Fireside Books: There's exciting news for book lovers. Fireside Books in Parksville now has a second location in Port Alberni. The BookWyrm - used books are just $5 or less. The BookWyrm, on the corner of Redford and Anderson, opens seven days a week from 10 to 5, building your personal library for less. Fireside Books at 464 Island Highway East in Parksville is a book dragon's dream come true. Browse their extensive collections seven days a week. Both locations make growing your personal library easier than ever. New and used books and so much more. Order online at firesidebooks.ca and pick up at either location. Details available online.
The Ballad of Peter & Gracie: Peter and his dog raced here and there, through fields so wide, with dreams in their pockets and stars as their guide. Every day's an adventure under the open sky. In their world of stories, time just flies by.
Peter McCully: Peter woke up on a Saturday morning with the sun streaming through his curtains and the smell of pancakes drifting up the stairs from the kitchen. He stretched both arms wide, yawned the biggest yawn he could manage, so big that his eyes watered, and rolled out of bed. "Gracie," he called out, "morning time."
There was a pause, then came the sound of scrambling paws on the hardwood floor downstairs, a skid around the corner of the hallway, footsteps thundering up the stairs two at a time, and then - whump. Twenty pounds of fluffy white American Eskimo dog landed right on top of Peter's feet. Gracie was brilliant white, like fresh snow that had just fallen on the top of Mount Arrowsmith. Her ears stood perfectly straight up, like two little triangles. Her tail curled over her back in a magnificent curl, and her dark eyes sparkled as if she had been waiting all night for this exact moment. She was, without any doubt in Peter's mind, the best dog in all of Vancouver Island - possibly the best dog in the world.
"Good morning, Gracie," Peter laughed, ruffling the thick fur around her neck. "Did you sleep well?" Gracie answered by spinning in a tight circle and then rushing toward the bedroom door. She looked back over her shoulder. Her message was clear. Enough of this talking. It's time to go downstairs.
After pancakes - Peter had three with maple syrup that came from a farm down the road in Coombs, and Gracie had none, though she sat right beside his chair the entire time and stared at that syrup bottle with enormous hopeful eyes - the two of them put on their shoes and headed outside. The morning air in the backyard was cool and fresh, the way Vancouver Island mornings always are. It carried a little bit of the ocean smell drifting in from the Salish Sea, and a little bit of the forest from the trees, and something flowery from the roses along the fence. Peter breathed it in deeply and felt very happy.
"Okay, Gracie," Peter said, reaching into the front pocket of his hoodie and pulling out a soft, plush, squeaky hedgehog toy. "Let's play."
The hedgehog's name was Hector. Peter had given Hector to Gracie last Christmas, wrapped in tissue paper with a red bow, and Gracie had torn through the wrapping in about a half a second flat. She had loved Hector from the very first squeak. In fact, it was Gracie herself who had inspired the name. One afternoon in the spring, she had carried Hector all the way down to the beach in Parksville and sat in the sand with the toy pressed proudly between her paws, looking very pleased with herself, while Peter's dad tried very hard not to laugh. Hector had come home that day with a little bit of actual beach sand still stuck to one ear. Peter had looked at the sandy little hedgehog and thought he needed a name that was bold enough to match his adventures, and Hector seemed exactly right.
Hector had been squeaked approximately four thousand three hundred and twenty-seven times since Christmas. Well, Peter had counted up to forty-seven and then lost track, but it felt like four thousand.
He threw Hector high into the morning air. Gracie exploded off the grass, sprang sideways, and caught the hedgehog toy perfectly in her mouth. Squeak. "Good girl," Peter cheered. He clapped his hands. Gracie shook Hector back and forth, and then trotted back and dropped the hedgehog at his feet.
They played for a long time. Peter threw, Gracie chased. Gracie dropped, Peter picked up. Hector flew over the rose bushes, through the vegetable garden, and back again. At one very exciting moment, Hector bounced off the wooden fence post with a squeak so sudden and loud that the neighbour's orange cat leaped clean off the top of the fence. Gracie thought this was wonderful. The cat did not agree. Peter laughed so hard he had to sit down on the grass. Gracie immediately sat down next to him, panting happily and pressing her fluffy side against his arm. "Best Saturday ever," Peter said.
Eventually, Peter's mum called from the back door. Lunch was ready. Peter wiped the grass off his knees, held the door open wide, and Gracie trotted in ahead of him, her tail high, her head up, stepping like a queen, without Hector. Peter stopped. He looked at Gracie's empty mouth. Gracie looked up at Peter. They both looked back at the yard. "Where's Hector?" Peter said. Gracie blinked.
The yard was full of sunshine and long shadows and the sounds of bees in the rose bushes. The little plush hedgehog was nowhere to be seen. "Hold on, Mum," Peter called toward the kitchen. He pulled his shoes back on. "Gracie and I have to find something first."
Now, some people might think that losing a toy in your own backyard was a very small problem, but Peter understood something important. This was not just any toy. This was Hector. Hector, who Gracie carried to greet every visitor who came in the house. Hector, who she brought to Peter every morning as if presenting him with a gift. Hector, who she slept with pressed under her chin. Hector, who had once sat on a Parksville beach and earned his name.
"Don't worry, Gracie," Peter said, crouching down to her level and looking into her dark eyes. "We're going to find Hector, you and me. We're a team." He held out his hand. Gracie pressed her nose into his palm. "Okay, let's go."
They started near the rose bushes along the fence because that was where a lot of the throws had gone. Peter got down on his hands and knees and peered under the leaves. Gracie shoved her whole nose into the roses, sniffing at spectacular speed, her tail whipping back and forth above her. But no Hector.
