He did.
“Good boy. Is there a towel or a blanket in your room?”
“My Paw Patrol blanket.”
“Put it at the bottom of the door. Push it into the crack. Like a snake.”
I heard him shuffling.
“Done.”
“Now go to your window. Can you open it?”
“It’s stuck.”
“That’s okay. Get down low by the window, on the floor. Under the smoke. Breathe slow. Like when Pancake goes to sleep.”
Fire and EMS were already rolling. Engine 9 was four minutes out.
Four minutes is a very long time.
So I did the only thing I knew how to do.
“Once upon a time,” I said, “there was a dog named Pancake.”
“Who was scared of the dark,” Milo whispered.
“But Pancake had a flashlight nose.”
We told the whole Pancake story together. Twice.
Halfway through the second time, I heard glass break. Then a firefighter’s voice.
