The Rise and Fall of Derek Cowell

by Valerie Sherrard

  Something weird happened in my gut — something silent, thankfully. The fact that Steffie was paying attention to stuff about me — I could barely process information that cool. It made me ridiculously happy, but it also made me forget she’d just asked me a question.

  “Not saying, huh?” she said after giving me a few more seconds to answer. “I should have known that would be top secret information.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It is.”

  “So, what’s it like being famous?”

  I put my brain to work formulating an answer that wouldn’t make me sound like: a.) an egomaniac or, b.) someone who grew up speaking gibberish. Which is when Paige jumped in.

  “Derek, famous? Puh-lease.” She followed this with the satisfied look of someone who’s just made an incredibly clever remark.

  “That’s enough of that, Paige,” Mom said mildly.

  “What did I do?” Paige whined. An attractive sound which she followed up by sticking out her tongue.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you,” Dad jumped in with his jolly change-the-subject voice. “But I sure am looking forward to spending some time at the lake this summer!”

  That startled us into silence, which meant my chance for a witty yet modest answer to Steffie’s question had passed. I snagged a drumstick, remembering just in time to use my fork instead of grabbing it with my fingers (although what’s wrong with that I’ll never know) scooped some potatoes and broccoli onto my plate and started to eat.

  Conversation was going on around me, but I’d drifted away from it, distracted by the cute way Steffie’s nose twitched when she was chewing. Not that I risked looking too often. I knew Anna was still trying to figure out which girl I’d been goofy-faced over in the stairway photobomb.

  But then it hit me that Anna didn’t have her nosy hawk- eyes trained on me. She was picking at her dinner with her head down and, when I looked a bit closer, I saw that her eyes were filling. Mom saw it too.

  “Anna, is something wrong?” she asked.

  Anna slowly lifted her face toward Mom. She shook her head “no” which jolted a couple of tears free. They rolled down her cheeks and past her quivering mouth.

  By then everyone was looking at her. Dad reached over and patted her hand.

  “You want to tell your old dad what’s bothering you?” he said.

  “I got Derek in trouble,” she answered, and then burst into full-blown blubbering.

  “What for?” Paige asked. She seemed a lot more interested in that than in Anna’s distress.

  “I went to a party at Tamrah Kingston’s house last Friday,” I said.

  That was when Anna rushed to my side and grabbed me around the neck, making a strange wailing sound. The next thing I knew her tear-soaked face was pressing against mine.

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “Calm down already.”

  “I’m really sorry,” she howled into my ear. Because nothing says “Sorry” like nearly deafening a person.

  “She feels so bad,” Steffie said. (When one of my sisters points out something obvious like that, I find it annoying, but in Steffie’s case, it seemed kind of cute.)

  “Yeah, well—” I looked at Anna doubtfully. Specifically, looked into the wet cavern of her wailing yap.

  I’d have liked to shove her soggy, noisy self away and get back to my chicken, but that was out of the question with Steffie looking on. So I put an arm around the little monster, patted her on the back and forced out soothing brotherly words.

  “For goodness sakes, Anna,” Mom said. “He’s only grounded for the weekend, it’s not the end of the world.”

  Anna gulped and swallowed and took a few big breaths and finally got herself under control. From blackmailer to this … it was just plain weird.

  Except, it didn’t end there. Something equally strange happened then. Something that had never happened before.

  Kim started pleading my case.

  “Aw, Mom, that’s not fair. Plus it’s going to encourage Anna to be a big squealer.”

  My heart began to fill with gratitude for her sisterly concern and kindness. (Okay, that didn’t actually happen.) What my heart actually filled with was suspicion, because there was no way Kim was leaping to my defense unless she had some kind of ulterior motive.

  Mom was staring at Kim. She seemed equally mystified at this odd turn of events. Then Kim got to the point.

  “Besides, Steffie needs Derek’s help this weekend.”

  “Doing what?” Mom asked, although it seemed to me that was a question I should have been asking.

  Kim launched into what I can only describe as speed-talk. All of my sisters are accomplished at this particular form of communication, which consists of spewing out sentences faster than the human brain can possibly process them.

  In spite of that, I managed to grasp enough details to understand that Kim was invited to go somewhere with Steffie’s family on the weekend. Apparently, that left them with no one to take care of the dog, since Kim usually dog-sits for Steffie’s family.

  “We were having the hardest time trying to come up with a sitter for Boodles,” Kim told Mom.

  “And then we thought … Derek!” Steffie added. “Now that he’s become such an animal lover.”

  “Well, unfortunately Derek has gotten himself grounded this weekend,” Mom said.

  And it looked like that was that. Except, it wasn’t.

  I don’t know if it was Anna or Kim or the fact that this seemed to be Unusual Events Day at the Cowell house, but when my folks went to the kitchen to get dessert, they came back to the table with an announcement.

  “Derek, your mother and I have decided not to ground you this weekend,” Dad said as he sat a bowl of fresh pineapple chunks on the table.

  “Seriously?” I asked, looking past the pineapple to a plate of date squares Mom was carrying.

