Chester and Gus

by Cammie McGovern

  A machine in his hand roars to life. I know it’s a chainsaw because I got scared of one cutting down a tree in Penny’s neighbor’s yard. But this person isn’t cutting down trees. This person is cutting down people.

  I run away as fast as I can. I don’t stop running because the chainsaw guy is running too.

  Lots of people are running and laughing like this is funny but it’s not funny. I run farther than anyone until my leash gets caught on something and I lurch back. I’m stuck. I have no choice. I have to scramble under the nearest bush I can find.

  Behind me someone is yelling, “There’s no chain in his chainsaw!”

  A woman is laughing. “Don’t be stupid, you guys. Come back!”

  I don’t know who she’s calling stupid but I’m never going back. Never. I can’t. My legs won’t move now. I’m safe and hidden here.

  I wait for a while and then I remember Gus. What if he’s alone somewhere in these woods with this crazy chainsaw running around?

  I hear Penny’s voice in my head. When loud noises happen, your person will need you. They have to be able to find you afterward. Now my heart is really beating.

  Gus is somewhere. Gus needs me.

  It’s dark out now. Very dark. He might have dropped my leash, but I’m the one who lost him. I have to leave my safe spot. I have to go back out there and find him.

  I’m hiding so well, so deep in the bushes that it’s hard to get out. When I finally do, I realize something terrible: My leash is tangled in the bushes. I try walking one way and then another. The bush won’t let me go. I pull hard until my neck hurts. I look back and see the white tunnel of fog is far away.

  The chainsaw starts up and it doesn’t scare me because I have something to be more scared of now. I’m stuck in some bushes, far away in the woods where no one can find me.

  Gus might be lost, but I’m even more lost.

  The chainsaw man waiting outside the fog tunnel has chased at least four different groups coming out, maybe more. From here, he doesn’t look so scary because I’m so far away. From here, the people look silly to be so surprised and scream so loud. I start to understand why Gus likes coming here. Feeling scared is fun if you know you’re going to be all right afterward.

  Except it’s different out here where no one can see me or hear me barking. I don’t know if anyone will ever find me. This is scary in a whole different way. They might look for me for a while and then give up. They might think I ran away for good, which happened in a movie I watched once with Penny. A dog and a cat ran away together and survived for a whole winter, catching their food and curling up together at night for warmth. If no one finds me, I’ll be stuck here all winter long, with no cat friend to sleep with and no way to eat unless something dies in front of me. I’m really crying now. Barking and crying.

  More people come out of the tunnel. More screams. More fog. More buzzing chainsaw. So loud that no one can possibly hear me.

  I hear only myself and then, out of nowhere—I can’t believe it!—there’s a hand on my back.

  There’s a smell I love all around me. There’s a crazy word I’ve heard him use once before when he was looking out his window. “GIT! GIT!”

  It’s Gus, and he’s touching me with both of his hands like he was just as scared as I was, and now leashes aren’t good enough, he wants to hold my fur.

  In the distance, I hear Marc. “Sara! Over here! I think Gus found him!”

  I hear their steps.

  They’re both far away. They’ve been out here looking for me. Combing through the woods. My family! My people!

  Sara’s voice gets closer. “Gus found him?” She’s breathless from racing around in the dark. She can hardly believe it.

  None of us can.

  “Yes.” Marc laughs, next to us now, petting me too. “Yes!”

  Sara forgets the rule and hugs Gus hard. “Oh, baby, you found him. How did you do it?”

  How to Find a Dog

  THIS IS THE QUESTION EVERYONE KEEPS asking: How did Gus find me?

  Over breakfast the next day, Marc shakes his head. “I still don’t get it. It was so loud out there, with the chainsaw and everyone screaming, we couldn’t even hear each other, so how’d he do it?”

  “It’s more evidence for my theory,” Sara says. She’s standing at the sink, drinking from her mug.

  “What theory is that?”

  “I think these two have a special connection.”

  Marc smiles, then raises his eyebrows. I’m learning to read people’s faces better. This one means: I don’t think so.

