Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of animal cruelty.

Chance begins to tell Metal Head about her former girl, Jessie, and how they were inseparable. Back then, Chance had four legs and would run and play with Jessie all the time—a source of inexhaustible joy to them both.

One day, Jessie’s mother, a professor, is put on a six-month sabbatical. Chance thinks that they’ll get to spend lots of time together until she hears Jessie asking questions like why they have to leave and why they’re leaving Chance.

Jessie and her mother start packing suitcases. Two of the dogs in Chance’s neighborhood warn her that suitcases mean humans are leaving and that “if you were lucky, you would go with them. And if you weren’t…” (212).