I blink. I go where you go. That’s the deal.
As if he hears me, he grabs my leash and his tuba, and off we go.
★ 17 ★
Come Say That to My Bill
Ashvi stands at the top of the hill that overlooks the pond, and I’m so happy to have her and Madden here together, in the who wants to go outside, heading toward those silly quacking ducks, that my back feet start walking faster than my front feet and I end up doing that thing where I walk sideways.
“Sorry we’re late,” Madden says, his voice tumbling grumbly gravel. He shifts, and I get a waft of garbage smell off him. Boy, I hope Ashvi smells that. She will be totally charmed if she knows how good he is at sifting through garbage bins. “I had to stay after school, and then I had to . . . find something.”
Madden and Ashvi plop onto a wooden bench at the top of the hill, and I sit next to Madden on the cold grass. The ducks twitch their black beady eyes my way. YOU! YOU’RE! BACK! GO! AWAY! SHOO!
My back legs twitch. I want to chase them so badly. But Madden hasn’t unclipped my leash or vest.
Ashvi digs out a baggie full of things that look like red ropes. She tilts the bag toward Madden, and it smells like raspberry. “Can you eat red licorice?”
Madden has already plunged his hand in the bag. He chomps down on one, rips it in half. Impressive, this display of strong teeth. It is always wise to show off your assets to someone you wish to woo. Like garbage-can diving. Or peeing on things to mark them as yours.
“I can eat anything,” he says around a mouthful of red goo. “I just have to correct for it.”
Ashvi narrows her eyes. “So you shouldn’t.”
Madden grins, and he’s stuck a large glob of goo to his two front teeth. I roll my eyes—what a terrible way to show your affection! Showing them what you’d look like toothless? Defenseless?!
“Technically,” he says around the glob in his mouth, “you shouldn’t eat this crap, either.”
“Fair point.” Ashvi laughs. And then she takes a bite of the stuff they’ve both agreed is crap, which I’m fairly certain means excrement, and hey, listen. I’m speaking as someone who has lapped up my own vomit here, but crap definitely falls into the DO NOT INGEST category.
I will never understand young humans.
YOU! DUMB! DOG! YOU’VE! GOT! FLEAS! the ducks shout across the pond, then roll all over themselves, honking at their humor. Fleas. Ha-ha, I grumble at them. Like I haven’t heard that one before, flat feet!
COME. SAY. THAT. TO. MY. BILL!
Madden’s blood is growing slowly sweeter as he eats his red rope. I perk open my nostrils to see if he needs a nudge. But he can tell his blood is shifting, because he does a quick check of his CGM. “Hey,” he says to Ashvi, lowering his sleeve. “Guess my blood sugar.”
Ashvi’s brows pull together. “What, like O positive?”
Madden smiles. “That’s a blood type. Guess a number.”
“Uh . . . eight hundred sixty.”
Madden bursts out a laugh like a trumpet blart. Ashvi punches him lightly on the arm and frowns, but her eyes twinkle. Humans do that all the time: their faces shift one way, but their eyes hint at something different. So confounding.
“Eight hundred sixty would be the worst blood sugar ever, probably. Guess between eighty and one-twenty.”
“Okay, ninety, then.”
“Close,” Madden says. “I’m at eighty-eight. Zeus, you’re fired. Ashvi, I’d like to offer you the position of being my continuous glucose monitor. It’s a full-time gig. No nights or weekends off.”
WHAT?
Fired?!
I panic. I pant.
Fired is a less-fancy human word for reassigned. But apparently this is more human humor, because Ashvi laughs and shoves Madden at this offer of employment.
“Hey!” she says. “Will that thing read my blood sugar?”
“No, but I could test it with a test strip.”
“Let’s try it!”
“Really?”
“Sure!”
I could tell them that this is a silly idea; Ashvi’s blood sugar is fine. I would’ve told her if it weren’t. But Madden fumbles with his tuba case and pulls out his black canvas test kit. He whisks it open, zipzipzip, and his scent changes; his smell shifts from the braggy scent of red rope licorice back to the smell of sifting through garbage. He tries to cover up the dozens of smears of blood inside the kit with his hand.
