Bad to the Bone Boxer

by Tui T. Sutherland

  I wanted to be like, “Wow, it sucks when you’re not invited somewhere, doesn’t it?” But I was afraid she’d get mad and it would turn into a fight and then Tombo and Buttons wouldn’t get to meet until we’d spent at least a week not talking to each other.

  So instead I said, “That is so lame. You must have been mad.”

  “I know, right?” Rosie said. “So he was there for, like, EVER and she was jumping over things and running around with Yeti and Merlin and Jeopardy and so I bet she’s really tired, poor little puppy.”

  She didn’t sound tired to me — not if she was jumping all over Pippa and stealing Rosie’s new clothes to play with. Was there some reason Rosie didn’t want to meet my new dog?

  “OH and GUESS WHAT?!” Rosie suddenly shouted at the top of her lungs. I winced and held the banana a little farther from my ear, shaking my head at Tombo. Of course, she didn’t wait for me to guess. “Guess who I saw at the mall? Coming out of the movie theater and going to the food court? Eric Lee.” She paused as if this was a big pronouncement.

  I had to think for a minute to figure out who Eric Lee was. He’s a sixth-grader, the quiet one who’s friends with Rosie’s brother Danny. Everyone says he’s really good with computers, but I didn’t know much about him, except that Rosie mentioned him sometimes.

  “Oh?” I said. “That’s, uh —”

  “WITH A GIRL,” Rosie announced. “Eric Lee WITH A GIRL. They were holding hands. Can you believe it?”

  I couldn’t, really, not from the little I knew of Eric, but I didn’t see that it was anything all that exciting. Certainly not more important than talking about my new dog. Rosie hadn’t even asked what his name was yet.

  “It was that Rebekah Waters,” Rosie said. “Her dog is really cute, but I knew she was trouble. She’s, like, too nice.”

  Kind of like Pippa? I wanted to say. “Why do you care?” I asked instead.

  “I don’t!” she nearly shouted. “I don’t care! I just thought it was interesting. Jeez, Michelle, why do you always ask so many questions? I mean, whatever, I was just telling you. Not because I care or anything. Anyway, I should go, like, take Buttons outside. She’s totally about to figure out how to get to my new sweaters. Have I mentioned that she’s a genius? She’s been so great in her agility class, better than anyone else, except maybe that Sheltie, Jeopardy, but if you ask me Buttons is cuter. Uh-oh, she’s pawing my leg. That means she really has to go, sorry.”

  “Oh, OK,” I said. “So about the park …?”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll call you tomorrow, OK? Pippa, that looks so great on you! You should go back and get five more! ’Bye, Michelle!”

  And then she hung up.

  I lay back on my bed and did some more deep breathing exercises.

  Tombo’s front paws hit the bed with a thump and he leaned toward me, sniffing curiously.

  “It’s OK,” I said. “She’s just busy. We’ll meet Buttons tomorrow, don’t worry.”

  His butt wagged and his tongue lolled out as if he was saying I’m not worried! Everything is great! I love it here! Thank you for loving me!

  I rolled over and wrapped my arms around his neck. He licked my ear, and for some weird reason that made me feel better.

  “Well, we don’t need Buttons,” I said. “Let’s go to the park anyway!”

  My hand still felt squeezed and sore from being yanked around at the end of the leash, so I let Deandre hold Tombo’s leash on the way to the park. It made me feel better to see that my brother had just as much trouble as I did. It was like Tombo didn’t know how to walk in a straight line. He kept lunging off in one direction or another, or stopping suddenly so we all bumped into him, or whirling around to bound back the way we’d come. Somehow we kept ending up with the leash wrapped around our feet.

  “Boy, I hope this tires him out,” Dad said. He looked a little worried.

  On our way into the park, I saw a bunch of sixth-graders playing Frisbee on one of the big fields. I recognized Rosie’s brother Danny and his friends Parker and Troy. Heidi Tyler and Rory were there, too, along with a guy I didn’t know, but I’d seen him around school for the past week, so I guessed he was new.

  Three dogs were flopped on the grass nearby, watching them play. The golden retriever was Merlin — everyone knew Merlin because he’d showed up at school twice in the first week. He’d followed Parker there because he didn’t want to be separated from him. Isn’t that the cutest thing ever? I loved Tombo already, but I wasn’t entirely convinced that he’d be smart enough to do something like that.

