Maybe Ribsy had found a home he liked better. Maybe he had found a home with some rich boy, who fed him T-bone steaks instead of canned dog food and horsemeat. Maybe the rich boy’s mother let him sleep on the foot of the rich boy’s bed. Maybe the rich boy’s family let him ride in their new car all the time without making him chase through the rain first.
While the piano in the Saylors’ living room went plink, plunk, plunk, Ribsy sat down in front of the refrigerator in the Saylors’ kitchen. Joe, who was turning out to be the kind of boy Ribsy expected him to be, obligingly opened the refrigerator door and, after looking around, helped himself to a handful of raw hamburger, which he held out to Ribsy.
Mrs. Saylor’s voice came from the living room. “Is that you, Junior?”
“Yeah,” answered Joe above the plink, plunk, plunk of the piano. Only then did he remember to slam the refrigerator door.
“What are you doing in the refrigerator?” asked his mother, as the piano stopped plinking and plunking.
“I’m not in the refrigerator. I’m in the kitchen.” Joe laughed at his own joke, and did not bother to mention that he was feeding a stray dog, who was gobbling the raw meat out of his hand.
“None of your back talk. Where have you been all this time? Go on, Darlene, go on with your practicing. I was worried sick about you,” said Mrs. Saylor.
“I went to the high school football game like I told you,” answered Joe, as Ribsy finished the last of the hamburger and licked his hand to make sure he hadn’t missed any. “I asked if I could go, and all you said was we didn’t have any money for football games. I didn’t need any money, so I went.”
“How did you get in?” asked Mrs. Saylor. “Go on, Darlene.”
“Same way I always do,” answered Joe, wiping his hand on the seat of his pants and going into the living room. Ribsy stayed behind to lick his chops. “I hung around until one of the gatekeepers let me go in. Nobody cared. The stadium is never full for high school games.”
“Joe Saylor, Junior!” exclaimed his mother. “Just look at you! Now tie your shoe and tuck your shirttail in and go wash your face. And Darlene, go on with ‘The Pussycat Waltz.’ I am not paying out perfectly good money for your piano lessons and then not have you practice.” Mrs. Saylor was inclined to be snappish when she was trying to get Darlene to practice.
Ribsy was curious about these people in the living room, so he followed Joe to investigate. A girl a couple of years younger than Joe was sitting on a round piano stool. She was a thin, wiry girl, who appeared to be all knees, elbows, and ponytail. Her hair was full of plastic—a plastic bandeau, plastic barrettes, and a plastic clasp around her ponytail. Mrs. Saylor was standing beside her pointing to the music on the piano and saying, “Here I scrimp and pinch to give you piano lessons—” Then she saw Ribsy. “Joe Saylor, Junior! What is that dog doing in my house?” she demanded.
Ribsy knew from the way she pointed at him that she was talking about him. He distrusted the tone of her voice, and his tail drooped.
“I dunno.” Joe shrugged his shoulders. “He just followed me.” He was watching his sister twirl around on the piano stool with her ponytail flying. If she twirled in the same direction long enough, the top of the stool would come unscrewed and she would fall over. Darlene, however, had it nicely timed. Just as the stool was about to topple she began to twirl in the opposite direction.
“Well, he can just follow you right out,” snapped his mother, who was finding her son exasperating.
Joe heaved a gusty sigh. “Oh, all right. Come on, dog.”
Obediently Ribsy followed Joe to the back door and allowed himself to be let out. “Don’t mind her,” whispered Joe, whose shirttail was still hanging out. “She just talks that way when she’s trying to make old Darlene practice.”
The hamburger in Ribsy’s stomach was filling but cold. Not having anything better to do, he sat down on the back porch. He liked Joe and he liked hamburger, so he decided he might as well stay for another meal. If he sat by the door long enough, the boy was sure to come out again.
Plink, plunk, plunk went the piano once more. As the chill left the hamburger in his stomach, Ribsy curled up beside the washing machine and dozed off until the woman’s angry voice inside the kitchen woke him.
“Joe Saylor, Junior!” she was saying. “Do you mean to say you fed perfectly good hamburger to a dog? Why, that was our supper. Now what are we going to have?”
