Zeus, Dog of Chaos

by Kristin O'Donnell Tubb

  The machine growls. Worry? I say. Yes, I’d worry, too, with a terrible machine like that turned loose in my home.

  ★ 14 ★

  Chaos Theory

  The next afternoon there is another surprise (ugh, surprises!) waiting for us in science class: a brightly colored balloon tied to the back of each seat! I grumble, and my fur rankles. Balloons are sneaky things. Quiet, flimsy pieces of plastic, and yet they move. Balloons are not to be trusted.

  But I can’t bark. I stifle my grumblings. Remember how you embarrassed yourself with those bubbles, Z, I tell myself. BE YOUR TAIL.

  Ms. Yang, the science teacher, instructs the kids to untie their balloons. “Okay, kids. Today we’re discussing chaos theory and how that applies to weather patterns.”

  Chaos! There’s that dastardly word again.

  Chaos is a thing I studied with Dave when we were taking our astronomy class in prison. It’s how space began: with confusion and bedlam. Atoms and particles and star stuff flinging everywhere—Kapow! Zip! Zam! All turmoil and madness until things slowed, cooled, melted together.

  And the best way to make sense of chaos? LABELS.

  Kids untie their balloons. A student named Jerome rubs his balloon on a girl named Madeleine’s hair and makes it stand straight up. Another kid, Davis, tickles his balloon with his fingertips, and it giggles with horrible squeaks. Jake punches his balloon before untying it, boom boom boom. Madden chuckles at all this and untangles the knot of his balloon string.

  “Okay, okay,” Ms. Yang says. “Now. On the count of three, we’re all going to release our balloons to the ceiling. What’s going to happen? Yes, Madeleine?”

  Madeleine’s hand is always the first in the air. “They’re going to rise.”

  “Yes, and?”

  “Well, I guess . . . they’ll rise at the same rate?”

  “Yes! What else?”

  Madeleine shrugs, and Ms. Yang prompts her. “Will they rise straight up?”

  “I think so.”

  “Let’s try it. One, two, three!”

  And they release the herd of awful balloons. I don’t really know what to expect, because while I know balloons are not alive, they are wily. But they fly to the ceiling much as Ms. Yang said: straight up, mostly all at the same pace. Like a herd of sheep, those things. They hit the ceiling silently and bounce around. They’re up to something, those sly balloons. A small whimper escapes me.

  “So, yes. The balloons rose at about the same rate, and relatively straight up. This is called order.” I smile, and my tongue lolls out because I LOVE order! Order is so orderly.

  “Okay, now grab the strings and follow me,” Ms. Yang says. She pushes open the door to outside, and we all follow, each pupil toting a balloon. The orbs bounce and ping off each other as the students bounce and ping off each other.

  We walk to the soccer field and stop. It’s a windy day, gray, and the sky stretches like a wide-open yawn.

  “Okay. We’re going to release these balloons again, and . . . yes, Madeleine?”

  “Balloons aren’t environmentally safe to release, Ms. Yang.”

  Ms. Yang smiles. “Ah, but these are! One hundred percent biodegradable. Glad you’re thinking about that, Madeleine. Ten points to Ravenclaw.”

  Madeleine chuckles and bounces on her toes.

  “Okay. When we release the balloons out here, what’s going to happen?”

  “Chaos, obviously,” Jake mutters nearby. A group of his buddies chuckles.

  They will rise straight up at the same rate, I answer. I lift my chin. I am a fast learner. Everyone at Canine College said so.

  No one answers Ms. Yang other than me, so she smiles. “Well, let’s see, then, shall we? One, two, three, release!”

  AND THIS TIME? Do the balloons rise straight up? Do they rise at the same rate? No and no! They sway. They swirl. They bounce off each other. I can’t believe I didn’t get the answer right. I watch them dive and dip and dance, and for some reason, I think of music! All those notes, twining and twirling and rising like vines. Bouncing off each other, more beautiful together than separate.

  Drat you, music! Get out of my head!

  “So, obviously, the balloons aren’t rising at the same rate, and they aren’t rising straight up. And if we were to release another set of balloons from these exact spots, they would take different paths yet again. Why?”

  Every pupil is staring at the lovely tangle of balloons overhead, dancing ever farther away.