  An enormous shaggy black-and-white dog sprawled next to Merlin, fast asleep. And on his other side, a small, pretty Sheltie had her ears up alertly. Her black eyes were focused on the Frisbee like laser beams, and her fur fluffed out around her as her head whipped back and forth each time it flew by.

  Dad saw where I was looking. “Do you want to go say hi?” he asked. “We could see how Tombo reacts to those dogs.”

  That idea made me nervous. What if Tombo was a total freak in front of all those sixth-graders? Especially Danny, who’d definitely go home and tell Rosie about it. I didn’t want Rosie to hear about Tombo before she met him, because I was sure that Buttons would love him if they just got a chance to meet.

  Plus, I wouldn’t admit this to anyone, but I kind of like Danny a little bit, maybe. He’s like a boy version of all the things I like about Rosie — they’re both funny, and they say what they’re thinking, and they’re not afraid of anything, and they have all these crazy ideas which they’ll actually do instead of just talking about them. But I don’t want Rosie to know that I maybe like her brother, because I think she’d be all weird about it. And if she found out I’d hung out with him without her, she might get suspicious.

  “No, that’s OK,” I said. “Let’s just take him to the dog run.”

  Deandre looked relieved. “Yeah, I need a break from the leash,” he said, flexing his hand and stretching his shoulder.

  There weren’t any other dogs in the dog run, so we felt safe taking off Tombo’s leash. He galloped around for a minute, sniffing the hedges and peeing about a million times (I guess to let other dogs know he’d been there). I loved his gawky, long-legged run; it made him look a little off-balance, like he was constantly surprised at how strong and fast he was.

  Deandre pulled a tennis ball out of his pocket and whistled. Tombo’s head shot up and he blinked at us from the far side of the water fountain. His face was like, Did you hear that? I swear I heard something! What was it? Where did it come from? Let’s find it and stalk it and attack it and shake it and HEY WHAT’S THAT IN YOUR HAND?

  “Tombo, fetch!” Deandre called, flinging the tennis ball down the length of the dog run.

  The boxer leaped into action, bounding after the ball in a brown blur. He caught up to it as it bounced under one of the benches on the far end. Tombo didn’t stop; he flung himself to the ground and shoved his whole head under the bench, wriggling and wagging his rear end.

  “Good boy, Tombo!” I called. “Now bring it back! Bring the ball!”

  Tombo backed out and turned to look at us. The tennis ball was bright green between his teeth, giving him a goofy half-open kind of Frankenstein grin.

  Deandre whistled again. “Come on, Tombo!” My dad clapped his hands and crouched, waving at Tombo encouragingly.

  Slowly and deliberately, Tombo set his butt on the ground, then carefully lay down, pinned the ball between his teeth, and started to chew.

  “No!” I yelled. “Tombo! No chewing!”

  We ran across the dog run to him, but by the time we got there, it was already too late. Tombo had crunched the tennis ball right in half, leaving a long strip of green peeling off to one side and a tragic mauled ball carcass covered in teeth marks. He shook it triumphantly as we hurried up to him and deposited it at my feet with a flourish.

  “Holy — that is — I can’t even —” Deandre sputtered.

  “Tombo,” I
said, putting my hands on my hips. “You wicked dog! You were supposed to play with that, not destroy it!” Tombo wagged his butt and beamed at me. How was I supposed to yell at him when he kept giving me such a sweet, confused face?

  “How did he do that so fast?” Dad said.

  “Crazy teeth and destructo-powers,” I said.

  “He’s working out his aggression issues,” Deandre suggested. “Like that case you were studying last month, Dad.”

  “He’s not aggressive!” I said. “He’s sweet. He just thought we’d given him something to chew up. He didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to.”

  “But why would you do that to a tennis ball?” Deandre wondered. He picked up the remains gingerly between his fingers and carried it over to the trash can.

  Dad rubbed his bald head, looking even more worried. “Whatever his reasons,” he said, “let’s just hope he doesn’t do it to anything else.”

