Dog Sense

by Sneed B. Collard III

  I stop outside my homeroom and take a deep breath. Opening this door is one more thing I’m not looking forward to today, but I muster my courage and turn the handle. As I walk in, twenty-eight eighth-grade faces turn to look at me. A primeval shudder cascades down my spine. I force myself to walk up to the teacher, a small, blond-haired woman.

  “Hello,” she says, turning to me. “My name is Mrs. Minneman.”

  As she says her name, all I can think of is Mini Me from the Austin Powers movies.

  “Hi,” I say, handing her my note. “I mean, hello, ma’am.”

  Fortunately, she doesn’t bless me with the same lecture I got from the principal. All she says is “We’re starting in on our first book, Guy. Please take a seat over there.”

  “Over there” happens to be right next to Luke—the tall dweeb I met before school. I’m going to run out of the room screaming if he tries to shake my hand again. Instead, as I near my seat he holds up my backpack and Lakers jacket. “I picked these up for you. I thought you might want them.”

  Relief floods through me. I wonder if this is how Grandpa feels when he uses his Preparation H.

  “Thanks,” I tell Luke, almost calling him “sir.”

  “As I was saying,” Mrs. Minneman tells us, “literature is an adventure. That’s why I use it to teach English. You’ve all had English classes before, but as eighth graders you get to start using what you’ve learned. And that is the whole point of education. I’m here not only to help you strengthen your reading and writing skills, but to help you enjoy those skills. And there’s no better way to do that than to read good books.”

  I stifle a moan. I hate reading. What I mean is, I hate reading fiction. My mom devours novels. She gets up early in the morning before work, makes herself a pot of coffee, and reads—sometimes for an hour or more. I don’t know what she gets out of it. I mean, I like to check out sports scores in the newspaper, and I read books about animals and things like that. But every time my mom or a teacher gives me a novel, by the third paragraph I feel like someone’s planted an ice ax in my brain. But maybe, I tell myself, this teacher will give us some good nonfiction for a change.

  “The first novel we’re going to explore,” Mrs. Minneman says, “is a newer book that’s already becoming a classic. It’s one that boys should especially like.”

  I groan inside.

  “The book’s title is The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis.”

  I’ve never been to Birmingham, but already I know I’m going to hate this book. How? Because well-meaning English teachers and librarians have been feeding me books “for boys” since I was in fourth grade, and I’ve hated every single one of them.

  But Mrs. Minneman has to do her duty. She passes us each a copy, explaining our assignment as she goes. “Your homework is to read this book by the end of the week and write a two-page description of what you thought about it and why—due on Monday. Are there any questions?”

  Yeah, I think. When do I turn eighteen so I can get out of here?

  After English, things look like they’re getting better. I go to social studies and Spanish, both of which I like all right. Then I have P.E., but since it’s the first day, we don’t have to dress in our gym clothes. At lunch I manage to find a corner table where no one bothers me, and after that I have typing—or “keyboarding.” When I walk out of there, all I have left is math, and that’s my best subject.

  Home free, I tell myself.

  Right.

  When I walk into class, the first thing I see is Sulfur Breath and the Parasites. My brain goes numb. When the neurons start firing again, I wonder if I’m in the wrong room.

  “Well, look who’s here,” Brad Mullen sneers. “It’s the California Kid. Or should I say the Calf-Crap Kid?” This witticism draws a chorus of guffaws from Tapeworm and Maggot. Brad motions toward an empty desk on his row. I hesitate for a moment, but then I spot Luke. Grateful for anything resembling a friendly face, I walk over and take the desk in front of him. I pull out a pencil and start tapping the eraser on the desk.

  “Hey, Calf Crap,” Sulfur Breath says. “I want you sittin’ over here.”

  Fortunately, before I have to respond, a tall, gaunt teacher wearing a rumpled suit walks in. His pasty gray face looks tired. Not the I-didn’t-get-enough-sleep-last-night kind of tired. He looks tired of life. “I’m Mr. Krauss,” he says. “This is Math Foundations.”

