The Dog in the Snow
A free B1-level English story for language learners, readable online in 5 languages, with an option to listen via the free Storyteller app.
On a snowshoe walk, Jarrah follows paw prints through the forest to find her missing dog.
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The snowshoe trail began behind the lodge and climbed gently through a forest of tall pines. Jarrah walked at the back of the family line. Her father's old red hat was pulled down over her ears. In front of her, Ulrich, their young dog, was pulling at his leash with all his strength.
At the first clearing, her mother let him run free. For ten minutes, he raced in happy circles. Then a white hare jumped out from behind a rock, and Ulrich shot after it. He crossed the clearing and disappeared into the trees before anybody could call him back.
"Ulrich!" Jarrah shouted. The only answer was the soft sound of snow falling from a branch.
"Stay on the trail," her father said. "We don't want to lose two of you."
"I'm not going far," Jarrah said. "I only need to see which way he went."
At the edge of the clearing, she found his paw prints, deep and wide apart. Next to them ran the thin line of the hare's. She followed them for twenty steps, stopping every few seconds to listen. The trail markers, bright orange tags on the pine trunks, were still visible behind her. She made a rule: if she could not see one, she would turn around.
"Ulrich!" she called again, and held her breath. Far to the left, she heard a faint, high whine.
She followed the prints around a fallen tree and down a short slope. The tracks changed. The paw marks became deep holes, and then a messy hollow. It looked as if the dog had been jumping and sinking again and again. At the bottom stood a thick bush covered in snow, and under it, she saw two brown ears.
Ulrich was stuck up to his chest in a drift. He was shaking, but his tail was wagging. Jarrah knelt and dug the snow away with her mittens. Then she pulled gently on his harness until he came free.
She carried him in her arms back to the trail, counting the orange markers as she went. Her family was waiting with worried faces. "He is fine," Jarrah said, "and so am I. Next time, he stays on the leash."
Ulrich licked her chin, and she could not stop smiling the whole way back to the lodge.
