The Quest for Mal

Mal's favorite place in all the world was the tangled thicket behind Olbrich Park. Behind the old sugar beet factory ruin lay a combination of unofficial walking paths, official piles of Olbrich landscaping material, and overgrown streamside weeds. In the long grasses roosted ducks and a family of turkeys and above the trees hosted countless songbirds and squirrels. Along the banks of Starkweather Creek the able-nosed followed journeys of the local skunk from the night before, or the fox's jaunt from that morning.

Holl checked here first, turning her bike from the paved bike path onto the gravel drive leading back behind the building. On such a beautiful Saturday the dog walkers were out in force. Holl stopped one of them with three leashes clipped to his belt. Three bulldogs, each a different color, scowled up at her as their owner paused.

"Have you seen a dog running around," she asked holding up a picture. The picture, taken when they went camping up north earlier in the summer, showed a mud-brown dog with his mouth drawn up in a grin that displayed everything: teeth, gums, and lolling tongue. "He ran off this morning."

He leaned over the dogs who were taking the stop as opportunity to weave themselves into a leashy, furry knot. "As a matter of fact, I think I have! But it wasn't here." He pointed through the crumbling walls behind them. "I saw a dog like this running through the Atwood Prairie. Maybe...twenty minutes ago?"

Holl's heart fell. Mal had never run off that far before. They never even walked that far when they did go on officially leashed walks around the neighborhood. If that was even Mal... Still, it was a lead.

The Atwood Prairie was just a few minutes' ride from Olbrich and Holl rode slowly, scanning the sides of the path and peering down side streets for any dash of brown that might be Mal returning home. She rode up and down the path that bisected the prairie and community garden four times before a gardener called out to her.

"You lose something, honey?" Holl stopped her bike and turned to see a woman stand up from behind a row of tomato plants, a wide-brimmed hat masking her face.

"Yeah, my dog." Holl showed her the picture.

"Oh sure. Yeah, I saw that dog a little while ago. He ran off that way."

Holl gulped. The woman pointed at the busy Atwood Avenue just a block away. Holl followed the trail to Atwood, but it there the trail ran cold. Nobody had seen him around. She picked a side street and dove into the neighborhoods on her way to the lakeshore where maybe, just maybe, her dog had run off towards on his epic squirrel fest.

It was getting to be lunchtime and the smell of burning charcoal and meat twisted Holl's stomach into a growling beast. She'd stop at a bench by the bear effigy mound and eat the sandwich bouncing around in her front basket. She had just turned onto Lakeland when a a clump of rattling lilies in one of the side yards caught her eye.

Holl gasped as a brown doggish head popped up from the lilies like a surfacing dolphin. Mal was over the fence in Mrs. Weatherbatten's yard, a look of complete puppy idiocy on his face as he tramped through her prized garden.

Disappearing Dog

And that was the end of it. After Holl gave her unequivocal "no," Ruth Ann backed down.

"Hey, no problem," she told Holl with an engaging smile. "See ya around."

Three whole normal days passed filled with bicycling, reading, and living off her mom's barbecue (her mom loved to barbecue, but that's a story for another time). The next day Holl woke up to the cat purring on her chest.

"Oof," Holl said but she stroked the ginger monster anyway before her stretching encouraged him to leap off. The sun was well up and she could hear her parents stirring in the upstairs bedroom, floorboards creaking circuits between the bed, bathroom, and closet. It took her a while to realize why this morning felt different.

This morning she had slept in. Usually Mal, the dog, began his daily efforts to wake her just a little after sunrise. She would wake just enough to push his nose down and go back to sleep and they would repeat the cycle for the next hour and a half before Holl would give in and take him outside.

This morning was quiet. Holl sat up and looked around. The cat sat on her windowsill, still purring and looking from the window to Holl, almost as though she were jerking her head. Hey, dummy, look outside.

Holl got out of bed and peered out the front window. There was nothing there, just the yard, trees, and occasional neighbor out mowing their lawn before it got too hot.

The stairs creaked and groaned with her parents' footsteps and Holl rushed out of her bedroom to meet them. "Mom! Dad! Have you seen Mal?"

They had not seen Mal and after searching the house for him Holl got dressed so they could expand their search to the yard and surrounding houses. One fruitless morning of searching later and Holl's parents were ready to call it quits for the day. It was a gorgeous Saturday and they were determined to enjoy it.

"Holl. Hon," her dad said. "We've done all we can for now. We talked to the neighbors, called shelters, the city. We walked all around our neighborhood and this afternoon we'll put up posters. We'll just hang around here for a little while. I'm sure he'll come back around again soon. Mal probably ran off after a squirrel. He's always heading off on little adventures."

This was true, but it didn't help Holl feel any easier. This wasn't the first time Mal ran off only to return hours later, his fur full of burs and mud, wagging his tail and begging for dinner.

Still. Holl didn't feel right about doing nothing. How Mal had gotten out she didn't know, but it wouldn't hurt to do some more patrolling.

She packed a lunch, told her dad where she was going, and took off on her bike.

Mrs. Weatherbatten's Wisteria

Mrs. Weatherbatten was somewhere over eighty, an active member of the East Side History Club, and an avid gardener "from the day I bought my house to my dying day," as she would tell any passerby who expressed interest.

She had one of those gardens typical of the older Isthmus homes. On the Isthmus of Madison, the homes grew closely together, window to window. The front yards were small and steeply sloped, the side yards barely thriving in the canyons formed from the houses. If anyone gardened beyond a collection of rocks or bulb based flora, it was in the back yard.

