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When you are very sad, what do you do? Do you have a special toy, like a fuzzy stuffed animal, that you hug and tell it what's bothering you? Is it so big and squishy you can push your entire face into it and it muffles everything you say? Do you turn to someone that loves you very much, like a big brother or your mom or grandma that hugs you tight and tells you that everything's going to be okay? Does that furry come a-rushing to your side for as little as hearing a sniffle over the phone?

Do you pray? Does a sense of calm come over you after you're done, does it make all your big, scary problems seem not so big and scary anymore? Or do you hide your sadness, bottle it up and swallow it away, because you can pretend real well that you're not sad at all? Is it because you're a big boy or big girl now, and you can handle all your problems on your own without anybody's help? That's how big kids solve problems, right?

Delia is very sad today, because she lost someone very important. She was his stuffed animal when he was sad, and he'd cuddle up right against her in a curled up spotted ball, lots of times with his face right against her stomach or up her armpit, anywhere he could cram his stubby fat muzzle. She was his mom, after all, and she took him everywhere she could, showing him big open fields and telling him, when he couldn't even speak, that everything was going to be okay.

Delia had his stuffed animal crammed against her tummy, making all the calls she could to her big brother, to her mother, to her elderly grandmother who was twenty years into retirement and still going strong, even though she lived alone now in her old hometown where she had survived all her friends. Grandma Dalmatian answered the phone on the fourth ring--she was out back picking the tomatoes she grew herself.

"Why Delia Rae," she said, "it's so good to hear from my sweet granddaughter, now how's my spunky great-grandpuppy doing?"

And this is where Delia stopped, wept, and didn't need to tell her a darn thing past that.

"I'm so very, very sorry," Grandma said, "that brings up a bunch of old memories of back when I was breedin' with your grandfather during the Big Ugly War."

A proper doctor was hard to come by back then, she said to Delia. And even if she was lucky enough to get one in the same family, there were few times she'd managed the same genus and only once she'd gotten a Dalmatian.

"I had twelve kids and I lost three of them before they were house-trained," she said, "and never did it get easier. And when the war marched right into town and bombs were going off every night, well--I just learned to bottle it up and swallow it down."

It didn't mean that Delia had to, though. She had a loving mother who'd get her voicemail on her lunch break and be over before dinner, and Grandma Amelia was on the phone with her right now.

"I'm going to send you a box of these tomatoes," she insisted, "they were extra amazing this year and I know you're my best customer. Ever since you were a little girl you've been crazy about these tomatoes."

It was a nice gesture, to be sure, but there was still a lot weighing on Delia's mind. She did love those tomatoes, though.

"How's your garden doing, sweetie? Your daffodils big as sunflowers?"

"They're pushing up daisies, actually," she blurted out. When she heard the news this morning she just couldn't handle it, and in a fit of rage she ripped half the garden apart.

This gave Grandma Dalmatian pause. When she finally spoke, her voice was careful and measured.

"Now just because you've suffered a mighty loss does not mean you need to lose your head and make it worse. I found solace in my garden on many a hard night, both during the war and for decades after, and I know you do the same. Don't be stupid, Delia Rae--don't go yanking up roots when the soil turns to dust. Plant your paws firmly and lean into the wind. You hear me, young lady?"

Lady Dalmatian couldn't speak, frozen on the couch with her legs locked at the knees and the phone nestled under the flap of her ear. Amelia took this as confirmation and ended the call.

"Hope you enjoy the tomatoes," she said.

A half-hour later Delia is still very sad, but she is outside again where the sun rubs her shoulders and the wind tousles her ears. She picks up what's left of her daffodils, daisies, and buttercups--a partial stem here, a sapling over there--and buries them back in the ground, smoothing over the soil with her trowel. There is one daffodil snapped in half, its wound still fragrant and wet, and this one she plants in the center of the naked plain, tying a popsicle stick to its bereaved stem. The flowers on either side of this restored, ravaged flower look on in silence, leaves outstretched and petals perked. The slightest twinge of hope beats through their capillaries, and then the phone rings. Delia puts the trowel in her front pocket.