  I stop tapping the pencil.

  Did he say math foundations?

  “Welcome,” Mr. Krauss says. “And for those of you who are returning, welcome again.” As he says this, he takes a pointed look at Brad Mullen, but Mullen doesn’t flinch.

  “Hi again, Mr. Krauss,” Brad says. “I liked your class so much last year, I decided to take it again.”

  Tapeworm and Maggot laugh and even Mr. Krauss manages a weary grin. “Let’s see if we can make this your last time, Mr. Mullen. My records show that this is the only remaining class you need to pass to go to high school.”

  “If I want to go to high school,” Brad says with a snort.

  Mr. Krauss ignores him. “In this class,” he explains, “we are going to work on math fundamentals. Let’s not kid ourselves. You’re not going to become math majors and I’m not Albert Einstein.”

  “As if you could even play baseball,” Sulfur Breath mutters.

  I roll my eyes. Albert Einstein, a baseball player? Brad definitely isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.

  Mr. Krauss continues. “Our only goal in this class is to teach you enough math skills to get you into ninth grade. We’ll try to make it fun, but let’s be honest here. If you don’t get through this class, you are not—I repeat—are not going to graduate.”

  I can’t listen any longer and raise my hand.

  “Yes, Mr.…” The teacher looks down at his class list.

  “Martinez,” I say.

  “Yes, Mr. Martinez?”

  “Uh, sir, I think I’m in the wrong class.”

  Mr. Krauss checks his class list again. “Oh yes. You registered late so we couldn’t fit you into the advanced math program you requested.”

  “I didn’t register late…sir.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No sir.”

  “Well, did you take the placement exam?”

  “What placement exam?”

  “That must be the problem. If you don’t take the placement exam, we can’t give you a choice of classes.”

  Brad makes a fist. “I’ll place him right now.” The rest of the class laughs—all except Luke—and I feel myself getting angry.

  “You mean I have to stay here?” I ask, grinding my pencil’s eraser into my desk.

  “Get used to it, Calf Crap,” Mullen says.

  “Talk to me about it after class,” Mr. Krauss says. “And that’s enough from you, Mr. Mullen.”

  Mr. Krauss hands out textbooks that look like they’ve been used since the Second World War. I open mine and, with growing frustration, recognize the math as stuff I had years ago—even before I had it in school. My dad was a math whiz and he worked with me from when I first started to talk, giving me flash cards and taking me through all kinds of math problems, always ahead of my school classes. I loved it. That’s one of the things I miss most about my dad, sitting together working on math. I still don’t understand why he couldn’t solve his own problems with my mom and me, but as Grandpa says, that’s smoke up the chimney.

  While Mr. Krauss explains a third-grade math concept, I try to keep from melting down. Instead I start working on how I’m going to get out of this stupid class.Not only will I be wasting my time if I stay here, but I’ll be a walking target for Brad Mullen. I admit it’s kind of nice being in a class with Luke, but I’ll be happy enough to ditch him if I can keep Sulfur Breath off my scent.

  Finally the bell rings, and as the other kids file out, I walk up to Mr. Krauss’s desk. He’s looking through a notebook, but after a moment, he notices me. />
  “Yes?”

  “You were going to tell me how I can get into a more advanced class,” I say.

  Mr. Krauss’s eyes look blank, like they belong to a deactivated robot. Then, as if someone has pushed his Power On button, his eyes slowly focus. “Ah, right, Mr.…”

  “Martinez. Guy Martinez.”

  “Well, Mr. Martinez. All the other math classes are full.”

  “But I’ve already had all of this stuff…sir.”

  “This is what happens when you don’t take the placement exam.”

  “But Mr. Krauss. I just moved here. No one even told me about the exam. Can’t I take it now?”

  Mr. Krauss gives this a whole two seconds of careful consideration. “I don’t think that would be fair to the other students, do you?”

  I try to follow his logic. “What? Why not?”

