Part 7: “The Words We Choose”
Snow came early to Spring Hollow that year. By mid-November, the sidewalks were dusted with powdered white, and the air carried that quiet bite that made even loud places seem still.
Micah Jacobs stood at Tess’s front window, watching flakes drift past the glass like ash.
“They’re having a snowball fight down the street,” Tess said from the kitchen. “You wanna join?”
Micah shook his head.
His thoughts were on the letter. On the festival. On what to say in front of all those strangers.
“Y-you th-th-think I c-can do it?” he asked.
Tess dried her hands on a dish towel and crossed the room. “I don’t think. I know.”
She sat beside him on the couch and handed him a worn leather notebook.
“It was my first one,” she said. “Back when I was learning how to talk in front of people. Every time I wrote something down, it made it feel more real.”
Micah turned the cover. The first page was blank.
“I thought you could write your speech in here,” Tess said gently. “No pressure. Just one word at a time.”
He took the notebook like it was something sacred.
That night, Micah didn’t sleep.
He lay in bed under the thin quilt at his mom’s apartment, the notebook balanced on his knees. The pages felt heavy with promise.
Boomer’s picture was taped to the wall beside his bed.
He stared at it for a long time.
Then he wrote:
My name is Micah. I used to hate my voice.
Then I read to a dog named Boomer.
He never laughed when I stuttered. He just listened.
Now I think maybe stories are like dogs.
They don’t need to be perfect. They just need someone to love them.
He stared at what he’d written, half in awe, half in fear.
It was the truest thing he’d ever said.
By the end of the week, Micah had written three pages in the notebook.
Jonah helped him during recess. Not with the writing—Micah wanted to do that himself—but with something else.
“I’ll sit in the front row,” Jonah said, mouth full of peanut butter crackers. “If you mess up, just look at me. I’ll do something dumb to make you laugh.”
Micah grinned.
“Y-you always d-do dumb th-things.”
Jonah grinned back. “Exactly.”
The day before the festival, Tess surprised Micah with something small but extraordinary.
It was a keychain.
A tiny wooden bone, carved smooth, with Boomer’s name etched in it.
Micah turned it over in his palm like a treasure.
“I made it from the wood in the old bookshelf he used to nap beside,” she said. “Thought maybe it could be your lucky charm.”
Micah clipped it to his backpack, right next to the zipper.
“B-boomer’s c-coming w-w-with me,” he said softly.
Tess smiled. “Always.”
The Winter Story Festival was held inside the library’s community room, a wide space strung with twinkle lights and pine boughs. A makeshift stage had been set up in front of the fireplace, with chairs for the audience arranged in neat, hopeful rows.
Micah stood behind the curtain, fingers pressed to the notebook, his palms damp.
The room was filling. Grandparents. Kids. A man in a Santa hat. Even Mrs. Colter and Principal Hill.
Micah peeked around the curtain.
Jonah was right in the front row, just like he promised. He gave Micah two thumbs up and pretended to fall off his chair.
Micah almost laughed. Almost.
Tess stood beside him, hand resting lightly on his shoulder.
“You don’t have to say every word perfectly,” she whispered. “Just say the ones that matter.”
He nodded.
And when his name was called, he walked out onto the stage.
Not fast. Not loud. But steady.
The notebook trembled a little in his hands.
He opened to the first page.
Took a breath.
And spoke:
“My name is Micah Jacobs. And I’m not afraid of words anymore.”
The room held its breath.
“I used to think my voice was broken. But I found someone who listened. His name was Boomer.”
Micah held up the photo frame.
“He was old. He only had three legs. But he never once looked away when I stuttered. Not once.”
His hands stilled. His voice shook.
“Boomer died in October. But he left me something. He left me my voice.”
He closed the notebook.
Looked out across the sea of faces.
“I’m n-not p-p-perfect. But I have a story. And I’m not g-g-gonna hide it anymore.”
Silence.
Then applause.
Then more.
Tess had her hand over her mouth.