  “I’m not kidding,” Sara says, because she can understand what his face is saying too. “Think about it, Marc. Gus keeps surprising us in lots of ways. Like when he told Chester to pray in front of the class. But in other ways too. The way he was so much braver yesterday than the year before. Why do you think that is?”

  “Because he’s getting older?”

  “Right, but I think there’s something else going on. He’s taking in more of the world around him. He’s more aware of things. We used to think he just lived in his own world, and that isn’t really true anymore.”

  Marc’s eyebrows are still up in the middle of his forehead. “Yeah—maybe a little. But I don’t know if we can say that’s Chester’s doing, Sare.”

  “I think they communicate with each other. In some way the rest of us don’t understand.”

  “Sara—”

  “I do, Marc. Why do you always roll your eyes at my ideas?”

  “I’m not rolling my eyes. I think we found a sweet dog and Gus is learning to tolerate him better, which is great. It means eventually maybe he’ll start tolerating more new things in his life. But that doesn’t make him Dr. Doolittle.”

  Who’s Dr. Doolittle? I ask Gus.

  He doesn’t answer.

  This has been the only sad part about everything that happened yesterday. After we were all so happy and relieved to have found each other, Gus didn’t say anything the whole way home.

  After Sara helped him get undressed and into bed, I stayed in his room, hidden in the corner so she wouldn’t see me and call me back downstairs.

  How did you find me? I whispered in the dark. How did you do it?

  I know his sense of smell isn’t as good as mine—no human can smell the way a dog can—but maybe he has a different sense that works better. Hearing, maybe? Or seeing in the dark. I wanted to know.

  Can you tell me, Gus? Maybe it means you’re really good at something and no one knows it yet. Maybe you have a special talent for hearing a dog cry even if there’s a chain saw nearby.

  Nothing.

  Gus? I said again. Do you want me to let you go to sleep?

  He did—I could tell from his grunt into his pillow. Well, thank you for saving my life, I said and left the room.

  Quiet Mouth

  ALL DAY, GUS SEEMS JUMPIER AT school. He can’t stop making his clicking noises. Ms. Cooper touches his shoulder and whispers “Quiet mouth,” which stops him for a little while, but not too long. Today she’s saying “Quiet mouth” all day long until he’s rocking and chewing on his shirt collar and then she starts saying “Quiet body,” too.

  On the walk to Ms. Watusik’s office, he stops halfway there and starts crying, though it doesn’t look like he’s hurt. I nudge his leg with my nose and put my face between his knees. Eventually he keeps walking, but still I don’t know what is wrong.

  The only place he seems okay all day is at lunch in the cafeteria visiting Mama.

  “How’s my boy? You have a fun weekend?” she asks him. Mama always asks him questions like this, like she’s never noticed that he doesn’t answer. I look at him to see if he’ll say something this time. I want him to tell his friend a story—to say, “Fright Fest,” or “Dog lost.” With Mama, that’s all it would take. She’d understand the rest, I think.

  She’d say, “Oh, you poor babe,” looking at him, not at me.

  That’s another thing I like about Mama. Sh
e hardly notices me. Whenever we come back here, she looks only at Gus. I want him to say something so I can understand what’s going on today and why he’s so distracted and mad.

  He doesn’t.

  Eventually, Mama starts humming one of her songs and says, “You better get going back to your class. You don’t want to be late.”

  Gus doesn’t move.

  He bounces up and down on her spongy black mat. He’s done this before, but today is different. He wants to tell her something, I can tell.

  He doesn’t want to leave until he gets it out.

  Except then Ms. Cooper calls from the doorway. “Come on, Gus, it’s class time.”

  She’s behind him, so she can’t see how he’s about to explode. She doesn’t know how much Gus loves standing here with Mama.

  “We’ve got three seconds, Gus, do you want me to count?”

  No, I think. I see his hands curl up into fists. He hits his leg, hard, with one of them.

  “One . . .”

  I don’t understand Ms. Cooper. She’s counting but also looking at her phone. She doesn’t see what’s happening.

  “Two . . .”

