书城外语英文爱藏:我在回忆里等你
2009800000045

第45章 你是我生命中的阳光 (15)

They drove the 108 miles to Rawlings, Wyoming. There they rendezvoused with a woman named Cathy, who’d come 118 miles from Casper to meet them. Cathy laughed when she saw Snoopy. “What a funny-looking little serious creature you are to be traveling in such style,” she teased. “Imagine, private chauffeurs across five states.” But that evening, when she phoned Rod in Indiana to report that Snoopy had arrived safely in Casper, she called her "a dear old girl" , and admitted that, “If she were mine, I’d go to a lot of trouble to get her back, too.”

Snoopy went to bed at Cathy’s house a nondescript little brown-and-white dog, very long in the tooth, and woke the next morning a celebrity. Word of the seventeen-year-old puppy with a bad cold who was being shuttled across mid-America to rejoin her family had reached the news media. After breakfast, dazed by the camera but, as always, polite, Snoopy sat on a desk at the Casper Humane Society and obligingly cocked her head and showed off the new leash that was a gift from Cathy. And that night, in Fort Wayne, the Topps were caught between laughter and tears as they saw their old girl peer out at them from the television set.

With the interview behind her, Snoopy set out for North Platte, 350 miles away, in the company of a humane society official in Casper who had volunteered for the longest single hop on Snoopy’s journey. The two of them stopped overnight and arrived in North Platte at noon the next day. More reporters and cameramen awaited them, but as soon as she’d been interviewed. Snoopy was back on the road for a 138-mile trip to Grand Island.

Twice more that day she was passed along, arriving in Lincoln, Nebraska, after dark and so tired that she curled up in the first doggie bed she saw despite the growls of its rightful owner.

With a gift of a new wicker sleeping basket and a note “Happy to be part of the chain reuniting Snoopy with her family,” Nebraska passed the little dog on to Iowa. After a change of car and driver in Des Moines, Snoopy sped on and by nightfall was in Cedar Rapids.

At nightfall of her fifth day on the road, Snoopy was in Chicago, her next-to-last stop. Whether it was that she was getting close to home or just because her cold had run its course, she was clearly better. Indeed, the vet who examined her told the reporters that, “For an old lady who’s been traveling all week and has come more than 1 300 miles, she’s in grand shape. She’s going to make it home tomorrow just fine.” The Topps, watching the nightly update of Snoopy’s journey on the Fort Wayne TV station, broke into cheers.

The next day was Saturday, March 17th. In honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, the little dog sported a new green coat with a green derby pinned to the collar. The Chicago press did one last interview with her, and then Snoopy had nothing to do but nap until Rod’s assistant, Skip, arrived from Fort Wayne to drive her the 160 miles home.

Hours before Snoopy and Skip were expected in Fort Wayne, the Topps were waiting excitedly at the humane shelter. Jodi and Matthew worked on a room-sized banner that, when it was unfurled, read: WELCOME HOME, SNOOPY! FROM ROCK SPRINGS, WYOMING, TO FORT WAYNE, INDIANA, VIA THE PUPPY EXPRESS, with her route outlined across the bottom and their signatures in the corner. Reporters from the Fort Wayne TV stations and newspaper, the Topps, friends and family and the shelter’s staff all crowded into the shelter’s waiting room.

Somewhere amid the fuss and confusion, Rod found time to draw Nancy aside and give her word that Snoopy would be arriving home with her boarding bill marked “Paid in Full ”. An anonymous friend of the Humane Society in Casper had taken care of it.

Then the CB radio crackled, and Skip’s voice filled the crowded room. “Coming in! The Puppy Express is coming in!”

Nancy and Joe and the children rushed out in the subfreezing air, the reporters on their heels. Around the comer came the pickup truck, lights flashing, siren sounding. “Snoopy’s coming home!” screamed the children, “Snoopy’s coming home!”

And there the little dog was, sitting up on the front seat in her St. Patrick’s day outfit, peering nearsightedly out of the window at all the commotion. After two months of separation from her family, after a week on the road, after traveling across five states for 1 500 miles in the company of strangers, Snoopy’s odyssey was over.

Nancy got to the truck first. In the instant before she snatched the door open, Snoopy recognized her. Barking wildly, she scrambled across tile seat and into Nancy’s arms. Then Joe was there, and the children. Laughing, crying, they hugged Snoopy and each other. The family that didn’t give up on even its smallest member was back together again.

托普斯一家站在路边,眼睁睁地看着他们的卡车发动机颤抖着熄了火。南希和乔夫妇带着他们的两个孩子,12岁的约迪和15岁的马修,还有老狗史努比,在离家1,500英里远的怀俄明州的一条公路上,就这样陷入了困境。就连擅长修车的乔对他们这辆破卡车都无能为力。那只患有白内障的小狗用晦暗的眼神焦虑地望着家人们的脸。

托普斯一家正在旅途中。5个月前,乔的一个外甥告诉他说纳帕山谷有工作可干,于是他们便决定冒险去看看。他们带着孩子和史努比从印第安纳州的韦恩堡的家出发,赶往加利福尼亚州。可到了那里,乔并没如愿地找到仓管工作。南希和孩子都非常想家,而且他们的积蓄也快用完了。到了1月份,原来的美好愿望都落空了,于是他们决定返回韦恩堡。

卡车只能将他们带到怀俄明州的罗克斯普林斯这么远了,他们现在唯一的办法就是把卡车以25美元的价格卖给旧货商,然后搭便车去长途客运站乘客车回家。然而到了车站,迎接他们的有两个坏消息:一是他们手中的钱根本不够买四张去韦恩堡的车票;二是车上根本不允许带狗。

“但我们必须让史努比和我们一起走啊!”南希哭着哀求售票员。

乔把南希从售票窗口拉走说:“为史努比操心没用,我们先得想办法使我们四口人坐上车才是。”一家人实在想不出什么好办法了,就打电话给旅行者援助组织寻求帮助。该组织立即伸出了援助之手,当地援助组织的代表给他们安排了房间过夜。房间里堆满了小包大包的东西,他们打电话给老家的亲戚,亲戚们答应给他们凑路费,然后第二天汇过来。

“史努比怎么办?”等他们一挂电话,马修就迫不及待地问道。

“我们不能没有史努比,”约迪有气无力地说道。史努比17岁了,心脏不太好,肾脏也有毛病,因此托普斯全家都为它感到忧虑。