When I wake, it’s like I’m inside a machine, a constant, dull hum ringing in my ears. My dry eyes pry open. And everywhere: WHITE. I move my head to see around it, but the whiteness moves with me, scraping along the cold metal table. It’s like being lost in a snowstorm.
“I had to shave around where I put the stitches,” the doctor says, though I can’t see her.
“Well, that’s six thousand fewer hairs that’ll end up on our floor,” Madden’s mom says. She laughs at her own joke. She is trying to lighten things up, her scent dry and airy as a feather.
I can’t help my glorious mane, I think groggily.
“But he’s going to be okay?” Madden asks.
I can’t see him because WHITE EVERYWHERE AROUND ME, but he’s here! Madden is here. My tail thumps. It drums against the metal table, thud thud thud. Madden. And he’s worried about me! My heart tings like a xylophone. Just like his.
He puts his hand on my rib cage, and even though I can’t see it, I can feel how warm it is.
“Sure, he’s going to be okay,” the doctor says. “It took a few stitches, but Zeus here is all patched up. He’s just going to have to wear this cone for the next several weeks, until his stitches heal a little more.”
A cone?
A CONE?
My eyes scan the terrifying white plastic all around me: There! And there! And there! My ears tilt forward at their tips, too tall to fit inside this hollow terror. My heart thuds, and I can feel it in my crushed whiskers.
Dear Big Dog in the Sky, I’ve done it.
I’ve earned the ultimate bad dog. The biggest poke of them all.
I am wearing a cone.
★ 31 ★
Pity Smells Like a Fart
I am clunky and uncomfortable in this hunk of plastic. This cone. I run into walls. I can’t see around corners. But the greatest indignity: I can’t get my face close enough to the food bowl to eat. I scootch the bowl around the entire kitchen with the lip of the cone, like one of those big yellow machines that push dirt. I readjust. The hole of the cone fits down over the bowl, but the rim of plastic thunks hollowly on the floor, gagging me, leaving my tongue juuuuuust out of reach of the pile of food. I streeeetch it, but no. My drool splatters on my food below.
Madden sees this and slides the cone over my head and it’s like all the fresh air and green grass in the world suddenly explode wide around me and I gobblegobblegobble food because, ah, I was so hungry it had been at least two hours since I last ate.
I slurp up water. And then my stitches bite and twitch, and I curl around myself with my teeth bared, ready to chomp—
“Uh-uh-uh, Zeus,” Madden says. He slips the cone back over my head, tightens it. “This is why you’re in the cone, bud. No messing with those stitches.”
I slump. Tuck my tail. Lie on the floor. Go to school without me, I say. I . . . I have a stomachache.
Madden’s eyes soften. He sits cross-legged on the kitchen floor next to me, his knee draping over my ribs. He scratches my neck. And I’m not going to lie: it helps.
“You can’t let that cone slow you down, Zeus,” Madden says. “You’re still the same dog you always were. Just . . . accommodate. You can do it.”
Accommodate is not a fancy human word for dating, surprisingly. It means adapt.
And here’s the thing. That word coming from anyone else would likely swirl around my cone and fly out the back end, like toilet paper getting flushed. But from Madden? He knows all about accommodating for things that could slow you down.
So I stand. And as I do, my ears perk toward the hallway, toward the one creaky floorboard. Sock footsteps slide away.
I’m not the only one who heard Madden say that.
Which is good, because I’m not the only one who needed to hear him say it.
I tiptoe into school that morning. If I make myself as wee as possible, they won’t see me.
It doesn’t work. The pupils swarm me, hands on knees, eyes pooled with worry.
“Aw, Zeus, poor buddy.”
“Looooook at ’im!”
“Oh no! The Cone of Shame!”
The only thing worse than the feeling of shame is the feeling of being pitied. There’s no way around it: pity smells like a fart, green and growing.
Madden seems to understand how mortifying this is, so he changes what they see. Shifts their focus. Humans are good at doing this. It’s the ultimate oh, you only THINK I threw the stick, but it’s actually tucked here behind my back—ha-HA! “Look at his scar—it looks like a Z!”
