The Last Dog

Katherine Paterson
SHORT STORY

This version of the selection

alternates original text
Brock approached the customs gate. Although he did not reach for the with summarized passages.
scanner, a feeling it might have labeled “excitement” made him tremble. Dotted lines appear next to
the summarized passages.
His fingers shook as he punched in his number on the inquiry board. “This
is highly irregular, Brock 095670038,” the disembodied voice said. “What is
your reason for external travel?” NOTES
Brock took a deep breath. “Scientific research,” he replied. He didn’t need
to be told that his behavior was “irregular.” He’d never heard of anyone
doing research outside the dome—actual rather than virtual research.
“I—I’ve been cleared by my podmaster and the Research Team. …”

The machine continues to question him. It asks when Brock plans to return, if he has the
proper equipment, and if he understands that the water supply is limited.

Why weren’t they questioning him further? Were they eager for him
to go? Ever since he’d said out loud in group speak that he wanted to go
outside the dome, people had treated him strangely—that session with the
podmaster and then the interview with the representative from Research.
Did they think he was a deviant?1 Deviants sometimes disappeared. The
word was passed around that they had “gone outside,” but no one really
knew. No deviant had ever returned.

The gate opens and Brock steps outside the dome. Even though he wears a screened
helmet, his eyes are sensitive to the sunlight. He has learned everything he knows about
the sun—and about the mountains he sees in the distance—from his virtual lessons.

It was, he pulled the scanner from his outside pouch and checked it,
“hot.” Oh, that was what he was feeling. Hot. He remembered “hot” from a
virtual lesson he’d had once on deserts.

Brock knows from other lessons not to take off his protective suit. He adjusts the
controls on the suit instead, and soon he is cooler.
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Brock can’t believe he’s the only one who is curious about the outside world. Other
people laugh at him when he tries to talk about it. But Brock is different in other ways
too. While the people from his pod play virtual games, he likes to visit the “ancient
fictions.” The stories, and the people in them, make Brock feel both afraid and eager.
He returns to the ancient fictions often.

Within a short distance from the dome, the land was clear and barren,
but after he had been walking for an hour or so he began to pass rusting

1. deviant (DEE vee uhnt) n. strange, irregular person.

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 hulks and occasional ruins of what might have been the dwellings of NOTES
ancient peoples that no one in later years had cleared away for recycling
or vaporization.
He checked the emotional scanner for an unfamiliar sensation.
“Loneliness,” it registered. He rather liked having names for these new
sensations. It made him feel a bit “proud,” was it? The scanner was rather
interesting. He wondered when people had stopped using them. He hadn’t
known they existed until, in that pod meeting, he had voiced his desire to
go outside.

Brock continues walking. He realizes that he still has a long way to go and it’s already
past noon. He doesn’t have a lot of food or water. But he decides to go on. As Brock
walks, he’s astonished by what he sees.

There were actual trees growing on the first hill. Not the great giants of
virtual history lessons, more scrubby and bent. But they were trees, he was
sure of it. The podmaster had said that trees had been extinct2 for hundreds
of years. … Farther up the hill he heard an unfamiliar burbling sound. …
He checked the scanner. There was no caution signal, so he hurried toward
the sound.
It was a—a “brook”—he was sure of it! Virtual lessons had taught that
there were such things outside in the past but that they had long ago
grown poisonous, then in the warming climate had dried up. But here
was a running brook, not even a four-hour journey from his dome. His
first impulse was to take off his protective glove and dip a finger in it,
but he drew back. He had been well conditioned to avoid danger. He
sat down clumsily on the bank. Yes, this must be grass. There were even
some tiny flowers mixed in the grass. Would the atmosphere poison him
if he unscrewed his helmet to take a sniff? He punched the scanner to
read conditions, but the characters on the scanner panel danced about
uncertainly until, at length, the disembodied voice said “conditions
unreadable.” He’d better not risk it.

As Brock eats his food pellet near the stream, he hears something. He checks his scanner
and sees no danger signal, so he heads for the sound. He finds a dead dog under a
nearby tree. Next to it, a puppy is crying. Later, Brock realizes he probably should have
been more worried about diseases a dog might be carrying. But at the moment, he
thinks of nothing but comforting a small creature that has lost its mother.

He’d found out about mothers from the Virtuals. Mothers were extinct
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in the dome. Children were conceived and born in the lab and raised in
units of twelve in the pods, presided over by a bank of computers and
the podmaster. … So though Brock could guess the puppy was “sad” …
he didn’t know what missing a mother would feel like. And who would
whimper for a test tube?

