Madden next stabs a long needle into a clear, gooey medicine and fills up the tube connected to it. I’m not going to pretend to be brave here; needles make me swoony. I can tell by the salty smell of the medicine that this is the stuff that fights his sugar. This is the medicine that helps him when he’s spiraling up up up into the too-high crystal sugary whiteness. Using clear vials and plastic tubes and tiny needles and a pinch of his skin, he connects everything, and his devices beep with satisfaction.
Madden flinches as the new medicine streams into his blood through this new port. I can smell how it stings him: tiny sweat bees nibbling beneath his skin. But the whole time he’s done this, the whole time, he hasn’t stopped dancing. He hasn’t stopped humming. He hasn’t stopped singing under his breath, “Don’t you worry ’bout a thing, mama . . .”
Madden is a fighter. He’s surviving even when his body is battling him. Does music help him fight?
Humans don’t always see it, but their bodies can only do so much. But their souls? That part of humans that makes music? Souls are unlimited.
How in the whole world of green grass am I supposed to defeat that?
★ 28 ★
Chasing My Tail
Before band the next day, Madden takes me outside for a much-needed restroom break. It’s raining. A cold, hard, pelting rain. Madden shivers beneath the hood of his windbreaker. I can smell his impatience through the downpour.
We duck back inside. I can’t help it: a shiver starts at the very top of my tail. I arch my back, stand on tiptoe, and shakeshakeshake as hard as I can to dry off. Ahhhh.
“No!” Madden hisses. “No shake, Zeus!”
But it’s too late. Once I’ve started shaking, I can’t just stop. The shake winds its way across my spine forward to my nose, then kicks into reverse and shimmies back toward my tail.
Much better.
Except now I not only have Madden’s eyes poking at me, I have a new gaze jab-jab-jabbing me. This fellow leans against a mop in a bucket.
Madden gulps. His skin is practically steaming, between the rain and his embarrassment. He turns to the fellow with the mop.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Jensen. I’ll help clean that up.”
But the guy is already churning the mop inside the bucket on wheels, shhurrp shhollpp. “No worries, kid. I’ll get it.” He grins. “You can’t put me out of a job that easy.”
A smile twitches Madden’s face. “You sure? It’s . . .” He looks around. “A lot of fur, too.”
I smile. I am able to produce copious amounts of fur.
The fellow laughs. “It is. But, hey, I got it. You go make music. I like listening to you guys. I’m always on the band hall for the 2:10 class.”
Madden’s smile makes this whole wet corner glow. “Thanks, sir!”
But his smile cracks, crumbles when we walk into the band room. It’s the first time we’ve been back since the holiday concert. Since the announcement that Page Middle is not going to the state band competition.
The mood in the room stinks like a hot sewer. The pupils fall silent when we enter; the shuffling toots and tweets that pop from each instrument fall flat like a stale, underthrown tennis ball. As Madden crosses the room, the xylophone player quietly taps out a song with his fingertips: dun dun dun, dun DA dun, dun DA dunnnnn.
I recognize the music from the first day of band, and from movie night at the prison. It’s played every time that terrifying dude in the black mask swooshes into the room in Star Wars.
Kids giggle and titter. Madden’s teeth squeak, he’s clenching his jaw so tightly as we take our seats. Ashvi wads up a sheet of paper and tosses it at the xylophone kid. “Hey!” he mutters as it bounces off his noggin.
Mrs. Shadrick rushes into the room and pretends she doesn’t see or hear any of this. She makes her way to the podium at the front, and the quiet is thick and tangled like matted fur.
She breathes deep. She smiles. She looks like a rosebud, ready to burst open in bloom.
“Kids!” she says, her voice trembling. “We’re going to state after all!”
The next few moments are so uniquely human: the words hang in the air like laundry on a clothesline, flapping. Then the room explodes—chairs scraping, music stands toppling and crashing, hands clapping, kids shouting, instruments banging and tweedling.
Jesus shoots a hand in the air. “But, Mrs. S—how?”
