Your Colorful World vs. My Black and White World

“Hey mom, when does Ady work at the animal shelter?” Zacky asked, walking into the kitchen.

Mrs. Baker was busy stirring a pot of homemade Bolognese pasta sauce. She looked over her shoulder, her bangs disarrayed from the heat of the cooking pot. “She works Tuesdays through Thursdays. Since when do you call Adeline Ady?” she queried, wiping the sweat from her forehead.

“Matt calls her that all the time. It rubbed off on me.”

“Well I’m glad you two get along. I knew you would like her. In time, the both of you are going to be inseparable.”

“You make it sound like we’re both little kids.”

“In my mind, you are.”

“Okay mom. I love you. See you later,” Zacky laughed, giving his mom a kiss on the cheek.

He left the house shortly after, observing his surroundings. Johnny specifically told Zacky that the animal shelter was near the restaurant named Valencia. If Zacky walked out of the restaurant, he would only have to cross the street and walk a few feet to reach the shelter.

‘This place is getting really famous,’ he thought to himself as he passed the popular eating establishment.

Taking only a few steps, he spotted a little rectangular shaped store. The walls were the usual red bricks. The surface of the walls had depictions of various animals such as dogs, cats, birds, and rabbits. The outside cover of the shelter exuded an old-fashioned feel and a homely feeling.

One of the older dogs barked loudly at the sound of the door opening. She ran around in circles, barking and barking. That caused a domino effect, making the other canines bark as well. Adeline sighed, finishing with one of the bird’s food bowls and walked over to the cause of the uproar.

Cassie, the two-year-old Alaskan Husky, shut her mouth and whimpered as Adeline neared her room. Cassie had been at the animal shelter for roughly a month, and caused so many riots with the other animals, it was almost unbearable. There were times when she had to transfer her into a room far away from the other animals. That was the only way to keep her from causing any more disturbances.

Once Adeline passed all the other dogs’ rooms, they quieted down. They all knew who Adeline was and only provoked her when she was already in a bad mood. Today was an okay day for Adeline; so the dogs knew not to mess with her mood.

When she reached Cassie, Cassie gingerly walked to the glass wall that trapped her from the outside world. Adeline opened the glass door, her hand outstretched. Cassie leaned into Adeline’s hand, allowing her to pet her head.

“Come on girl, no more problems,” Adeline whispered, giving Cassie one more scratch behind the ears before locking the glass door. She walked past her father’s office, finding him taking a nap against his chair. Usually she would scold him for sleeping on the job, but she knew that he needed it for once. For the past three nights, there were calls of litters of kittens in random places in Huntington. It was a real hassle finding homes for the baby kittens.

The minute she stepped foot to the front of the shelter to tend to the new customer, she wish she took the extra energy to yell at her father.

Zacky stood before her with a smile on his face. She bit at her lip, her head lowered to the floor.

“W-what are you doing here?” she asked, her eyes never leaving the tiled floor.

She still wouldn’t look up at him. Zacky frowned, wondering what he could have done or what he could do help defeat her shyness. He was quickly becoming irritated with seeing the top of her scalp each time he talked to her.

“My friend, Johnny showed me a dog yesterday and I want to adopt him,” replied Zacky, twirling a pen he picked up from the counter between his fingers.

“S-sure.”

Adeline opened the little fence that separated anyone from the insides of the shelter. Zacky walked past the fence, following behind her. He took in the interior of the shelter, noticing it looked more like an animal hospital than your local pound. That brought his worries down to a minimum. He had seen shows and read stories saying that every animal at a pound had a “time limit.” Animals had an x amount of time for someone to adopt them and take them home or their time would be up. When their time was up…Zacky shuddered at the thought.

“Hey Ady?” Zacky asked, touching her shoulder.

He felt her tense up considerably and felt her inhale and exhale loudly. “Yes Zacky?”

“You don’t…kill them do you?”

She turned around, her eyes widened. Some of her hair hit Zacky in the face. “No! We could never! Why would you think that?” Tears were beginning to build in her eyes.

Hastily, he waved his hands back and forth as though that would make her think that wasn’t what he meant. “N-no! That’s not what I meant! I was just asking c-cause other places you know…”

“Oh,” she muttered in understanding. “Well, here, we keep all the animals. They don’t have a time to live before…So let’s go get your dog.”

Again, they fell to an uncomfortable silence. Those always seemed to show up at random intervals of time for them.

Several animals barked, chirped, meowed, and even bounced on the balls of their feet as Adeline passed their cages. It was strange to Zacky how those animals could grow fond of a person like that. Then again, he figured that she spent a lot of time with these animals, probably feeding them and playing with them whenever she had the time to.

At last, they stopped at the end of the hallway. The cages enclosing them were all empty. Yet, Zacky heard soft whimpers as he and Adeline stood there in silence. ‘Why is it so empty here?’

Adeline motioned for Zacky to follow her. He did so, watching her open the glass door and walk inside. He followed her actions, standing in the room. That was nothing in this room besides a navy colored pet bed, a bowl of food, a bowl of water, and a few squeaky toys scattered about.

From the corner of his eye, Zacky saw a black speck move towards him. He turned his head to be sure that he wasn’t just imagining things. His eyes definitely weren’t playing a trick on him.

A small black dog was in the corner of the room, shying itself away from Adeline who was trying her best to get him to walk towards her. It didn’t make sense that the dog was suddenly so scared of everyone. Just yesterday, he was running around in a happy mood.

Zacky crawled towards the dog, his hand outstretched. The dog whimpered again and hid in the wall. Slowly but surely, Zacky was able to pet the dog. At first, the dog made no reactions until Zacky persisted on petting his head.

15 minutes passed before the dog finally began to run around and lick Zacky’s fingers. He laughed, feeling accomplished he was able to get the dog to act playful.

“Does he have a name?” he asked Adeline, who was sitting against the wall, watching the puppy chew at his squeak toy.

She looked down at her shoes when Zacky looked at her. “Ichabod,” she muttered.

The two walked back out to the counter where Zacky would have to sign adoption papers. He held all the legal papers needed for Ichabod while holding Ichabod in his other arm.

“You know I owe you a dinner,” Zacky mentioned.

“No you don’t,” Adeline replied, putting away the papers the shelter would have to keep.

“I do since you showed me the house. I’m not taking no as an answer so be ready for six tonight.”

He left soon after, not giving Adeline time to complain and try to get out of the dinner. She stood there in a trance, trying to figure out ways to skip on the dinner. The restaurant wouldn’t need her today since it wasn’t the weekend yet. Weekdays were never busy anyways. It would be too late to go to the daycare since the children would most likely get out of school early. Maybe she could call her aunt and look after Stella. That would be perfect!

Adeline reached for the phone, pressing the numbers before stopping midway. She couldn’t bail on Zacky. He wanted to take her out to dinner and it would be very rude if she never showed up. He looked so confident about inviting her too.

She put the phone back on its pedestal and groaned. It was just a simple dinner, what could go wrong?