What she did not do was bark. She barked at the mailman, Mr. Lucero, who was Fermin's uncle, because that was her duty, and she barked once at a man who tried to sell the firemen a set of encyclopedias. Otherwise she was quiet.
Then she started barking at my backpack.
The first time, I came in through the side door at about ten past four, the way I always did, and hung my backpack on the hook by the kitchen door, the way I always did, and she came up off her bed like she'd been stung. She stood under the hook with her front legs stiff and her head tipped and she barked straight up at the backpack, three barks and a stop, three barks and a stop, and then a long whining growl that went up at the end like a question.
"Hey," said Chuy Romero, who was the youngest man on the crew and the one who always noticed things first. "Hey, Ing. What's the matter? What'd he bring you?"
"I didn't bring her anything," I said.
"You got a burrito in there?"
"No."