Lety Out Loud

by Angela Cervantes

  Daisy, the shelter manager, gave Bella a good scratch behind the ears. “And she didn’t have a microchip so, sadly, no way to locate her family,” Daisy said. “Can you imagine losing this love bug and never looking for her? Who would do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Lety said as Bella licked her chin and neck nonstop. “Is there anything else I should mention in her profile? Anything other than she’s a little love bug that likes to kiss?”

  “The thing about Pomeranians is that they’re typically no more than five pounds, but they have supersized personalities,” Dr. V. answered. “Bella is probably offended that we’ve put her in the small-dog room because in her head she’s as big as a Great Dane. Whoever adopts her needs to be on their toes.”

  “On their toes,” Lety repeated, uncertain about what he meant. “You mean like super fast?”

  “More like active and alert,” Dr. Villalobos said.

  “Oh yes! Perfect! Got it. Big personality and active.” Lety thought of the five words she had to include in the profiles. “Would you say that Bella has a colossal personality?”

  “Colossal?” Dr. V. raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  “That’s a big word,” Daisy said to Lety with a wink.

  Lety giggled because colossal meant massively big.

  “Sure,” Dr. V. said finally. “Colossal is accurate.”

  “Thank you, Dr. V. I think I have enough to finish her profile.”

  “I can’t wait to see it,” Dr. V. said. “It’s not every day that ‘colossal’ shows up in an animal profile. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.”

  “I can’t say I have either,” Daisy said, adjusting her black-rimmed glasses onto her nose and directing her green eyes onto Lety like two spotlights.

  “I’m trying to expand my vocabulary over the summer,” Lety said. She felt a quick pang of worry that maybe she’d said too much, asking Dr. V. about the word colossal. If they found out about the contest between her and Hunter, would they kick them out? Would she lose her chance to adopt Spike? Lety handed Bella back to Dr. Villalobos.

  “How is Spike doing with his foster family?”

  “So far so good is what I’m hearing,” Dr. Villalobos answered.

  “Will he return to the shelter?”

  “Oh yeah. The foster family is temporary. I want to find a family for him that won’t give up on him, not just someone who wants him because he was on the news. You know what I mean?”

  Lety’s heart jumped at the thought that Spike might be back at the shelter soon.

  “That’s smart,” Lety said. “So anyone can adopt him when he’s back at the shelter?”

  “Well, not just anyone,” Dr. V. answered. “They will have to meet my strict qualifications.”

  Lety felt panic tighten around her. She searched his face for some sign that he was joking like he often did. Strict qualifications?

  Daisy snorted, and Dr. V. finally broke into a smile. “What? I’m being totally serious. I’ve failed Spike so many times, sending him home with people who turned around and brought him back.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Lety said.

  “You tell him, Lety.” Daisy smiled. “He’s too hard on himself.”

  “This time, I won’t send Spike home with just anyone,” Dr. Villalobos continued. “His next forever family will have to prove themselves to me.”

  “How?” Lety asked.

  “Good question,” Daisy said, shaking her head at Dr. V. “How?”

  “I’ll just know,” Dr. V. said. “In my head and heart, I’ll know.”

  Lety nodded, convinced she knew what she had to do. She had to write the best profiles to prove herself to Dr. V. She said a quick good-bye and darted out of the room toward the multipurpose room. As the cat heroes sat at a table making feather toys, she revised Bella’s profile to include colossal and cleaned up some misspellings and run-on sentences.

  Once she’d submitted it, Lety headed to the cat room to start profiles on Bandit, Lorca, and Chicharito. As she passed through the reception area, she spotted Alma speaking to a family at a high-top table and guiding them through adoption papers. Soon, another volunteer came out with Sawyer on a leash. The family rushed to pet him.

  Sawyer was being adopted! Hunter immediately came to Lety’s mind. She had to find him and let him know. She rushed to the cat room, where she had heard that Hunter was finishing his profile on Messi, a brown Siamese. She spotted him right away holding the cat on his lap, petting him to sleep.

  “Hunter! Sawyer is being adopted,” Lety said.

  Hunter’s face went pale and twisted into a frown, but he didn’t move. He gazed down at Messi, who was taking a good stretch across Hunter’s lap.