  “Wind,” Madden says, face turned skyward.

  “Yes, and?” asks Ms. Yang. “What other factors might affect their path?”

  “Tree branches!”

  “The other balloons bouncing into them.”

  “Telephone wires.”

  “Rain? Or, you know, moisture in the air we can’t see.”

  “Bugs? And maybe birds?”

  “Yes and yes and yes!” Ms. Yang smiles and claps. “There are countless things out here that are making these balloons stray off their path. That’s what chaos theory is. It says that sometimes, there are so many things that can affect a situation, the outcome can be nearly impossible to predict.”

  What? Impossible to predict? Chaos theory sounds terrible. We should go back inside, to order.

  “And the farther away those balloons go,” Ms. Yang continues, “the harder it is for us to know what might get in their path. Who knows what might throw them off course? Chaos only gets more chaotic.”

  This feels like it should apply to my life somehow. All these spinning parts, all this chaos, pinging against me and my well-laid plans to destroy music. In Language Arts, Mr. Nance calls this a metaphor. But I can’t quite put my paw on what it means.

  “That’s why weather gets harder to predict the farther out we try. There are too many elements affecting the outcome. The good news is, there are patterns in chaos. We can predict some things.”

  The balloons are so high up and dotty now, I almost fall over watching them. I feel spinny, like I’ve eaten too much grass. Thinking about chaos and all the things out there stepping in my path? Throwing me off course? I want to whimper.

  All the pupils are silent, watching the balloons get gobbled up by the vast yawn of the sky. They all feel the metaphor, too: the chaos of middle school.

  How am I supposed to keep Madden invisible when all these unpredictable things—like music—just keep lifting him higher?

  ★ 15 ★

  Guiltier Than an Indoor Pile of . . .

  We sneak into the band room. Usually, I would say we “walk in,” but if Madden had a tail right now, it’d be tucked tight. He averts his eyes from anyone else’s.

  Hoo boy! Madden smells guiltier than an indoor pile of . . . you know. I wonder what he did!

  “Hey, Zeus!” Jesus says as we take our seats.

  Jesus! I wink. Our labels sound the same, and I love him.

  Mrs. Shadrick sits at her desk and peers over her glasses. Poor humans, always having to put plastic in front of their tiny eyes to see. “Mr. Malone. Can you come up here for a moment?”

  Madden nods and burns crimson red, like those fiery cinnamon candies he eats sometimes when his blood sugar dips. He bites the inside of his cheek, and a whiff of worry wafts from him. His eyes flick to her conductor’s stand.

  Ah, I see. He is worried about her missing baton, and how to explain that this time, I’ve officially destroyed music. My chest puffs with pride. Beguiling music: foe no more!

  Mrs. S lowers her voice when we get to her desk. “Madden. Do you know what this is about?”

  Madden burns so red I expect him to explode and turn into a pillar of ash at any moment. Here is where he explains about there being no more music. “I . . . think so?”

  “You gave your prize away yesterday. It never occurred to me that snacks wouldn’t be a good reward. But of course they aren’t good for you! I can change up the prize system. What do you suggest?”

  Madden’s eyes dart over his shoulder and around the r
oom, like he’s making sure none of his classmates have heard this. He shouldn’t worry—if anything is more ineffective than human eyes, it’s human ears. “No! I mean—it’s okay. Please don’t do that.”

  “Are you sure? Because . . .”

  Madden shakes his head so vigorously, I picture him flinging off droplets of water. “Nah. The others—they really like those snacks. Don’t replace them just for me.”

  Mrs. S nods, and we take our seats. The air now crackles with instrument noise, like a hot summer morning filled with chirruping birds and singing crickets. A peppy theme bounces up from the xylophone like leaves lifted on the wind. A drum rat-a-tat-tats, a woodpecker thrumming. Drumsticks tick against one another. A trumpet blarts. A clarinet twees. Cymbals crash like sunflowers smiling.

  It is chaos, like we learned in science. Noise. Not music, not without the baton.

  Mrs. Shadrick knocks her knuckles on her wooden stand to get the pupils’ attention. “I want the first, third, and fifth rows only to tune with a partner. Tune by ear.”

  The pupils partner up. A single, huge hum swells and fills the space, like a tractor motor.

  It’s working! They are not making music!

