Kate DiCamillo: Because of Winn-Dixie

Amanda pretended like I wasn’t there. She stared right past me. “Are dogs allowed in the library?” she asked Miss Franny as they walked away.

“Certain ones,” said Miss Franny, “a select few.” And then she turned around and winked at me. I smiled back. I had just made my first friend in Naomi, and nobody was going to mess that up for me, not even old pinch-faced Amanda Wilkinson.

Winn-Dixie’s bald spots started growing fur, and the fur that he had to begin with started looking shiny and healthy; and he didn’t limp anymore. And you could tell that he was proud of looking so good, proud of not looking like a stray. I thought what he needed most was a collar and a leash, so I went into Gertrude’s Pets, where there were fish and snakes and mice and lizards and gerbils and pet supplies, and I found a real handsome red leather collar with a matching leash.

Winn-Dixie was not allowed to come inside the store (there was a big sign on the door that said NO DOGS ALLOWED), so I held the collar and the leash up to the window. And Winn-Dixie, who was standing on the other side of the window, pulled up his lip and showed me his teeth and sneezed and wagged his tail something furious; so I knew he absolutely loved that leash and collar combination. But it was very expensive.

I decided to explain my situation to the man behind the counter. I said, “I don’t get a big enough allowance to afford something this fancy. But I love this collar and leash, and so does my dog, and I was thinking that maybe you could set me up on an installment plan.”

“Installment plan?” said the man.

“Gertrude!” somebody screamed in a real irritating voice.

I looked around. It was a parrot. She was sitting on top of one of the fish tanks, looking right at me.

“An installment plan,” I said, ignoring the parrot, “you know, where I promise to give you my allowance every week and you give me the leash and the collar now.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” said the man. He shook his head. “No, the owner, she wouldn’t like that.” He looked down at the counter. He wouldn’t look at me. He had thick black hair, and it was slicked back like Elvis Presley’s. He had on a name tag that said OTIS.

“Or I could work for you,” I said. “I could come in and sweep the floors and dust the shelves and take out the trash. I could do that.”

I looked around Gertrude’s Pets. There was sand and sunflower-seed shells and big dust bunnies all over the floor. I could tell that it needed to be swept.

“Uh,” said Otis. He looked down at the counter some more.

“Gertrude!” the parrot screamed again.

“I’m real trustworthy,” I said. “I’m new in town, but my daddy is a preacher. He’s the preacher at the Open Arms Baptist Church of Naomi, so I’m real honest. But the only thing is, Winn-Dixie, my dog, he would have to come inside with me; because if we get separated for too long, he starts to howl something terrible.”

“Gertrude doesn’t like dogs,” said Otis.

“Is she the owner?” I asked.

“Yes, I mean, no, I mean . . .” He finally looked up. He pointed at the fish tank. “ That Gertrude. The parrot. I named her after the owner.”

“Gertrude’s a pretty bird!” screamed Gertrude.

“She might like Winn-Dixie,” I told Otis. “Almost everybody does. Maybe he could come inside and meet her, and if the two of them get along, then could I have the job?”

“Maybe,” Otis mumbled. He looked down at the counter again.

So I went and opened the door, and Winn-Dixie came trotting on inside the store.

“Dog!” screamed Gertrude.

“I know it,” Otis told her.

And then Gertrude got real quiet. She sat on the top of the fish tank and cocked her head from one side to the other, looking at Winn-Dixie. And Winn-Dixie stood and stared back at her. He didn’t hardly move. He didn’t wag his tail. He didn’t smile. He didn’t sneeze. He just stared at Gertrude and she stared at him. And then she spread her wings out real far and flew and landed on top of Winn-Dixie’s head.

“Dog,” she croaked.

Winn-Dixie wagged his tail just a little tiny bit.

And Otis said, “You can start on Monday.”

“Thank you,” I told him. “You won’t be sorry.”

On the way out of Gertrude’s Pets, I said to Winn-Dixie, “You are better at making friends than anybody I have ever known. I bet if my mama knew you, she would think you were the best dog ever.”

Winn-Dixie was smiling up at me and I was smiling down at him, and so neither one of us was looking where we were going and we almost bumped right into Sweetie Pie Thomas. She was standing there, sucking on the knuckle of her third finger, staring in the window of Gertrude’s Pets.

She took her finger out of her mouth and looked at me. Her eyes were all big and round. “Was that bird sitting on that dog’s head?” she asked. She had her hair tied up in a ponytail with a pink ribbon. But it wasn’t much of a ponytail, it was mostly ribbon and a few strands of hair.

“Yes,” I told her.

“I seen it,” she said. She nodded her head and put her knuckle back in her mouth. Then she took it out again real quick. “I seen that dog in church, too. He was catching a mouse. I want a dog just like it, but my mama won’t let me get no dog. She says if I’m real good, I might get to buy me a goldfish or one of them gerbils. That’s what she says. Can I pet your dog?”

“Sure,” I told her.

Sweetie Pie stroked Winn-Dixie’s head so long and serious that his eyes drooped half closed and drool came out of the side of his mouth. “I’m going to be six years old in September. I got to stop sucking on my knuckle once I’m six,” said Sweetie Pie. “I’m having a party. Do you want to come to my party? The theme is pink.”

“Sure,” I told her.

“Can this dog come?” she asked.

“You bet,” I told her.

And all of a sudden, I felt happy. I had a dog. I had a job. I had Miss Franny Block for a friend. And I had my first invitation to a party in Naomi. It didn’t matter that it came from a five-year-old and the party wasn’t until September. I didn’t feel so lonely anymore.

Just about everything that happened to me that summer happened because of Winn-Dixie. For instance, without him, I would never have met Gloria Dump. He was the one who introduced us.

What happened was this: I was riding my bike home from Gertrude’s Pets and Winn-Dixie was running along beside me. We went past Dunlap and Stevie Dewberry’s house, and when Dunlap and Stevie saw me, they got on their bikes and started following me. They wouldn’t ride with me; they just rode behind me and whispered things that I couldn’t hear. Neither one of them had any hair on his head, because their mama shaved their heads every week during the summer because of the one time Dunlap got fleas in his hair from their cat, Sadie. And now they looked like two identical bald-headed babies, even though they weren’t twins. Dunlap was ten years old, like me, and Stevie was nine and tall for his age.

“I can hear you,” I hollered back at them. “I can hear what you’re saying.” But I couldn’t.

Winn-Dixie started to race way ahead of me.

“You better watch out,” Dunlap hollered. “That dog is headed right for the witch’s house.”

“Winn-Dixie,” I called. But he kept on going faster and hopped a gate and went into the most overgrown jungle of a yard that I had ever seen.

“You better go get your dog out of there,” Dunlap said.

“The witch will eat that dog,” Stevie said.

“Shut up,” I told them.

I got off my bike and went up to the gate and hollered, “Winn-Dixie, you better come on out of there.”