Ashvi smiles. “Or a lightning bolt. Zeus, God of Thunder.”
God of Thunder! I like that better than God of Chaos.
And it works: the kids’ faces pull slowly upward, their foreheads loosen, and they grin.
“Yeah, dude. Totally rockin’ that scar.”
“You’re, like, the toughest guy in the room, Zeus.”
“Noice, Z. Tell folks it’s a shark bite.”
I feel myself uncurl. My tail wags. Shark bite!
We go from class to class, and the story of how my injuries happened grows with each bell ring. By the time we reach the end of the day, it seems I fought off a whole gang of kids from a rival school breaking into the band room to steal our instruments. I don’t remember any of that, but it sure sounds heroic.
But those stories die when we walk into band and Jake locks eyes with Madden. And Jake’s not the only one glaring. It seems others—even Jesus—are squeezing their anger eyes at me. The tightness in this room is shrill and high like a terrible squeaky toy. Those flashes of eyes, those flares of nostrils, remind me that the cone I’m wearing is heavy and hot.
“Class, page forty-two, please,” Mrs. S says. She is no-nonsense today. She smells tired, like a blanket covered in fur.
There’s a crack zigzagging through the room, sharp and splintery, fragile as an eggshell. There is a group of friends in here who understand me, who see my scar like a lightning bolt. And there is a group of pupils ready to kick me out of the band, their eyes stinging like hornets. It hangs in the air, the tension between these two groups.
The band begins playing. They are choppy and slow. The woodwinds have a distinct tuh sound underneath their notes today, and it sounds like spitting rather than singing. The brass section squeaks and squawks. The drumbeats feel like punches.
“Trumpets at forty-six!” Mrs. S yells over the sound. One trumpet plays right then, instead of at forty-six, and the sound is obvious, a rock stuck in a paw pad. The band member next to that fellow elbows him, mutters, “Nice job.”
“Everyone else, stay below the trumpets but keep up your articulation,” Mrs. S shouts.
The band usually sounds like a circling owl, hooting hollowly, her majestic wingspan painting moonbeams on the night. But today? Today they sound like those fat, waddling ducks, quacking over their awkward, flappy feet.
Maybe it’s just the cone?
They stop playing, and the music limps toward silence. Mrs. S breathes in, long and wordless.
“Well,” she says at last. “That was loud and ugly.”
So it wasn’t the cone.
The pupils all shift and shuffle like they have fleas:
“Mrs. S? I’m a little lost on what the tempo is.”
“I can’t hear myself play!”
“I think Caleb was hitting the metal frame of the gong, not the actual gong.”
“Yeah? Well, I could hit something else!”
“MUSICIANS!”
Mrs. S sometimes shouts over the music, but she’s never shouted over the kids. She cracks her knuckles, breathes.
“If you have a tuner, don’t forget to turn it off.”
It’s not the bit of wisdom they were hoping for. It’s not a chuckle that says hey, we’re still a team. They wanted a band joke, her usual pink bubblegum pop of humor. They wanted her to distract them, to change what they saw. To shift their focus to a shark bite instead of a snag of snarly stitches.
I know what’s causi
ng this divide. Me. I’m so far from invisible right now. I’m like a tall, tangly barbed-wire fence, keeping this team separated.
Is this how I defeat music? It somehow feels like a hollow win. Like cheating.
The pupils slowly pack away their instruments. It’s eerie quiet. Jesus raises his hand.
“Mrs. S? We’ve still got . . . what? Three weeks before state competition?”
Mrs. S nods. “Yes. But two of those weeks are our winter break.”
I didn’t think it was possible for the band room to be quieter. Colder. Ashvi sniffles. Is she chilly or . . . ?
Mrs. S’s shoulders fall. “Guys,” she says at last. “Let me be honest. If you play like that at state, we haven’t got a chance.”
★ 32 ★
Sit Outside the Music
The next day is the “last day” before winter break, but no one seems to be panicked or alarmed about that term, last day. To me, it sounds like the Big Dog is about to call us home to the Big Doghouse in the Sky. But these kids seem downright happy about it, so I chalk up this last day term to another poorly thought-out human label.
