A test:
The boy knew he had to keep it out of sight or else something bad might happen. Jonah had found it wandering through woods behind the white people’s houses one day after school. It was silly stubborn little thing. Nothing could be done to train it, it nipped at the boy’s heels whenever he walked away, and every time he left it alone it would whine and whine. But it had the bluest eyes the boy had ever seen. Its fur was like snow, short and soft.
The boy kept it hidden in an old tool shed that had been forgotten long ago deep in the thicket of trees and bushes, just out of view of the white people’s houses. The roof of the shed was caved in near the corner and there was green velvety moss on the shingles and on the door panels. It ate everything the boy ate. Every morning on his way to school Jonah would cut through the woods and stop by the shed to feed it some of his lunch. He would stop at the drug store to buy a sandwich and give half to it on his way back home. Whenever he opened the door it would stare at him lovingly with those deep blue eyes.
The boy couldn’t resist showing it to his younger sister. He knew Madeline would love its soft white fur and the prickly feeling of its tongue when it licked her hands. The newspaper said that there would be rain that afternoon. The sky was covered with a blanket of clouds. Madeline carried her collapsible pink umbrella with her as they walked down the narrow path through the woods behind the white people’s houses. It was attached to her wrist by a little pink strap. She was balancing the umbrella on the tips of her fingers as they walked.
“Why are you doing that?” asked the boy as he held back a low hanging branch so his sister could pass.
“We’re all doing it,” she said, her eyes never straying from the umbrella, “we’re all balancing an umbrella.”
Jonah asked his sister when exactly people balanced their umbrellas and Madeline replied that it was every moment of every day. “No matter how good we are at balancing our umbrellas they will eventually fall. And when they do…”
She dropped the umbrella.
“…we just pick them back up…”
She picked the umbrella back up.
“…and start all over again.”
“And then what?” Jonah asked.
“Not sure,” said Madeline, “I suppose that one day I’ll die and the umbrella will be destroyed. And after that…I don’t know. Maybe nothing, maybe someone else will come along to take my place and balance umbrellas of their own.”
“Then what’s the point?” asked Jonah.
“I don’t know,” said Madeline, “maybe there isn’t one. Maybe it doesn’t matter what happens after the umbrella falls. Maybe all that matters is the act of balancing.”
“You’re a silly girl,” said the boy.
“I know.”
They reached the old shed. A little bit of light was shining down from the gray sky through the treetops. The breeze shook the thousands of leaves making them roar softly like rushing water. The girl asked her brother if this was the place. The boy answered in the affirmative but told her to wait outside. “It can be kind of shy sometimes.”
The hinges made their usual rusty creaking noise when the boy opened the door, but the sound of pitiful whining which usually followed could not be heard over the rustling of the leaves overhead. The boy stepped through the threshold and his heart sank. All across the floor and walls was blood and white fur. The rusted tools on the workbench were wet. Jonah found its body lying in the corner, its blue eyes staring at the leaves through the hole in the ceiling. There was a note written on a little piece of paper tied around its severed neck which read, “We don’t want these sorts of things in our neighborhood.”
The boy stepped outside the shed. His sister was standing in the clearing balancing the umbrella on her fingertips.
“Where is it?” she asked never taking her eyes off the pink umbrella.
“It must have run away,” said the boy.
“Well let’s go find it.”
“It’s going to rain soon,” said the boy, “why don’t you go home and I’ll go look for it.”
The girl dropped her umbrella. When she picked it back up she studied her brother’s expression. He was rubbing his left arm nervously and his eyes were red. She asked Jonah if he was sure, he told his sister that he was. She stared at him for a moment while the breeze picked up rustling the leaves some more and blowing strands of her own hair in front of her dark eyes. A dull clap of thunder roared in from the east like the painful moans of a great wounded behemoth from beyond the clouds.
“Okay,” she said, “but don’t stay out too long.”
Madeline left through the narrow dirt path. Jonah waited until he could no longer see his pink umbrella through the thicket of leaves and gnarled branches. The boy looked up into leaves and imagined the slivers of gray sky between them as thousands of tiny eyes all watching him intently. There was a gap between the branches through which the boy could see gray smoke rising from the chimney of one of the white people’s houses. It’s their neighborhood, thought the boy, the school, the drug store, the forest and everything beyond, it’s all theirs. The boy retrieved a shovel from inside the shed, the only one without any blood on it. He carried the shovel to a spot behind the shed where there were few leaves and soft dirt.
He dug into the earth.
Honestly, I was a little sad it died. 
