Strays Like Us

by Cecilia Galante

  I looked around, as if Margery might be playing a trick on me, but Lardvark was gone. “I didn’t hear you leave.”

  Instead of answering, Margery reached farther into the refrigerator.

  “Did you take her home on the bike?”

  “Yep.” Margery stepped back from the refrigerator. Her arms were filled with little plastic containers covered with blue and green lids. “It took a few minutes to figure out where to put the unicycle, but she—”

  “Unicycle?” I interrupted. “What unicycle?”

  “Her unicycle.” Margery dropped the containers on the table. “You didn’t know she had a unicycle? How do you think she got over here?”

  I tried to remember the moment Lardvark had first arrived. I hadn’t thought to ask how she’d gotten here. It hadn’t even occurred to me. But a unicycle? Really?

  “Anyway,” Margery said, “she doesn’t live very far. Two, three miles tops. I was there and back in five minutes. You and your mother were just saying your goodbyes when I came back in.”

  I could feel the heat rise to my cheeks as I thought of her listening to Mom’s and my parting ritual. That was private. Something just between us. “I’m going upstairs.”

  Margery sat down. “Not until you eat something.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You’re starving,” Margery said. “I can see it in your face.” She patted the spot at the table where I’d been sitting. “Sit down. Let’s go through these leftovers and see what looks appealing.”

  “I told you—”

  “I know what you told me.” Margery leveled her eyes at me and held my gaze. “It’s the least you can do after giving my good soppressata salami to the dog. That was supposed to be our dinner tonight.”

  I plopped down. Man, she was good at playing that guilt card. I stared at the table as she started peeling lids off the containers.

  “So how’d you and this Ardelia girl meet?” Margery sniffed the contents of one container and then put it back down.

  “At school.”

  “Where? At lunch? Gym?”

  “Art class.”

  Margery nodded, sniffing another container. This time, she made a face. “Phew.” She stood up and chucked it into the garbage. “That one has seen better days, I’m afraid.” She walked back over and sat down. “How’d she end up here? Did you invite her over?”

  “Nope. She just showed up.” I paused. “On her unicycle, apparently.”

  “Why?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “No idea?” Margery nodded as she inspected another container. “Chicken Parmesan. Still good. I can heat this up in two seconds and throw it over a plate of hot pasta.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “People don’t usually just show up at someone’s house for no reason,” Margery said. “Why was she here?”

  “Because she’s weird,” I said. “I don’t know.”

  Margery studied me for a minute. I could tell she was doing that thing where she was deciding what to say next. It made me a little nervous again, as if she was trying to figure out parts of me I hadn’t told her about yet. “Okay.” She got up out of her chair. “You don’t want to tell me—that’s your right. I won’t push.” She unhooked a large saucepan from the hanging rack above her and set it on the stove. “How ’bout your mother? How’s she?”

  “Fine.”

  “Good. Glad to hear it.”

  “She wanted to know about you.” I sat up, a little startled. I hadn’t known I was going to say that.

  “I’m sure she did.” Margery turned on the flame on the stove and dumped the chicken Parmesan into the saucepan.

  “I told her about your motorcycle.”

  Margery nodded, stirring the sauce with a big wooden spoon. “Was she okay with that?”

  “Surprised, mostly. She wanted to know if I wore a helmet.”

  “That’s because she’s a good mother.”

  I glanced over at her sharply, wondering if she was being sincere. “She is a good mother,” I said. “She’s actually a great mother.”

  “I’m sure she is.” Margery looked over at me and nodded. “And you’re a good kid.” I looked down at the table, unsure how to respond. “You know, Ardelia told me something just before I dropped her off.”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to talk about Ardelia or Lardvark or whatever she wanted to be called.

  “Do you want to know what it was?”

  “No. But you’ll tell me anyway.”

  Margery smiled faintly. “It was about you.”

  “Great.”

  “She said that you are the nicest person she’s ever met.”

  “Awesome.”

  “That’s not all.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek.