  “I don’t think so, sweetheart,” Mama says. “Not in my dish room. No counting like that in Mama’s dish room.”

  Ms. Cooper looks up, surprised. I don’t think a dishwashing person is supposed to tell a teacher person what to do.

  Mama nods at Gus with one of her big smiles, where you can see that she’s missing a lot of teeth. “You’re okay, sweetheart. You go on now and come back tomorrow. You tell me about your weekend then.”

  Gus takes one step back and then another. I can’t get over it. I wonder how Mama knows that Gus hates when people count to three. I wonder if Mama hears what he’s thinking the same way I do, or maybe even better than I do.

  A Surprise

  SARA PICKS ME UP EARLY FROM school, right after lunch. When we get in the car she says I have a surprise waiting for me at home.

  A surprise? For me?

  Recently, she bought a new brand of treats that I don’t like as much as my old ones. I don’t know if she’s noticed that I shake my paw less enthusiastically for these treats than I did for my old ones. But maybe she has! Maybe we understand each other better than I thought!

  You bought my old treats? I say. But no.

  It’s a different surprise. We walk inside the house, and sitting on the sofa with her hands folded over her knees is Penny! I bounce all around until she sits down on the floor and I can slip into her lap. She hugs my neck and kisses me and says she’s so happy to see me.

  “We had a little bit of a scare over the weekend,” Sara says and tells Penny the whole story—of the Spooky Walk and the fog tunnel and getting lost in the woods.

  I look at Penny’s face. She doesn’t like this story. It makes her nervous, like maybe I’m living with people who don’t keep track of me.

  Then Sara tells the happy ending: “It was Gus who found him! Gus! In the dark with so much noise and confusion and zombies running around. Even Marc and I were a little disoriented, but Gus wasn’t. We still don’t know how he did it.”

  I can tell that to Penny, this isn’t a story with a happy ending. I lick her hand. I’m worried that she’s going to get mad at Sara and tell her I should never go on any Spooky Walks again. I want to tell her it’s good that I went! Gus and I learned a lot about each other! I have to do scary things if I want to help Gus!

  Then Penny surprises me. She doesn’t say anything about Sara’s story. Instead she says, “That’s fine, but I wanted to find out how you’re doing on Chester’s reading program. I’ve had time to do more research, and I’ve got some new materials for you.”

  Penny picks up a tote bag beside her filled with what look like books and flash cards.

  Sara looks surprised too. “Oh, Penny, I’m sorry. I have to be honest and tell you we haven’t done anything with Chester’s reading program. We’ve been focusing on Gus, who’s having a hard time in school right now. Chester is helping with that.”

  Penny looks confused. “Is he going to school with Gus?”

  “Just a few hours a day as a therapy dog. He’s there to help Gus interact with other children.”

  “I don’t understand. He’s not certified for that.”

  “He doesn’t have to be. He mostly sits with Gus in the classroom and cafeteria as a way to encourage other kids to get to know Gus.”

  “So he’s not home with you during the day? He doesn’t have time to work on flash cards?”

  “That’s right.” Sara smiles, grateful that Penny seems to understand. “He’s gone most of the day and after dinner, we usually have family time. We wouldn’t want to work him at night after he’s spent most of his day working.”

  “But you just said, he’s mostly sitting at school. He’s not really working.”

  I know Penny is worried that I’m wasting my talents and all her training. I move closer and lick her hand again. I put my chin on her knee. I do more than that. I try to tell her, It’s important what I do. Gus has people he’s almost friends with at school. I’m helping him with that.

  “Maybe you thought that teaching a dog to read was a silly parlor trick.”

  “No, Penny, it’s not that—”

  “It’s not, though. It really isn’t. Scientists are saying this might be our best chance to achieve real communication with animals. They’ve spent decades teaching sign language to gorillas and it’s only worked in a few cases because apes don’t inherently care about humans that much. Dogs do. Dogs care more about their relationships with people than any other animal does. They’d do anything to be able to talk to us.”

