Chapter One – Tic-Tac-Toe

On a blustery fall day, golden yellow leaves drift across a pale blue sky. Rowdy sits underneath a large chestnut tree on the edge of a sandbox, playing tic-tac-toe against himself. He’d been inside the house winning against one of his older sisters, but she got mad at losing and the other three got mad at the noise of them arguing and eventually all four sisters shouted, “Go play outside!”

He knows sisters are weird, but he’s beginning to wonder if his have developed a hivemind.

When he draws another X in the sand with his lucky stick, he sees that the game is going to be another dud where no one wins. He puts another handful of popcorn in his mouth from the bag of popcorn leftover from his earlier game of popcorn catch, and thinks, I’m just too good to beat, even when I’m playing against myself, even with my lucky stick. But you always want to keep trying, at least that’s what his inventor dad said about robot battles over pancakes this morning. He erases the game with his foot and draws the lines for the next one with the now butter stained stick.

In the woods behind the house, a big brown mutt of a dog chases after a white butterfly as it weaves its way through the Douglas fir trees. He looks to be a mix of a giant Labrador Retriever, mastiff, and a basset hound with big floppy ears. As he chases after the butterfly, he wonders what the flitter-flyers smell like, but he’s only gotten close enough to smell hints of vanilla in the puffs of air below its wings.

As the dog’s pursuit takes him closer to the edge of the woods, he hears the boy’s voice and slows to listen.

“See? I just can’t be beat. I’m the king of tic-tac-toe!” the boy’s voice sounds through the trees.

The dog breaks off his chase and walks to the edge of the forest where there is a woodshed full of firewood. He sees the boy sitting on the edge of the sandbox, playing another game of tic-tac-toe. The stick the boy is using to draw Xs and Os in the sand gets his attention. It’s a really nice stick, bare of bark and about two feet long, and the Labrador Retriever in him appreciates a good stick. And it seems the boy does too, the dog thinks, that’s a good sign because not many people do.

The boy feels a tingle at the back of his neck, like someone is watching him, and turns to see the dog amble up to him. “Hi, Dog. Where did you come from?” He reaches over, scratches the dog’s neck and finds no collar. “Are you a stray?”

The dog sees the lines freshly drawn in the sand for the next game of tic-tac-toe. With his front right paw, he scratches a mark in one of the squares. His mouth waters at the sight and scent of the stick. It looks very chewable and smells very unique to his big basset hound nose, not like anything he’s ever smelled in the woods before.

The boy looks at the marked square and his eyebrows shoot up. “You can play?”

The dog scratches the same square again.

The boy draws an O in the sand with the prize stick and the game commences. The dog goes next, then the boy again. It’s a close game, but the dog wins on his fourth move.

The boy stands, puts his hands on his hips and tilts his head to the side, and stares at the game. “Hey, how’d you do that?” He looks at the dog, pondering his appearance. “Maybe you ran away from a circus? Well, if you are from a circus, I’m sure glad you escaped.”

The dog just wags his tail in response, then snatches the stick out of the boy’s hand and claims it as his prize for winning the game. As he gives it a few chomps, a squirrel catches his attention. The squirrel vibrates his bushy tail high above his little head, stares at the dog, and lets out a long hut-hut-hut cackle, then runs into the woods.

The dog’s fur goes up as he bolts after the squirrel and disappears into the woods. Rowdy listens as the crashes of branches fade to silence in the distance. He waits for the dog to come back, but then the rain starts and finally his mom calls him in to dinner.

Do I have a story to tell everyone at dinner or what? he thinks as he heads inside, glancing back one last time to see if there’s any sign of the dog.

Note: This is a children’s story I am working on. There are ten chapters.