  “She said she felt like she met you for a reason. And that something in her life is about to change because of it.”

  I wanted to cry just then. I really, really did. Mostly because I could hear the hope in Lardvark’s words. And because she was wrong. She was completely, 100 percent wrong about me. “I told you she’s a weirdo,” I heard myself say. “Seriously. She’s kind of out there.”

  “I don’t think she’s weird at all,” Margery said. “I think she’s kind of a cool cat, myself. I doubt there’s too many twelve-year-olds who know how to ride a unicycle. And I think she might be right about meeting you for a reason.”

  I rolled my eyes and rose. “That’s because you don’t know anything.”

  “Oh, I know—” Margery’s eyes widened as she stopped talking. “Hold on a second. You hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Listen!”

  We stood there, straining our ears in the silence together. And then I heard it, too. The sound was faint at first, like a call in the distance. But it got stronger, until it could’ve been coming from just outside the door. “Hello!” it barked. “Here I am again!”

  Toby.

  He was just sitting there in front of the porch steps, looking up at us like a goofy little kid. The rope I’d slipped around his neck trailed off behind him like an afterthought. His mouth was open and his tongue hung out as he panted, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have said he was grinning at us.

  “Well, I’ll be.” Margery shook her head as we stood in the doorway. “He went and found his own way back.”

  Toby barked once, as if agreeing with her.

  I lunged for him, but she pulled me by the arm. “Not yet. He’ll run again if he thinks you’re going to grab him. Where’s that bologna you brought with you in the woods?”

  I reached inside the front pocket of my hoodie and pulled it out. “Right here.”

  “Good.” Margery watched Toby as she spoke. “Put a little bit here on the porch and let’s see what happens.”

  I peeled off a few slices and rolled them up. “Food, Toby,” I said gently, holding them out in his direction. His nose quivered. “Come and get it, boy.” I set the bologna down in front of me and patted the porch floor with my hand. “Come on, Toby. I know you’re hungry.”

  He whined, and I could tell he wanted the meat but that he was afraid to come any closer. I knew why, too. He’d just tasted something more delicious than any piece of bologna. Running out there all by himself, he got to feel the cold air ripple through his fur and the crunch of dry leaves under his paws, and he didn’t want to lose it again. No matter how hungry he was.

  I knelt down, just behind the bologna. “Toby. Come and eat, buddy. It’s okay.”

  He watched me with his big eyes. Some of the gooey stuff around his eyelids was gone, but they were still red-rimmed and swollen. He cocked his head, as if considering my words, and his nostrils flared. I pushed the bologna a little farther out on the porch. His nose quivered again and this time, when he whined, it ended in a single, short bark.

  “You can trust me.” I nodded. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

  Toby’s hindquarters shuddered as he sat up straight.
He reached out a paw and pulled himself onto the bottom step. I pushed the bologna out again. He lifted his other paw and took another step. And then, before I could take a breath, he was all the way up on the porch, hunched over the meat. Behind me, Margery squatted down quickly and took hold of the rope. “Give him some more,” she said, nudging me. “Quick, before he realizes I’ve got the rope.”

  I shoved more bologna under Toby’s nose. As he wolfed down seconds, and then thirds, I had to turn my face to the side again because he smelled so bad, but I kept petting him and telling him what a good boy he was. And I didn’t stop, not even after he finished the whole package of meat and realized that Margery was holding the other end of the rope. He tensed once—probably thinking of running—but I looked at him directly and shook my head, and I kept petting that sad little bald spot on top of his head, and suddenly, as if the batteries inside him had stopped working, he gave a long, trembling sigh and lay down next to me.

  “We’re going to have to give him a bath,” Margery said. “The smell on him is revolting.”

  “It’s not his fault.” I was still petting Toby’s head. I wondered if the bald spot would get any bigger if I petted it enough.

  “I didn’t say it was.” Margery uncoiled the rope from around her hand. “But there’s no way in heaven he’s going to stink up my shop. I’ll never be able to work in there again.” She handed me the rope. “You stay here with him, and I’ll get what we need to scrub him down. I’ll yell for you when I’m ready.”