Jonah was on his feet, hooting like a wild thing.
Micah stood still.
Then smiled.
A real one.
Because somewhere—beyond the stage, beyond the snow-covered roof, beyond even the stars—he felt a tail wag.
Just once.
Just enough.
Part 8: “The Listener Becomes the Voice”
The following Monday, Micah Jacobs arrived at school with something new in his backpack.
Not just his homework.
Not just Boomer’s photo or the leather notebook.
But a stack of letters.
Tess had handed them to him that morning, a manila envelope thick with hand-folded notes, crayon drawings, and printed emails from people who had seen his reading at the Winter Story Festival.
She’d said, “They heard you.”
He hadn’t known what to say to that. Not because he didn’t believe her. But because part of him had never imagined his voice going farther than the walls of a room.
Now it had traveled.
Into other people’s lives.
Into their memories.
Their hope.
At recess, he sat under the old oak tree with Jonah and pulled the letters from the envelope one by one.
There was one from a woman who’d lost her husband in September. She wrote:
“Hearing you talk about Boomer made me remember how my Bill used to sit and listen to the radio with our old dog, Buckshot. He never said much. Just listened. But that was enough. Thank you for reminding me.”
A second letter came from a boy named Levi, age nine, in a nearby town.
“I stutter too. I never read out loud in school. But I showed my teacher your video and she said I can try. I have a dog named Maple. She listens like Boomer did. Thank you.”
Micah read it twice. Then a third time.
He didn’t speak for a while after. Just held the paper gently between his fingers.
Jonah leaned in. “You okay?”
Micah nodded. “Y-yeah.”
“You’re kinda famous now,” Jonah smirked.
Micah rolled his eyes. “Sh-sh-shut up.”
Jonah laughed. “Still can’t talk right. But now people cry when you do it.”
Micah grinned. “Th-that’s ‘cause I g-got a d-d-deep soul.”
They both cracked up at that, and for the first time in weeks, it felt like the air had turned lighter.
That afternoon, as the class lined up for music, Mrs. Colter pulled Micah aside.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” she said.
She led him to the library, where a boy sat alone at a table, clutching a pencil like it was a sword he didn’t know how to use.
“This is Nathan,” she said. “He just moved here from Kentucky. He’s in the same grade. And… he’s having a little trouble getting started.”
Micah understood instantly.
The boy didn’t look up.
He just mumbled, “H-hi.”
Micah saw the signs—tight shoulders, jaw clenched, fear behind the eyes.
All too familiar.
He sat beside him.
Didn’t say anything at first. Just opened the leather notebook and slid it across the table.
Nathan looked down at the page.
“I used to hate my voice. Then I read to a dog named Boomer.”
Nathan’s eyes flicked up.
Micah smiled gently. “I s-still s-s-s-stutter,” he said. “B-but it d-doesn’t mean I d-don’t have s-s-something to s-s-say.”
Nathan didn’t speak.
But he nodded.
And then he whispered, “I like dogs.”
Micah reached into his backpack. Pulled out the tiny wooden bone keychain Tess had carved.
“Th-this was my d-dog’s,” he said. “You c-c-can hold it awhile. He w-was a good l-l-listener.”
Nathan took it slowly, fingers curling around the smooth wood.
His eyes stayed on it a long time.
The next day, Mrs. Colter announced a new classroom activity: “The Listener’s Corner.”
Once a week, a student could sign up to read anything they wanted—poem, paragraph, or even just one sentence.
There were only two rules:
- You had to read it slow.
- Everyone had to listen with both ears and their whole heart.
Micah was the first to sign up.
The second was Nathan.
On Friday morning, Micah stood at the front of the classroom, his copy of The Incredible Journey open to the part where the old dog finally finds his way home.
He looked around the room, then said:
“This… this is f-for B-b-boomer.”
He began to read.
No one whispered.
No one laughed.
And when he finished, he looked down at Nathan and said, “Y-your turn. I’m l-l-listening.”