24

A new day. A new life continues.

Magic, that was the issue of the day.  She kept singing and asking if I believed in music.

"If one thing is magic, then magic can be anywhere," she said. 

"Makes sense," I answered.  This was yesterday.  Since then the world has changed.  It began when she woke my up yesterday singing her song.  After a few renditions of her song she went back into the van and reemerged with a small dog, not really a puppy, but one of those small dogs that stay small.

I felt myself smiling.  I've always thought a real person should have a pet, especially a dog.  It was kind of small for a dog, more the size of a large cat.  Xena was lit up from the inside to the outside.

"This is Rosie," she reached for me to take the dog.

Rosie?  It was mostly white with brown streaks.  I took it, her, and she proceeded to lick my hands, then up my arms and then my face.  Rosie?  Magic?

"She certainly has a rosie disposition." I tried to relate.  Rosie jumped down and then up to Xena, who had sat down in the door of the van.  She smiled knowingly.  Like every girl I've known since I was little and had to be nice to the girls down the lane and at the homes I stayed in from time to time.  Rosie was turning circles between both of us and then jumping up on Xena, then down and then up on me.  She had adopted me, it seemed.

"Not just a rosie disposition," Xena said.  "But watch this," she grabbed Rosie on her next pass between us.

She drew one of her fingers down Rosie's back and as she did the hair changed colors.  The white hair turned reddish then an orange about midway down her back, changing to a bright yellowish green by her tail.  The she did it again.  First yellow, then pink and finally a bright green by her tail.  The she playfully pulled her tail, very gently, and it turned the same yellow as the top of her head.

"It changes every time," Xena was almost smiling too much to talk.  "You try it," she gave Rosie over to me.  I was still sitting on my army cot that acted as a chair most of the day.

She was frisky and a licking machine but I held her tight and drew my finger down from her ears across her back to the end of her tail.  This time she turned different shades of blue.  Brightest at her head, darker at her back and almost a violet blue at her tail. 

"Cool," Xena said. 

"Yeah, way cool," I said.  I looked at my hands.  They remained the same old hands as always.  Kind of skinny and long.

"Do you believe in magic in a young girl's heart?"  She asked again. 

"I've never seen anything like it, but then again I don't know anything about dogs.  What kind is she?"

"I looked it up on the internet and closest I could find was that she looked like a part terrier, but not any part that I could find, and kind of a part of a dog that I couldn't find.  I guess she's a mixture."

"Watch this," she continued.  She said sit and Rosie sat, she said roll over and Rosie rolled over, she said come and she came.  All the time it looked like she was smiling at us.

"I think she's magic," Xena said again.

"I don't know if dogs can ve magical," I replied, not knowing what to say, althought she did seem pretty magical.

"Maybe she comes from a magical family," Xena was holding her again and she continued to change every few seconds.

"I think," Xena pronounced, "that she's a magical elvin dog and somehow got lost here in Missouri.   I think," she was talking to herself and Rosie, not me, "that she's come to be with us and be our friend and open the door to adventure for us."

OK, I thought.  That made as much sense as anything I could think of.  Why was she turning colors, anyway?