Kristy held her novel but had not gone back to reading. “Hanna, are you going to look?”

“Of course!” I answered. “That’s how we play the game!”

“Mommy and I will win!” Luna announced.

“I’ll go see.”

I walked from our living room to the darkened kitchen. Though it had been a stifling summer day, we kept the window overlooking our driveway latched. The night air would be cool and calm. I missed it.

“Anya! Which is it?”

“Hold your horses, little pigtails.”

Jellybean had not let up. I leaned over the sink’s faucet and peered outside. No squirrel hopped along our fence. As my mouth opened to say nothing, I saw a piece of it. The white shadow began to turn as it glided past the edge of my vision. I glimpsed its eye, unholy and red, and then could see no more.

Kristy called from the couch. “What do you see, Hanna?”

“A squirrel,” I said.