Sugar

` "Where's Sugar?"

Mother hardly looks up from her tablet when she replies, "I don't know, maybe she's in the basement?"

"No," I say with an edge in my voice that only comes out when I'm talking to my mother. "She's not down there. I just checked down there."

Again, my mother's hazel eyes don't meet mine.

"Really, Marina, I don't know where your dog is. If you can't keep track of her that's really not my problem."

Fury flutters in my chest and I beat it back, determined to stick to the more pressing topic. So what if my mom thinks I'm a space-cadet, so what if she thinks I'm irresponsible and lazy? Defending myself and starting another fight with her isn't going to help me find Sugar any faster.

"Did you let her out?" I ask. "Has she come back in?"

Finally--finally--I have her attention. Her thick eyebrows lock together like there are two small magnets attracting the ends. Her stern, worried expression would be almost funny, her eyebrows always reminded me of Groucho Marx, if there wasn't a tinge of anger behind it.

"Did I let her out?" my mother repeats, emphasizing each word as if it's the most ludicrous part of the question. "Marina, of course I didn't let her out. The Rains just started."

"I know, Mother!" I screech, the threadbare control I had over my temper snapping. "I know that! That's why I'm looking for her!"

"Yelling won't help," Mother chastises. She locks her tablet and stands up, the gray cushions of the chair she was sitting in sunken to mimic the exact shape of her bottom. "You're going to have to go out and find her."

Unconsciously, my eyes flit to the windows. They're covered in the seasonal steel plates, but I imagine I can see the Rain sizzling as it pelts them from the other side. Find her?

"I can't...." I begin, then try a different approach. "What if it's already too late?"

Mother shrugs her stiff shoulders, her brows still trapped in their magnetic bond.

"Only one way to find out," she says in a spookily deep voice.

I know I've already lost. I slink away to find the Rainsuit. We only have one, and ours barely fits me. It was my dad's, but he doesn't need it anymore. Dead people tend to be fine without a Rainsuit, or any clothes. I start from the top, pulling the helmet on and looping the breathing tube through the rubber hole in the bottom of the view plate. Next goes the the one piece suit, one foot through the leg then the other. It's made of a strange rubber-like material that is meant to keep the rain off your skin, but doesn't really help with keeping the temperature down. Some more expensive suits have temperature control and I've even heard of ones that come in colors other than submarine yellow, but my mom and I are stuck with my dad's old model. I zip up the front, pull on the boots, tuck the pant legs into the top of the boots and the bottom of the helmet into the neck of the suit. I check to make sure no skin is exposed before biting down on the breathing tube and flicking the apparatus on.

"Ready!" I yell, my call muffled by the layers of glass and rubber between me and my mother.

She doesn't even come to the front door to say goodbye. From the other room she hits the button that opens the hatch.

"Alright, Sugar, I'm coming."

I grab the protective crate we use to transport her during the Rainy season and head outside. Immediately the suit is drenched and my body temperature starts to climb. I hear the door thunk as it closes behind me. I have exactly an hour to get back to the door before my oxygen level drops toxically low. God I hate Rain.

I walk down our street. The only people I pass are dressed like me so it's hard to recognize them but if I had to guess they're probably just delivery men on their way to bring people groceries or home goods. I consider stopping someone to ask if they've seen a little white dog with a purple collar, but I know they wouldn't have. If Sugar is still alive--please, please--she would have to be sheltered from the Rain somewhere small and hidden.

It's funny that Rain used to be fresh water. Sugar would be fine if it was still like that, she was in need of a bath anyway. This Rain however....I could easily picture her tiny skeleton smoking on the sidewalk, her skin and fur just a puddle, or maybe already washed away into the sewers. I'd never seen a body dissolved by the acid, but that's what they told us happened in school.

I search under every set of stairs and under every bench. I even check people's mailboxes thinking how she might be clever enough to climb up into one. That would be an ideal hiding spot. Still no luck and I'm running out of time. The Rainsuit beeps at fifteen minutes left. I have to start walking home or I won't make it before the coughing starts.

"Sugar!" I call, knowing my voice won't travel very far. "Sugar!"

Nothing. There aren't even any people on the street to hear me anymore. I try to keep my breathing steady so I don't waste any oxygen, and begin the trek back home. What am I going to tell my mom? She'll be so angry. Who would let Sugar out during a Rainy season? Did Mother do it to punish me for talking back at dinner the other night? Did I do it when I was high on my pills? Without Sugar I had no one. Not while the Rains lasted, and lately the season has been going longer and longer. You'd think the sky would just run dry, but it doesn't. It just doesn't.

I make it home just as the suit gives me the one minute warning beep. The door slides open, meaning Mother was watching for my return. I cross the threshold and wait a moment before starting to undress, letting the Rain dry a little so it doesn't sting as much to take the suit off. Shamefully I push Sugar's crate back where it belongs and slowly undress.

I should have stayed out there. I should have choked on my own toxic recycled carbon dioxide and suffocated in the acid storm. I should be out there, not Sugar. Poor innocent Sugar. Mother won't understand, she'll be angry with me but she won't understand....no one hates me more than I do.