A small skinny girl in a dirty blue top and a pair of jeans torn at the knee was crouching in the closet. Her light blue crystalline eye were welling with tears of fear and helpless rage. He did it again, he pushed her into the enclosed space filled with old shoes and dust and locked her in. Just because she threw her backpack with a thud on the floor or because she forgot to take out the trash or simply because she was breathing at all. He didn't like her, it was OK, understandable, but he didn't like her Mum either – the very woman he was supposed to love and cherish and whatever was there in the marital vows. Instead he drank and swore and shouted and dished out punishment. A painful pinch to her arm, a slap on the cheek, being tossed around like a ragdoll until she fell on her knees and burst out crying, going without her dinner – all that was bad enough, but being locked up in the dark musty closet was the worst. Feeing helpless, immobile, vulnerable to anything and anyone inside or outside this restrictive box was what totally did her in.

"Kenzi!" she heard a whisper from the outside. "Mummy?" the girl whispered back with an uplift of hope. Maybe, just this once the woman who had brought her to this world would stand up for her. But in her heart of hearts the girl knew it was a vain hope.

"He is watching TV, drinking his Buds. I'll let you out but you don't go in," her Mum was still whispering. The lock was turned, the door cracked open and the girl found herself looking into her mother's tired taut face. "Go out, play with the dog in the backyard, kid," she said to her child. "But Mum, our dog died last month and it's chilly, please, can I stay in, I promise I'll be quite as a mouse", Kenzi pleaded.

"No, he is pissed tonight, he'll come after you in a short while, don't push your luck, I don't want us to cop it. Stay out, I'll call you in when it's safe", the woman shoved a little holed baby blanket into Kenzi's arms and pushed her daughter gently towards the back door.

The girl took in a crisp lungful of air. It was dark, the outlines of the familiar yard creepied out of all proportion by the deepening black of the night and by the 8-year-old's vivid imagination. Suddenly, a cloud drew away to reveal a full moon hanging low in the sky. Instinctively crouching Kenzi trotted to the abandoned dog-house in the corner of the yard, its flimsy cover was still better then no cover at all. The child wrapped her tiny frame into the baby blanket as best she could and tried to imagine herself warm and comforted as a baby in her blanket should. But the feelings she was attempting to conjure were slow in coming. Perhaps, part of the problem lay in the fact that it had been so long since she could actually remember herself comforted.

Unbidden tears rose to her eyes and dropped down her small cheeks. She knew she could be stuck in the dog-house for another couple of hours, till the wee hours of the morning, till her step-father drank himself into complete stupor and blacked out. Then her Mum would sneak her in and tuck her in her bed. Next morning she would awaken Kenzi bright and early and send her to school without breakfast and with a measly lunch in a paper bag, before her husband woke up.

The girl fidgeted on the dirt floor, adjusting the blanket. It had been much more tolerable when there actually was a dog inside. It was old and meek, Kenzi could press herself to his warm side and put her hands around his neck, she was not alone and time and again the dog would lick her face in the spirit of camaraderie. But the dog died and it was emptier and lonelier than ever.

Suddenly Kenzi heard a sound akin to a sob and another one and then she realized that it was her the sounds were coming from. The dam was burst and for a while the girl was crying her heart out giving in to her despair and hurt. At one point the tears stopped, there were just no more of them. She exhaled the last high-pitched sob and fell quiet. It was then in the descending soundlessness that she picked up a rustling of somebody moving outside. With the idea that it might be her Mum, the child peeked out of the dog-house. A couple of feet away in front of her there was a shadow, not tall enough to be a person, crouched on all four - a dog, in fact, a very big dog. Kenzi had never been afraid of animals, in her limited 8-year-long experience of life animals were most of the time much better behaved than human beings.

"Are you my doggie's pal?" she asked the furry newcomer. "If yes, I regret to say that the doggie died. I am living here now." She frowned at her own choice of words, "Not actually living, just staying until my step-father calms it and I can come inside". The animal tilted its massive head as if it was listening. A gust of chilly wind made the child shiver but she valiantly went on with her small talk. "My name is Kenzi by the by. Glad to meet you, Mister Big and Furry. And you are big, the biggest dog I've ever seen" Hilariously, the animal immediately hunkered down as if attempting to look smaller. "And still your company is the most pleasant I've had today", the girl said with heart-breaking sincerity.

The big dog was still sitting on its haunches, still seemingly all ears. Flattered as she was with the sudden attentive audience Kenzi felt she was starting to tremble all over, her teeth clattering.

"Would you like to come in," she waved a welcoming hand. "It not a palace, but warmer inside"

Her four-legged interlocutor obediently rose but turned as if to go. The girl sighed. "Ok, be off on your big doggie business", she murmured and crept back. She was just rearranging the blanker for maximum isolation efficiency when, unexpectedly, a shadow appeared at the entrance and followed her in. With the two of them inside it became cramped but the temperature rose at once. The animal curled its massive body in an ostentatiously peaceful manner and the girl put a tentative hand on its huge head. Its fur was gleaming silver and suddenly it struck Kenzi that this creature didn't look like a dog, it looked like a wolf.

A wolf in the city suburbs, crawling into a dog-house and lending its body to warm a little girl? Kenzi internally scoffed at the idea. Nonsense! She boldly started to stroke the silver fur. The animal gave out a low growl, but it didn't sound like a menace, just like an acknowledgement of her touch. Kenzi felt oddly at peace, warm and safe. Her eyelids began to droop, her breathing evened out and the girl slipped into a dream.

Several hours later a hand shook her by the shoulder. "Kenzi!" her mother was hissing into her ear. "Get up, he's asleep, go to your room"

"Doggie!" the girl woke up with a start and saw her mother's darkened form. "Where is the doggie?" she asked. "He died last month, you know it." Her mum was impatient, "Get a move on! It's cold out here"

"There was another dog here, he came to me and listened to me", the girl persisted.

"Nonsense. You dreamed it up", the woman was getting cross with her over-imaginative kid.

"I didn't", Kenzi whispered stubbornly to herself. "He came and he will come again, you'll see!"