Mrs. S chuckles like she can’t believe it herself. “An anonymous donor was in the audience at the holiday concert. This person was so charmed by our grand finale”—here, she stops and looks directly at me, curled up on my flannel blanket. My heart speeds—“and especially with Zeus leading our impromptu jazz session, they wanted to make certain we had the chance to share that at the next level. This person is paying for us all to go to state!”
Sixty-some-odd kids turn to me. They hug me with their eyes.
“Atta boy, Zeus!”
“The comeback kid!”
“Nice job, boy! Way to turn it around.”
Madden scritches my neck and smiles smiles smiles.
He is happy with me at last!
I stand.
I pant.
I wag.
But—oh!
I scan all the happy faces behind their shining, gleaming instruments.
This means more music.
This means more outstanding.
I am not invisible in the least. And Madden won’t be, either.
Well, I’ll be muzzled. I had conquered music. And then music conquered me. My toppling of those music stands brought music back.
I am chasing my tail here, it seems.
“What’re we waiting for?” Mrs. Shadrick says. “We’ve got a state competition to win!” The kids rise, then settle, like fur fluffing off a dog bed.
The ticktock metronome clicks on. “One-two-ready-GO!” Mrs. S says, and the kids begin playing a tune that feels like a swirling stormy nighttime sky, with razor-sharp stars and a sickle moon.
A drummer hefts her puffy-soft mallet over her head, booms down on the drum that’s as big as a water barrel. The night sky rumbles, stars moving like thunder. The drummer winces; it takes a lot of muscle to make a sound that big.
“Good!” Mrs. S shouts at her. “Way to show that drum who’s boss, Jamie!”
The cymbals toss in a streak of lightning, white paint thrown across the dark canvas.
The musicians spin and whirl a few more crashing banging bars, and Mrs. S quiets them. She points her chewed-up stick (stick!) at the triangle player. “Alan, I appreciate the fact that you played that triangle loud and proud, but you’re two measures out. Check your sheet, yeah?”
The triangle pupil nods. Several members of the woodwinds bounce reeds between their lips. They look like ducks. Confounded ducks!
“And tubas,” she says, wheeling toward us. Madden and me and Jake and the others. “Do me a favor. Play A-flat at ninety-one.”
Jake’s hand shoots into the air. Mrs. S shows us her palm. “I know it’s wrong. Just play it.”
Jake, Madden, and the other tubas play an A-flat. It sounds low and sad, tummy-rumbly, like a sugar low.
A sugar low.
I sit.
My nostrils perk.
“See how bad?” Mrs. S laughs. “Sounds like an elephant sitting on a piano.” The class laughs. Madden blinks. Swallows.
“Now play it correctly, guys.”
Madden and Jake and the others shift their fingers, play a higher note, one that lives farther up in the chest, closer to the heart than the tummy.
“Excellent, tubas.” Mrs. Shadrick grins. “Okay, everyone, pay attention to that section, because it’s really easy to slide into that A-flat. In fact, let’s mark that. Pencil in a star or something to remind yourself about that tricky turn.”
The kids all grab their pencils and scratch on their paper. Madden gulps. His note is still echoing, and it’s too low. Too close to his tummy.
“Okay, let’s do that again. From the
top . . . one-two-ready-PLAY!” The kids start the piece again. Madden’s ears are spinny; I can hear them ringing from here. His salty sea level is rising. But Mrs. S is shouting, “It’s moving! It’s building! Do you feel that?” and he’s trying his hardest to blow happy heart notes that his dizzy ears can’t hear. He’s straining, swimming against the current, trying to play.
That’s it. Madden needs an alert.
I nudge his arm with my wet nose.
He keeps playing.
The ocean looms over him, the sea darkening out the sun.
I lick his jeans. They taste fuzzy and metallic, like the small swipes of blood he wipes across their seams after a million pinpricks of his fingers.
He keeps playing.
“I’m feeling it right here, guys!” Mrs. S shouts. She points to her heart with her chewed-up stick.
Mrs. S!
I weave through the band room up to her. The music winds and twists and follows my movements, like it’s teasing me, chasing me.
I paw Mrs. S’s long, swishy skirt. She immediately looks down, then—slash! She stops the song with a sharp slice of the air.
The room pulses with leftover music.
