Lily and the Octopus Read Online Free Page A

almost yellow; we hadn’t had much rain that spring, which was good for you and bad for
just about everyone else.”
    “I hate the rain.”
    “Yes, you and every other dog. Anyhow, there was a little wire pen on the front lawn and inside were you and Harry and Kelly and Rita tumbling all over one another like noodles in a pot of
boiling water. It was hard to even tell where one of you ended and the next one began, you were just a pile of paws and tails, so the lady who lived there picked you up and set you gently on the
grass. The four of you ambled and tumbled and stumbled and bumbled, and I stood there thinking,
How on earth am I ever going to choose?
”
    “But you did. You chose me!” Lily picks up a little red wooden hotel and chews it enough to put a few teeth marks on it before spitting it out onto a railroad. Normally this is not
behavior I would allow, but she does it quite gently, sort of nonchalantly.
    “No. No, that’s not true, exactly,” I say, and she looks up at me, startled.
    Like any good adoptive parent, I have always fed her that line of horseshit: A mommy and daddy who have a baby get stuck with whatever baby they get. But adoptive parents
choose
their
baby, and so they love them that much more. Of course, in most cases, it’s blatantly untrue. Adoptive parents are lucky to get the call whenever and wherever they do, and so they get the baby
they get just the same as parents who actually give birth.
    “No?” Lily sounds offended.
    “No,” I repeat, because it’s the truth. Then I pause for dramatic effect. “
You
, in fact, chose
me
.”
    And she did. While Harry and Kelly and Rita carried on in a game that involved rolling and somersaulting, Lily broke free from the group and wandered over to where I was standing talking to the
lady who bred them.
    “I was thinking of keeping the boy one myself, unless you have particular use for him. He’s high-spirited, but I think he can be trained to show.”
    I hadn’t given much thought to whether I wanted a boy or a girl. Not wanting to appear sexist and get on the wrong side of the woman who had the sole say in whether I’d be taking one
of her puppies home, I said, “No, I’d be glad to choose from among the girls.”
    I studied the pups, looking for the girls, and was at a loss to tell which one was male. I would have to pick each one up and make a subtle determination; worse than appearing sexist would be to
come off as a pervert.
    It was then that I noticed the puppy who became Lily gnawing on my shoelace. She clamped down and put herself in reverse until the lace had been gently untied.
    “Hello, you adorable . . .” I crouched down and made my inspection. “Girl.”
    “That’s the runt, that one there,” the lady replied, just this side of dismissively.
    I picked up the runt and she snuggled under my chin, tail wagging like the pendulum of the smallest, most fragile grandfather clock.
    “I’m Edward. People call me Ted,” I whispered into her ear before lowering my own ear to the top of her head. I heard her speak for the first time.
    THIS! IS! MY! HOME! NOW!
    And so it was.
    “I choose this one,” I told the lady.
    “You can have your pick of any one. The male, even, if you really want. I’m not sure this one will show all that well.”
    “All the same, I’m not really interested in showing her. So I choose this one.”
    I worried for a second she was going to try to discourage me further from choosing this puppy. She studied us both for a moment as I held the runt protectively, and eventually her face softened
and relented. I wondered if she wasn’t just relieved to have someone take the runt so she could charge more for the rest of her flawless litter.
    “Seems like she kind of chose you.” And then, after a beat, “I suppose that’s how it works.” She finished with the off-center smile of a car salesman who’s
just sold a lemon for nearly full price.
    I tell Lily this story over the Monopoly board