Each class is rowdier than the one before, and by the time we reach the end of the day, I’m panting from all these weird smells. Madden’s blood sugar has dipped and fluttered, but he’s stayed on top of it with just a nudge or two from me.
As we walk down the hall toward the band room, my ears perk toward my name being said inside. “Zeus.”
It is followed by the words “doesn’t belong here.”
My tail tucks.
The voice belongs to the villain himself, Jake Hermann. “Mrs. S, a lot of us don’t think Zeus is a good fit for band. Maybe he could sit in the hall while we practice?”
I’m surprised to feel my heart droop alongside my tail. Sit outside of the music?
Mrs. S pauses, then replies, “I’m not sure he could do his job from out there, Jake.”
I hear the shuffle of Jake crossing his arms through the closed door. He grumbles, “Well, it’s not working. Maybe Madden should find a different extracurricular activity.”
My stomach knots like a tangled leash. On the one hand, doing that would keep Madden out of the realm of outstanding. But on the other hand: no music!
My jowls twitch into a scowl. Caring about music again. Hmmph.
We swing through the doors at that moment. Jake jumps, burns like too-hot cocoa. But Madden didn’t appear to hear him; Madden’s scent never changes from the happy-go-lucky, last-day scent of a thrown Frisbee sailing on a sunbeam. He smiles. “Hey,” he says to the teacher and the villain.
Jake’s eyes flick like a flea between me and Madden, Madden and me. He scowls, turns on his heel, and weaves his way to his tuba.
Other pupils in the class shift their eyes away from me. From Madden. Even Ashvi turns her coppery brown eyes down. Do they agree with the villain? Are they all bad guys, too? Surely not Ashvi . . .
Madden inhales sharply, straightens. His scent has a tinge of storm cloud in it now, the electric sky just before a big rain.
And Mrs. S?
Instead of making Madden feel outstanding, she smiles tiredly. “Take your seat, Madden. We need to jump right in today.”
After class, we are free, which is a label everyone loves in all its meanings. Free may be the skippiest, leapiest, most monstrously marvelous label there is. Madden has shrugged off Jake’s glare, and we’re gleefully on our way to the car rider line when Jake slides in front of us.
“That dog’s a menace,” he says, never looking at me. Menace. It’s a label I’d give to tick bites or a thorny rosebush. Never to some dog.
Wait. Dog?
That’s me!
This cone suddenly feels like I’m carrying a brick around my neck.
“Don’t bring him to state,” Jake snarls. I suddenly remember Beef and Vader at Canine College. They often wore similar twists on their faces. “He’ll ruin everything.”
And here’s the thing:
Madden doesn’t disagree.
★ 33 ★
Comfort Is a Warm, Cozy Dog Bed
It turns out winter break is made up of a whole bunch of sleeps and things that look like dog toys and candy but really aren’t. First, Madden and his mother drag a sappy dying tree into the house. It is not for chewing. Nor is it for relieving oneself. The moment I hike my leg at it, they both yell, “NO, ZEUS!” Fine. If they want the thing to continue to smell like the too-prickly scent of pine needles, then so be it. (They also do not care for me lapping up water from the bowl they set it in. Humans are weird.)
The shadowy wrinkles on the lieutenant’s brow tell me that she doesn’t love this messy tree in her neat home, so I’m not sure why she’s agreed to it. But Madden glows and nods at this oversized branch like it’s as perfect as a long, paws-up roll in a soft swath of grass.
Then, they pull out all these knotty strings that look perfect for tug-of-war. But nope! Another “No, Zeus.” They stick one end into a wall, and wow! Lights! They hang these tiny twinkles on the tree. They look like rows of shiny foil candies hidden in the branches. So pretty I want to gobble them up. (I am not allowed to do this, I find.)
And finally, they put balls on the tree. Balls! C’mon! They had to know that I’d paw one down, take it gently between my teeth, and drop it on their laps for Fetch. So why they laugh at this suggestion is beyond me. It’s embarrassing. I tuck my tail. I mean, it is a ball.
