Chapter 1

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   Zachary wouldn't pose properly--- and in Emily's opinion the fact that he was a dog was not a good enough excuse. She had been trying to draw a portrait of him ever since she'd gotten home from school, but all she had managed to do so far was a few wasted pages with the beginnings of pictures, none of which looked right at all. So she kept flipping to the next page in her sketchbook and trying again --- and again,and again.
   
    It was September, and the sky was that perfect bright blue shade, with almost no clouds,and a clean backdrop of tall green fir trees across the sound. The ocean was an even darker, clear blue, with the water just choppy enough for Zachary to sit sweetly on the dock, while she did her best to capture him looking dignified and noble.
    
    Zachary's plan seem to be to sit still for about 30 seconds, and then race along the rocky shoreline to bark at seagulls, crawl under bushes to find one of his many battered tennis balls,roll around in the grass, and gallop up to the back deck every so often to drink heartily from his water dish.
   
    Then he would run over to her, wagging his tail. He kept trying to climb on her lap, even though --- since he was a really big dog ,over a hundred pounds --- he weighed more than she did. Once, he even grabbed her pencil out of her hand and cocked his head, to indicate that he wanted her to throw it for him.
    
    "Zach," she said patiently, and turned to yet another clean page on her pad."I only want to draw you for, like, 5 minutes. I just really need get a really good outline down, and then we can play and I'll finish it later."
   
   Zachary's ears perked up when he heard the word "play," and he barked once.
    
   Okay. Maybe she should give up and spend the rest of the afternoon throwing things for him to fetch, and they could go for a nice, long walk down thier dirt road. But, seriously, all she wanted to do was sketch the bare outlines , and maybe capture his expression Zach always had a good expression. He looked really smart. He was a golden Labrador retriever.
   
    "Could we try one more time?" she asked him. Zachary tilted his head curiously, and she slipped her hand under his collar--- a very flattering red plaid pattern--- and led him down to the dock again.
    
    "If you could just sit for a couple of minutes, I promise I'll draw really , really fast," she said.
    
   He wagged his tail and sat down on the weathered wood.
      "
   That's great!" she said, and hurried back to her sketch pad and started sketching as quickly as she could.

    She would worry about the colors later, but what she really wanted to do was re-create the alert, kind light in his brown eyes. Her parents had started signing her up for art classes when she was about 5 years old , so she had earned a lot --- but she kind of knew just enough to realize how much she didn't know. And the art teacher at her new junior high school in Brunswick was a real artist, who had recently moved up to Maine from Provincetown, and Emily was hoping that he would be able to help her learn lots of advanced drawing techniques. Mr. Reed had even said that he might start an after-school oil painting class soon, if enough students were interested!

     Zachary was being very good and pati now, and she sketched and shaded swiftly.He was sort of slouching though, and she wished that he would sit up a little straighter, and maybe even lift a paw for her, like Lassie always did in the television reruns she had seen.

  "Could you please hold your paw up?" she asked, and demonstrated with her left hand. " Like this?"
    
      Zach looks distinctly puzzled
     Sometimes, she thought he understood every word she said, so she talked to him slot, but they actually communicated more than that.

It was sort of ---- psychic.


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      Hi, so i actually wrote this on my phone xD
   Also if there are any spelling mistakes then please inform me ty

In total words:721  words

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⏰ Last updated: Sep 04, 2021 ⏰

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