Madden removes a piece of black plastic from this case and gently takes Ashvi’s hand. He cleans one of her fingers with a wipe, something he rarely does himself. The smell burns—ammonia? The heat radiating off Madden feels like standing next to a blasting hair dryer. “Okay, so this is a little like stapling your finger.”
“You know what stapling your finger feels like?” She giggles. There is a nervous undertone to her laugh, and it reminds me of tiny aphid holes eaten through the petals of a rose.
Madden leans back. “You don’t have to try this.”
Ashvi smiles, and suddenly it feels as if Madden and I are curled up next to a cozy fire, him in fuzzy slippers, me chewing on fuzzy slippers. “No, do it! But what if my blood is all whack—ouch!”
The black plastic pops against Ashvi’s skin, and she winces.
“Sorry,” Madden says softly. “It’s better when you can be taken by surprise.” Madden squeezes her finger gently, coaxing a small bead of blood to rise on the side of it. He swipes a test strip across it and inserts the slip of paper inside a black plastic contraption.
Ashvi leans over his shoulder and watches the screen of the monitor. Madden’s internal organs melt into goo, but he still manages to sit upright. Thank goodness for skeletons. “One hundred three? Is that bad?”
It’s not. You’re perfect, I say.
“It’s not. You’re perfect,” Madden echoes. Then he blazes as red as a chili pepper. “Uh . . . LY good. Perfect-ly good! I mean, you’re fine. Yeah.”
He runs a hand through his hair. Just tell her you love her, dude.
Ashvi’s scent changes. It is full of questions, like the smell of a spring forest. “Do you think of yourself as sick? Because I don’t. I don’t really think of your diabetes at all.”
Madden gulps, leans back. “Huh. Sometimes it feels like it’s all I think about. It’s definitely all my mom thinks about. But sick? Nah, that’s not what I’d call it. More . . . inconvenient. Awfully inconvenient.”
HEY. DOG. HEY! SCAREDY. DOG. YOU! YOU’RE. SCARED. LIKE. A. TINY. CHI. HUA. HUA.
The stupid laughing, honking ducks shake Madden out of his trance. “Watch this.” He smiles at Ashvi, and he unclips my leash and vest.
The second that vest is off, I spring from my back feet and pounce-bound-bounce around the pond, chasing every last one of those fowl into the icy water with my mighty barks. Ashvi laughs but yells, “Don’t eat them, Zeus!”
I sneeze sneeze sneeze because of the joy of the chase. When I’m running like this, my jowls flap in the frosty air and my back paws reach up and over my front paws and the wind tinkles my fur and I feel as unstoppable as a cold mountain waterfall.
I know I should behave better. I can feel my father scolding me—Calm down, Zeus! Blend in! Be invisible like your tail! But these ducks, this air—well, ignoring those things is as impossible as ignoring a dropped French fry.
Madden and Ashvi pop open soda bottles—“Cheers!”—and drink a slug or two each. From across the pond, I see Ashvi lay her lip against the rim of the bottle and blow—whoooo!
Music!
Madden does the same, but his soda music is a little higher pitched: wheeeeeee!
They can make music without instruments?
Ashvi laughs and says in a voice like salt on caramel, “I didn’t know tuba players knew how to play like that. I thought tuba players just blew as hard as they could and hoped they made noise.”
Madden laughs—laughs!—and instead of just a single ting!, his heart skips an entire little ditty, a wind chi
me in a storm.
They blow into their soda bottles—wheee whooo wheee—and their laughter interwoven with their soda music is like watching the sky stir purple and the first dots of light twinkle across the night. These two can make music without instruments. They can make music with anything! This tells me two things:
1. This mission—Operation Destroy Music—will be harder than I originally thought, and
2. Madden truly is the boy who captures stars.
6. (Bonus: I’m learning to count in the class called Number Pushing!)
★ 18 ★
The Valedictorian (Again)
Madden’s feet sliiiiiiide the whole way home. His grin looks like he’s just gobbled up his fill at an all-you-can-eat trough. The sharp, clean smell of our house cuts through the air, and when we round the corner, it is mixed with the scent of—
Uh-oh.
“Madden Phillip Malone, what is all this?” The lieutenant has one fist knotted against her hip. The other hand is a terrible, poking point, directed at the piles of garbage in the garage.
