"Teddy? It's time for breakfast. You’ll be late for school."
So what? He was dying; what if he didn’t go to school? He didn’t want breakfast anyway because he was still feeling nauseas from the last chemo treatment. "I'll be right down, Ma." He grabbed his coat and schoolbooks, pulling his favorite red beret over his head.
He poked at the corn flakes in his bowl, watching them float back to the top.
“Teddy, don’t play with your cereal. Eat, so you keep your strength up.”
He ate the cereal, and headed for the school bus stop, hoping Phil wasn't on the bus today.
"Hey, Baldy!" Phil hollered, as TK mounted the bus steps. The back seat erupted in laughter.
"Leave him alone, Phil!" One of the girls scolded.
"Aw, bite me, Nicole!" Phil retorted.
TK sat behind the driver, shutting out Phil, and visualizing himself as healthy, with all his hair, captain of the soccer team, and surrounded by friends. The doctors had taught him visualization, suggesting it might make the tumor go away. The tumor was still there, but it helped him ignore Phil, and the pain.
The bus stopped in front of the school, and TK hurried out the door ahead of the other kids, leaving the stares and taunting behind. The rest of the students ran toward the school while he stood aside, watching them disappear through the door, swallowed by the building.
A nearby sound made him turn around. A huge Saint Bernard sat a short distance off. Unsure whether the dog was friendly, TK moved cautiously, speaking softly as he approached.
As he closed on the dog, its great brown and white tail swept back and forth like a giant street broom. The dog closed the remaining feet in playful bounds, sitting down in front of him. Its soft brown eyes, on the same level as TK’s, seemed to peer right into his heart. Its long pink tongue, lolled from its mouth, dripping saliva like a leaky faucet.
TK gave the dog a hug, burying his fingers in the lush sienna and white fur. The warmth of the dog’s skin, and its musky odor was like a tonic, making him shiver with happiness.
"I have to go to class," he told the dog, turning and running toward the school, the dog on his heels.
"You can't come in."
The dog sat down, and TK kissed the top of its head. A tongue as big as a slice of ham flicked out, wetting his face from ear to chin. TK bounded down the hall to class.
"TK, please return to your seat! You may not get up and move about the classroom without asking permission."
“Yes, Miss Allred.”
"He's crazy, Miss Allred," Phil volunteered.
"That’s enough from you!" Allred glared at Phil.
"I was looking at...at my dog," TK mumbled.
"You don't have a dog, Baldy," Phil sneered.
"I do so! He's sitting by the door waiting for me! You can see him out the window!"
Phil, and several others leaped from their desks and ran to the window as Miss Allred sputtered in protest.
"There's no dog out there!" Phil declared.
TK rushed to the window. Phil was right; his dog wasn’t there, now.
"Ted Mullins, and Phil Dalton! Return to your seats immediately, or you will be sent to the Principal!"
On the way to their desks, Phil whispered, "Nice looking dog, baldy."
TK was devastated. All he could think about the rest of the day was the Saint Bernard. He was so good at visualization that the line between imaginary and reality sometimes clouded, but not this time; he knew the dog was real.
He named his dog, Brandy, after the story of a Saint Bernard who saved a man lost in the snow by letting him drink brandy from a small cask the dog wore around his neck.
Going home on the bus, TK’s heart quickened when he saw Brandy in front of his house. Running across the street, he threw his arms around the dog's neck as Brandy lavished him with slobbery kisses.
TK burst through the front door. "Mom! Can I keep him? Can I?"
"What are you going on about, Teddy?”
"My dog," TK said, "Brandy! He followed me home!"
TK's mother went to the door, led by TK’s determined grip of her wrist, but there was no dog.
"Is this another of your fantasies, Teddy?"
"No mom, honest! He's real, and his name is Brandy. He was at school today, and he was here just now when I got off the bus!"
"Well, maybe he went back to his real home," his mother said.
TK walked dejectedly to his room mumbling, "This is his home.”
That night, TK heard his mother telling his father about Brandy.
"He's dealing with death the only way he can," his father said. "This fantasy world is his way of coping."
They didn’t understand, TK thought, as he fell asleep.
"Hey baldy! Did you bring your invisible dog today?"
TK dismissed Phil. When he got off the bus, Brandy was waiting by the swings. Running as fast as he could, he hugged the big dog tightly.
He was fifteen minutes late to class, explaining that he was playing with Brandy and lost track of time. Several students snickered as Miss Allred went to the window, saw nothing, smiled knowingly at TK, and returned to the front of the classroom.
Over the next months, TK spent every free minute with the dog, running and playing, rolling in the grass, and taking long walks as he told Brandy what he thought death was like, and what heaven might look like.
“Why can’t anyone see you but me?” he asked Brandy.
The big dog sat silently, watching TK, and wagging its tail.
“I hope I see you in heaven.” His parents insisted it was a great place, so TK figured it had to have dogs.
His parents accepted his stories. His teachers, and most of his friends, concluded the hallucinations were a side affect of his treatments, as well as the growth of the tumor.
TK was one week shy of his tenth birthday when the end came. He dropped from school when the headaches got worse, and was soon bedridden and on pain medication, but he would go to his bedroom window every day and watch the school bus go by. Brandy was always outside, staring up at his window. His life ended peacefully one night as he slept.
Under the slate-gray December sky at the cemetery, his family, classmates, teachers, and friends, their eyes swollen and red from crying, gathered on the patch of artificial green turf surrounding the site where his small coffin, suspended on grey canvas straps, waited to be lowered into the gaping black hole.
The minister read from the Bible, and a woman from their church sang Amazing Grace. The mourners sobbed as TK's father removed the small crucifix from the coffin, and his mother placed a single red rose on the casket.
Suddenly, the morning quiet was shattered by a mournful cry that started as a low rumble, then rose in pitch, knifing through the bare trees, to settle over the gravesite.
Turning toward the sound, everyone saw the large sienna and white Saint Bernard sitting atop a rise, its eyes riveted on TK’s tiny casket.