They checked along the garden bench on the south wall of the house. Under the bench were a lot of forgotten things - a chewed tennis ball, a garden glove with one finger missing, a plastic dinosaur Peter was pretty sure he had lost three years ago, and a lot of interesting smells. Gracie's sniffing went into overdrive. She was having a marvellous time. But there was no Hector.
"Think, Peter," Peter told himself, standing up and putting his hands on his hips the way detectives do. He closed his eyes and tried to replay the last few throws in his mind. There had been a big throw, a really big one, his best of the morning, over the vegetable garden. Hector had gone up very high and then come down on the other side of the tomato cages. Gracie had chased the hedgehog, and then he had just kept playing. He hadn't seen where exactly Hector had landed. "The vegetable garden," Peter said. "That's where we should look."
The vegetable garden was his mum's pride and joy. There were rows of tomato plants, tall and leafy, and already showing small green tomatoes. There were carrots and beans and a row of sunflowers that were taller than Peter. The tomato plants had grown so bushy that between them it was almost like a little green forest.
Peter pushed aside the wide leaves of the tallest plant and looked into the green shadows, and stopped. Tucked in the fork where the tomato cage met the main stem of the plant was a bird's nest, a robin's nest made of dry grass and mud, round and small. Inside the nest, nestled together, were three small eggs. Each one was a perfect smooth oval. Each one was the colour of the sky over Qualicum Beach in the morning.
He forgot about Hector entirely for a moment. "Gracie," he breathed very quietly. "Come and look. Careful, though. Careful." Gracie crept to his side. She was an enthusiastic dog, but she seemed to understand that something fragile and important was here. She sniffed the air and the nest very gently, and her tail gave one slow wag.
"We can't dig around in here," Peter whispered. "If the mum robin smells too much of us, she might not come back. And Hector's not in here anyway." He carefully let the tomato leaves fall back into place, stepping back until they were out of the garden entirely. "We'll tell Mum about the nest later," he said. "She'll want to know. She loves robins."
They stood in the middle of the yard. The sun was warm on Peter's shoulders. He looked around slowly. Fence, rose bushes, bench, vegetable garden, the old cedar tree in the far corner with its massive roots. The old cedar tree. Peter had played around that tree for years. Its roots came up out of the ground in great bumpy ridges, like the knuckles of a giant hand, and in between the ridges were small hollow spaces, dark little caves just big enough for a child's hand or a hedgehog.
"Gracie," Peter said slowly, "where would a dog hide a treasure?"
And then a strange thing happened. Gracie's ears swivelled forward, her nose tilted up. She sniffed once, twice, and then she turned and trotted straight to the cedar tree. She walked directly to one particular root hollow, the one nearest the trunk, the one that went the deepest. She pawed at it once, looked back to Peter, and then looked at the hollow again.
Peter's mouth dropped open. He ran over and crouched down. He reached his hand into the dark space under the root, fingers searching through the dirt and the leaves, and then he felt it - something soft, something plush, something with a small round button eye. He pulled out Hector. Squeak.
"Gracie," Peter burst out laughing, a real laugh, the kind that comes up from your belly. "You put Hector there. You hid the hedgehog. It was you." Gracie's tail was spinning so fast it was practically a blur. She bounced on her front paws, barked twice at the sky, and then grabbed Hector straight out of Peter's hand. Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak.
"You funny dog," Peter said, shaking his head and grinning. "Were you saving Hector, like a secret treasure?" He scratched behind both of her ears at once, and she leaned into his hands with her eyes half-closed, squeaking Hector the whole time. "But next time," he said, "you have to tell me where you put the hedgehog. I was very worried." Gracie dropped Hector at his feet and looked up at him with those bright, warm Gracie eyes. Squeak. Just one soft one, like a thank you.
They played for another half hour after that and then went in for a very late lunch. Peter told his mum about the robin's nest, and she immediately put down her sandwich, pulled on her garden boots, and went out to see, moving very quietly through the tomato plants. She came back inside, looking soft-eyed and pleased. "Three eggs," she said. "They should hatch in about two weeks." "We'll have to be careful in the vegetable garden until then," Peter said. His mum smiled at him. "We will," she said.
That night, Peter lay in his bed with his book open, listening to the last of the evening birds outside his window. Gracie was curled at the foot of his mattress in her special spot, round as a snowball, her thick tail tucked under her nose. Hector was pressed between her front paws. Every few minutes as she drifted deeper into sleep, she would give the hedgehog the smallest little squeeze. Squeak. Peter smiled and turned his page.
He thought about Hector and his hiding place under the cedar root. He thought about the robin's eggs, perfect and blue-green, waiting in their nest in the tomato plants. He thought about Gracie's tail spinning and the neighbour's cat leaping off the fence, and the way the morning light had looked on the mountains across the water.
On Vancouver Island, he decided, even an ordinary Saturday in your own backyard could turn into a proper adventure if you had the right dog to share it with. And Gracie was the best possible dog for every adventure he would ever have.
The Ballad of Peter and Gracie: Peter and Gracie, the finest of friends, with tales of wonder that never end. In the pages of books or stars above, they find their magic in laughter and love.
Fireside Books: There's exciting news for book lovers. Fireside Books in Parksville now has a second location in Port Alberni. The BookWyrm - used books are just $5 or less. The BookWyrm, on the corner of Redford and Anderson, opens seven days a week from 10 to 5, building your personal library for less. Fireside Books at 464 Island Highway East in Parksville is a book dragon's dream come true. Browse their extensive collections seven days a week. Both locations make growing your personal library easier than ever. New and used books and so much more. Order online at firesidebooks.ca and pick up at either location. Details available online.