  “I thought you’d would want to see him before he goes.”

  Hunter looked up.

  “It’s not a big deal,” he said with a shrug. “All it means is that I’m winning the contest now. One down. Four more to go.”

  Lety stepped back in shock. Was this really just a contest to him? Didn’t he care about the animals? She knew he did because he had told her about Gunner.

  “But you …” Lety stammered. “I just thought that because he reminded you of Gunner that you’d want to …” Lety stopped talking when Hunter shrugged again. She was embarrassed that she had tried to be nice to Hunter. What was wrong with him? How could he think of the contest when he should be rushing out to kiss Sawyer good-bye? “Never mind.”

  Brisa and Kennedy came over and stood next to her.

  “What’s going on?” Kennedy asked.

  “Sawyer is being adopted,” Lety answered. “The family is leaving with him right now.”

  “Let’s go give him a good-bye kiss,” Brisa said, taking Lety’s hand.

  The girls joined Dr. V. outside the shelter as the family put Sawyer into a large kennel cage in the back of their SUV. Sawyer’s tail wagged as he barked excitedly.

  As the family backed out of the parking lot, Dr. V. and the three girls waved.

  “You girls ever heard of a band named the Beatles?” Dr. V. asked.

  One of the other volunteers commented that the girls were too young to know them. Dr. V. covered his face and laughed.

  “I guess! I’m showing my age. Anyway, the Beatles had this song about how money can’t buy you love,” Dr. Villalobos explained. “And whenever I hear it, I think to myself that those guys must have never paid an adoption fee.”

  The girls laughed.

  “Those folks just bought seventy pounds of the truest form of unconditional love known to humankind. That’s what I’m saying.”

  “How does the song go?” Brisa asked. Dr. V. and the volunteer started singing the song as they strolled through the parking lot back toward the shelter. Brisa clapped her hands along with Dr. V. and tried to pick out the lyrics and sing along.

  Kennedy sang and danced around, too, until she nudged Lety with her elbow.

  “Look who’s gloating over his win,” Kennedy said.

  Lety looked over to where Kennedy pointed and saw Hunter peering out from behind the window blinds in the shelter reception. Lety was confused. Why hadn’t he come outside to kiss Sawyer good-bye? She followed Hunter’s gloomy gaze toward the SUV that carried Sawyer away. It wasn’t the smug look of someone winning a stupid contest. It was a look of regret.

  Hunter was winning. Outside on the deck of Kennedy’s home, the girls checked the shelter’s website. Once a dog or cat was adopted, the website coordinator marked the furry friend’s picture with the word ADOPTED plus double exclamation points. It would stay that way for a couple of days before the website coordinator removed the profiles entirely from the website. Sawyer and Kenzie’s profiles were both tagged with a bold ADOPTED!!

  “Kenzie!” Lety exclaimed in joy. “Someone finally stopped at her cage. I’m so happy.”

  “Yay!” Brisa added.

  Kennedy refreshed the page, hoping Bella or Finn would be marked as adopted, too. When their statuses didn’t chan
ge, Kennedy tapped on Scout’s profile.

  “I have to give it to him, Hunter has a way with words,” Kennedy admitted. The three girls huddled around the iPad to read Scout’s profile.

  “He nailed it,” Brisa said. “Has he used ‘scrumptious’ yet?”

  “Yep,” Kennedy said. With a few taps, she opened Messi’s profile. Above it was an adorable image of the skinny chocolate-brown Siamese cat tangled up in blue yarn.

  “Scrumptious was too easy for him,” Brisa said. “I wish I had given him a bigger word.”

  “He still hasn’t written Brooks’s profile, so you can catch up this weekend, Lety,” Kennedy said. “How are the profiles going for Lorca, Bandit, and Chicharito?”

  Lety pulled her notebook from her book bag.

  “I have notes about Bandit, but I need more information for Chicharito’s profile.”

  “Aw, Chicharito! The tabby with the beautiful brown eyes,” Brisa squealed. “He is an angel.”

  “Angel?” Kennedy asked in disbelief. “That little rascal shredded all the newspaper in his cage and then destroyed the feather toys we made for him and his sisters.”

