Alice didn't understand what had happened at the time; she was only five.

However what she did understand was that she was permanently going to live

with her grandmother, because her parents had had to go away. She loved her

grandmother very much, but she couldn't help thinking that the reason her parents

had left was because of something she had done. And that whatever that was,

was going to make her grandmother leave too. As much as her grandmother tried

to reassure her that that wasn't going to happen, Alice refused to accept the fact

that it wasn't her fault. Alice cried herself to sleep almost every night. Until one day

about a year later, her grandmother surprised Alice with a newborn puppy. Alice

loved the puppy dearly, and even taught the puppy to meet her when she came

home from school. For an entire summer she taught the dog to wait at the top of

the basement stairs for her. The grandmother, Alice, and the dog, which Alice named

Blackie, lived happily for the next twelve years. Even though Alice kept coming home

later and later, Blackie still waited at the top of the basement stairs for her. One day

Alice never came home, and Blackie stayed in his spot all day and night, never

moving. The next evening when Alice came home, she found Blackie, dead at the

top of the stairs. Alice started crying and calling for her grandmother. It was then that

Alice looked downstairs. When she did, she saw her grandmother sprawled on the

floor, her neck broken. To this day Alice insists that she is a very bad girl because

her parents, grandmother, and Blackie all had left her.