Moondust in the Daylight

I galloped through the night, and my breath puffed out before me. Brother bounded along at my side, and I could hear him panting as his steps pounded against the ground. We heard them in the distance, the pack of coyotes, and we ran out to secure the perimeter.

I stopped at the far edge of our territory and turned to look at my brother as he skidded to a halt beside me. Cold, white fluff came down between us, and some landed on his nose. I looked up into the dark sky and saw the big, white ball shining bright. Moon, the humans call it. It was shaking its silvery white dust down on us, and it was gathering up in mounds beneath our feet. The light from the big, round moon was shining down on us, and the soft, powdery ground beneath our paws sparkled and twinkled.

The coyotes howled in the distance, one after another, until their voices were overlapping. Brother tilted his head and answered, and away we flew.

I yawned as I opened my eyes a bit to adjust to the bright light. I tried to extend my legs, but Brother was hogging all the space in our igloo. I inched forward until I got my head out of the opening, and I looked around. Moondust! Papa calls it “snow,” but I know it’s actually moondust. It was daytime, and the white, fluffy stuff was everywhere! I pulled my head back in and grabbed my brother’s ear in my front teeth and yanked. Time to play!

Standing up, I stretched my back and shook the wood shavings from my coat. “Woof,” I said to my brother as his barely opened eyelids began to close again. I bounded out into the bright day light, and the moondust flew up around me as I ran. I knew Papa would be out to feed us soon, and then the best thing was going to happen. The BOY was going to come. Papa said so. Brother says the Boy is his Boy, but it’s okay if I play with him sometimes, so I do! The Boy gives good pets, big hugs, and sometimes soft kisses.

When Brother finally got up and came out to play, we started wrestling in the moondust. We were still jumping and rolling around when Papa came out. The Boy was with him! We jumped around him and licked his fingers too, and sometimes I accidentally stepped on his toes, but he didn't mind. They climbed into the noisy, black thing that Papa calls “UTV,” and Papa said they would be back soon. The UTV glided along on those donut shaped turny things. I really don’t like those turny things, so I tried to bite them, but that made Papa grumpy.

After they left, Brother and I ate our breakfast and wrestled again. I won! Then, I went on an adventure in the woods, and that made me tired, so I took a little nap.

A while later, I heard a noise in the distance, and I turned to see my brother’s ears perked up. He heard it too. “They are coming!” I thought. The UTV came over the hill, and it rumbled through the moondust towards us. When it came to a stop, Papa and the BOY climbed out, and then, another, smaller boy climbed out behind them. I was back to licking fingers and stepping on toes, but I couldn’t help it. I was just so excited!! Moondust days are the BEST days!!!

I chased the boys around the yard, licking up moondust as I went. It was very cold!!! They scooped up handfuls of the stuff and made it into small balls, like little moons. I ran in circles around them, my brother on my heels, and the bigger boy threw a moonball right at me. It landed on my back, exploding into dust on my black fur.

The boys dragged their long, flat boards, called “sleds” up the long, white hill to the top. I followed them, even though I knew I wasn’t supposed to. Brother stayed at the bottom where Papa told him to wait. The boys sat down on the sleds and began to glide quickly down the hill. I chased them as fast I could, hopping over them and even landing in the big one’s lap. He laughed and yelled “KARA!” but I was too heavy for him to roll me off. So we glided until we came to a stop.

The boys and I hiked up a small hill to the edge of a big water hole. Papa calls it “pond.” But it didn’t have any water in it. We stared at the place where the water used to be, but there was only moondust. White with moondust, like the trees and the dirt and the tip of my nose. The boys grabbed up more moondust to make moonballs again. They threw them at each other and down into the water hole pond. The moondust balls don’t bounce like the yellow fetch balls. Instead, they slid across the surface of the moondusty water hole.

The boys were laughing and wrestling and rolling around in the moondust, and that made me super excited and happy, so I hopped around with them. The big one went rolling down the hill, and I followed him, grabbing at his boots with my teeth.

Papa yelled “Alright boys! Are you ready for the big sled?!” He was leaning out the door of the UTV. The boys yelled, and I barked my best “Let’s do it!” Papa grabbed a big, heavy looking sled out of the UTV, It had a blue bottom and a brown top, and both boys could fit in it at the same time.

Papa tied a yellow rope to the sled and hooked it to the back of the UTV. The big boy got in first, and the smaller boy followed. The boys started yelling “We’re ready, Papaw!” and I barked my agreement. I didn’t know what was about to happen, but I knew it would be AMAZING!!!

When Papa climbed back into the UTV, the noise got louder, and it started to move on the black turny things. Then, the sled started to move too! “WHAT IS THIS?!,” I wondered. The sled didn’t have any turny things on it, but it was still moving, so I thought that it must be alive. I started barking in earnest, and seconds later, Brother was there too. We began chasing the big moving sled with the laughing boys, Brother on one side and me on the other. He barked, and then I barked, and then the boys squealed, and then I barked again. The sled went faster and began to go side to side so that we had to dodge out of the way. But that didn’t scare me, because I knew I was faster than that sled. I ran to the front of it and grabbed the corner between my teeth. I gave it a yank, and the big boy yelled “Kara!”

Then, Brother ran to the front of the sled and grabbed the other side with his teeth. We were running along, gamboling through the moondust, pulling on either side of the sled. The boys were holding on tight, laughing and screaming loudly. Brother and I ran and ran until we collapsed in the moondust next to each other. As we lay there panting, fresh dust started to fall from the sky, and some of it fell on my tongue. I gave my biggest smile, thinking “This may be the best day of my WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE!”

When the big round moon climbed up into the dark sky again, the boys went inside the big house, and Papa with them. Brother and I ate our dinner together and went out on patrol. The howling of the coyotes was farther away this night, but still we walked the perimeter of our territory, kicking up the sparkly moondust as we scouted the line of trees encircling us. Brother gave one bark: the all clear, and we headed back to our house. Brother hunched down and went in first. I crouched and squeezed in beside him, feeling perfectly happy. I laid my paw atop his head to tell him I love him, and then I fell asleep.

THE END