  “Okay, now rows two and four. Tuning only!”

  Another hum, higher-pitched but still bland. If sounds had a taste, this one would be a plain cracker, no salt.

  I HAVE DONE IT!

  Without the baton, the only noise they can make is flat, like listening to a steamroller for fun. Except it is no fun.

  I WIN!

  Mrs. S flips on the metronome, tick tick tick. “Okay, good. Let’s start with ‘Song for the Winter Moon’ today. Page forty-six. Ready, set, let’s PLAY!”

  She lifts her hands, flits her fingers.

  And they play.

  The music starts out low, a blackbird asleep in a bush. The bird wakes at midnight and takes flight, sewing herself through beams of moonlight, her black feathers gleaming. Ting! goes the triangle, and I can see her darting between pinpricks of stars. Ting ting! She swoops, she swirls, the earth (tubas and trombones) low and solid beneath her, the treetops (flutes and clarinets) tickling her wingtips.

  “Good, good!” Mrs. S yells, fingers lifting. “Keep going!”

  My throat swells. My nose tingles. I do not understand why music makes me feel this way! I do not understand how Mrs. S teases the song from their breath without the baton.

  They’ve almost completed the piece, almost tucked the blackbird back into her cozy nest just as the first sunbeam pierces the sky. Mrs. S lifts her hands, lowers them, and the music sleeps.

  “Excellent!” she says. She turns to the bass sax. “But, Ren, I’ve heard better from you. It’s like you have inches of dust on your instrument case.”

  The pupil, Ren, blinks from behind his huge instrument. “Huh?”

  “Dude. When’s the last time you practiced?”

  The other pupils titter and giggle. Ren grins and nods. “I’ll practice tonight, Mrs. S. Promise.”

  “Please do. All of you, please practice. That was good, really good, but I know it can be great.”

  A trombone flarps, and the pupils laugh again. There is a lot of laughter in this room.

  Mrs. S smiles. “Nothing like a trombone fart to lighten things up. But remember: at the concert, no extraneous noise. Don’t even so much as sneeze at this thing, okay, or you will need God to bless you once I get ahold of you.”

  Eli, one of the drummers, slips in a quick ba-DUM! PEESH! on his drum and cymbal.

  Mrs. S chuckles. “Nice rim shot, Eli. But I mean it. Say it with me, class: ABSOLUTELY NO SNEEZING.”

  “No sneezing,” they intone back with giggles.

  “Now,” Mrs. S says, rubbing her palms together. “I’ve decided to assign a duet for the concert.”

  The class becomes a shifting, wiggling thing, a bright orange fuzzy caterpillar on a hot sidewalk. My ears twitch toward the whispers:

  “A duet?”

  “Cool!”

  “Aw, man. The triangle is never picked for that kind of thing.”

  Mrs. S clears her throat and the students calm. “So. Ashvi and Madden, I’d like for you to take those parts, if you’re interested?”

  Madden?

  Oh no!

  It’s getting worse. He is more outstanding. This will never do.

  But Madden glows like he’s just eaten a nest of fireflies. (Do not recommend, by the way. Fireflies look as if they’d taste like candy. They do not.) “Sure! Thanks, Mrs. S.”

  Ashvi smiles over her shoulder at Madden, then pops forward again. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you!”

  “Come get your sheet music, then.”

  While Madden and Ashvi gather their new music, the other pupils blart and blurp into their instruments. Jake glares at the back of Madden’s head, snarls against the twisted gleam of the metal on his teeth, and—FLEERRRRM!—blasts his anger through his tuba. It comes out the other end smelling like garlic.

  The bell shrieks. Kids click and snap and slam their instruments and cases and lockers. Ashvi hops toward us, and I kid you not: she is prettier than a plateful of shiny sausage. I wag.

  “Can I come over to your house to practice?” she asks Madden. His skin melts off his bones into a puddle at his feet again, but Ashvi doesn’t seem to notice. “I really want to nail this duet.”

  “Uh, how about we meet at the pond in my neighborhood instead? Right after school?”

  Ashvi smiles starbursts and comets. “Sure. Oh man, we’re going to be great together! I’ll bring snacks.”

  Snacks?!

  Not snacks!

  Based on the lieutenant’s reaction to snacks, based on Mrs. S wanting to get rid of them just because of Madden, snacks are a terrible, horrible thing.

