The Girl Who Followed the Stray Dog

Eight-year-old Elsie Warren never meant to become part of a story people in Cedar Hollow would talk about for years.

She only meant to find the stray dog.

The little brown mutt had been coming around her mother’s rented trailer for weeks, thin as a broomstick, one ear bent, tail always wagging like he still believed the world owed him kindness. Elsie left him biscuit crumbs near the steps whenever her mother was working late at the diner.

That afternoon, the dog suddenly ran toward the woods behind the trailer park.

Elsie grabbed her backpack and followed him.