Strays Like Us

by Cecilia Galante

  “What if Mr. Carder asks about Toby?” I took the blue mug Margery held out to me. “What will you tell him?”

  “I’ll tell him the truth.” Margery placed a bowl of raw hamburger meat next to Toby. She petted him gently as he bent over it and wolfed it down. “That Toby’s over here with us.”

  I stirred the contents of my mug. It looked like oatmeal, but there were other things mixed in there, too. Cranberries, maybe. And walnuts. It smelled good. “What if Mr. Carder gets mad?”

  “Then he gets mad. I’ll deal with it. It’s not like he’s going to come storming back here anytime soon. My guess is he’ll be in the hospital for a while.”

  “Who’s going to take care of him?” I shoved a spoonful of the oatmeal in my mouth. It tasted as good as it smelled. “Mr. Carder, I mean. After he comes back home?”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Margery stood up and buckled one of her riding gloves. “We don’t even know how seriously injured he is yet. How’s the oatmeal?”

  I nodded, and since my mouth was still full, gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Good.” Margery reached over and straightened my three projects on the worktable. “Since you’ve got the whole day, I expect all of these to be sanded when I get home. All right?”

  I nodded. “Can I take a few breaks, though? Maybe let Toby walk around on the rope and get some fresh air?”

  “He’s not going to walk anywhere on that rope.” Margery knotted her scarf and tucked it inside the front of her jacket. “As soon as his feet hit the ground, he’s going to run like he did yesterday. I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in spending another evening poking around in the woods, looking for him. Take him out once or twice so he can relieve himself, but tie him to the stoop there. When he’s done, bring him right back in. And remember what I told you about letting him jump up on you.” She held up both hands. “Paws.”

  “Paws.” I nodded. “Gentle, but firm.”

  “Exactly.” Margery gave me a short salute. “I’ve got to go or I’ll be late. Have a good one, Fred.” She closed the door, only to open it again. “Oh, and I made you a sandwich for lunch. Turkey with cheese. It’s on a plate wrapped in Saran wrap on the kitchen table. There’s potato chips in the pantry, too, and lemonade in the fridge.”

  “Thanks.” I made a hopeful face.

  “No, the dog cannot have any of the turkey.” Margery’s voice was firm. “Or anything else in the refrigerator.”

  My face fell.

  “I chopped up some more hamburger and put it in a bowl for him.” She winked at me. “It’s just inside the kitchen door.”

  I grinned and gave her another thumbs-up. “Thanks.”

  Toby whined as Margery disappeared, and began straining toward the door. “You just peed,” I reminded him. “I’ll let you out in a while.” He whined again, a small, pitiful sound that broke my heart a little. I knew he wanted to run, especially since he’d gotten a taste of it after so long. But I couldn’t risk him bolting again. The fact that he’d found his way back last night was a miracle. But everyone knew that miracles were one in a million.

  I sighed as he kept whimpering. Maybe I could meet him halfway. Figure out a compromise that would make both of us happy. I knelt down in front of him and ran my hand over his head. “Will you be a good boy in here if I take the rope off? You can poke around and explore all you want then. You want to do that? Huh?”

  Toby sat back on his haunches as I touched him. He stared at me with his brown eyes and barked once. It sounded like a yes to me. “Okay, then.” I slipped the rope from around his neck and waited, holding my breath. I expected him to dart off instantly, the way he’d done outside. But he didn’t. He stepped into me instead and nuzzled his head against my chest. Then he looked up and licked my cheek. His tongue was warm, and his breath smelled like hamburger, but I didn’t pull away. I knew he was thanking me. And that he would try to be good because I had given him this one small thing.

  “Oh, Toby.” I rubbed my hands up and down his sides. I could feel his ribs under his newly clean fur, and the bones in his hips. “Okay, buddy. It’s okay.”