  “Noted! Chicharito is a four-legged monster,” Lety wrote down with a smirk. “Anything else?”

  “He’s neutered,” Kennedy said.

  “He has all of his shots,” Brisa added.

  “Anything special-special?”

  The girls gave her a blank look.

  “I got nothing,” Kennedy said. “He’s a cat. He sleeps, purrs, licks his paws, and then will suddenly attack your feet for no good reason.”

  “I got something!” Brisa said. “He is named for a soccer player. Dr. Villalobos loves soccer like me.”

  “Okay, that helps. All I have to do is find a way to use ‘infectious,’ ‘fusion,’ or ‘supersonic’ now,” Lety dropped her pen down on the table. “Any other impossible tasks I can add to my list today?”

  Kennedy suddenly gasped and dropped her head into her hands.

  “Scout’s been adopted,” she announced. “Hunter is now two cats away from victory.”

  Brisa and Lety leaned in to see Scout’s profile marked ADOPTED!!

  “Oh no,” Brisa said softly. “But it’s good for Scout.”

  “Yes, but bad for Lety,” Kennedy said. “She’s way behind.”

  Lety frowned at Kennedy’s words. She started school “way behind” in everything: English, math, science, but she had caught up with everyone. She didn’t read and write at a high school level like Hunter, but she studied hard, made good grades. Mrs. Camacho had even told her that she could opt out of ELL permanently for middle school next year, but Lety wasn’t so sure if she was ready. As if reading her mind, Brisa spoke up for her.

  “She can catch up.”

  Kennedy nodded. “I know. I’m not trying to be mean, Lety. I’d just hate it if you lost. I don’t want you to spend the rest of summer camp working in the pantry. Your hair will stink like pet food.”

  Brisa let out a loud cackle. “You will be very popular with all the dogs at the shelter.”

  “I’m only interested in one dog. My sweet Spikey.”

  “Then show Dr. Villalobos you’re the best shelter scribe,” Kennedy said.

  “I won’t let Spike down.” Lety smiled, although she felt like she could pass out from panic. Why did she ever agree to this stupid contest? There was too much at stake! She could lose and end up with smelly pet-food hair. Hunter would be proven right. Her English wasn’t good enough for her to be a shelter scribe. Then there was also the risk that Dr. Villalobos would find out about the contest and decide that she wasn’t fit to be Spike’s forever family. She really wanted that dog.

  “I got this,” Lety said. Fusion meant the mixing of two or more things. In this case, Chicharito was a mix of pure trouble and playful cuteness. She picked up her pen and flipped to a blank page in her notebook. She knew exactly how to use fusion in Chicharito’s profile.

  On Tuesday morning, just as Brisa and Lety arrived at the shelter, Mario wasted no time in making sure that they knew that Hunter was only two cats away from winning.

  Both of Hunter’s profiles for Messi, the brown Siamese, and Brooks, the black-and-white tuxedo cat, were posted on the website and, according to Mario, both were receiving lots of clicks.

  “Bad news for you is that Finn’s profile had to be removed. Tough luck! Sorry!”

  “What? Why?” Lety asked, putting her book bag down on a table in the multipurpose room.

  “Who took it down?” Brisa said, crossing her arms over her chest. She switched to Spanish, which she knew Mario understood since his grandparents were originally from Guanajuato, Mexico. “¿Lo hiciste tú?”

  “I didn’t do it,” Mario said, with his hands up. “I don’t have that kind of power. Geesh! Talk to Dr. V. And one more thing: That little dog that kisses everyone is on hold.” Lety scrunched her eyebrows at him. Was he talking about Bella? “That means she’s reserved for a family. She’s practically adopted. They just have to pick her up.”

  “Wow, Lety!” Brisa exclaimed. “That was fast!”

  The news made Lety happy, but she was stuck on what Mario had said about Finn.

  “I have to talk to Dr. Villalobos,” Lety said to Brisa. She rushed off and found him in the clinic. He was stocking medicines and talking to three cats who’d just been neutered or spayed and were wrapped up tight in towels like little cat burritos.

  “I really liked Finn’s profile and we got a few calls about him this weekend, but his issue with hats concerns me,” Dr. V. explained to Lety.