  The only good news was that the walk and playing at the park did seem to tire out Tombo. He conked out on top of my feet while we all watched a movie after dinner, and later, when I showed him the dog bed set up next to mine, he got into it and rested his chin on the fluffy edge, watching me until I got into bed and turned off the light. A few minutes later, I heard him snoring softly.

  “Good night, Tombo,” I whispered. “Tomorrow will be much better, I’m sure.”

  That would probably have been another good moment for one of Dad’s lectures about unreasonable expectations.

  I woke up early on Sunday morning — really early. Through my forest-green curtains I could see that the sky was still that kind of in-between gray before the sun is really up. Clouds were whisking quickly across the sky, as if a storm was coming, and flurries of orange and gold leaves swirled past the window.

  I yawned and stretched. Why was I awake this early? Had something woken me?

  Crunch crunch crunch.

  I froze. Uh-oh.

  Throwing the covers back, I sat up and turned on the lamp beside my bed.

  Tombo looked up with a startled expression. He was sprawled out in the middle of the rug with his back legs flopped to either side, busily chewing on something black and shiny. He blinked for a moment, and then his eyes met mine and his long pink tongue unfurled from his mouth. He panted at me in a cheerful, Well it’s about TIME you woke up! kind of way.

  “Tombo, what do you have?” I groaned. He planted one big brown paw over his treasure, as if daring me to come get it.

  I rolled out of the bed and knelt in front of him. It was worse than I’d thought.

  I mean, I’d guessed it was a shoe from the shape of it and the laces dangling off the sides. But it wasn’t just any shoe — it was one of my dad’s shoes. The fancy black leather pair he wore to his office for meetings with patients or other doctors. The pair he shined and polished carefully twice a week. They usually sat neatly on the shoe rack inside the front door, next to Mom’s low black heels and my orange Converses and Deandre’s white sneakers and my green flip-flops. How had one of them gotten up here?

  Not that it was too hard to guess. I’d left my bedroom door open a crack in case Tombo wanted to go downstairs in the night and find his dog food. We’d left kibble out in his dish, since he hadn’t wanted to eat anything all day.

  “Tombo!” I whispered. “This is not what you were supposed to eat! Shoes, yuck! Gross! And you’ll be in big trouble!”

  I reached for the shoe and Tombo seized it in his jaws. I could see tooth marks all over the smooth black leather, and the laces were nibbled to shreds. Tombo’s eyes darted from my face to my hand, as if he was waiting for me to try and wrestle the shoe away.

  Well, I did try. I grabbed the heel end and tugged. I tried to yank it loose. I swung it up and down to see if I could lever the shoe out of his mouth. I leaned back and pulled as hard as I could, but Tombo dug his paws in and tried to back away, making small growling, grunting noises. His tiny stub of a tail was going nuts, so I knew he thought we were playing. But it wasn’t a very fun game for me. I kept picturing Dad’s face when he woke up and saw what had happened to his shoe.

  Suddenly Tombo gave a fierce yank, and I lost my grip on the shoe and fell over backward with a thump. He stepped back, then toward me, wagging his butt and looking tremendously pleased with himself. His face was like, Awesome! Again, again!

  “I don’t want to play tug-of-war with you!” I snapped. “Tombo, give it to me!”

  Maybe he could finally hear the grumpiness in my voice, because his butt slowly stopped wagging, and then his head drooped, and he gently set the shoe down on the floor. His soft brown eyes rolled up to look at me mournfully.

  I snatched the shoe before he could change his mind. “Don’t give me that face,” I said. “You are in so much trouble.”

  “Rrrrowwrrrorf?” Tombo said, sounding kind of like Scooby-Doo. He pawed at my knee and managed to look even sadder.

  I couldn’t stand it. I put my arms around his neck and hugged him. “Well, I’m not the one who’s going to be really mad about this,” I said. “So don’t think you’re all forgiven yet. You’ll have to try those puppy-dog eyes on Mom and Dad.”

  “Michelle?” Mom pushed open my door, looking sleepy. She was wearing one of my dad’s old T-shirts and blue-green-yellow-striped flannel pants. “Are you all right? Did you fall out of bed?”

  “Mom, I haven’t done that since second grade,” I said. “No, it was, uh … Tombo woke me.”

