Love, Your Beagle

Although I had seen his picture a dozen times, it was still a disappointment when Kevin Oldham turned out to look nothing at all out of the ordinary; I just couldn't get over how normal he was. I'd read all of the Love, Your Beagle books when I was a kid and I thought he should be eight feet tall.

"Thank you again for agreeing to be interviewed," I said to get the conversation rolling.

"It's no problem," he said, waving it off like a fly on his nose. "I don't have a lot to do anymore; I don't really feel like writing much."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sure your readers are looking forward to more adventures."

He smiled shyly. "That's very kind of you, but that's not why you're here." He grinned more widely when I feigned ignorance. I had hoped to ease into the subject with more finesse. "You want to hear about Barclay."

There was no point in denying it. The cat, so to speak, was out of the bag.

"I know that you didn't like to talk about him, back when he was alive. Did people pester you a lot?"

He sighed. "A few. Not many. Most people have good enough manners to mind their own business. There was a girl, in college... Well, why don't I just start at the beginning and tell you the whole story. It's not like it matters any more. It's a long story; would you like some coffee or tea?"

"Coffee would be fine, thanks." At his gesture, I followed him into the small kitchen.

"That's Barclay's leash, there." He pointed to a six-foot chain with a leather loop, hanging from a peg. We didn't say anything of consequence until the coffee cups and the Girl Scout cookies were set on the table, and I switched on the video recorder on my phone.

"The very first time I saw Barclay, he was nothing but a hairy nose, big brown eyes, and a tongue, squeezed next to my mother's face in between the tubes and the wires and the sounds of the monitors and my own breathing. I remember my heart started beating faster, which alerted the monitor, and the minute Barclay saw me, he tried to wriggle out of my mother's grasp so he could lick my face. Oh, the monitor would have loved that! I didn't have any idea how much that moment cost my mother; she had literally mortgaged the house to get Barclay for me. But then, I was only six and I had leukemia. It never occurred to me to ask why they would let a dog into my room in the first place.

"But it paid off. I started getting stronger. The oncologist said it was the interleukin series, and a new experimental drug distilled from a small black Amazonian monkey, but Mom and I knew better. It was Barclay. Not some small black Amazonian monkey, but a little black and brown and white beagle puppy who thought he was a monkey.

"That was seventy years ago. I was six years old, and he was eight weeks. He's been gone for six months today."

I winced inside. I'd known it had only been a few months, but I hadn't realized today was the anniversary.

"He came to see me as often as they would let him while I was in the hospital, and after I got home, we were inseparable. I wanted to take him out every day, like it said in the Know Your Beagle, Love Your Beagle book that Mom bought me when I was still in the hospital, but she said 'No, that would have to wait until I was older'. And when I told her the book said we had to keep Barclay well-wormed and I wanted to do that too, she said that would have to wait until I was much older. I took that book very seriously. I still have it on my shelf.

"But the rest of the time Barclay was right where he belonged, which was with me. Mom would lay a towel on my…