She doesn't recognize the number, but she answers it anyway. There is no one on the other end and she feathers her finger over the off button. Then there's bereaved breathing and Marcie's mother comes on with a voice that makes Delia choke. She wants to come over; she's heard some horrible news about Marcie.

"What happened?" Delia asks.

"I want to talk about this in person; I heard what happened to your puppy."

"What happened?" Delia asks.

"I want to talk about this face-to-face, mother-to-mother," she says.

Delia says yes; Delia holds her paw to her heart. Images of Marcie flash before her face, like her forcing her way through the waiting room, her running after Spot in that field, her playing with Spot day in and day out as Delia'd come home from work; the Dalmatian chews her tongue as she looks toward the road, hangs up the phone. Waiting for Marcie's mother, she delicately cleans the fragments of flowers from her front yard and buries them among their successors, then tenderly strokes the weathered petals of her splinted daffodil. She cleans until a brand-new SUV speeds up and parks sloppily on the sidewalk, and Delia hastens to meet her.

Marcie's mother, the otter Martina, stumbles to Delia delirious and grabs her by the shoulders, but does not say anything as she looks Mother Dalmatian in the eyes. Her stumpy face is crumpled like a soup can and tears have cut many canyons in her cheek fur and she is lost for words, lost for air until finally it all breaks loose and she shakes the taller Dalmatian.

"Why?" she says with a squeak. "Why?"

Delia struggles for an answer. "Come inside," she says, "come inside and we'll talk."

Mother Otter attacks the wet tissues once inside, and Delia joins her soon after. Martina is confused, she is scared, and she is very sad. She knows that she needs to turn to her faith in times like this, and she's been praying ever since Marcie got sick, but she wonders if she's doing enough. She knows sometimes, bad things happen to good people, and that this is all part of the Master Plan, but she just wishes, she wishes with all her heart and all her soul, she wishes with every ounce of her being that she could just understand why her daughter was to be taken from her--is she being tested? Is this her calling to go out into the world and spread the lesson of temperance?

"Is that why they took my baby?" she pleads as she pads her nose wet, "She got so sick so fast; I held her paw until the end when her eyes clouded over with a demon's gaze; I'd lost her hours before she actually went. I didn't mind her snarling at me or the way she shook the table. It was as if she was possessed by pure evil, and I know she was a good girl."

Martina rolls up her sleeve and there is a bandage on it. Delia lets in a sharp breath but covers her mouth with a tissue, watching the otter clutch her wound.

"The disease swept her away; I knew it wasn't her when she...when she...but she did; my little girl bit me."

Delia stiffens in her seat, and when she does Martina lurches over and grabs her, burying her face in Delia's shoulder. She just wants her baby back, she whimpers; it's not fair. All that money for her baby's education--it's gone--and Marcie was so close to getting a promotion at the local video store, and she was dating such a nice boy. Her life was going just great, and most importantly she was her beautiful little girl.

"I lost someone too," Delia trembles, "we can get through this together."

"But they took my baby!" she barks, shaking the Dalmatian. "And I want her back!"

Marcie just kept biting and thrashing at the nurses with no rhyme or reason; she just kept clawing, biting, and shouting. She just kept shouting "it's just a couple of bites; I'll be fine! I'm up on my shots, it's just a few bites!" Martina had never heard of such a bite; everyone there said it had to be the bite, but how could that be, and especially from an infant.

"Why did he bite her," she whimpers. Her claws sink into Delia's arms and it makes her wince. "Why did he take her away?"

Delia tries to pull away but the otter's grip is firm. "Look at me," she says, "look at me!" With great hesitation, Delia does look, and sees that the otter's eyes are red and tears are rolling down her waterproof coat. "Why did you take her away; give her back!"

She stares dead at Delia.

"Give me my daughter. Give her back."

"She's gone, Martina; I don't know what you're trying..."

The otter slaps Delia and then shakes her. "Give me my daughter!"

The Dalmatian reels from the hit; a shiver runs down her spine to the tip of her tail. "Martina, stop it!" she barks as she pushes back. The otter is strong, though, and doesn't let go. Delia tries to stand, but Martina yanks her down onto the couch again.