  “You’ll have an extra chore for a week instead,” Mom told me.

  Not thrilling, but better than being stuck in the house all weekend.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Yay!” Kim said. “Now you can take care of Boodles after all!”

  My head snapped up and I found myself looking directly into Steffie’s eyes, which were lit up and shining.

  “Would you, Derek?” she asked.

  “What do I have to do?” I asked, knowing very well I’d never say no to her. I focused on her eyes and tried to block out the thought of another slobbering, pawing canine whose poop I’d have to collect like I was on some kind of bizarre treasure hunt.

  “Just go over to the house to feed and walk him. And spend a little time with him so he won’t get too lonesome,” Steffie said brightly.

  “How long did you say you guys would be gone?”

  “Just one day. We’re leaving early on Saturday and we’ll be back before midnight.”

  A couple of excursions with Boodles wouldn’t kill me. (I told myself Steffie wasn’t responsible for the mutt’s name, but I knew she probably was.) It would be worth it to score some points with her.

  “Please say yes.” Steffie said. I’m pretty sure she deliberately used her softest voice.

  I had the odd sensation that I had somehow become a powerless spectator, watching from the sidelines as my own life unfolded.

  “Sure,” I said, “No problem.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  S aturday morning greeted me with an explosion of color in the form of neon sticky notes. It started on the staircase and continued along the hall toward the kitchen.

  Every one of them said the same thing. “Boodles.”

  “The girls were busy before they left,” Mom said when I walked into the kitchen.

  “Looks like it,” I agreed, surveying the bright squares they’d affixed to the counter, cupboards, dishwasher, fridge and various places on the walls.<
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  “I’m surprised you slept through it, the way they were laughing and scurrying about,” she added.

  I pictured Steffie running around the house, giggling at the thought of my reaction to the Post-it note mayhem. Suddenly I was smiling like a goofball. Which is when I noticed Anna, watching me from the corner of our breakfast nook.

  Her eyes were lit up and a creepy smile was spread across her little mug. I knew immediately that the look on my face had been the last piece of the puzzle for her — she’d finally figured out that it was Steffie I’d been gaga over in the first photobomb.

  I poured some cereal into a bowl, sloshed milk over it and slid in across from her. A minute or two later when Mom left the room, Anna pounced, just as I’d known she would.

  “So,” she said, drawing it out and letting it hang in the air.

  I arched an eyebrow and waited.

  “I know who you like,” she said.

  “I like lots of people,” I said.

  “But you really like Steffie.”

  I looked her right in the eye and smiled. I said nothing.

  For the first time ever, Anna seemed just the slightest bit uncertain about what she was about to do. She shook it off and faced me squarely.

  “I bet you wouldn’t like it if everybody knew,” she said. A line I’d heard from her many times before.

  I shrugged. I smiled again.

  “Who’s going to tell them?” I asked.

  Anna blinked. Her face grew a frown.

  “I could,” she said.

  This was normally the part where she explained what it would take for her not to divulge whatever bit of information she possessed. Except, she never got a chance — not this time.

  “No you won’t,” I said smoothly. I spooned the last couple of bites of cereal into my mouth and stood up.

  “Yes I will!” she insisted.

  “I don’t think so,” I told her. “You’ve been blackmailing me for years, but that’s all over. Because now I know the truth. You’re never going to tell.”

  Anna sputtered a few disconnected sounds. Finally, she got some actual words out.

  “I only want three dollars,” she said.

  “Get it from someone else,” I said. “I saw how upset you were when you accidentally ratted me out to Mom, remember? You’d never carry out your threats — not on purpose.”

  I almost felt sorry for her, the way she deflated. She knew she was beat and that there was no going back. I’d just broken free from the family extortionist.

  “Now I won’t be able to help the animals,” Anna said. Tears were welling up in her eyes. Apparently, the sympathy she’d never had for me when she was taking my money was there in full force for creatures she’d never even seen.

  “There’s still Kim and Paige,” I pointed out.

  “But you mess up the most,” she said sadly. “You were my best customer.”

  I laughed. “I don’t think ‘customer’ is exactly the right word,” I said. “And anyway, there are other ways you can help the animals.”

  “How?”

  “What about volunteering at the shelter?”

  I left her thinking about that and headed off to Steffie’s house. On the way there I decided my attitude toward Boodles might have been too harsh. After all, the little guy was Steffie’s dog. I’d probably been prejudiced by the bad experiences I’d had with Steve’s dog Slipper, who will chew up anything he can get his chompers on. And the pack of race-happy, crotch-snorting mutts at the shelter hadn’t done anything to change my mind.

  By the time I reached the Morton house and pressed in the key code to unlock the door, I was in a more positive frame of mind. Steffie had warned me that Boodles tended to be excited when someone came to the door, so I steeled myself for the yip-yip-yip-yip I knew was coming.

  Boodles did not disappoint. He launched into a one-dog yip-fest that continued nonstop as I found his food, opened it, scooped it into his bowl and placed in on the floor in front of him. That doesn’t sound as if it should have taken very long, but I didn’t see the note telling me where everything was until I’d finished. Too bad Steffie hadn’t used a few of those sticky notes to point me toward the dog supplies.