  I wrapped the rope around my hand the way Margery had done, but it didn’t look as though I was going to have to worry about Toby bolting a second time. His head lay on the floor, arranged neatly between his paws, and his eyelids were heavy, as if he might fall asleep at any minute.

  “You tired, buddy?”

  He thumped his tail against the porch.

  “You should be. You probably just had the run of your life out there, didn’t you?” I leaned in a little bit. “Where’d you go? You see anything really cool? Anything you want to tell me about?”

  Toby lifted his head when I said that, and when he looked at me, I could’ve sworn I saw a glint in his eyes that said yes, he had seen something. He’d seen some of the world beyond the horrible little patch of mud and dirt he’d been chained to for the last ten years. And even though it was small, it was clean and pure and green and glorious.

  “Don’t let him in the tub yet,” Margery ordered. “But hold tight to the rope. I’ve got to hose him down first. Get that first layer of dirt off him.” She wrinkled her nose. “And maybe the second or third.”

  I bent down close to Toby’s ear. It was the one that was only half an ear, a sad little flap matted heavily with dirt. I hoped it worked, that he could still hear out of it okay. “All right, buddy,” I said softly. “This might be scary at first, but it’s just water. Like rain kind of, okay? It’s nothing to be afraid of. Try to stay real quiet and still. I’ll be right here. And then after she’s done, you can jump into that warm, sudsy tub over there and we’ll scrub you down.” I stroked the top of his head. “Can you do that for me, buddy? Just for a little bit?”

  “Okay?” Margery asked as I straightened up again. “He ready?”

  I nodded, retightening my grip on the rope. “Go ahead.”

  Margery didn’t turn the water on very hard, but it came out forcefully enough to start dislodging some of the mud chunks embedded in Toby’s fur. He gave a startled bark when the water first made contact, and leaped high into the air.

  “Hold him tight!” Margery bellowed. “Don’t let go!”

  “It’s okay, Toby!” I called, wrapping the rope around my wrist a third time. I gasped as it cut into the skin, and used my other hand to loosen some of the slack. “Toby, it’s all right! Stay still, buddy! It won’t take long!”

  “I don’t know about that.” Margery looked grim as she aimed the hose at Toby’s belly. “I doubt Carder’s ever given this poor animal a washing.”

  I wasn’t sure how much longer my wrist was going to be able to take the tear and pull of the rope. For such a small, underfed dog, Toby was strong. Or at least much stronger than my arm.

  But suddenly, without any warning, he stopped jumping. He stood there instead, with his head hanging low and his tail tucked in between his legs, as Margery finished hosing him down.

  It was almost as if he’d quit, I thought later. Given up a fight he knew he couldn’t win.

  Or maybe it was something else. Something I didn’t know about yet.

  Couldn’t know about, until the same thing happened to me.

  I hardly recognized Toby after his bath. His black-and-white fur shone under the light of the back porch, and his ears—even the sad little half one—were all soft and floppy. Margery found a wire cutter inside the work shed and clipped his toenails, but only after she’d used a pair of sewing shears to trim the hair around them. She used the shears to trim the straggly hair under his belly and along the backs of his legs, too, and wiped all the goo out of his eyes, and if Toby had started out looking like a sloth that had rolled in the mud, now he looked like a dog. A real, honest-to-goodness dog.

  I couldn’t stop hugging him, and he seemed happy, too, because he kept pushing his head into me and licking my face. Even Margery seemed pleased. She made a big deal about cleaning up the porch, and she groused about how dirty everything had gotten, but I noticed her watching us out of the corner of her eye a few times.

  And I saw her smile.

  She stopped smiling, though, when I stood back up and Toby jumped on me. “Don’t let him do that anymore,” she said. “Jumping on people isn’t good dog behavior.”

  I rubbed Toby behind the ears and down along his neck. “Why not?”