The piano playing stopped. “Mama, can we have pizza pie?” Darlene asked eagerly. “I’ll go to the store.”
“It’s after dark and, besides, I don’t have money for pizza pie,” answered her mother crossly. “Just wait till your father hears about this.”
Ribsy did not care for the sound of an angry voice, so he got up, shook himself, and took a stroll around the neighborhood. He barked at a smug-looking cat sitting on a porch. When it did not budge he went on his way. It was no fun to try to chase a cat that would not run. He exchanged sniffs and tail wags with a couple of dogs, who did not seem to mind his being there, and after he had satisfied himself that the neighborhood was reasonably friendly, he trotted back to the Saylors’ house and curled up by the washing machine again. The smell of macaroni and cheese that came from the kitchen did not tempt him, because his stomach was full of hamburger, so he went to sleep.
In the morning, when he heard people stirring in the kitchen and smelled coffee, Ribsy sat hopefully by the back door waiting for someone to open it. He even whimpered a few times, but there was so much noise inside, with people arguing, the radio playing, and Darlene dawdling over the practicing she had not finished the day before, that no one heard him.
Mrs. Saylor had not forgotten about the hamburger. “And he fed perfectly good hamburger to a stray dog!” She could not get over it. “Sometimes I wonder what goes on in that boy’s head.”
“Kids like dogs,” said a man’s voice. “Maybe we should get him one.”
Plink, plunk, plunk. Plink, plunk, plunk.
“Now if that isn’t just like a man,” said Mrs. Saylor. “I have enough trouble buying groceries for four people and paying for Darlene’s piano lessons and making payments on the TV without taking on a dog.”
“It is now thirty-four minutes past seven,” said the radio.
“Look,” said the man. “I’ve got trouble of my own. One of my best customers brings a dress in to be cleaned, and now I can’t find the belt. If I don’t find that belt by the time she comes in to get her dress this afternoon, I’m going to lose her business, and we can’t afford that. The dog is gone and we didn’t starve, so forget it.”
“It is now thirty-five minutes past seven,” said the radio.
But the dog was not gone, as Joe discovered when, sometime later, he barged out the back door with his lunch bag in hand. He was going so fast he fell over Ribsy and dropped his lunch, which Ribsy began to sniff. His nose detected the fragrance of bologna.
Joe picked himself up and rescued his lunch. “You still hanging around?” he asked, as he started off to school.
Ribsy followed close to Joe with his nose against the lunch bag.
Joe understood. He opened the bag and took out half a bologna sandwich, which he handed to Ribsy, who wolfed it down before he caught up with Joe. He enjoyed following a boy to school again, and pranced along with his ears and tail erect. When they reached the school, Joe pointed to a sign on the metal fence around the school yard. “See. It says no dogs allowed.” He stooped to pet Ribsy before he went through the gate.
Ribsy sat down for an enjoyable twenty minutes of watching what went on inside. Girls jumped rope or played kickball. Boys tossed a ball back and forth or chased one another. Girls squealed, boys yelled, Ribsy barked. It was a very pleasant interval, until the buzzing of a bell put an end to it all and the boys and girls disappeared into the building.
Ribsy then explored the neighborhood by daylight, took a nap by the school-yard fence, and spent recess and lunch period watching the boys
and girls. Several times Joe spoke to him through the fence. The day seemed familiar to Ribsy, because he had followed its same pattern with Henry Huggins so many times. After school he followed Joe home just as he had followed Henry many times. It all seemed so natural that Ribsy was beginning to forget Henry and to feel that he belonged to Joe.
Joe seemed pleased to have Ribsy at his heels.
Before he opened the back door he whispered, “Come on in, and let’s see what happens.”
Ribsy followed Joe into the kitchen, where Mrs. Saylor was ironing.
“Junior, tuck your shirttail—is that dog still here?” she demanded.
This time Joe tucked his shirttail in. “I guess he likes it here.”
“Don’t you think he belongs to someone?” asked Mrs. Saylor.
“He sure didn’t act like it when he started following me around in the stadium,” said Joe.