  I worked for a while after that, sanding the candlestick as Toby nosed around the corners. I let him out once to do his business, but afterward, he kept going to the door and scratching to get out again. “No, Toby,” I’d say each time, shaking my head. “Not now.” He’d stare at me for a minute, as if deciding whether or not to argue, and then go back to sniffing and nosing and exploring anything within reach.

  But even with music playing low in the background, and Toby poking around, it was quiet in there. Too quiet.

  It reminded me of our apartment back in Philadelphia, especially on Saturday afternoons, when the sun would slant through the window and Mom would disappear into the bedroom. I could hear all the noises of the city outside our window—horns blaring and brakes screeching, people yelling, and doors slamming—and yet when that bedroom door closed, it was like all the sound had been sucked out of the room.

  So when the quiet in the shop got to that point, and my skin started to prickle, I went over and turned up the radio. Rihanna was singing a song about someone who had hurt her and how even taking a breath was painful. I cranked up the volume to five, then eight, and then twelve, which was the loudest it would go. Toby lifted his nose out of a corner he’d been sniffing and turned his head. I could see his ears twitch a little as the music got louder, and then he went perfectly still as it got even louder than that. His tail stopped moving, and he watched me carefully. It was like he was waiting for something to explode, too. But he relaxed again when I went back to my stool and sat down.

  Mom had said on the phone that the other women she was with now were loud, that she wasn’t getting enough sleep. She probably wasn’t eating very much, either. I closed my eyes, trying not to imagine how tired she probably looked now.

  She needed me to come back to her so that she could go get help and start over. And I would be there. I wouldn’t let her down. No matter what, I’d do what I had to do so that we could be together again. Everyone knew you had to make the most of things.

  If you didn’t, things had a way of making the most of you.

  A loud rap on the door made me jump. Toby barked twice and then ran over, sniffing at the space along the floor.

  “Hello?” I held my breath as I slipped the rope back around his neck and leaned in close to the door. It had to be Margery. Maybe she’d forgotten something.

  “Fred?”

  I looked down at Toby, who barked again. It wasn’t Margery. I unlocked the door and opened it a crack.

  Lardvark gasped as she caught sight of Toby. “He’s back! Where did you find him?”

  “He found us.” I wound the rope more tightly around my hand as Toby strained toward the opening. “Stay, Toby. No running, buddy. No jumping.” But my mind wasn’t really on Toby. Why was she here? Didn’t she remember how we’d left things last night? How I’d gotten her in trouble?

  “Holy cannoli.” Lardvark stared at Toby curiously. “He looks so different. Did you guys give him a bath?”

  “Yup. First the hose, then a real bath. Margery clipped his nails and gave him a haircut, too. Well, kind of. Mostly, she just trimmed everything.”

  “He looks so handsome.” Lardvark sounded wistful. “Like a real dog.”

  “You hear that?” I grinned at Toby. “I bet you’ve never heard anyone call you handsome before.”

  “You guys did a great job,” Lardvark said.

  “Thanks.” Why was she being so nice after I’d been so awful to her? “What are you doing here anyway? Isn’t there school today?”

  “Of course there’s school.” Lardvark leaned forward, trying to peer inside. “It’s Thursday.”

  “Well, aren’t you supposed to be there?”

  “Yeah.” She blinked and leaned in even farther. “But I skipped. Wow, this place looks really cool. Can I come in?”

  “Um.” I hesitated.r />
  “Please? Just for a few minutes?”

  “All right.” I took a step back, sliding my fingers under the rope around Toby’s neck. “Maybe for a few minutes. Hurry up, though, so he doesn’t try to run.”

  Lardvark squeezed her way in and shut the door quickly. In her hands was a large brown paper bag.

  Toby strained against the rope, but I held him tight. “Listen, I’m not in here just messing around,” I told Lardvark. “Margery left me work to do. You know, because I got in trouble at school and everything. And Toby’s staying with me while I do it. It’s not the greatest time for you to be here.”

  “I didn’t sleep a wink last night.” I wondered if Lardvark had even heard me, as she walked over and put the paper bag on the far end of the table. “I just stayed awake, thinking about you guys.”

