There was a smaller pen in the back. Elise went past the counter to where two young men tended a smoking grill. Their backs were turned. They took something from a woman and handed her a package. Elise grabbed the top of the smaller fence and peered over. There was a dog on its side with five — no, six little animals eating at its belly. She thought they were rats at first, but they were the tiniest of puppies. They made Puppy seem like a grown dog. And they weren’t eating the dog — they were sucking like Hannah’s baby did at her breast.
Elise was so fixated on the tiny critters that she didn’t see the animal at the base of the fence lunge at her until it was too late. A black nose and a pink tongue bounced up and caught her on the jaw. She peered directly down the other side of the fence and saw Puppy, who bounded up at her again.
Elise cried out. Reaching over the fence, she had both hands on the animal, when someone grabbed her from behind.
“Don’t think you can afford that one,” one of the men behind the counter said.
Elise squirmed in his grip and tried to keep a hold of Puppy.
“Easy now,” the man said. “Let it go.”
“Let me go!” Elise cried.
Puppy slipped from her grasp. Elise wiggled loose, the shoulder strap of her bag yanked over her head. She fell at the man’s feet and got back up, reached for Puppy again.
“Well, now,” she heard the man say.
Elise reached over the fence and grabbed her pet again. Puppy’s feet scratched at the fence to help. His front paws draped over her shoulder, a wet tongue in her ear. Elise turned to find a man towering over her, a bloody white piece of fabric tied over his chest, her Memory Book in his hands.
“What’s this?” he asked, thumbing through the pages. A few of the loose papers shuffled free and he grabbed at them frantically.
“That’s my book,” Elise said. “Give it back.”
The man peered down at her. Puppy licked her face.
“Trade you for that one,” he said, pointing at Puppy.
“They’re both mine,” she insisted.
“Naw, I paid for that runt. But this’ll do.” He weighed her book in his hands, then reached down and steered Elise out of the booth and back toward the crowded hall.
Elise reached for the book. Her bag was being left behind. Puppy nipped her on the hand and nearly squirmed free. She was crying, she realized, as she squealed for the man to give her back her things. He showed his teeth and grabbed her by the hair, was angry now. “Roy! Come grab this runt.”
Elise screeched. The boy from outside yelling “dog” to everyone who passed by headed toward her. Puppy was nearly free. She was losing her grip again, and the man was going to rip out her hair.
She lost Puppy, and Elise squealed as the man lifted her off the ground. Then there was a flash, like a dog pouncing, but it was brown coveralls rather than brown fur that flew past, and the large man let out a grunt and fell to the ground. Elise went spilling after.
He no longer had a grip on her hair. Elise saw her bag. Her book. She grabbed both, clutched a handful of loose pages. Shaw was there, the boy who fed her pig. He scooped up Puppy and grinned at Elise.
“Run,” he said, flashing his teeth.
Elise ran. She danced away from the boy in the hall and bounced off people in the crowd. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Shaw running after her, Puppy clutched to his chest upside down, paws in the air. The crowd rattled and made room as the men from the stall came after them.
“This way!” Shaw yelled, laughing, as he overtook Elise and turned a corner. Tears streamed from her eyes, but Elise was laughing too. Laughing and terrified and happy to have her book and her pet and getting away and this boy who was nicer to her than the twins. They dashed beneath another of the counters — the smell of fresh fruit — and someone yelled at them. Shaw ran through a dark room with unmade beds, through a kitchen with a woman cooking, then back out into another stall. A tall man with dark skin shook a spatula at them, but they were already out among the crowds, running and laughing and dancing between—
And then someone in the crowd snatched him up. Large and powerful hands jerked the boy into the air. Elise stumbled. Shaw kicked and screamed at this man, and Elise looked up and saw that it was Solo holding him. He smiled down at Elise through his thick beard.
“Solo!” Elise squealed. She grabbed his leg and squeezed.
“This boy got something of yours?” he asked.
“No, he’s a friend. Put him down.” She scanned the crowd for any sign of the men chasing them. “We should go,” she told Solo. She squeezed his leg once more. “I want to go home.”
Solo rubbed her head. “And that’s just where we’re heading.”
29
Elise let Solo carry her bag and her book while she clutched Puppy. They made their way through the crowds, out of the bizarre, and back to the stairwell. Shaw trailed after them, even after Solo told the boy to get back to his family. And as Elise and Solo made their way down the stairwell to find the others, she kept glancing back to catch sight of Shaw in his brown coveralls, peeking from around the central post or through the rails of a landing higher up. She thought about telling Solo that he was still there, but she didn’t.
A few levels below the bizarre, a porter caught up to them and delivered a message. Jewel was heading down and looking for them. She had half the porters hunting for Elise. And Elise never knew that she’d been missing.
Solo made her drink from his canteen while they waited at the next landing. She then poured a small puddle into his old and wrinkled hands, and Puppy took grateful sips. It took what felt like forever for Jewel to arrive, but when she did, it was in a thunder of hurrying boots. The landing shook. Jewel was all sweaty and out of breath, but Solo didn’t seem to care. The two of them hugged, and Elise wondered if they’d ever let go. People came and went from the landing and gave them funny looks as they passed. Jewel was smiling and crying both when they finally released each other. She said something to Solo, and it was his turn to cry. Both of them looked at Elise, and she could see that it was secrets or something bad. Jewel picked her up next and kissed her on the cheek and hugged her until it was hard to breathe.
“It’s gonna be okay,” she told Elise. But Elise didn’t know what was wrong.
“I got Puppy back,” she said. And then she remembered that Jewel didn’t know about her new pet. She looked down to see Puppy peeing on Jewel’s boot, which must be like saying hello.
“A dog,” Jewel said. She squeezed Elise’s shoulder. “You can’t keep her. Dogs are dangerous.”
“She’s not dangerous!”
Puppy chewed on Elise’s hand. Elise pulled away and rubbed Puppy’s head.
“Did you get her from the bazaar? Is that where you went?” Jewel looked to Solo, who nodded. Jewel took a deep breath. “You can’t take things that don’t belong to you. If you got it from a vendor, it’ll have to go back.”
“Puppy came from the Deep,” Elise said. She bent down and wrapped her arms around the dog. “He came from Mechanical. We can take him back there. But not to the bizarre. I’m sorry I took him.” She squeezed Puppy and thought about the man holding up the red meat with the white ribs. Jewel turned to Solo again.
“It didn’t come from the bazaar,” he confirmed. “She plucked it from a box down in Mechanical.”
“Fine. We’ll straighten this out later. We need to catch up with the others.”