His Dogness

Sparkle Girl is reading her first Nancy Drew book.

It’s not her first chapter book. She started reading those a few months back, and I have enjoyed watching her read on her own just for fun.

Nancy Drew, though, registered with me in a way that the earlier ones did not. Those I had not read, so all that I know of the worlds inside those books is what Sparkle Girl told me.

I have been in Nancy Drew’s world. After I finished all the Hardy Boys books that I could lay my hands on, I wanted more. So it was on to Nancy Drew.

Sparkle Girl and I have read plenty of picture books together that date to my childhood. But chapter books give your imagination so much more room. Nancy Drew got me thinking about the Technicolor adventures that Sparkle Girl’s imagination will be putting on for her in the days to come.

The day brought a second jumbo-size gift.

After supper, we took Sparkle Girl and Doobins to the Rainbow Playground. A little girl about Doobins’ size was there with her mother.

You could take Sparkle Girl and drop her in the middle of a crowd of 200 strangers, and her eyes would light up at the prospect of the fun she was going to have meeting all those new people.

Doobins, though, often takes a while to warm up to new people.

Although the years have made it easier for me to talk to people I don’t know, I am, by nature, shy. So I empathize.

He and I take distinctly different approaches, though. When I’m feeling shy, I become quiet. When Doobins becomes uncomfortable, he may scrunch up his face and growl. So, Garnet and I sometimes find ourselves in the position of apologizing to people we don’t know.

This time, though, Doobins said hello to the girl right off, and, in an instant, they were running around with Doobins just chatting away. That, in itself, was plenty gratifying.

Before long, he went so far as to introduce himself and Sparkle Girl to the girl and her mother.

That I had never seen him do. Such a turn of events was so unexpected that I wasn’t sure I had heard what I had heard.

Did you hear that? Garnet asked.

As we were driving home, we said something to Doobins about how he seemed to have made a new friend.

“Yeah,” he said. “She was pretty.”