"It's your fault! It's all your fault; your son killed my baby!" she accuses.

Delia's heart is in her throat; Martina's grip hurts and she won't let her go. She protests, but the otter won't hear her and she shakes Delia again--the Dalmatian is obviously lying to her, and when she tries to stand up again, Martina pushes her as hard as she can and Delia trips and falls over the coffee table.

Delia's whole world is sent spinning as her head hits the ground, but her heart tells her to get back up and she does, awkwardly scrabbling to her feet as the otter comes over the table after her with her teeth bared and tears streaming from her face.

"Give her back!" she yells as she dives at Delia.

"I don't have her!" Delia responds in a panic, rolling out of the otter's way. The otter slams face first into Delia's television and shatters the screen, but then rebounds off of it and runs after the Dalmatian. There is glass embedded in her face and it doesn't faze her--it just makes her clumsier. She flings herself forward and snags one of the Dalmatian's overall straps with all her weight, yanking Delia backwards onto the hardwood with a thud and a yelp.

Clouds of color and malformed stars swirl before Delia's eyes like a baby's lopsided mobile, but her lungs burn for air and the sour, electric adrenaline coursing through her limbs demand that she stay awake. Mother Dalmatian is suddenly beset by her enraged friend and seized by both her overalls' straps. Her claws bared and her voice hoarse from shouting, Martina pulls her nose-to-nose with her and she asks again, "Give her back! You had no right to take her!"

She repeats herself, she repeats her demands, and then she stops. She stops when Delia hits her in the head with a garden trowel, and then the only sound in the room is a sharp, deafening clang that dissipates like morning dew. She stops and looks at Delia with amazement, with utter stupefaction. A whisper then comes from her lips, her eyes lucid with betrayal.

"Your son takes my daughter, and now you'd kill me?" she squeaks, sitting back on Delia. She studies her friend, and her paws retreat to her heart. The ceiling fan above her sways from side to side as it spins a little off-balance. "I'll kill you first!" she shouts, then brings both paws like a hammer onto Delia's snout. The Dalmatian coughs as she feels a small, sharp bone slide down her tongue and she spits it out in a panic, just in time to see through this new cloud of stars and color blotches an enraged otter lunging at her teeth first.

She screams as she drives her trowel into Martina's eye. The otter howls in pain as she falls off Delia, fumbling blindly for a steady footing. Delia runs away in a flurry of legs and arms, stumbling for the kitchen in the distance. When she spits, it's a red splat that hits the wall, and when she slides her tongue along her top row of teeth it falls into a slick hole where a fang used to be. The Dalmatian hops up onto the counter with her legs crossed and pulls the corded handset to her ear.

Martina can't see out of her left eye, Martina can't remove the miniature shovel driven into her head, but Martina can hear Delia. She hears Delia talking with someone, hears her calling the police, and knows that this is the one thing she must prevent. Martina has to get Delia off the phone. She stumbles to her feet, her breathing rasping out of her maw in snarls, and blunders into the room where Delia's sitting with a chef's knife.

"Stay back," she mouths, an automated voice tinnily whispering to her. "Stay back." The knife shakes in her paw, her eyes glisten with fear.

"I want my child!" Martina shrieks. She yanks Delia by the ankles and Delia roars in response--she slashes the otter's arms and then leaps to her footpaws, pushing Martina against the refrigerator and stabbing her in the stomach. Delia curses Martina and Martina curses Delia and she curses Delia's son; the Dalmatian howls that she be left alone and her friend cries in pain--the otter pushes hard against the fridge and Delia stabs her in the gut again. Blood spills over her white, spotty coat and the otter collapses over the knife, pushing it through her body.

"You killed me," Martina wheezes, "I can't believe you'd do this to me."

Then Martina is dead, which makes Delia very sad. It makes her angry, too, but most of all very sad. She wants to cradle Spot's stuffed animal, but there's blood on it, and she wants to pray, but she's not that good at praying, and she wants to call her grandma again, but what could she really say to her? Did this also happen to Grandma Amelia during the Big Ugly War?

What would you do if your friend suddenly wanted to kill you? Do you think you'd do the right thing? What would you tell the police, who are now pounding on your front door?