“What is it, Zeus?” Mrs. S blinks down at me, her scent full of worry, like a stagnant pond. She looks at Madden. He is pale and clammy.
“Madden, do you need to take a break?”
I can smell Jake sit up straighter from here; he smells superior, like a choice-cut filet in a gooey, too-rich sauce.
“No, ma’am,” Madden says. “I just need a few gummy bears is all. Low . . .” His voice trails off, and I sense the sea pulling him further away. I pace at the front of the room. I whine.
Madden chews a handful of gummies.
One of the clarinets asks, “Why does Madden get to eat a snack?”
“Yeah, I’m hungry, too!”
Mrs. S cuts a mean eyebrow, and they silence. “Kids, let’s move on to the next piece. Page sixty-three, please.” Paper shifts.
The shadows melt away as Madden’s blood sugar swims toward the surface, the light. I sigh, work my way back toward Madden. When I pass Ashvi, she sneaks a hand onto my neck. “Nice work, Zeus,” she whispers.
I love her.
I settle back onto my blanket just as Madden is gulping down another lump of gummy bears. Jake leans toward him and barely moves his lips as he whispers, “I can’t think of anything more disgusting than eating gummy bears and then immediately playing the tuba. SO. GROSS.”
Madden stiffens, his scent scouring like bleach.
“Okay, saxes, altos—put a little more emotion into the song this time, yes?” Mrs. S says, lifting her wrist.
“I did!” a musician from the side of the room mutters.
Mrs. S smiles wearily. “There is no I in band.”
They begin playing a new tune: soft and gentle like baby spring leaves. Like pale pink flower buds pushing through the wintry claw of once-bare branches. A new beginning.
“Nice,” Mrs. S says just over the music. “Do you feel that? Feel it. That’s pure, right there. We’re not going to label it.”
Not going to label it?
The song thaws, quiets. Mrs. S sighs. Smiles.
“Did you hear that? Guys. Those instruments sounded like you.”
The musicians smile at each other, down at their instruments, down at these twists and tangles of brass and wood.
That’s it!
All this time, I’ve been going after the things that help the music, instead of going after the music itself.
I need to destroy the instruments.
★ 29 ★
Maximum Splashage
Duck. A water fowl. Also, to stoop; to get down quickly. Also, my terrible neighbors.
I personally think two of those different meanings fit together like bacon and my face. Stooping to a duck’s level, indeed. So when we study a poem about ducks in Language Arts? Well. I am appalled.
From troubles of the world
I turn to ducks,
Beautiful comical things
Sleeping or curled
This poet, a one Mr. F. W. Harvey, goes on to explain why God fashioned ducks:
He made the comical ones in case the minds of men
Should stiffen and become
Dull, humorless and glum.
If I am understanding these words correctly, this fellow loves ducks. I feel it’s likely he’s never actually met a duck. If he had, this poem would probably be called “An Ode to Muddy Butts.”
My jowls curl into a smile. Mud Butts. I’m using that next time we’re at the pond.
And this afternoon, Page Middle School has a pep rally.
As far as I can tell, a pep rally is the closest thing to living inside a vacuum cleaner. It’s swirly and squeaky and dusty and loud and confusing and electric and exciting. I blink back the tears all this noise causes. My teeth rattle.
This pack howls and wags and the band plays short pops of songs. The students are foamy and sweaty, and then it’s over, and they are turned loose in the hallways. Turned loose.
Humans have so many bad ideas.
When we return to the band room, there are only a few minutes left in class. Mrs. S shouts above the fervor: “Great job, but listen. Those instruments look a mess. Let’s air those things out, and tomorrow will be a cleaning day. Pile them on the mat over there. Don’t forget to tag them! I said tag it, Eli! There you go. And yes, grab your mouthpieces and your reeds . . .”
The kids all shuffle to tie a paper tag to their instrument, then add it to the mat. It is a stack of buttons and brass. The bell rings, and the foamy, sweaty kids pour out the door.
In the hallway, Ashvi steps in front of me and Madden, cheeks flushed. She smells shy, hesitant, a sweet scent like the hint of coconut in lip gloss.