Mrs. Weatherbatten's house was on a corner so her backyard extended along a side street. She had a low iron fence around the perimeter to keep people out. The fence certainly did little to contain her garden. People never walked on the half of the sidwalk nearest the fenceline unless they wanted a good shin-beating from the heavy flower heads and tangly vines that flopped beyond the fence seeking sunshine. Inside she had wound a stone path throughout beds in a tight, maze-like weave. She could often be seen walking this path meditatively, leaning over to pull the odd weed that daring push past her exuberant plants.

Except for the low fence, it was a secret garden type of place. The sort of garden you could fantasize about slipping into and curling up in the overgrowth, like some kind of magical cat. In the far back corner overlooking her neighbor's flat lawn grew a great purple wisteria.

"And in the branches of that wisteria," an earnest Ruth Ann told Holl, "there's a big, round striker marble. It's blue with silver sparkles in it and a bubble that looks like a winking eye. It's mine and she's had it for ages."

"A marble," Holl said. "You want me to steal a marble from an old lady's tree."

"Well, yeah." Said Ruth Ann. She nodded to the book still clutched in Holl's hands. "Any pirate worth her salt would get it for me in an instant just to get her hands on the rest of the booty..." She trailed off, waggling her eyebrows as if to say, imagine the treasure you could get!

"I'm not gonna steal from an old lady."

Apologies are Not Enough

Even in a town full of neo-hippies and urban farmers, the white girl glowering at Holl stood out. She wore faded blue bellbottom jeans and a tight mustard yellow top that turned her yellow hair sallow. A loose ring of clovers slipped over one brow. She stalked up to Holl, flicking imaginary pieces of apple from her hair.

Holl stood, holding her book up like a shield. "I'm really sorry. I didn't see you there." The girl continued to advance and Holl wondered if she should grab up her bike and ride away - or if this would be her first fight. The pirates in her book would definitely fight, but they had swords. She just had a library book at hand and if it got really damaged she could kiss the rest of her summer allowance away. It was too bad she'd already thrown the apple core. Wet fruit in the face would really buy her some getaway time right now.

"What do you mean you didn't see me?" the girl demanded. "I was standing right there!" Her expansive gesture included the woods as a whole.

"Um." Holl pointed at the thick honeysuckle hedge. "Kind of hard to see past that. I swear I didn't see you." She leaned over and picked up her bike, tossing her book in the basket. "Sorry again."

The girl stopped and glanced back at the hedge, then turned back to Holl with a look of consideration on her face. "Okay. I guess I was hidden." She grinned abruptly and stuck out her hand. "No harm, I guess." Holl hesitated, then reached out her hand as well. The girl clasped it firmly and pumped it like a politician. "Pleased to meet you...."

"Holl."

"Pleased to meet you, Holl. I'm Ruth Ann." She glanced around like she was looking for someone. "You know, I could accept your apology but if you really want to make it up to me..."

The Queen of the Bridge

It was a long, lazy Saturday in the middle of July. In the lush oak canopy cicadas drummed over the occasional lackadaisical songbird. Really, it was too hot unless you were an insect. Under one of the gnarled oaks Holl lay eating an apple and reading a library book. You could tell how far she was in the book by the apple drippings spotting the pages and where she'd started that afternoon by the kinked page in the middle.

The book she was reading featured pirates sailing the open ocean. There was a sword fight in each chapter, which seemed to Holl to be just enough sword fights to keep things interesting in between all the chatty bits and swooning women.

She finished the apple, folded down a page, and sat up stretching her back. In the bright afternoon sunlight, the best shade the woods could muster was a medium green. There were no deep corners of park in which to toss her apple core. She settled on a clump of bright green honeysuckle filled with a gaggle of sparrows. The apple core landed with a satisfying thump and eruption of enraged sparrow cheeps.

"Ouch!" A girl walked out of the woods, rubbing her head and frowning. "Who threw that?"

And that was how Holl met the Queen of the Bridge. 

Prelude

My dear Holl,

They came to visit you before you were born though we didn't know it at the time, of course. The Small were tiny enough to creep through the mail slot and past the cat (who saw but didn't say anything) and the dog (who snored probably and chased rabbits in his sleep).

They tiptoed across the floor and up the stairs into our bedroom where you lay sleeping in your crib. The moon shone brightly that night, but our curtains were drawn. When you have a very young child you do your best to make good sleep conditions in hopes for four or even five straight hours of sleep at a time. One of them maneuvered a small flashlight to shine through the crib slats onto your face. You stirred and I stirred, so they switched off the light.

But the light had revealed one thing: you were just a normal little baby asleep with a curled fist shoved up by your chin, a line of drool tracing its way across your cheek. Watching a tiny baby sleep, it's hard to imagine that one day it will become a walking, talking, bold little girl. Like you, my Holl.

Our living room walls are full of art prints from comic books. Heroes battle in the pictures, crushing evildoers underfoot. We love a good hero. Or used to. We've been told that you will save them from something great and hulking and terrible. Our little Holl - dress up enthusiast, BMX trickster, hero.

The Small's confidence in you is massive. And it crushes us, your parents. We suddenly know that the parents of heroes often wish their children were small and unimportant and capable only of saving their parents from worrying.

Holl, please come home safe to us. Wherever you are.