  I led Toby back over to the table and reattached the rope to the leg. “You mean Toby?”

  “Yeah. And you. I couldn’t stop thinking about the day we had. It was crazy, you know? The whole thing. It was kind of nuts.”

  I couldn’t disagree. Between getting suspended from school, finding Mr. Carder half-dead inside his house, Toby running off, Mom calling, and then Toby coming back, yesterday had been pretty wild.

  “Have you heard anything about Mr. Carder?” Lardvark settled herself on one of the stools and picked up the candlestick. “He’s still alive, right?”

  “As far as I know.” I took the candlestick out of her hand and put it back on the table. “You shouldn’t touch stuff in here. It’s Margery’s.” I was getting a little irritated. Sure, we’d had a few adventures yesterday. And yes, some of them had been intense. We’d even had a fight, which I guess we’d also made up from. But that didn’t mean we were best friends now. Or that she could just come in here and act like she owned the place.

  “Sorry.” Lardvark hunched her shoulders at my words. That same hangdog expression she wore when she talked about Michelle came over her face. It made me crazy, seeing her like that.

  “You don’t have to be sorry,” I said. “You didn’t know.”

  Lardvark sat up straighter. “What is this place anyway? Like a workshop?”

  “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  “So Margery, like, makes things?”

  “Sort of.” I shrugged, holding up the candlestick. “Although her idea of ‘things’ is a little bit different than most people’s.”

  Lardvark squinted at the candlestick. “What’s that going to be?”

  “No idea.” I rolled the candlestick between my hands. “She doesn’t know yet, either. She says she waits till something tells her what it wants to be.”

  “Huh.” Lardvark considered my statement. “That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  “Tell me about it.” I put the candlestick back and plopped down beside her. “But you should see the stuff she comes up with.”

  “Like what?”

  I told Lardvark about Margery’s wheelbarrow chair and the kitchen table with the big silver wheels underneath. And I told her about the kitchen chairs with the mouse and the flower and vine carvings along the back. It was the strangest thing, telling her about them. Not because Lardvark and I weren’t really friends. And not because I even cared what she thought about them all that much. It was more a feeling of admiration, listening to myself talk about Margery’s stuff. Maybe even a little pride. Which I hadn’t even known I felt until just that moment.

  “Wow,” Lardvark said. “That’s really cool. I wish I could do something like that. I’m not good at anything.”

  “What about your unicycle?”

  Lardvark shrugged. “My parents brought that back from Germany last year. I don’t know why. I can barely ride a regular bike.”

  “But you can ride that,” I said. “Can’t you?”

  She nodded, tracing an invisible line on the table. “Yeah. It took me a while, but I figured it out.”

  “That’s pretty cool. Honestly, I don’t know anyone who knows how to ride a unicycle.”

  Lardvark lifted her eyes. “That’s because normal people don’t have unicycles,” she said softly. “They have bikes. With two wheels.”

  There was something about the way she said the word “normal” that made me sit up a little. And even though I had loads of work to do, and it meant leaving Toby inside for a few minutes without me, I heard myself say, “Who cares about being normal? I want to see you ride a unicycle.”

  “Right now?” Lardvark’s eyebrow went up.

  I nodded. “Yeah. Right now.”

  “Okay.” Lardvark could hardly hide the smile on her face as she slid off the stool. “It’s out front, on the porch. Come on.”

  “You stay here, buddy.” I rubbed the sides of Toby’s neck. “We won’t be long. Be a good boy, okay?”

  He watched us as we slipped out, and I could hear him bark as the door closed behind us.

  “He’ll be okay, won’t he?” Lardvark asked.

  “Yeah. He can’t go anywhere. I tied the rope to the table.”

  “You can tell he really likes you,” Lardvark said. “He looks at you like you’re his best friend in the whole world.” She laughed a little bit. “If I wasn’t so scared of him, I’d be jealous.”

  “You’re still scared of him?” We were almost to the front of the house. I could see the unicycle seat leaning against the porch railing. It was red with black piping around the edge.

