There’s a creature sniffing in the bushes, this is clear to the small girl with a set of freshly coiled braids. She tugs at her pink backback on her walk to school and approaches the house with the hound. She smiles in the direction of the sound–canine paws traipsing along the side of the house, still veiled in fading fall shrubs and unraked leaves. She puts her hands on her knees to stoop lower, to take a closer look. Safely on the outside of the fence, she gives a weak whistle–she’s still just learning how.

Then the dog emerges. She pops up, rocking back on her heels in a jolt of fright, stock-stiff like a cartoon character. In a Looney Tunes sketch, her braids would have stood straight up from her head. This dog could not fit in a teacup, it could not leave her grinning, it was a gigantic…