The next few days are filled with visitors and food and boxes and singing and laughter and burning candles (humans set things on fire! On purpose! Inside their homes!). It’s warm and bright and full of calm, skippy hearts, and all of it together smells like comfort, like a nice drooly chew toy.
I almost forget I’m wearing this godforsaken cone. Almost.
And Madden almost forgets the thing he carries, too. He stops sometimes and whispers, “I wish Nana and PopPop could come,” and his pulse droops to an adagio tempo. Adagio is a label I learned in band. It means slow. The lieutenant shifts, shuffles, clears her throat. Madden is soon distracted by tubas and flutes and Ashvi.
Ashvi. The best parts of winter break are when Ashvi comes over and they practice at the pond. She and Madden practice almost every day, and by practice, I mean they talk a lot and harmonize their laughter and their heartbeats, and sometimes they even play their instruments. Ashvi talks a lot about “nailing the duet” and “winning state” and “helping me get a music scholarship to college.” And Madden nods and glows and agrees. HE AGREES.
But when we’re alone, Madden still tells me that he thinks Ashvi only likes us because of the duet. “Once we’re done with state, she won’t hang out with us anymore, Z. Just watch.”
Today, Ashvi bends over her flute case, then straightens suddenly. The wind ripples across the pond, and her hair lifts around her face. “I forgot to tell you—last night when I was practicing, I found a test strip in my instrument case. It made me think of you.” She smiles like blooms of honeysuckle, and Madden sizzles to a crisp. I could sneeze and blow his ashes away.
“I love you, Ashvi.” That’s all you have to say, dude.
He doesn’t say it.
Humans don’t know themselves very well.
It’s cold at the pond today, so cold the ducks are hiding somewhere warm. I don’t miss them, I tell myself. This peace is nice. I think Madden likes it here because there is no adult barking orders at him. I know young humans like that kind of peace. I personally find a lack of orders bewildering.
Madden and Ashvi remove their gloves, puff on their red hands. They play a few warm-up scales, and Ashvi chuckles. “I hope I can play out here. I can barely feel my upper lip.”
The coals in Madden’s chest glow red again at the mention of Ashvi’s upper lip. He smells as smoky as a campfire.
Seriously, dude. Tell her I. LOVE. YOU. It’s easy. Watch.
I stand and soften my big browns at Ashvi, making my eyes like puddles. I flutter my eyelashes, lift my jaw, and wag my tail vee
eery gently. Hey, girl. I love you.
Ashvi cocks her head at me, the red cold just under her skin warming and thawing as her grin grows. She reaches into my cone and scritches my neck.
“Aw, hey, Zeus! How’re you doing today? I love you, buddy.” She plants the tiniest of kisses on the tip of my cold nose, and my heart sings a small three-note ditty.
I shoot a single raised eyebrow at Madden. And THAT, my dude, is how it’s done. I lie back down in the crunchy grass.
They begin to practice, the warmth of their melodies making them forget the cold. Their notes echo off the water, sing into the sky. The gray clouds sway, the grass jimmies like maracas. The bare trees whistle, their claws snatching at patches of fog and dancing with them like ribbons.
Ashvi sits suddenly, looks at the collar strapped around her wrist. “Oh! It’s almost four—I gotta run! I can’t believe how the time flew by today.”
She scrambles to pack up her flute. I hear that label a lot from humans: time. Humans place a lot of importance on this idea. And here’s what I’ve noticed about music: it makes humans forget about time. The slices of a day that humans use to mark their march forward don’t seem to exist—at least, not in the same way—inside a song. Music expands and fills and paints a space, and people spin like the orbs in Madden’s room inside it, suspended in the moment.
Ashvi clicks her instrument case shut and hops on her seat to face Madden.
“Madden, listen. You know I love Zeus, right?”
I smile. Wink at her.
But Madden gulps, and his voice comes out thin and unsteady, like pond ice. “Yeah?”
“So I don’t know how to tell you this, but . . . well, some of the band members are upset with him. They don’t want him to come to state. I mean, he keeps acting out, and he’s wearing that obvious cone, and . . .” Her voice blows away on the breeze. “I mean, they’re wondering: He could just stay home for a few hours, right?”
Zeus, Dog of Chaos Page 13