A hollow click in the shade

The quiet inside had grown familiar, so I slipped out through the cracked screen door into the deep shade beneath the porch steps. A dry, scraping sound brushed against the concrete. I padded closer, my plush paws stepping silently over cool gravel, until my nose touched a smooth white cylinder tucked between two weathered timber beams. It wasn't wood; it was an old toy fetch bone left behind, cool and chalky against my snout. When I rolled it forward, it gave a satisfying, hollow clatter that echoed softly in the private dark beneath the planks.