“Oh,” Jane said. “Oh, isn’t he the most beautiful dog ever!”
Melissa raised a crooked eyebrow at her while Eddie dug around in the box and found a note from Ms. Schnabel.
“Hey,” he said happily. “This note’s addressed to me!”
“It’s addressed to both of us,” Melissa said.
“Well, my name’s first, so I’m probably supposed to read it first.”
“Interesting, but wrong,” Melissa said as she made a grab for the note in his hand. Eddie dodged her grasp, but she managed to get a hold of the back of his shirt. They scuffled over it for a good ten minutes until Melissa managed to pin Eddie to the ground with her foot and pry the note out of his fingers.
“Dear Melissa,” the note read. “I’m going to assume that Jane is too busy with her new puppy to read this note, and that you managed to best Eddie in whatever battle the two of you got into. I’m gone and I won’t be coming back. Being a pirate is so much more gratifying than teaching fifth graders (no offense). But on my travels, I discovered this puppy. Actually, he was on The Wild Three O’Clock for a whole week before I even noticed him. A pirate ship is no place for a dog, so I thought I’d send him to Jane, seeing as how Jane has always wanted a dog of her own.
Yours at sea,
Captain Penzing the Horrific.
P.S. The dog’s name is Dirt.
P.P.S. The weather machine has been immensely helpful. Much more so than Ebb, Jeb, and Flotsam, who are the three most worthless pirates I’ve ever met, excluding the three of you.
P.P.P.S. I am NEVER EVER giving the weather machine back, so there.”
“The nerve of her,” Eddie said self-righteously. “Treating other people’s property with such a lack of respect.” Melissa ripped Captain Penzing’s note into shreds and scattered the pieces across the post office lawn. Then the Grimlet twins fixed their attention on Dirt, who was wriggling in Jane’s arms and giving her excited puppy kisses.
“He’s not so bad,” Melissa said. “For such a plain dog.”
“I suspect he might even be useful,” Eddie added. “Useful to us, I mean.”
Jane was too busy with her new puppy to notice that they were talking to her. The Grimlet twins weren’t used to having Jane ignore them, and they didn’t like it one bit.
“You know, Jane,” Eddie said loudly. “There are a lot of crime-fighting dogs in the world. But I’ve never heard of a crime-causing dog. If you let us work with him, we could turn him into the world’s first canine criminal mastermind.”
“He could break into people’s homes and destroy their rugs, pee on their slippers, and steal their newspapers. Or we could teach him to chase cats up trees so that firemen would have get their ladders out to rescue them,” Melissa suggested. “Let’s go to our house and start making plans. You can come over, Jane. We’ll have snacks, and we’ll even let you see our secret lair if you want to.”
“No, thanks,” Jane said, looking up from her puppy for the first time since she’d gotten him. Her face was a happy mix of amazement and joy.
“What do you mean?” Melissa demanded. She had never in a million years guessed that Jane wouldn’t accept an invitation to enter their creepy black house. “We’re giving Dirt a chance to be something special, you know.”
“He doesn’t need to be special,” Jane said firmly. “All he needs to be is my dog.” And with that, she walked home with Dirt cuddled in her arms.
And so Dirt Doe became the newest member of the Doe household. “Perhaps Jane will become a great dog trainer!” her father said as he watched his middle daughter walk Dirt in the backyard on a leash. Her mother nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. I think she’s found her special skill at last!”
This proved not to be the case, although it was not necessarily Jane’s fault. Dirt wasn’t the kind of dog who paid much attention to dog training. He only did what he was told occasionally, and that was only if Jane was offering him a dog treat at the time. He liked to bark loudly early in the morning, had a minimal interest in going outside to use the bathroom, and a maximal enthusiasm for chewing up shoes, paintbrushes, and scientific calculators. He also liked to dig up the flower garden and steal food from the table.
Grandmama Julietta Augustina quickly developed a soft spot for Dirt. When Mad Captain Penzing the Horrific left town, Salzburg decided to go with her. Grandmama wasn’t willing to admit how much she missed the parrot, but she did find that Jane’s dog helped fill the parrot-sized hole that Salzburg had left in her life. She often took Dirt for walks when Jane was busy at school and had been known, from time to time, to take him to the mayor’s office with her.
“Not much of a dog if you ask me,” Grandmama said fondly as she watched him knock over one of Anderson Brigby Bright’s paint cans and track photorealistic green footprints all over the living room rug.
Jane didn’t mind Grandmama’s words, because Dirt was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to her—and unremarkably, Jane and Dirt became the best of friends.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Like many writers, I am deeply insecure and I would undoubtedly still be writing and rewriting the first chapter of this book if not for the encouragement of many fine people.
One of the finest is my agent, Faye Bender, who is not just a fantastic human being but is also so incredibly good at what she does. For her patience with my endless questions, her cheerful support, and her ability to arrange surprise cupcake deliveries, she has earned my undying devotion.
Then there is my equally wonderful editor, Nancy Conescu, who has been an enthusiastic advocate of this story, and whose keen eye and fabulous revision notes have made Remarkable so much more than it was when she first saw it. Additionally, I’d like to send a big thank you to the people at Dial/Penguin for making me feel so welcome as one of their new authors. In particular, I’d like to thank Andrew Harwell, Lauri Hornik, Rosanne Lauer, and Don Weisberg.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank Meg Mitchell Moore, who did a lot of hand-holding during the querying and submission process, and her agent, Elisabeth Weed, who very kindly introduced me to Faye.
I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to my beloved writing groups. From the Cambridge Center of Adult Education’s Zen Writing Group, I want to think Brina Cohen, Celia Judge, Dorothy Irving, Rick Stafford, Margaret Gooch, and Mordena Babich—who were there when Remarkable was started. And from my Santa Fe writing group, many thanks to Debra Auten, Hope Cahill, Janie Chodosh, Catherine Coulter, Jenny Owings Dewey, Nadine Donovan, Ana June, Karen Kraemer, Barbara Mayfield, and Lyn Searfoss, who gave me the encouragement, support, and suggestions I needed to finish it. Additionally, I’d like to thank my fellow Apocalypsies (an online group of debut novelists), for helping me find my way through revisions, copyedits, cover art, and release dates.
Margaret Foley and Jon Wilkins deserve special thanks for proofreading and commenting on several drafts of Remarkable (sometimes on very short notice over holiday weekends) before it went out into the world. And I’d like to thank Jon again, for years of support and faith in my writing. I also owe a thank you to Dash Foley-Wilkins, for his patience and for his many, many story suggestions (particularly those pertaining to pirates).
And finally, I’d like to thank my dogs, who made sure my writing days were never lonely (or particularly quiet or chaos-free). Robbie, Sandy, Matthew, and Luke—you are very good dogs. Oh-yes-you-are-good-dogs-oh-yes-you-are.
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