  Mr. Krauss suddenly slaps the notebook closed in front of him. “Look, if you want, you can take it up with the principal. If not, I’ll expect you to have the answers to the problems on page 13 ready to turn in tomorrow.”

  Chapter Three

  I leave Mr. Krauss’s class and slam my fist against a nearby locker. It makes a satisfying banging sound but does little to cool my jets. Then I spot Luke standing on the other side of the hall.

  “Hey,” I mutter. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just waiting,” he says as though it’s the most natural thing in the world for him to be waiting for a person he barely knows. “I was thinking maybe you could show me your dog.”

  “Streak?” I ask, surprised.

  “Yeah, Streak. I like that name.”

  He follows me as I head down the hall. “Don’t you have to catch a bus or something?” I ask.

  “Nah. I live over near you.”

  “How do you know where I live?”

  Luke gives a little snort. “Everyone knows where you live.”

  Again, I’m surprised—and annoyed. “They do?”

  He clamps a hand on my shoulder. “Sure. Everyone knows where everybody lives in this town. We knew the second you and your mom showed up.”

  I slide sideways so he has to let go of my shoulder. “Great.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Luke says. “Coffee’s that kind of place. Everyone knows everybody else’s business around here.”

  We push open the double front doors to the school and walk down the steps. I do a radar scan for Brad Mullen, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Luke reads my mind.

  “Don’t worry. I heard Brad’s got detention already. And even if he didn’t, he and his friends usually hang out down at the Smoking Tree after school.”

  “Brad who?” I ask, pretending not to care.

  “He’s been held back twice,” Luke goes on. “He ought to be a tenth grader, but he keeps getting in trouble and flunking his classes.”

  “Why’s that?” I say as we cross the street.

  “I don’t know. My folks say Brad’s dad used to beat on him a lot. That was before he got killed.”

  Before I can ask how Brad’s father got killed, Luke presses ahead with the details.

  “His dad used to drink a lot after work—when he could get work. He got a job as a log-peeler out at one of those log home–building places down the highway, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I say, even though I have no idea how you’d peel a log or why you’d even want to.

  “So one day after work last winter he went to get a couple of beers with his friends. As he and his buddies were driving home, two big deer jumped in front of his truck. He missed the first one, but the road was icy and he slid into the second one, a buck. The buck came through the front windshield and the antlers gored Brad’s dad right through the chest, like swords or bayonets.”

  My stomach turns. “I get the picture.”

  “It happens a lot around here.”

  “Being gored by deer?”

  Luke snorts again. “Aw…no. People hitting deer. Though I guess more than a couple of ’em are drunk. About five years ago, four of the best football players over at the high school were driving home from a game in Butte and the same thing happened. After their car hit the deer, a semi truck plowed into them from behind. All four of ’em got killed.” Luke is telling me all this as if he’s talking about the weather, but I never heard stories like this in California. Sure, there was the occasional gang shooting or surfer drowning, but killer deer?

  “Well,” I ask, before Luke can think of an even gorier story to tell, “who are those two guys Brad hangs out with?”

  “Clyde Crookshank and Harold Dicks.”

  “Geez, with names like that, no wonder they’re mean. Which one is the tall one?”

  “That’s Clyde. But don’t worry about them. They think they’re bad, but they don’t ever do anything unless Brad’s around. They got held back a grade, too.”

  “That’s a shock.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.”

  We cross another couple of streets and can see my grandpa’s house at the end of the block. It’s hard to miss—a two-story Victorian with chipping blue paint and a roof that’s long overdue for the landfill. Mom says it was built about 1915, but two or three hundred B.C. is more like it.

  “Uh, Luke,” I say, stopping. “You probably shouldn’t stay too long. My grandpa’s not feeling well and I don’t know how he’ll like having guests around.”

  Luke shrugs. “That’s okay.”

  Does anything bother this kid?

  When we reach the house, I see Streak tied to the tree in the backyard. Grandpa must have put him there, and I’m happy because now I won’t have to take Luke inside. But when I drop my backpack on the front porch and start to walk around to the side gate, Luke asks, “Aw…can I use your bathroom?”