  Except for an echo that persisted in my head, the yipping stopped instantly once the food was in front of him. That is not to say there was silence while Boodles gobbled his breakfast. You never heard such a racket. That dog was a snorfer and gorber, a chlumper and grucker. He went at his food like he hadn’t been fed for weeks, which was clearly not the case considering his midsection was the shape of a drum. I don’t know a lot about dog figures, but I kind of doubt “barrel” is the norm.

  Little did I suspect the yipping and gorging activities were actually the sanest behavior I was going to see from Boodles. It was as if the food supercharged his crazy batteries. He was probably still swallowing the last bite when he lifted his head, took one quick look at me, and started to leap (as much as a morbidly obese dog can leap) and race around.

  He dashed between my legs, made a frantic circle of the room and rushed down the hallway as if a pack of dog-catchers was after him. I thought he’d slam into the wall when he got to the end, but he put the brakes on at the last second, turned with the least graceful move an animal could possibly make and raced back. His head was bobbing when he reached me, stopped, looked up for a split second, and set off to repeat the routine.

  This went on for a few minutes while I watched, fascinated by the intensity of his performance. There seemed to be real purpose to it, but what the purpose might possibly have been was beyond me. After-feeding exercise maybe. If that was it, he needed to step up the routine.

  At last, and as suddenly as it began, it was over. At the end of his final circuit, Boodles shuddered to a halt at my feet and sat there with his tongue lolling halfway to the floor.

  “You all right there, buddy?” I asked.

  Boodles responded by falling over sideways. For a second I thought he’d had a heart attack from all that running, but then his tail started thumping the floor, so I knew he was still alive. That was a relief. I’d hate to have to tell Steffie her dog keeled over and died the first time he met me.

  I reached down, gave his belly a quick rub and asked, “You want to go for a walk?”

  Boodles’ eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. (Steffie could have warned me that saying “walk” was akin to giving this mutt a giant shot of adrenaline.) He rocketed up and proceeded to bounce up and down like some kind of hound-on-a-spring. Sproing, sproing, sproing. I swear, a couple of times he shot up so high the two of us were staring straight into each other’s eyes. It’s anyone’s guess whose eyes were wilder just then.

  In retrospect, I should probably have found his leash before I uttered the magic word. It seemed to take a long, long time to locate it, hanging on a hook inside a hallway closet. Poochie Poo bags hung with it, reminding me that I wasn’t only responsible for what went into Boodles.

  I looked for a plastic scoop like the one I’d been given when I’d walked the shelter dogs, but if the Mortons had one, it was somewhere out of sight.

  I’d like to say Boodles settled down and stood calmly waiting to be hooked up once he saw the leash. Except, that would be an enormous lie. When I finally got it connected to his collar, I escorted him out the door and down the street.

  Boodles peed (or pretended to) on eleven trees and dumped in a couple of locations on our walk. I tried not to think about what I was picking up when I made use of the Poochie Poo bags, but it was hard to ignore the warmth of the clumps that were separated from my fingers by nothing more than a very thin layer of plastic. While I gathered up the steaming deposits, I looked around carefully, just to be sure no one was watching.

  It was a relief to get Boodles back inside and head home. On the way there, a blast of texts came in from Steffie. I rea
ssured her he’d been fed and walked and promised not to forget to go through the whole wretched business again after supper. Although, that wasn’t exactly the way I described it to her.

  Her last text wanted to know if I thought he was the sweetest dog ever.

  “Unbalanced” was closer to the word I’d have used to describe Boodles. But I didn’t tell Steffie that.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I’d been so focused on the whole business of overcoming my fear of heights that I hadn’t paid much attention to the rest of the plan for the skywalking video. It never occurred to me that there could be other things to worry about.

  Until Tuesday, when we were at Steve’s place eating pizza — one of the frozen kind you cook yourself — and he told me he had someone lined up to shoot the video.

  “Yeah? Who?” I asked through the huge bite I’d just taken.

  Talking with a mouth full of pizza would have disgusted my sisters. Steve didn’t even bat an eye, but before he had a chance to answer my question, there was a knock at his door.

  “That should be her now,” he said. Then he leaned to one side and hollered down the hall for whoever was there to come on in.

  Three seconds later, Riley sauntered into the kitchen.

  I stopped chewing.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, our videographer!” Steve announced. Like it was good news.

  Riley swept her hand through the air in a half wave. She grinned at me. “Bet you’re thrilled,” she said.

  Since my mouth was still full, I just frowned and hoped I was conveying a stony silence.

  “Mmm, pizza,” Riley said. She grabbed a slice and put it on a paper plate. “I gotta use the bathroom first though — where is it?”

  Steve pointed her down the hall. I grabbed a napkin and ejected the pizza I’d been chewing. It had turned into a soggy lump in my mouth.

  “Are you crazy?” I whispered furiously. “Why her?”

  “She’ll be great. She shot some stuff for her old school and it turned out fantastic. Why? What’s the problem?”