Ribsy wagged his tail. Mrs. Saylor had not sounded as cross as she had the day before, when she was worn out trying to get Darlene to practice.
“How do you expect to feed a dog?” Mrs. Saylor wanted to know.
“He’s only a medium-sized dog,” Joe pointed out. “And I found twenty-one cents in the stadium after the football game.”
“Twenty-one cents. How far do you think twenty-one cents will go these days?” his mother asked.
“It ought to buy one can of dog food.”
Mrs. Saylor shook her head and sighed, but she did not order Ribsy out of the house.
“Are we going to get to keep him?” asked Darlene, when she came home from school a few minutes later and found Ribsy in the kitchen.
“Ask your father,” answered her mother. “Now wash your hands and practice your piano lesson.”
That evening Ribsy was served a supper of beets, cold leftover macaroni and cheese, and a crust of bread and margarine that Darlene had refused to eat, even if eating crusts was supposed to make her hair curly. Ribsy, who was not a choosy dog, had eaten meals that he had enjoyed more. After supper he slipped into the living room and curled up on the carpet. He might as well assume he was welcome until someone told him he was not.
Mr. Saylor settled back in his favorite chair, the one with the sagging springs, to read the evening paper while Mrs. Saylor occupied herself pasting her Blue Chip stamps in a little book. Mr. Saylor was in a good humor, because he had found the belt of his customer’s dress that day. Joe sat down on the floor in front of the television set to watch a detective program. Darlene chose that moment to practice “The Pussycat Waltz.”
“Dad, make her stop,” said Joe. “She hasn’t practiced all day, and the minute I want to look at TV she has to start banging.”
“I’m not banging,” said Darlene, and added, “Your old program bothers me when I’m practicing.” Plink, plunk, plunk. She made a great show of sitting up straight and holding her wrists up properly while she played.
“You’re just trying to be a pest,” Joe informed her, “and to get out of doing your homework.”
Plink, plunk, plunk. “Dad, Juney’s bothering me when I’m trying to practice.” Darlene knew it especially annoyed her brother to be called Juney.
“Cut it out, you kids.” Mr. Saylor was paying very little attention to his children. He was used to bickering.
“Pest,” hissed Joe. Gunfire rattled from the television set.
“You’re the pest,” said Darlene, without missing a beat. “Won’t let me practice in peace.”
“Ha,” said her brother. Darlene didn’t fool him one minute.
Ribsy did not care for the piano playing, but he did not mind the bickering. He had heard the boys and girls in his neighborhood talk in the same tone of voice many times.
Suddenly Mr. Saylor looked up from his paper. “Well, what do you know!” he said. “That mutt you picked up has his picture in the paper. Right here in the sports section.”
“Hey, let me see.” Joe leaped to his feet and peered over his father’s shoulder. There was his dog, photographed at the moment he tripped the football player. It was all in the picture—the running dog, the falling player, the rolling ball.
By now Mr. Saylor was reading the story under the picture. “It says the dog belongs to Joe Saylor, and gives our address. Did you tell them that, Junior?”
“Sort of, I guess,” admitted Joe.
Mr. Saylor read on. “It beats me the way newspapers can get things mixed up. It says here the dog’s name is Junior.” He laughed. “A dog named Junior. That’s a good one.”
“Yeah.” Joe laughed, too, less heartily. He felt embarrassed to be found out, but at the same time he was pleased. He could cut out the picture and take it to school to show everyone how important his dog was. That is, he could if his mother let him keep the dog. This was a question he was carefully avoiding. The longer the dog was allowed to hang around, the better his chances of keeping him. So far things looked hopeful.
Mrs. Saylor finished fitting a row of Blue Chip stamps onto a page of the little book before she came to look over her husband’s shoulder along with Darlene. “Oh, that dog,” was all she said.
Joe stooped to pet the dog he was now sure belonged to him. It said so right there in the newspaper. That ought to convince his family. Ribsy looked up gratefully and thumped his tail on the floor.
Then the telephone rang. “I’ll get it,” shrieked Darlene, who always liked to get to the telephone first. “It’s for you, Dad,” she said, disappointed.
“Who is it?” her father asked.
“I don’t know. Some boy asked for Joe Saylor.”