  Great, I think. The one thing I want to avoid is going into the house and having to deal with Grandpa. But maybe Grandpa is down at the Union Club hanging out with his buddies. He hobbles down there a couple afternoons a week, and today could be my lucky day.

  “Yeah, sure,” I tell Luke.

  I start to search my backpack for the house key and then remember for the hundredth time that in Coffee nobody locks their houses.

  We walk into the front entryway and I smell that musty old-house smell. I’d been getting used to it, but bringing a guest home, it hits me all over again. “The bathroom’s up the stairs,” I tell Luke, seeing no sign of Grandpa anywhere.

  But before Luke takes a step, a voice booms out from the kitchen. “Guy? That you? I’m in here!”

  My shoulders sag and I let my backpack clomp to the floor.

  Luke follows me through the dining room and the doorway leading to the kitchen. We find Grandpa camped in his favorite spot, next to a small Formica-topped table that looks like something out of That ’70s Show.

  Grandpa’s just sitting there, but I’m immediately embarrassed. He’s got on his old coffee-stained, dung-colored overalls, even though a bad hip forced him to quit his job as a furnace repairman years ago. Gray wisps of hair rise like smoke from the top of his head and big thick bristles poke out of his ears and nose.

  “Grandpa, this is Luke. Luke, Grandpa.”

  I want to save Luke from my grandfather as quickly as possible, but Luke steps up and—of course—puts out his hand. Grandpa shakes it vigorously. “Luke, boy, glad to meet you. Aren’t you one of Daniel’s boys? I seem to remember you working down at the hardware store.”

  “Aw…you’re probably thinking of my father,” Luke says. “He used to work down there.”

  “Your father!” Grandpa thinks about this for a second. “Yes, I suppose it would be. Damn. Pardon my Portuguese.”

  Luke laughs.

  “Son,” Grandpa says to me. “Pour me a glass of V8 juice. And get your friend something there, too.”

  I just want to get Luke out to the yard, but I keep my mouth shut and walk to the refrigerator. “You want anything, Luke?”

  “Of course he does!” Grandpa says. “
What’ll it be, Luke? Guy’s mom has some cranberry juice in there.”

  “Actually, if I could just use your bathroom, sir.”

  “Oh hey, I can relate to that!” Grandpa says. “That’s my favorite place in the house. I call it my ‘workbench’.”

  Grandpa breaks up at this witticism and Luke joins in laughing. I look to see if there’s enough room for me to crawl into the refrigerator.

  When Grandpa’s cackling dies down, he tells Luke, “Head up the stairs there and the bathroom’s straight ahead. But you stay away from my Preparation H, you hear? I need it to keep my butt cheeks from catching on fire.”

  “Grandpa!” I say. “Geez!”

  But Luke snorts and says, “Don’t worry, sir. I’ve got my own.” Grandpa breaks up all over again and Luke heads towards the stairs. This situation is getting way too chummy for me.

  I pour Grandpa his juice and hand it to him. “Grandpa, do you have to make jokes like that? I hardly know that kid.”

  “Embarrassed by your gramps?” he asks with a look of satisfaction. “Well, I was embarrassed by mine, too. Get used to it, son. And I’ll tell you somethin’ else. That boy Luke. He’s a good one. You’d do well to make friends with him.”

  “I don’t need friends,” I say. “I have some back in California.”

  “That may be. But I’ve learned one thing in my twenty-nine years,” Grandpa says, continuing his roll of bad jokes. “And that is, never pass up an opportunity to make a new friend. You never know when you’ll need one.”

  When Luke comes back down, I say, “So, you want to see Streak?”

  Luke’s eyes flash. “Sure.”

  “Streak, now that’s quite a dog!” Grandpa pipes in. “I seen a lot of canids in my day, but that’s definitely one of the smartest—and fastest, too. Somehow he got in the house this morning, so I tied him up out back. I told you that yard wasn’t dog-proof, didn’t I, son?”

  “Yes, Grandpa.”