  Mom squinted at the dog and he wriggled away from me and danced over to her, all excited about having more people awake to play with him.

  I really, really, really wanted to hide the shoe and act as confused as everyone else when Dad found it missing, but I knew that would be wrong, and Tombo and I would only get in even more trouble later.

  So I held the shoe out to Mom and tried to make my “sorry” face as convincing as Tombo’s. “He was chewing on this. I’m sorry! I didn’t know he would do that!”

  Mom’s eyes widened. She was really awake now. She came in and took the shoe from my hand, opening and closing her mouth without saying anything. Tombo jumped around her feet, trying to grab the shoe back, but she held it up and put her other hand out flat in front of his face, which actually made him stop jumping. I’d have to remember that.

  “Oh, dear,” Mom said. She turned the shoe over like she was hoping from a different angle it would turn out to be something else.

  “What’s going on in here?” Dad asked, appearing in the doorway. “Why are we all up so early? Does this — what is that?” His face went long and shocked-looking as Mom handed him his shoe and he stared at the damage.

  “He didn’t mean to!” I cried. “Maybe he was hungry! Or he got confused! He won’t do it again!”

  Deandre came out of his room, looking bleary. He took one look at my dad and figured out what had happened.

  “Um,” he said. “Why don’t I take Tombo for a run around the yard?” My brother grabbed Tombo’s collar and hustled the dog down the stairs. I’m not sure which conflict resolution technique that was, but it seemed like a good one to me.

  “Honey,” Mom said to Dad. She put her hands on his shoulders and steered him back to his room. “Let’s go back to bed and deal with this later, when you’ve calmed down.”

  Dad looked pretty calm to me. Eerily way too calm, actually. But he just nodded and they shut their bedroom door behind them.

  Well, I couldn’t go back to sleep. All of my worries about having to give up Tombo were starting to come back. I got dressed and tied up my hair in a bright pink scarf with dark raspberries and blackberries on it. Rosie gave it to me for my last birthday, and I knew it was her favorite of my scarves, although I didn’t like it quite as much as the ones I got in Kenya because it didn’t feel as soft and it wasn’t as long. But maybe it would put her in a good mood if she saw me wearing it, and then she’d be more likely to like Tombo.

  I ran downstairs and out into the garden, where Deandre was running in lon
g, steady strides around the perimeter with Tombo loping beside him. I sat down on the back steps to watch them. Dad is always talking about building a deck out here one summer, and Mom keeps saying that one day she’ll learn about gardening and plant some flowers, but they’ve always been too busy, so right now it’s just a big patch of green surrounded by a tall white fence. Which meant more room for Tombo to run, at least.

  Deandre is trying out for track and field this year, so he’d been practicing his long-distance running all summer. It looked hot and boring to me, but Tombo seemed to love it. His ears flapped back as he ran and he kept glancing up at Deandre like, This is so cool! How far do you think we’ve gone? How long until we get there? I bet he hadn’t noticed that they were running in circles.

  After another few minutes, Deandre slowed down and jogged over to me. Tombo’s eyes lit up when he saw me. He came galloping over and tried to throw his whole body into my lap, which as you might imagine wasn’t the best idea. I fended him off and patted my hair to make sure my scarf was still in place.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Deandre said, reading my face. “Dad won’t stay mad, and it’s not your fault. These things happen with dogs.”

  “Well, they better not happen again!” I said to Tombo. He wrinkled his forehead quizzically and wagged his butt some more.

  “I bet Mom and Dad would cheer up if we made them breakfast,” Deandre suggested. “I think I saw a pumpkin pancake mix in the cupboard.”

  See, I don’t know why Rosie complains about her older brothers so much. If you ask me, mine is pretty cool — you know, most of the time anyway. I don’t know if he knew this would happen, but making pumpkin pancakes cheered me up a lot too.

  Just to be safe, I moved all the shoes from the rack into the hall closet, where Tombo couldn’t get at them. And I kept an eye on him the whole time we were in the kitchen. He flopped on the red tile floor under our feet, lurching to his paws whenever he heard an odd noise. The good thing, though, is that he didn’t seem to be very barky. Buttons could yap and yap when she had something to say; Tombo just went “Hrrruff?” in a low, puzzled voice and wrinkled his forehead at me.