  “People wanted to adopt him?”

  Dr. V. nodded. “They were interested, but I didn’t feel right sending him home with a family until I’ve fully addressed his behavioral issues.”

  Lety nodded. She understood. However, without Finn, she was short one profile. This meant there was no way to beat Hunter and win the contest. The most she could hope for was a 4–4 tie at the end of the week.

  “I’m sorry, Lety. Are you upset?”

  “Me? No,” she said, not realizing she had been frowning. She forced a smile. “I only want him to find a forever family.”

  “Me, too,” Dr. V. said. “I know you’re putting a lot of time into writing the profiles, so I wanted you to know that was the only reason for taking Finn’s profile down.”

  “I understand,” Lety said. “Is there maybe another dog I could write about?”

  “I’m sure there is, but let me give it some thought. You know, you and Hunter are writing some phenomenal profiles.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hunter wrote a profile … I forget which one it was, but he used ‘beckon,’ and then in another one he used ‘rambunctious’?” He shook his head in amazement. “Totally blew my mind.”

  “He writes at a high school level.”

  “And you,” he continued. He grabbed a flyer from the top of his desk. “This Chicharito profile is like a professional advertisement.”

  “Really?”

  Dr. Villalobos read the profile out loud, making Lety squirm. Was he onto the contest?

  “Fusion?” Dr. V. said. “Angelic?”

  Lety felt suddenly warm all over, like she was the one wrapped up tight in a towel.

  “Then today, Hunter submitted a profile for Brooks using the word ‘cerise’!” Dr. V. continued. “I had to google it. Have you ever heard that word?”

  Lety was certain that her face was flushed cerise at that very moment. Dr. Villalobos was onto them. She was certain of it! Still, she couldn’t deny that she knew the word.

  “It is a deep pink color,” Lety said. “It is very popular. People use it for an accent wall in the dining room or master bedroom. At least that is what my mom says.”

  “Accent wall, you say?” Dr. V. said, arching his eyebrows. “Your mom must be a home designer?”

  “She paints homes and apartments,” Lety answered.

  “Did you teach Hunter that word? I mean, doesn’t it seem
strange that he knows it?” Dr. V. said, which made Lety nervous. She could almost see the pieces in Dr. V.’s head coming together. She wished that one of the cat burritos would wake up, but they were as still and quiet as the air closing in on her.

  “Hunter and I hardly even talk,” Lety answered. She desperately wanted to change the subject. “Dr. Villalobos, how’s Spike doing? Will he back soon?”

  “He’ll be back —” Dr. V. said, when his phone pinged. He pulled it from his jeans pocket. Lety was grateful for the distraction. She’d thought she was done for. Somehow he knew about the contest. Or maybe he didn’t, but he was definitely suspicious of all the words they were using. “Bella’s forever family is here,” he said, looking up from his phone. “Let’s go see the little love bug off.”

  Lety let out a big sigh of relief. For now, Bella had saved her, but she had to warn Hunter. Dr. V. was definitely onto them!

  Lety found Hunter in the multipurpose room, writing in his notebook. As she stepped behind him, she peeked over his shoulder and saw that he wasn’t writing at all. He was sketching a dog. The dog looked a lot like Sawyer, but she knew it must be his dog, Gunner. She had planned to warn him about Dr. V. asking about the big words they were using but instead left him alone with his sketch. She took a seat next to Brisa and Kennedy as the guest speaker turned on the computer and projector.

  “The score is three to one now,” Kennedy said, flashing a thumbs-up at Lety. “Congrats on Bella!”

  Lety smiled, pleased with herself, but then she remembered about Finn. Kennedy didn’t know yet that Finn had been removed from the website and was no longer adoptable. She would have to tell her later, since the guest speaker was starting.

  The speaker’s name was Zoe. She was part of a program called the Rescue Team. She clicked through a slide show of photographs that showed members of the Rescue Team saving chained-up dogs from the cold and delivering pet food to families that had “limited financial resources.” Lety knew that “limited financial resources” meant families like hers.

  “We work closely with the folks in the pantry. They prepare bags of pet food and we deliver them every month to families who need them.”