Flies have started gathering around this feast, buzzing one of the two words they know: fooooooood. (The other is poooooop.) Smell rises off the garbage like a green, soupy mist. Delectable!
“I, uh, had to find something,” Madden says, touching the stick still in his back pocket.
“Hmmm,” the lieutenant says, her toe tapping against the cold pavement. “Well, now you’re going to find the bottom of some new garbage bags, and then you’re going to find a can of Lysol to clean this mess up, and then you’re going to find your bedroom for the next two weeks, because you’re grounded, son.”
Madden puffs and puffs and puffs, and I fear he might pop! “But I was about to come clean all this up! Grounded? Gah. Nana and PopPop would’ve understood! They would’ve laughed and helped me clean!”
“Nana and PopPop aren’t here, though, are they?”
“BECAUSE YOU TOLD THEM NOT TO COME.”
The air feels icy and heavy, flash frozen in a thick, cold fog. The lieutenant works her jaw. “Did you wash your sheets this morning?”
I can smell Madden wanting to answer no but realizing he can’t because she obviously knows the truth. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“They were dirty.”
“Dirty?” The lieutenant exhales a long breath, like salt pouring from a cup. “Did you have . . . an episode?”
Madden smells both smoky embarrassed and fiery mad. “No!” He inhales sharply. Their breathing is opposite, I notice. Antonyms. Tug-of-war. “You’re always saying that my room smells like boy. So I washed them.”
“You did laundry.” It’s a statement, not a question. The lieutenant’s eyes narrow.
“Yes. Nana and PopPop taught me how. They also taught me how to read music and how to identify poison ivy and how to manage my own life by my own self.”
Madden’s words are sharp, and he means them to slice. And from what I can tell, they work; the lieutenant looks hurt.
“Laundry or not, you’re still grounded, Madden. Now clean this up.” The lieutenant slams inside the house.
“Yes, ma’am.” Madden salutes the slammed door, grabs a fistful of plastic, and begins shoving the garbage into bags.
Oh! Oh! He needs my help!
I sift through a pile of eggshells and find a plastic bag with a few scraggly pieces of moldy bread. I gently bite the bag and try to bring it to Madden, but I step on a tissue with a wad of gum inside. I sit—yick!—on the lid of a can of creamed corn. I fling fling fling my paw, but the gum is STUCK. I wriggle and scrape and dig and—
“Zeus, no! Bad dog! Stop digging! You’re the reason I’m in trouble here. Bad dog!”
Madden’s scowl makes my tail tuck. My head droop. My ears flatten.
I realize suddenly: I am the best at something. The valedictorian.
I am the valedictorian of being a Bad Dog.
★ 19 ★
A Mascot!
In Number Pushing the next day, Ashvi twiddles her fingers along the length of her pencil, and I realize she’s practicing playing the notes of her duet with Madden. I love her. I tell her as loudly as I can with my eyes. I can even forgive her for wearing a T-shirt with a sparkly unicorn on it. Disturbing creatures, unicorns. I hope I never encounter one.
After class, Ashvi hops up to Madden while he’s slamming his Number Pushing book shut. “Hey, want to practice again today?”
Madden lights up and snuffs out as quickly as a match in the wind. “I can’t. I’m grounded for two weeks.”
“Two weeks? How are we supposed to practice?” Ashvi’s forehead looks adorable even when it’s knotted with worry. “I really want to ace this duet. I think Mrs. S might pick us to play it at state if we do a good job.”
The scent of Jake materializes behind us; it’s a mixture of instrument grease and zit cream. The scent of a villain. “Huh. If you can’t practice the part, Malone, I’ll let Mrs. S know I can take over for you.”
Madden spins. His heart thrums like a drumroll, but his voice is as steady as a trumpet. “No. I got this. Ashvi, uh . . . yeah. I’ll meet you at the pond again today.”
Stupid music!
Now Madden is breaking our pack rules to find ways to play it.
Music is making Madden outstanding.
Music is making Madden a rebel.
Music is making Madden spontaneous.
I will find a way to quash you, music. I will. You will not confuse me with your spellbinding melodies.
Humans have this saying: dogged determination. It’s fancy human words for stubborn. That’s me. DOGged. I grumble at music, wherever it lurks: I will defeat you, foe!