  But Madden mumbles, “Cool, yeah.” And Ashvi floats away as if she’s on water.

  Madden rubs the back of his neck and tries not to smile too big. He picks up his tuba case, his backpack, and my leash, and we head toward the door.

  “Mr. Malone? Another word, please?”

  We both turn, me and Madden.

  Jake is there, next to Mrs. Shadrick, scraping his dry lips across his metal teeth. It makes him look like a bulldog. I instinctively step in front of Madden.

  “Madden,” Mrs. S says, and her mood smells as fishy as a dirty aquarium. “Jake here says you stole my baton. Do you know anything about that?”

  ★ 16 ★

  Garbage Party!

  Madden rushes through the front door to the kitchen garbage can, the one that smells like bacon grease and old broccoli and orange peels and eggshells. Heavenly. He peers inside. “No, no, no,” he mutters. “Uh, Mom?”

  The lieutenant answers from upstairs. “Yes?”

  “Did you take the garbage out?”

  “If you’re asking if I did your chore for you, then yes, Madden, I did.”

  Madden huff-puffs deeply and narrows his eyes at me. My ears twitch. I follow Madden to another, bigger can in the garage. He flips the lid open and releases a combination of smells that makes my mouth water and my teeth itch: Week-old chicken wing bones. Apple cores. Paper towels used to sop up sausage grease.

  Madden bends into the can at the waist, and I fear it might chomp him in half. He lifts up a white bag and squints as if he can see through the plastic. He huff-puffs again. Ever since Mrs. Shadrick asked Madden to bring back her chewed-up baton, he’s been breathing like that, heavy and dramatic. Perhaps he’s contracted a rare breathing disorder. I’ve noticed a lot of his peers breathe similarly. Perhaps it is contagious.

  Madden pokes a fingernail into the plastic and slowly begins sifting through the garbage inside. He piles the garbage on the floor of the garage, moves to the next bag.

  Yes! Here, I can be of great assistance. I stick my nose down deep in the garbage and my nostrils quiver—seriously, is there anything as lovely as the smell of three-day-old fish? I fling trash behind me with the might and fury of my massive paws. Scoop. Fling. Sc
oop. Fling. My claws curl around a piece of plastic wrap coated in mayonnaise. My paws squish into . . . I don’t know what. Pudding?

  Mixed in with all these delicious delicacies are hundreds of tiny slips of paper painted red with Madden’s blood, dozens and dozens of greasy plastic tubes that smell like his salty medicine. They dot this garbage everywhere, like confetti.

  “Zeus, no! Bad dog!”

  I pause, look up. A glob of moldy yogurt drips off one of my left whiskers.

  “Sit, Zeus!”

  I sit. Upon a moist wad of toilet paper, I believe.

  Madden continues to pick through the garbage, piece by heavenly-smelling piece. His lips curl; my mouth waters. His nose wrinkles; my nostrils widen. He shivers with disgust; I shiver with delight. Why is garbage so lovely?! It is a poem of smells.

  He obviously needs my help. I plunge my nose into something peppery, and I sneeze, propelling a chicken skin across the room. My paws squish into the pile, and I dig furiously, scooping and flinging bits of eggshell and ramen wrappers. A slick black banana peel sticks to the window of the lieutenant’s truck. What are we looking for again? It doesn’t matter: GARBAGE PARTY!

  “Zeus, NO! Bad dog! Stop digging in the garbage!”

  Another bad dog. If you’re keeping score from the last few days: Bad Dog = 3, Whoossa Good Boy = 0.

  And why does he get to go through the garbage, but I don’t?

  Madden raises the stick I chewed over his head. “Aha!”

  That’s what he was looking for? Why didn’t he just ask me to sniff it out? I could’ve told him exactly where it was: lodged between the aluminum foil coated in steak fat and a few wilted stalks of old asparagus.

  Madden looks at his wrist collar. “Oh! We’re gonna be late meeting Ashvi!”

  He shoves the stick into his back pocket. His eyes scan the scene in the garage: piles of garbage all over the floor, bits of garbage strewn about—whew! What an excellent way to decorate a room!

  “I’ll clean it up when we get back,” he mutters. He glances at me. “I don’t suppose you want to stay here?”