Chapter 2 - A struggle to survive

JIJI TRIED to get closer to her mother but one of her sisters pushed her away. Too hungry to give up, she crawled around the puppy and tried again from a new direction.  Whack! A foot, this one attached to a brother, hit her in the nose and she cried.
    ”You’re so selfish,” she said to the brother, already growing fat on his mother’s milk. ”Let me eat, I’m hungry!”
    As usual, the puppy, like all her brothers and sisters, ignored her. They’re all so stupid, she thought, as she licked her wounded nose. She positioned herself for another run at the food. ”So what if they’re big?” she grumbled. Not one of them could carry on a sensible conversation. All she ever got out of them were dumb grunts and angry growls.
    Jiji saw a break in the crowd and dashed forward. Aaahh!  Milk at last. She began to settle in for a leisurely dinner when the biggest brother of all crashed into her and stole her spot.
    ”It’s my turn!” she cried, retreating to safety. The brother turned his head and grunted before returning to his meal.
    Jiji sniffed, “What’s that supposed to mean? How’s anybody supposed to understand those stupid grunt-grunts? If you’d stop stuffing your face for a second, maybe you could learn to talk properly.”
    A week passed, and then another, but the puppies never did learn to speak. Even worse, Jiji discovered her mother couldn’t talk either. Yes, she could give orders and directions well enough, but only with pushes, barks, shoves and growls. Jiji was soon very lonely.
    Every day was a struggle to get enough to eat and to keep from getting hurt by her brothers and sisters. They didn’t want to hurt her, she knew that, but they did anyway.      They were all so big. Playtime for the puppies was dangerous for Jiji. Less than half their size, she could be crushed.
    With no one to play with, she was bored until she smelled the things moving outside her pen. True, they didn’t smell right, not like dogs at all, but they were fascinating.
    ”I think the little one might make it,” the loud voice said.
    ”You really think so?” the small voice asked.
    ”They usually die, but that dog is smart. Have you noticed how sneaky she is? She’s very good at getting food and staying out of everybody’s way.”
    ”She’s always looking at the ceiling.  What’s she looking at?”
    ”I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem she’s looking so much as listening.”
    Jiji’s language study paid off three weeks later. She learned something was going to happen the next day. It was imperfect knowledge at best, and all she did was worry.
Morning came and the puppies were lifted into a box and carried to a car for a trip to the big city. Hours later the box was passed to a man standing outside a department store. Jiji licked at the air. It tasted bad and dirty. Noises from every direction hurt her ears.
    The department store displayed the puppies in a cage on the fifth floor. A sign on the glass front of the cage said: Yorkshire Terriers.
    Children crowded the cage and tapped the glass with dirty fingers. The puppies jumped, barked, and licked at the glass. All except Jiji.  She stayed at the back of the cage, refusing to even glance at the customers.
    What’s the matter with them? She wondered, watching her brothers and sisters make fools of themselves. She wiggled her ears and shook her head—let them humiliate themselves, I never will. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the strange creatures moving about the pet shop. They seemed to come in two sizes—big and huge. The smaller ones were noisy, the bigger ones scary. She lay down in a corner and pretended to sleep.
    Later that day, the fattest brother was sold to a family with an equally fat little boy. The brother and the boy grunted happily as the father left the store carrying a cardboard puppy box.
    Jiji was surprised and confused when the brother was taken from the cage. Lucky for her she didn’t know this was just the beginning and she would soon be in terrible danger.