slate.com – A Hundred Houses

While I was drawing this, a woman driving a small, teal SUV stopped in the middle of the road in front of me.
She had short, ginger-blonde hair and a frown, and was waving her hand.
I paused the podcast* I was listening to and called out hi to her.
‘Have you seen a dog?’ she called out to me.
‘What kind?’ I called back.
‘Small! White!’ she said, her tone high-pitched with dog-loss anxiety.
‘Nope, I haven’t seen a dog!’ I called back to her. ‘And I’m sure if there’d been a dog running around I’d have seen it!’
‘Yes!’ she called out. ‘So if you see him, his name’s on the collar. And the phone number.’
‘Okay,’ I called calmly. ‘I’ll look out for him.’
‘His name’s Tony!’ she called as she started to drive off.
After she’d gone, I sat there for a few moments looking up and down the street, hoping to see Tony come trotting down a driveway or out from behind a bush or from under a parked car.