Stay (2011) is a middle grade novel by Bobbie Pyron. It follows the story of 12-year-old Piper, whose family has recently lost their home and moved into a shelter, and her efforts to reunite a dog, Baby, with his owner who goes missing. The book explores themes of Resilience in the Face of Adversity and The Positive Impact of Community and Purpose. As with several of Pyron’s books aimed at younger readers, Stay also explores The Powerful Bond Between Humans and Animals.

This guide references the 2019 HarperCollins Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain discussions of emotional trauma and mental health conditions.

Plot Summary

The story is told through the alternating perspectives of a 12-year-old girl, Piper Trudeau, and a dog named Baby.

Piper and her family must move into an emergency shelter after losing their home, the result of one unforeseen crisis after another. The shelter they arrive at only allows women and children in one building, while Piper’s father, Gary, has to stay in the building next door. However, the woman at the desk helps them apply for a slot at Hope House, a family shelter.

When standing in line for the community kitchen, Piper meets a woman named Jewel and her dog, Baby. Piper asks to pet Baby and instantly feels her heart grow lighter. She is upset when the community kitchen turns Jewel and Baby away at the door, as animals cannot come inside.

Jewel and Baby live at the park, along with other people without homes and their pets. They live on the charity of people who distribute food and resources to those living in the park. Baby senses sorrow and confusion in Jewel’s heart and constantly tries to help her feel better. However, after an exceptionally cold night, Baby is unable to wake up Jewel and barks for help. Ree, another woman who lives in the park with her dog, Ajax, calls for an ambulance. The ambulance takes a barely conscious Jewel away, and she instructs Baby to stay until she returns.

Piper befriends a girl named Gabriela at the shelter. Gabriela’s mother, Mrs. Alvarez, takes the children to the park one day while Piper’s parents attend job interviews. Piper discovers Baby in the park’s bathroom and then runs into Ree and Ajax. Ree tells her Jewel is at the hospital, and she is taking care of Baby in the meantime. Piper resolves to keep checking on Baby, too.

A slot opens at Hope House, and the Trudeaus move into the family shelter. Piper, who is dismayed at the move and the tension between her parents, perks up when she discovers a Firefly Girls troop meeting at the shelter. She used to be part of the Firefly Girls back home and dearly misses it. She attends the meeting along with her mother and feels immensely better.

Piper is enrolled in school and relieved to find many of the children from the shelter, including some Firefly Girls members, on the school bus. However, she has a harder time in school, as people whisper about her living at the shelter. Needing something to comfort her, Piper visits Baby at the park again. She meets Ree there again, who tells her she is going down to the hospital to visit Jewel soon.

Ree smuggles Baby into the hospital in her coat pocket, and he and Jewel are both overjoyed to see each other again. However, Baby is dismayed when he has to leave Jewel and return to the park with Ree. The next morning, he sets off for the hospital again, determined to find Jewel.

School is canceled because it has snowed, but a concerned Piper convinces Gary to take her to the park so she can check on the people and animals that live there. Piper is dismayed to discover Baby is gone. She meets Ree, who thinks Baby has gone in search of Jewel. Ree hands over Jewel’s duffel bag to Piper and Gary, asking them to keep it safe.

Piper and her mother, Meg, look through the bag to discover, among other things, a journal, a key, and some photographs. With the help of some of the Firefly Girls, Piper deduces that Jewel was a music teacher and lived in Kentucky, and that the key belongs to a locker at the bus station. Meanwhile, Ree finds out that Baby made it to the hospital but was caught and taken to the animal shelter.

Piper visits Baby at the animal shelter and tells the people who work there about Jewel; they reveal they can only keep him for two weeks before moving him to a new home. Piper and another friend from the shelter, Noah, ride the subway to the bus station and open Jewel’s locker. Inside is a suitcase carrying more photographs, postcards addressed to Jewel’s sister in a place called Heartwell Manor, and medicine bottles. One of the Firefly Girls, Sapphire, realizes that Jewel has bipolar disorder, as Sapphire’s mother has it and takes the same medications.

Piper and a group of people, including her mother and Ree, go to visit Jewel and tell the nurses what they know. They put Jewel on the right medication and manage to contact her sister, Bernadette, who is in a senior living facility called Heartwell Manor in Boise, Idaho. The facility allows pets, and this is where Jewel and Baby were heading before she ran out of medication; her symptoms worsened, she sank into confusion, and found herself living in the park with Baby.

Bernadette, who is in a wheelchair, cannot come and get Jewel and Baby. Piper, who is determined to reunite Jewel and Baby, convinces the Firefly Girls to donate their portion of that year’s brownie sales for Jewel and Baby: Baby will get registered as Jewel’s emotional support animal, after which they can travel together on the bus. Piper and the Firefly Girls spread Jewel and Baby’s story far and wide, and the money pours in, including from other people without homes that Ree knows. They raise more than enough, just in time for the animal shelter and hospital to release Baby and Jewel.

A grateful Jewel, who feels much better after receiving the right medication, thanks Piper and her family for everything they did as they see Jewel and Baby off at the bus station. Although heartbroken to see Baby go, Piper is happy for Jewel and Baby. She also has a newfound appreciation for her own life, despite the circumstances, and sees the things for which she must be grateful. The book ends with Baby traveling in the bus on Jewel’s lap, thrilled to be reunited with his family again.