  “I understand that, Penny, but—”

  “A dog like Chester doesn’t come along very often. Some people would say you only find a dog as intelligent as Chester once in a lifetime. If he could learn to read, books would be written about him. I believe it’s possible and people I’ve spoken to think it’s possible too—”

  Sara is tired, I can tell. It’s been a long, confusing week full of breakthroughs and breakdowns. “We’re trying to teach our son to speak, Penny. We want to know what he’s thinking. We love Chester very much, and feel like he’s part of our family now, but do we want to put all our effort into teaching him to read and talk too? I’ll be honest with you, Penny. No, not really.”

  Penny nods. She’s mad, I can tell. I want to make her feel better. I think Gus is the one I’m meant to be with! I tell her. I think he’s my person! I’m not sure of it yet, because sometimes we still don’t understand each other, but sometimes we do! It’s amazing! We talk to each other!

  I don’t tell her that she’s right about one thing: I would love, more than anything, for the people I love to understand what I’m saying. And except for Gus, occasionally, mostly no one does.

  My Job

  DOING MY JOB WELL IS THE best way I can reassure Penny that I’m not wasting my talents. The problem is I’m not so great at it yet. My main job is helping Gus get to know other children in the class, which I thought would be easy because so many of them (especially girls) like sitting on my mat with me. Some of them use my stomach as a pillow, which always makes me nervous. Dogs aren’t great pillows because we have to breathe and scratch sometimes.

  It also turns out that even though a lot of kids come over to pet me, Gus still doesn’t notice them much. Sometimes he hums louder to drone out anything they might say. Because she wants to get more kids talking to Gus, Ms. Winger added to the list of rules above my mat.

  Now below the two big rules:

  You must finish all your work before you visit with Chester.

  Absolutely no food or treats for Chester.

  She has added:

  While you sit with Chester, remember to include Gus.

  I know the rules because Ms. Cooper reads them to every child who comes over. She’s helping me do my job, I guess. Some kids will talk a little bit to Gus. They’ll ask questions like “Have you e
ver trimmed Chester’s toenails?” or “Do you ever put clothes on him?” Both of these are terrible ideas, but still it makes me sad that Gus doesn’t even seem to hear them.

  I try to think of ways I can help Gus notice other kids and play with them more. I see Ms. Winger try too, but it’s hard. She pairs him with Freddy, the nicest boy in the class, to play a game with, and Gus sits, twisted around in his seat the whole time to stare out the window.

  There is one boy Gus notices, though I wish he wouldn’t. His name is Ed and he isn’t very nice. He still thinks it’s unfair that Gus gets to have a dog in school. Sometimes he stops by our corner to say so. “I’d love to bring my dog, that’s for sure, but I can’t. Some people don’t have to follow the rules, I guess.”

  Ed scares me on the playground. He pretends he’s being nice and starts games like Trip Tag, which is like Freeze Tag except if you’re frozen you’re allowed to trip people running by you. It’s an awful game. The teachers don’t stop him because he’s smart and plays it away from where they’re standing. Sometimes during Trip Tag, Ed will hide inside a tunnel under the climbing structure, waiting for other kids to run by so he can jump out and scare them. It reminds me of the Spooky Walk and I hate it. I wish Gus didn’t notice Ed, but unfortunately he does. Gus stands near that tunnel and waits for Ed to scare someone. I didn’t understand why he liked it until I went to Fright Fest, and now I do: Ed is like the zombies in the park. Ed scares me, I once told Gus and he didn’t answer. He only rocked faster in his chair because he likes hearing Ed’s name.

  Instead of Ed, I wish Gus would notice the one girl who comes over to my corner and talks to me every day. Her name is Amelia and she doesn’t have any friends either.

  Amelia is very smart, I think, but she cries a lot in school, which you’re not supposed to do when you’re in fifth grade. I don’t think she can help it. She hates things like changes in the schedule, which Gus hates too, but usually he doesn’t cry, he just squeaks and flaps his hands and sometimes he refuses to move. One thing that helps Amelia is burying her face in the side of my neck and pretending she’s not crying. I don’t know if she fools other people or not. She doesn’t fool me because I can feel her tears.