Einstein Dog

by Craig Spence

  Einstein

  Dog

  Einstein

  Dog

  CRAIG SPENCE

  ©Craig Spence, 2009

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  Thistledown Press Ltd.

  118 - 20th Street West

  Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7M 0W6

  www.thistledownpress.com

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Spence, Craig, 1952-

  Einstein dog / Craig Spence.

  ISBN 978-1-897235-65-2

  1. Dogs—Juvenile fiction. I. Title.

  PS8637.P45E35 2009 jC813’.6 C2009-904215-0

  Cover painting: Diana Durrand

  Cover and book design: Jackie Forrie

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Thistledown Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing program.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My family — Diana, Daniel, Ian and our canine friend Buddy — are an inspiration to me. Many of the scenes in this book could not have been written without the experiences of living in a loving family. I am grateful for their patience and insight.

  Editor Diane Tucker made many valuable suggestions that strengthened the story. As well as being an unwavering eradicator of inflated vocabulary, uncertain grammar and malformed metaphor, Diane’s advice on matters of plot and structure have improved the novel.

  This is my second novel with Thistledown Press, and I am thankful for the continued support they have given a new writer in every stage of the publishing process. I am indebted to Thistledown’s staff for maintaining the highest artistic values at the same time as they deal with the hard realities of producing and marketing books.

  To those who read the Einstein manuscript in draft form and offered advice, thank you. Novels come to life in the minds of readers. That’s the particular strength of literature.

  Your interpretations of Einstein Dog were much appreciated.

  This book is dedicated to those who believe in the sanctity and intelligence of all species — especially those who have dedicated themselves to the well being of dogs and other animals that live in close proximity to humans. Although the canine characters in Einstein Dog are fictional, I have no doubt at all about the love and loyalty dogs feel toward humans. That love needs to be honoured and reciprocated.

  CONTENTS

  Libra

  The New Generation

  Upbringing

  Epilogue

  Libra

  “Hey, Birdman!” Ariel dashed out the school entrance, frizzy red hair flying, green eyes gleaming. “Can I hitch a ride?”

  “Sure,” Bertrand answered reluctantly, unlocking his bike and straddling the seat. Ariel jumped onto the foot pegs bolted to the rear axle.

  “Whee!” she whooped as they rolled down the path.

  “Jeez, Airhead, settle down, will ya?” Bertrand grumped. It was bad enough having all the other kids staring, but if Mr. Menzie, the Principal at Blacklock Elementary School, heard they were riding double, without helmets, on school property, there would be a stern lecture about the need for senior students to model safe behaviour and good decision-making and so on.

  “But it’s the weekend!” Ariel whooped, as if he didn’t know already. “Aren’t you excited?”

  “You can be excited . . . quietly,” he sniped, bumping over the curb then wobbling in the general direction of the Forestview Townhouse Complex.

  He wasn’t going home, actually, but it would be easier dropping Ariel off than explaining where he was going. He just hoped she wouldn’t ask him to play any stupid games. Ariel was all right — she was his best friend, truth be known — but she never let you have any secrets. If he said “no thanks” to a game of manhunt or dodgeball, she would want to know why, and wouldn’t stop until she’d wheedled an answer out of him.

  “You’re going to your dad’s laboratory, aren’t you?” she announced.

  “Umm . . . ahh . . . How do you know?” he flustered. Bertrand couldn’t see her, but he was sure Ariel was smiling her biggest, toothy grin.

  “I dunno; I just know. Can I come?”

  He winced. Bertrand had no good reason for refusing, at least, no good reason he could confess to. Normally he would have invited her, but negotiations concerning his dog Libra had reached a critical stage and a good deal of whining and wailing might be necessary. He didn’t want Ariel to see that.

  “Won’t your mother want to know where you are?” he asked, dodging.

  “I’ll leave a note.”

  “All right,” he caved.

  “If you don’t want me to come, just say so.”

  “No, Airee!” he apologized. “It’s just that I have to talk to my dad about something.”

  “About Libra?” she guessed. Then when he didn’t answer she added, “Maybe I can help. I’m very persuasive, you know.”

  “I want you to stay out of it!” Bertrand warned. “If Dad thinks I’m lining up allies, he’ll dig in his heels for sure and I’ll never get Libra home.”

  They whirred along in silence. Ariel and Bertrand both lived in the Forestview Townhouses a few blocks from the school, she and her mom in Unit Eleven, he and his dad in Unit One. Some of their snobbier classmates looked down on the “complex kids”, but Forestview was a great place to grow up, really, and half the neighbourhood children spent their waking hours playing there. It had its own playground, spacious lawns with plenty of trees, hordes of kids, and a back gate that opened onto the Nicomekl Floodplain with its miles and miles of trials. What more could you ask for?

  Annoying as Ariel could be, Bertrand really liked having her as a neighbour. She was as good as he was on swings and monkey bars, she was better than any of them at manhunt and she never tired of exploring the marshes and warrens of the Nicomekl. Best of all though, she wanted to know why the sky is blue, how gravity works, how a centipede controls all its legs, where salmon go when they’re out to sea. You could talk to Ariel about things like that and she wouldn’t look at you as if you were a nutcase.