“So, uh, no FaceTime practice this afternoon, I guess,” she says, tilting her head back through the door at the pile of instruments on the mat.
THE PILE OF INSTRUMENTS ON THE MAT.
Madden shuffles his feet. He is as determined as a leash tug. “No, but I could . . . Icouldcallyouany-waybecausewecouldmaybetalkaboutthearrangement-orsomething?”
Ashvi smiles shooting stars. “I’d like that. I really, really want to make this duet shine for state. This could lead to something big, like a music scholarship!”
Madden nods. “Me too. I’d really like to win.”
Hmmph. We’ll see about that.
The air between them is sticky thick like glue, keeping them secured into this conversation, so I know: this is my chance.
I creeeeeep back into the room. Mrs. S is banging around in the storage closet, muttering about stupid ten-year-old instruments and no funding for music. I approach the long mat, covered in shiny music machines.
The smell of the instruments is overpowering: Skunky. Funky. Sixty different vessels for spit. I paw one of the instruments. A saxophone. It’s cold: cooler than I expected. It wobbles weirdly.
My nostrils twitch. Humans are able to pinch their noses shut when a smell overwhelms them, but dogs? We can only filter the smell through panting. Slobber. Which is what I do. Gloppy goo drips off my jowls.
I bare my teeth and start chewing on a trombone. Nothing bone about it, I’m sorry to say. It tastes metallic, like a toothache. And yeeouch—my tongue gets snagged on a slide. I quickly realize that my pointy teeth are largely ineffective against these gadgets. At least, for the amount of time I have.
No, I must use something more powerful.
Call me the Whiz Kid. Mr. Number One. I need to break out the old Yellow Hello. (“Old Yeller” in dog-speak.)
I must use . . . urine.
I take a deep breath.
I sniff and circle. Circle and sniff.
At last I find it: the optimum spot to aim for maximum splashage.
I hike my leg . . .
“ZEUS, YOU STUPID DOG! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
Jake is now somehow here, and he lunges across the room at me. I le
ap and land square in the pile of instruments. I scramble, but my foot gets tangled in a French horn. I clash-clatter through the heap. My foot is pinched, twisted. I yelp. Whine. Fall, face-first.
My backside topples against a knife-sharp something. I feel my skin slice open. Warm red soaks my fur. I whimper.
I’m trapped.
Music won.
Blackness fizzles and pops in my eyesight. I blink. Jake spins away.
Madden and Ashvi lean into my vision. I’m about to get another bad dog. It’s going to get even worse. I promised myself I wouldn’t get any more bad dogs after I saw Dave at the prison. And now Madden will return me for sure. I will be reassigned. Zeus, Dog of Failure.
But Madden yells, “Mrs. S! Come quick! Zeus is hurt!”
★ 30 ★
The Ultimate Bad Dog
The next few moments are a blur, like the slide of a trombone:
Mrs. S gently untangles me from the instruments.
Mrs. S and Mr. Nance carry me to a car. It’s small and smells like fake pine trees.
Madden calls his mother, “Meet us at the vet.”
Ashvi climbs into the back seat of the car. She presses a towel on my cut. She calls her dad. “I’m helping out. Madden says his mother can give me a ride home.”
I pant. Pain tastes cold and mushy and dry, like refrigerated canned dog food.
We arrive at the vet.
I limp inside. My back right hip burns.
We are shuffled into a cold room. At last, I have a moment to pry open my eyes. This place is . . . wow. Awful. Stark white. Smells like the fear of ten thousand dogs. This doctor should really invest in some pillows. A rug. A little air freshener. Spruce up the place. Make it less like getting sprayed with the garden hose.
The doctor approaches me with a long, shiny needle. I can practically hear it ting, slicing off a sliver of this bright white buzzing light. I gulp. I try not to growl, but my vocal cords have a mind of their own, and they grumble anyway.
I’ll be brave for needles. Madden is brave for needles.
The shot stings and burns, and somehow I’m both warm and numb at the same time. I suddenly can’t keep my eyes open. They droop. My head nods. My brain swirls. My last thought before I fall into a deep, deep sleep: I hope I don’t drool in front of Ashvi.
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