WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

Travis paused in his cooking to watch the dog take the quiz.

Nora said, “First—when Frog came to see Toad on a winter’s day, Toad was in bed

and did not want to come outside. Is that right?”

Einstein had to sidle around on his chair to free his tail and wag it. Yes.

Nora said, “But finally Frog got Toad outside, and they went ice-skating.”

One bark. No.

“They went sledding,” she said.

Yes.

“Very good. Later that same year, at Christmas, Frog gave Toad a gift. Was it a

sweater?”

No.

“A new sled?”

No.

“A clock for his mantel?”

Yes, yes, yes.

“Excellent!” Nora said. “Now what shall we read next? How about this One.

Fantastic Mr. Fox.”

Einstein wagged his tail vigorously.

Travis would have enjoyed taking a more active role in the dog’s education, but

he could see that working intensely with Einstein was having an enormously

beneficial effect on Nora, and he did not want to interfere. Indeed, he

sometimes played the curmudgeon, questioning the value of teaching the pooch to

read, making wisecracks about the pace of the dog’s progress or its taste in

reading matter. This mild naysaying was just enough to redouble Nora’s

determination to stick with the lessons, to spend even more time with the dog,

and to prove Travis wrong. Einstein never reacted to those negative remarks, and

Travis suspected the dog exhibited forbearance because he understood the little

game of reverse psychology in which Travis was engaged.

Exactly why Nora’s teaching chores made her blossom was not clear. Perhaps it

was because she had never interacted with anyone—not even with Travis or with

her Aunt Violet—as intensely as she had with the dog, and the mere process of

extensive communication encouraged her to come farther out of her shell. Or

perhaps giving the gift of literacy to the dog was extremely satisfying to her.

She was by nature a giving person who took pleasure in sharing with others, yet

she had spent all of her life as a recluse without a single previous opportunity

to express that side of her personality. Now she had a chance to give of

herself, and she was generous with her time and energy, and in her own

generosity she found joy.

Travis also suspected that, through her relationship with the retriever, she was

expressing a natural talent for mothering. Her great patience was that of a good

mother dealing with a child, and she often spoke to Einstein so tenderly and

affectionately that she sounded as if she were addressing her own much-loved

offspring.

Whatever the reason, Nora became more relaxed and outgoing as she worked with

Einstein. Gradually forsaking her shapeless dark dresses for summery white

cotton slacks, colorful blouses, jeans and T-shirts, she seemed to grow ten

years younger. She had her glorious dark hair redone at the beauty salon and did

not brush out all the styling this time. She laughed more often and more

engagingly. In conversation, she met Travis’s eyes and seldom looked shyly away

from him, as she had done previously. She was quicker to touch him, too, and to

put an arm around his waist. She liked to be hugged, and they kissed with ease

now, although their kissing remained, for the most part, that of uncertain

teenagers in the early stages of courting.

On July 14, Nora received news that lifted her spirits even higher. The Santa

Barbara District Attorney’s Office called to tell her that it was not going to

be necessary for her to appear in court to testify against Arthur Streck. In

light of his previous criminal record, Streck had changed his mind about

pursuing a plea of innocence and waging a defense against charges of attempted

rape, assault, and breaking and entering. He had instructed his attorney to

plea-bargain with the D.A. As a result, they dropped all charges except assault,

and Streck accepted a prison sentence of three years, with a provision that he

serve at least two years before being eligible for parole. Nora had dreaded the

trial. Suddenly she was free, and in celebration she got slightly tipsy for the

first time in her life.

That same day, when Travis brought home a new stack of reading material,

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