  “It teaches him he can do anything.” Margery shook her head. “And if a dog thinks he can do anything, he’ll do whatever he wants.”

  “He should be able to do whatever he wants.” I leaned down closer to him, nuzzling my nose into his neck. “He hasn’t been able to do anything in forever.”

  “It doesn’t work that way.” Margery dumped the aluminum tub over. The suds were long gone, and the water that gushed out over the side was a deep brown color. “Dogs need direction. If they don’t have it, they don’t know how to act. And when you’ve got a dog on your hands that doesn’t know how to act, you’re going to find yourself in over your head. Next time he jumps up on you, grab his paws and squeeze them. Not hard, but firmly. Dogs are very protective of their paws. They know if something happens to them, they’ll be in trouble. He’ll get the message.”

  I paused for a moment, watching the last of the dirty water drain out of the basin. “Did you ever have a dog?”

  “I did.” Margery righted the basin and heaved it against one hip. “A long time ago.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He died.” A muscle pulsed in Margery’s cheek. “Why don’t you bring Toby inside the shop? We’ll figure out where he’ll be most comfortable and then set up a bed for him.”

  I wanted to ask her if she’d been the one to train her dog, and if she had, where she’d learned to do such a thing. But it was late. And I could tell by the way she kept putting her hands on her lower back and leaning into them that she was getting tired.

  “How about here?” Margery pointed to a cleared-out spot a little ways from the heater. “He’ll be warm enough, I think, but not too warm.”

  “It looks perfect,” I said happily. “What do you think, Toby?”

  Toby barked. He looked at me and then over at Margery, and I knew that if he could have talked, he would have said something like thank you. Not just for cleaning him up and taking him in, but for seeing him before he’d been clean.

  For seeing him and wanting him anyway.

  He seemed confused by the pile of blankets we showed him, lifting a paw and touching the edge of one gently, as if it might be hot.

  “Go ahead,” I encouraged him. “Those are for you. You can lie down
on them and go to sleep.”

  He looked up at me with a perplexed expression and wagged his tail.

  “Why don’t you show him?” Margery said.

  “Me?”

  “It’s you or nothing. I’m not getting down there. I won’t be able to get back up.”

  Toby watched as I got down on my hands and knees and crawled onto the pile of blankets. “See?” I told him. “Just like this.” I curled up on one side and tucked an arm under my head. “This is how I sleep, but you can lay any way you like. Whatever’s comfortable.” I motioned with my fingers. “Come on over, buddy.” I patted the blankets with my hand. “You can lie down right here. There’s lots of room.”

  Toby’s eyelids drooped. I bet he knew sleep was just around the corner—if only he would let it come. He put a paw up against the edge of the blankets, and this time, he followed it with the other one, until he was all the way inside the tangle of soft material. He settled himself slowly, lowering his hindquarters and then his front legs, and finally dropping his head. He thumped his tail once, briefly, and gave a long sigh. And then he closed his eyes. In less than a minute, he was snoring.

  “He’s a good dog,” I said, running my hand down his back.

  “All dogs are good,” Margery said. “Or at least they start out that way. It’s people that turn them mean.”

  I nodded, thinking of Mr. Carder. Had he been neglectful of Toby on purpose? Or was he just too old to give a dog the time and the attention it deserved?

  I hoped it was the second option, but I wasn’t too sure.

  And maybe, now that Toby was with us, it didn’t matter anyway.

  “I’m going to swing by the hospital after work and see how Mr. Carder’s doing,” Margery said the next morning. She’d knocked on the shed door to let me know she was coming in, but Toby and I had been awake for over an hour. I’d stayed with him through the night, worried that he would wake up and be frightened by his new surroundings, but he’d slept all the way through. Since then, however, he hadn’t stopped moving, darting this way and that, as far as the rope around his neck would allow, and sniffing every single thing he could find. He’d peed once, too, lifting a hind leg in a corner before I spotted him and realized what he was doing. I’d mopped it up as best I could, but a small dark stain remained. I hoped Margery wouldn’t notice.