Dogtown

The man leaves on a motorcycle without Geraldine because the dog won’t fit. All afternoon, Chance waits for the man to come back, worried that Geraldine will have been euthanized by the time he returns.

The man doesn’t come back. However, five minutes before closing, an older woman arrives, brushing past the front desk worker when they tell her that Dogtown is closing for the night. She goes straight to Geraldine’s cage, pets the dog, and says, “I had a Saint Bernard when I was a kid. Best dog I ever had” (149).

When the front desk worker tries to usher the woman out, she refuses to leave without Geraldine. The woman fills out the necessary paperwork, and the dogs of Dogtown howl as they watch Geraldine “lumber out of Dogtown with her forever family” (152).

That night, the dogs of Dogtown celebrate doing their part “to help [their] sweet Geraldine find her forever home” (153). Metal Head will leave the next day, and Chance agrees to get what he needs.

The next morning, Chance and Mouse help Metal Head escape his cage. The process is as simple as Metal Head said. Within seconds, “the latch click[s] open, and Metal Head [is] out” (156).

On the way from the basement to the lobby, Metal Head describes his boy and how much fun they used to have. When the human employees arrive at the shelter, one props the door open to air out the lobby. The smell of winter and freedom tickles Chance’s nose, and she hops closer, figuring, “[W]hat [is] the harm in one little sniff?” (159).

Chance and Mouse walk Metal Head to the door. The smell of freedom tugs at Chance, but she resists because “there [is] no way a three-legged dog and a small mouse [can] survive the winter outside” (161).

Outside the door, Chance sees a sign for a missing dog with a picture that looks like her. Since she left her humans over a year ago, she knows it’s unlikely that the sign is for her. She has to know, though, so she decides to “hop to the sign, see who [i]s on it, and hop back inside. Easy peasy” (163).

When Chance gets closer to the sign, she realizes that it isn’t for a lost dog. Rather, it’s about a dog blog, and the photo isn’t of her.

Chance is sad that the sign isn’t for her. She attributes believing it was to Geraldine and her adoption: “[S]he gave me hope. And hope is a painful business” (169).

As Chance turns to go back inside, Management closes the door. Chance waits, hoping someone will reopen it, but no one does.

Since Dogtown’s doors won’t open for several hours, Chance agrees to go with Metal Head for a bit, mostly because she hopes to see a poster with her photo on it on a different phone pole.

Mouse objects to going with Metal Head, reminding Chance that both of them have obligations at Dogtown. Chance agrees to get them back by lunch, and when she tells Metal Head that she’ll go with him for a bit, he wags his tail.

Chance worries that her missing leg won’t let her keep up with Metal Head, but really, “it [is] the telephone poles that slow[] [her] down” (177). None of the signs are for her, but she sees ones for other dogs that make her sad.

Chance wonders if her family has a new puppy who is sleeping in her bed and eating her food. The thoughts hurt, and she “wishe[s] [she] could stop [her]self from thinking them” (180).

The group approaches a house with a large, fenced-in yard that Chance thinks is “the kind of home a dog only dream[s] about” (184). Metal Head invites Chance inside to give her a present, which she hopes is table scraps.

When a car pulls out of the house’s garage, the group rushes inside before the door closes. There, they extract cheese sandwiches from a fridge. Cheese is one of Chance’s favorite things, and she decides that the excursion is “almost” worthwhile.

The cheese reminds Chance of her family—the cheese she ate with them, how much they took care of her, and “how safe [she] had felt with them” (187).

The cheese gift makes Chance appreciate Metal Head in a new way, and for the first time, she wonders if “a bond between a real dog and a robot dog might be possible” (189).

Metal Head enters the house. From the garage, Chance hears an argument between a boy and his mother. The boy—James, who gets mad when his mother calls him Jimmy—doesn’t know why Metal Head is there. The dog was surrendered months ago, and the boy wants the dog gone because his friends are coming over later and he’s worried about seeming grown-up: “I can’t have a toy dog following me around like I’m five” (191). The mother comes into the garage with a switched-off Metal Head and puts the robot dog in the trunk of her car.

Chance thinks about running, but she can’t leave Metal Head behind because “even if he [is] made of metal, he [is] part of [their] pack” (194).

Mouse climbs up into the car, and Chance explains the dashboard, telling him to press buttons until the trunk opens. Mouse eventually does, but not before turning on the lights and setting off the horn. The mother comes into the garage and closes the trunk, yelling at James to go to school because she doesn’t want another tardy note.

When Mouse and Chance are sure that the mother won’t come back, they pop the trunk, and Mouse climbs in to turn Metal Head back on. Chance barks to get Metal Head’s attention but gets no response “except his lights flickering blue and yellow” (200).

Chance scrambles up into the trunk to look Metal Head in the eyes and get him to move so that he doesn’t get donated and put in the e-waste pile. Metal Head still doesn’t respond, but the look in his eyes makes Chance understand that “Metal Head ha[s] a heart. And it [is] broken” (202).

Chance tells Metal Head that things will be okay—that all dogs get their hearts broken but that they can move past it. Metal Head doesn’t believe her and thinks she has no idea how he feels. Chance doesn’t want to tell him about her past, but she realizes that she has to so that he’ll realize he can survive losing his family.