2. extinct (ehk STIHNGKT) adj. no longer existing.

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 Brock had read about dogs in the science and history virtuals and in the ancient fictions. NOTES
He thought dogs had died off or been killed for food. He gives the puppy a food pellet.
When the puppy drinks from the stream, Brock is terrified it will be poisoned. But it
seems clear that the puppy is not sick.

Brock names the puppy Brog, and he carries it back to the dome with him. The
researchers are fascinated to see a real dog, but they wear special suits to protect
themselves from its possible germs.

One of them examines the puppy closely, poking at it until it whimpers. Finally, Brock
says Brog is tired and needs to have food other than pellets. They bring a McLike burger
with no sauce, which the puppy eats in three bites. Brock begins to realize that the
scientists are looking at him as an expert, and he takes full advantage of this. He asks
for permission to keep the puppy with him.

“She’s not like us,” he explained. “She’s used to tumbling about and
curling up with other warm bodies. In the old myths,” he added, “puppies
separated from their litters cried all night long. She will need constant
interaction with another warm-blooded creature or she might well die of,”
he loved using his new vocabulary, “loneliness.”

The scientists agree. After all, the boy has touched the dog without gloves. It’s far
better to keep both dog and boy away from others. So for the next week, Brock and
Brog live at the research center. Then, Brock overhears two scientists arguing about
Brog. One suggests they clone the puppy. But the other feels they should use it for
experiments instead.

“What about the boy? He won’t agree. Interfacing daily with the dog,
he’s become crippled by primal urges.”

The scientists discuss the old, human emotions puppies bring out in people. Then,
they realize that the communication system is on. They quickly shut it off. But Brock
has heard all he needs to hear, and he is scared now. His puppy is so special. Cloning
her would be terrible—all the dogs would be the same. But letting them experiment
on Brog in a lab would be even worse. They would change her! Brock can’t stand the
thought of that.

In the dark, he put his arm around Brog and drew her close. He loved the
terrible smell of her breath and the way she snored when she slept. They’d
probably fix that too.

The next day Brock pretends to be sick. He sees on a computer that the researchers
have been checking into dog diseases. Brock looks carefully for a disease he can pretend
© by Savvas Learning Company LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Brog has. Finally, he sees “rabies,” an illness that can spread from an animal to a person
through a bite.

Rabies was it! Somehow he would have to make Brog bite him. There was
no antirabies serum in the dome, he felt sure. There were no animals in the
dome. Why would they use precious space to store unneeded medication?
So they’d have to expel him as well as Brog for fear of spreading the
disease. No matter what lay outside, he could not stand to go back to the
life he had lived in the dome before he met Brog.

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 Brock tries to get Brog to bite him, but she won’t. NOTES

The researchers gather to discuss the situation with Brock. They tell him they’ve already
made virtuals of Brog so Brock can play with her anytime. But Brog herself will have to
go for the sake of science.

At that moment, Brock turns and bites Brog on the tail hard enough to draw blood. The
dog, stunned and angry, bites Brock’s nose. Brock says he’s been feeling very strange,
and the nervous researchers rush from the room.

When Brock offers to take Brog to the mountains and set her free, he gets no argument
from anyone. And so Brock and his dog leave the dome. Once outside, Brog runs along
beside Brock in joyful circles.

Why wasn’t the atmosphere choking Brog if it was as poisonous as

the dome dwellers claimed? His heart beating rapidly, Brock unscrewed
his helmet just enough to let in a little of the outside atmosphere.
Nothing happened.

Brock takes off the helmet and nothing happens. He begins to believe that the scientists
are all wrong. Somehow the outside world has healed itself. He takes off his protective
suit and stands in the sunshine.

It was wonderful how much faster he could walk without the clumsy
suit. “Who knows?” Brock said to a frisking Brog. “Who knows, maybe out
here you aren’t the last dog. Your mother had to come from somewhere.”
Brog barked happily in reply.
“And maybe, just maybe, where there are dogs, there are humans
as well.”
They stopped at the brook where they’d met, and both of them took a
long drink. Brock no longer carried a scanner, but he knew what he felt was
excitement. The water was delicious.

The Last Dog by Katherine Paterson. Copyright © 1999 by Minna Murra, Inc. Used by permission of PearlCo
Literary Agency, LLC.

© by Savvas Learning Company LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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