  She jumped off the bike at her house and dashed inside, emerging a few seconds later.

  “I thought you were going to leave a note,” Bertrand reminded.

  “I’ll leave a message instead,” she answered smugly, holding up her cell phone.

  While he pedaled she clutched his shoulder with one hand and punched in the number with the other. “Hi Mom!” she shouted. “I’m with Birdman. We’re going to his dad’s lab at the university. We’re gonna persuade Mr. Smith to set Libra free.”

  “Airee!” Bertrand wailed.

  “What?” she said, snapping the phone shut.

  “I don’t want the whole world to know I’m fighting with my dad.”

  “I’m not telling the whole world. I’m talking to my mom, and she’s been following this soap opera from the beginning, remember?”

  Soap opera? Bertrand cringed. But he had to admit his fight with his father had all the elements: tears, yelling, sulking, betrayals, shifting alliances. Ariel sided with him; Elaine Schwartz, his father’s research assistant, sat on the fence; Libra, the cause of the whole ruckus, defended Professor Smith.

  “Does your dad call her by her proper name yet?”

  “No,�
�� Bertrand grumbled. “He still calls her SMART dog 73 and says he won’t change that until he gets permission to take her home.”

  “Jeez,” Ariel consoled.

  “He could bring her home now, if he really wanted,” Bertrand complained bitterly. “Who would care? It’s not as if the university is going to miss her. He’s just using that as an excuse.”

  Ariel said nothing.

  “He could bring her home,” Bertrand insisted, then let the conversation expire, wheeling along Fraser Street through the town centre.

  The Stafford Biology Building is a venerable pile of ivy-covered brick positioned amid the hodgepodge of buildings at Triumph University. Professor Smith’s laboratory was hidden in a back corner of the basement; out of sight and out of mind. Really, though, the location was ideal. Professor Smith preferred to be out of the limelight, and his work involved dogs, who needed kennels and access to the outdoors.

  Over the summer months Bertrand had worked part-time at the lab, walking the SMART dogs and helping to groom them. Professor Smith paid him a small sum — an allowance, they called it — but really, Bertrand loved being there and would have done the work for free. Now there was only one dog, Libra, left in the SMART lab and Bertrand wanted to bring her home.

  With Ariel still perched behind him on his bike, he cut across the tiny front lawn then swooped down the sloping ground beside the Stafford Building. He pulled up at the chain-link gate to the pound, fumbled with the latch, then opened it and wheeled his bike in. As usual, the door that opened into the SMART lab was unlocked; he and Ariel entered unannounced.

  “Oh! Hi, you two!” Elaine greeted them. She was sitting cross-legged on the kennel floor next to Libra, whose head rested in her lap.

  Libra welcomed him with her dark brown eyes. Hello, she signaled somberly.

  “What’s up?” Bertrand asked.

  “Nothing,” Elaine sighed. “I was just enjoying some quality time with Libra.”

  Bertrand got the feeling she was keeping something from him. He glanced sharply at Libra, hoping the dog would tell him what was going on. She played dumb.

  “Is my dad around?”

  “He’s in a meeting with Dean Zolinsky,” Elaine said.

  “Oh! That’s what’s wrong,” Bertrand groaned.

  Dean Zolinsky headed up the Biology Department at Triumph University. She was Professor Smith’s boss, but she and the professor did not get along. “She’s a loud, pushy specimen,” Bertrand’s father had once complained in a huff to Elaine. Dean Zolinsky was also the main reason Libra could not leave Triumph University: she would not give her permission.

  “Your father was quite pleased to go and see the dean this time, Bertrand,” Elaine said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. She has good news for once. Apparently a large medical supply firm has seen the value of the SMART project. They’re going to provide funding for us to continue our research. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Wonderful for you, maybe, Bertrand thought.

  What his father and Elaine were doing was important, he realized. And Libra wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for their Sequenced Mental Acceleration Research Trials. But that didn’t make it right for them to keep her cooped up in the research kennel.

  Elaine squeezed Bertrand’s arm. “I know you want her home,” she said, “and, believe me, Alex wants that too. But we’re scientists, Bertrand, and Libra is a very special dog. She has work to do here.”

  He wanted to pull away, but a welter of confusing emotions froze him. Elaine was so nice. And she really did care for Libra. And for him. And for his dad . . .

  “Not so much as she cares about Sequenced Mentally Accelerated Research Trials,” he thought, the complicated pull of his emotions stretching him tight as the skin of a drum.

  Bertrand heard the chatter of swallows skimming Campus Green; he smelled new mown grass, people, squirrels, other dogs . . . Libra wanted to go for a walk.

  Her tail twitched when he glanced her way, but she suppressed the urge to jump up or whine. Bertrand knew that if just he and Elaine had been in the room Libra might have run in a few circles and licked their faces until they gave in to her demand, but Libra was reserved with Ariel present. She didn’t want anyone to think of her as just a dog.

  “Okay,” he said out loud.

  “Huh?” Ariel looked puzzled.

  “Libra would like us to take her for a walk,” he announced.