I stand, I shake my whole self, and my tags jangle like the sleigh bells in band.
Aha! Music has accepted my challenge.
Madden hands the stick I chewed up to Mrs. Shadrick that afternoon. He does not make eye contact with her, a submissive stance in dog-speak. But Mrs. S chuckles, and it gives Madden permission to flicker his gaze to hers.
She’s flipping the baton to and fro. I did quite a number on that stick, if I do say so myself. It is dented and bent and splintery, and just looking at it now makes me want to chew it again. My mouth waters. The drool wants what it wants.
“Eh, I’ve seen worse,” she says.
“No way.” Madden laughs, and we take our seats.
Mrs. S taps the chewed baton on her podium to gather the attention of the pupils, and Madeleine Fleece’s hand shoots into the air. “Mrs. Shadrick? Why is your baton all . . . ruined?”
Mrs. S looks appalled, fingertips to chest, mouth wide. “Ruined? No! Just . . . decorated. By our mascot, Zeus.”
Chairs screech and instruments clang silent as all eyes turn my way. I sit taller, lift my chin higher. A mascot!
Mass. How dense an object is.
Cot. A makeshift bed.
I’ve never understood how calling someone a dense bed is a compliment, but I do know that being called a mascot is like getting a Whoossa Good Boy!
“A quick note about the upcoming holiday concert before we begin, musicians,” Mrs. S says. “You must wear all black. No exceptions. If you’re wearing it, it’s black.”
Madeleine’s hand shoots into the air. Mrs. S’s eyes barely flicker her way. “Yes, Madeleine. Sparkles are allowed. But only if they’re black.”
Madeleine’s hand slides back to her lap. Mrs. S turns on the awful tick tick tick, which I now know is called a Dr. Beat metronome. The kids straighten their backs, lift their instruments.
“Page sixty-two, kids. ‘Where the Sun Breaks Through the Mist.’ One-two-ready-PLAY!”
The song features roiling drums and cymbal crashes bursting through a brassy hum and high flutes, and it sounds exactly like sunshine surging through storm clouds, just as the song’s label says. The pupils banging the cymbals and drums smile every time they play over and through the other music, and I can’t help but smile back at them—they’re having so much fun
.
“Really hit that drum, Jimmer!” Mrs. S shouts above the climbing notes. “POUND it! It’s not going to hit you back!”
The drummer laughs and pounds the drum harder, and it’s like his booming laughter spins into a booming bass line.
“There you go!” Mrs. S says, waving that chewed-up baton about. My gnawing did nothing to stop this. “All my conducting motions won’t mean a thing if you don’t put the emotion in!”
My nose tingles; my throat tightens. I can hear it. I can hear their emotions winding through tubas and trumpets and triangles. Skipping over the silver keys on a clarinet. Curling through the mellow curves of a saxophone. Sliding out of the long, slippy trombone. Flipping off the nose tips of the flute players as they lift their heads to hit the high notes.
I can hear joy!
Humans are terrible at talking about what they feel. And since they don’t have tails or big tongues, they use these instruments to show it. For a glimmer of a moment, like the tinny triangle somehow making itself heard underneath all these other layers of music, I understand: music is emotion in sound. It is giggles and tears and sighs and wishes, and I’m here lying in a warm curl of blanket, toasted by all this joy.
DRAT YOU, MUSIC! I’M ON TO YOU! STOP WEAVING YOUR MAGIC ABOUT!
The last note ends loud, flat, fart-like, and the pupils lower their instruments and laugh. Their giggles are no longer notes hopping about. They are the red-faced breaths of kids who don’t have their instruments to translate their embarrassment into music. But there is no giggly tail wag from me. Stray notes like that hurt. Like a punch inside my head, because my hearing is so much better than human hearing.
Mrs. S grins. “That was great, guys. All the way up to that last note. That one was a real stinker.” The kids laugh, because if a music note could smell, that’s exactly what its scent would be. “We weren’t together on that last whole note. If we can nail that, we’ve got it.”
The bell shrieks, and kids begin slamming instruments into cases.
“Wait!” Mrs. S shouts, and the kids calm. They love her and her business.
Zeus, Dog of Chaos Page 8