Mr. Saylor sank back in his chair. “You get it, Junior. It’s probably some kid from school.”
“Oh, that’s right,” said Darlene. “Some people do call Juney Joe. I forgot.”
Joe tried to trip his sister on the way to the hall to answer the telephone. “Hello?” he said.
“Hello,” answered a strange boy’s voice. “Uh…Joe Saylor?”
“Yes.”
“Well…uh, my name is Henry Huggins,” said the boy. “Your dog…I mean, how long have you had him?”
“Awhile,” said Joe cautiously. “Why?”
“He’s my dog,” said Henry. “I lost him at the shopping center about a month ago.”
“Who is it, Junior?” asked Mrs. Saylor.
“A boy,” Joe told his mother, and the answer seemed to satisfy her. “The shopping center,” repeated Joe into the telephone, hoping to gain time to think. “That’s way on the other side of town.”
“I know,” admitted Henry, “but my dog got into the wrong car by mistake, and some people took him home, and by the time they saw my advertisement in the paper he had run off, because they gave him a bubble bath, and then they couldn’t find him.”
Joe had no way of knowing whether what Henry was saying was true or not. It sounded peculiar, that part about giving a dog a bubble bath. He certainly did not want to believe what he was hearing, not when it was beginning to look as if he might get to keep the dog. “Lots of dogs look like my dog,” he said. “I don’t think he’s your dog at all.”
“Yes, he is,” insisted Henry. “I know he is. I could tell by the picture in the paper.”
“Prove it,” challenged Joe.
“He always shakes hands with his left paw,” said Henry.
Mr. Saylor did not like to listen to people talk on the telephone. “What does the boy want?” he asked, interrupting the conversation.
“Some kid thinks my dog is his,” answered Joe. “Says the dog shakes hands with his left paw.”
Mr. Saylor laughed. “Tell him you haven’t been introduced,” he said, and returned to his paper.
“The dog and I haven’t been introduced,” said Joe to Henry. “We never shook hands.”
“But perhaps the dog does belong to the boy,” protested Mrs. Saylor.
“Let Junior handle it,” said Mr. Saylor.
There was a silence from Henry’s end of the line. Joe had a feeling Henry wanted to sa
y something like, Oh, a wise guy. Joe looked down the hall at Ribsy, lying on the carpet, and said, “OK, if he’s your dog, why doesn’t he have a license tag?”
“He does have,” said Henry, “but when he got lost he wasn’t wearing his collar. I took it off, so he could scratch his neck.”
Joe felt triumphant. He was still carrying a red, rhinestone-studded collar in his pocket. “But this dog was wearing a collar when I found him.” He realized too late that he had given away two bits of information. The dog had no license tag, and Joe had found him.
“He’s been gone about a month,” said Henry. “Somebody else must have put a collar on him.”
“You still haven’t proved he is your dog,” said Joe. Even though he had given out more information than he intended, he felt he had an advantage in the conversation. He could always hang up if he wanted to.
“My dad says he’ll drive me over to your house,” said Henry. “You’ll see. Ribsy will know me.”
“Ribsy,” said Joe. “That’s a dumb name for a dog.”
At the sound of his name Ribsy picked up his ears. He had not heard the word Ribsy for weeks.
“When I first got him he was so thin his ribs showed,” explained Henry. “So I called him Ribsy.”
“They don’t show now,” said Joe. “It can’t be the same dog. Well, so long.”
“Wait!” The boy on the other end of the line sounded desperate. “My dad said he’d bring me over tonight. We’re offering a reward for Ribsy.”
“How much?” Joe felt it could not be much. Ribsy was no fancy poodle or German shepherd. He was just a mutt.
“Ten dollars.”
Ten dollars! Ten whole dollars. Ten dollars was a lot of money to Joe, but he was not going to admit it to Henry, who, he decided, must have lots of money if he could offer a ten-dollar reward for a dog when he could get another just as good free at the Humane Society. Mutts like Ribsy didn’t cost anything.
Joe’s silence must have worried Henry, because he raised the reward. “Ten dollars and my new flashlight. Can we come over now?”
Ribsy Page 7