  “I told you,” Lardvark said. “All dogs make me nervous.”

  “Well, nervous and scared are two different things.”

  “Yeah.” Lardvark sounded thoughtful. “Maybe.”

  The unicycle was bigger than I’d imagined, with a long seat and a thick wheel. But it looked kind of funny, too, the way something only half-there looks funny, and I found myself giggling as Lardvark brought it down from the porch.

  “It’s totally dorky, isn’t it?” She held on to the seat with one hand and bounced the wheel up and down.

  “No, no.” I struggled to make my voice serious. “It’s not dorky. I’ve just never seen one. You know, up close. It can’t be easy to ride on one wheel.”

  “It wasn’t at first.” Lardvark rolled the wheel back and forth a few times, as if warming it up. “It took a lot of practice. I don’t really have anything else to do, though, so it kind of worked out.” She took the seat and put it between her legs. Two seconds later, she was on top of it, pedaling around the front yard, weaving around me, even going backward a few times. She held her arms out, and as the unicycle zoomed this way and that, she sat up straighter than I’d ever seen her before. Her blond bangs blew up along her forehead, and she held her lower lip with her teeth.

  “Man!” I shouted as she whizzed around me a second time. “You’re really good!”

  “You think so?” Her cheeks flushed pink as she smiled. “Thanks. It’s actually kind of fun when you get the hang of it.”

  “I can’t believe you rode it here.” I raised my voice a little as she pedaled farther down the driveway and back. “On the road and everything. What do people do when they see you? They must freak!”

  Lardvark laughed. “They do. Some lady practically drove off the road, she was looking at me for so long. She almost smashed into a tree!”

  “You can’t really blame her.” I shook my head. “It’s not every day people see a girl riding a unicycle down the street.”

  She hopped off the seat in a single, fluid motion. The wheel spun a little as she held it out to me. “You want to sit on it? Just see how it feels?”

  “Nah.” I shook my head. “I’d be terrible. I’ve never even ridden a real bike. You know, with two wheels.”

  “You’ve never had a bike of your own?” Lardvark asked.

  “Uh-uh.” I could feel the heat rush to my face. There was no need to get into details about Mom not being able to afford one. “We used to live in the city. You know, Philadelphia. There wasn’t any reason to get a bike. Too much traffic.”

  “Yeah.” Lardvark w
as looking at me closely. Too closely. It made me uncomfortable. “Well, try it anyway. Maybe it’s a good thing you’ve never ridden a real bike. You won’t have anything to compare it to.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, come on.” She moved it closer to me, nudging my arm with the seat. “Aren’t you even the littlest bit curious? Just sit on it. See how it feels. You can hold on to me the whole time. I’ll make sure you don’t fall.”

  I sighed deeply, like it was killing me to do it, or as if I was doing her a big favor, but the truth was, I was kind of curious to try it. Maybe even a little excited.

  Lardvark took my hand as I positioned the seat between my legs and hoisted myself up. Almost immediately, the wheel spun out from under me. She grabbed me as I fell backward, and pulled me toward her. “Don’t worry. I did that about six thousand times when I was first learning. Sit forward this time. Even if it feels really weird. Lean over from your waist and sit as far forward as you can. I’ll hold you.”

  I tried again, and again the wheel slipped out from under me. “This is stupid,” I said, shaking my head. “Seriously. I told you—I’ve never even sat on a real bike before.”

  “That doesn’t—”

  “It’s fine.” I held up my palms. “Really. I just wanted to see you ride it. Besides, I have to get back to work. But thanks for coming over. You know, and like checking up on me and everything.”

  Lardvark looked like I’d just punched her in the stomach. “Wait, you want me to go?”

  “I have work to do. I told you before you could only stay a few minutes. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude.”

  “Yeah, okay. I understand.” She blinked. “Can I at least say goodbye to Toby? I won’t come in the shed. I’ll just stand outside the door and wave to him.”