  “Oh.” Ariel made a supreme effort not to roll her eyes.

  Not only did she doubt Libra’s ability to send “tellies” — mental images, complete with sounds and smells — Ariel also saw it as her solemn duty to discourage Bertrand from believing he could communicate in Dog. “You can speak to her all you want,” Ariel would say, “but Libra can only understand what a dog is capable of understanding.” And that was that. Any claim to the contrary she took as an affront to human intelligence.

  Bertrand often pleaded with Libra to prove her powers of comprehension. It would take only a nod of her head in response to some skill-testing questions, or the execution of a few tasks no ordinary dog would be capable of. But she refused.

  “Could you please get your leash?” Bertrand asked, ignoring Ariel’s skeptical glance. Libra stared blankly, tilting her head like a dumb pooch confused at the babble of human speech. Elaine chuckled. “Gawd!” Bertrand complained, fetching the leash himself from its hook by the door. “You are a pain.”

  As he clipped it to her collar, a telly materialized of Libra sticking out her long, pink tongue. Despite his annoyance, he had to laugh. It was funny, the notion of a dog defiantly giving a human the raspberry. Funny to him, at least.

  “What are you laughing at?” Ariel exploded. “You always play this stupid game, all three of you!” Her outrage provoked even greater peals of laughter. Ariel flushed and, without another word, stomped indignantly out of the kennel.

  “Oh-oh!” Bertrand fretted.

  “Go catch up to her!” Elaine scolded, as if she weren’t as responsible as he for the outburst.

  Before he could protest the point, Libra tugged him out the kennel door, through the pound and onto Campus Green.

  “Hey! Wait up!” he called after Ariel.

  She slowed enough for them to catch up, but didn’t turn.

  She needed time to cool down.

  When they were far enough away from the main campus, Bertrand let Libra off-leash. She danced and pranced around, daring them to catch her. Soon enough Ariel was enticed out of her snit. She and Bertrand laughed and squealed, knocking each other over in their wild attempts to catch Libra. All was well again. Or so it seemed . . .

  If the children and Libra hadn’t been so busy playing they might have noticed a white van parked at the far end of Campus Green. If they’d looked even closer, they would have discovered a beady glass lens, disguised to look like a search lamp, tracking their every movement. The van jiggled and bounced as if someone were moving about inside. The cause of this commotion was two scruffy characters hunkered over a bank of video screens. One of them was talking into a satellite phone.

  “Yeah,” he was saying. “We’ve got the kid and the dog under direct surveillance, sir.” As he spoke, he watched one of the screens and saw Bertrand, Ariel, and Libra romping. “When the time comes it’ll be easy,” he chortled. “They’re innocent as babes, Mr. Hindquist. The professor doesn’t have a clue, either.”

  A loud babble forced him to hold the phone away from his ear. When it subsided the man said, “I know it’s a SMART dog, sir, but we’re in a truck, a hundred yards away. The kids can’t see us and no dog is that smart.”

  Another tirade erupted from the earpiece. Then there was an audible click and the line went dead.

  The man snapped his phone shut, and without warning smacked his partner on the back of the head, knocking the earphones forward.

  “Ow!” the technician squawked. “What was that for, Charlie?”

  “Mr. Hindquist says smar
ten up, you idiot!”

  “Smarten up! What did I do?”

  “You weren’t being careful enough, Bob.” Charlie chuckled, a cruel grin spreading across his pudgy face. “Don’t you know that a SMART dog can smell mouse farts upwind from half a mile away? She can hear you, even if you think of talking? She can see you even before you step round a corner?”

  “Jeez!” Bob grumbled, straightening the headset.

  “Just passing on orders,” Charlie shrugged. “When the president of AMOS gives me a warning, I pass it on, okay?”

  On Fridays Professor Smith invariably whipped up a dinner of ‘Leftover Stew’ by dumping all the week’s uneaten goop into a single pot and warming it up. Of all his father’s menu items, this was Bertrand’s least favorite, but there always seemed to be enough leftovers in the fridge to make a substantial glob of the stuff. In fact, quite often there were leftovers of Leftover Stew in the pot.

  Mr. Smith leaned over the bubbling concoction and inhaled the fumes. “Needs a little something,” he pronounced.

  Bertrand winced as his father sprinkled salt into the simmering lava. He refrained from saying anything, not wanting to get caught up in a conversation about the merits of ‘sustainable cooking’. If that happened, they would never get around to discussing what he really wanted to talk about: Libra.

  He’d tried to raise the subject earlier, at his father’s lab, but never got a chance. First, Ariel had invited herself along; then, when Professor Smith returned from his meeting with Dean Zolinsky all he’d wanted to talk about was the research grant from Advanced Medical Operating Systems.

  “The president of AMOS, a Mr. Frank Hindquist, will be coming to visit us,” he’d said excitedly. “We’ll have to be ready to impress him . . . especially you, 73. He’ll definitely want to shake paws with my favourite SMART dog.”

  Bertrand winced, remembering how excited Professor Smith and Elaine had been. He didn’t like the looks of this. Didn’t like it at all.