Bow Wow

by Spencer Quinn

  “I’d be scared out of my mind.”

  “Me too. But it goes away as soon as you start performing.”

  “How do you know?”

  “All the rock stars say so.” Nola tossed me another ice cube, not even looking. Bull’s-eye! “Do you think dogs get nervous?”

  Hey! Dogs? This was interesting. I waited to find out what nervous was. Meanwhile, they were both watching me. That made me kind of … nervous? Wow! I hadn’t had to wait long.

  “Nah,” Birdie said. “Bowser’s Mr. Confidence.”

  I went back to chewing ice cubes and feeling pleasantly cool all over. Nola strummed her guitar.

  “So what’s our song going to be?” she said. “We’ve got maybe an hour.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Adele wrote ‘Skyfall’ in ten minutes.”

  “Then let’s take a break,” Birdie said.

  Which must have been funny in some way, because she and Nola started laughing. What a lovely sound! The way those two different laughs mixed and matched, leaned away from each other and bent back in! Was that the song? If so, it was going to be a big hit.

  All at once, Birdie sat up straight. “Hey! I think I have a title.”

  “Give,” said Nola.

  “‘Mr. Nice Guy.’”

  “Huh? What’s Mr. Nice Guy?”

  “More like who,” Birdie said. “Although it turns out Mr. Nice Guy doesn’t actually exist.”

  “Lost me, sister.”

  Birdie started up on a long story all about Snoozy and Grammy; Mr. Kronik and his kid, Holden; Joe Don Matisse and Mrs. Roux; salt water and freshwater and in-between water; and all sorts of other stuff, some of it vaguely familiar—like deducing and a corner cutter named Deke Waylon. But what was the question? Who was Mr. Nice Guy? A pelican, maybe? I got the feeling I was pretty close.

  Nola picked out some notes on the guitar. Not pretty, maybe, but something about them sent a little jolt down to the tip of my tail. “Are you real, Mr. Nice Guy?” she sang.

  Birdie’s eyes lit up, and she sang, “Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. Nice Guy,” in a way that sent another jolt down my tail. It actually met the first one coming back, halfway. What a feeling!

  “Or are you a bad, bad dream?” Birdie sang on.

  While Nola took over the “Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. Nice Guy” thing.

  Then they sang together, Nola handling the low part and Birdie the high—kind of just the way they’d laughed together, if you get what I mean.

  “Are you real, Mr. Nice Guy?

  Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. Nice Guy,

  Or are you a bad, bad dream?

  Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. Nice Guy.”

  They stopped singing. Nola’s hands went still.

  “Well, well,” she said.

  “Well, well,” said Birdie.

  “It’s a start.”

  “Now what?”

  “We need another verse. Maybe two. Then a middle part. After that we can use the first verse again.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Junior told me.”

  “He couldn’t actually be a genius, could he?”

  “Only in Upside-Down World.”

  “Upside-Down World?” Birdie said. “Sounds like another song.”

  “Message to Adele,” Nola said. “Clear the track.”

  Who was this Adele person they kept talking about? Today was already confusing enough without her horning in.

  “Mr. Nice Guy’s a great white shark?” said Junior. This was later that day—a hot one, folks were saying, for the time of year, whatever the time of the year happened to be. We—meaning me, Birdie, and Nola—had met Junior at the swimming hole, a sort of side pool of the bayou not too far from the Lucinda Street Bridge. Nola brought her guitar, Junior brought a tambourine and some leftovers from the food truck, Birdie brought cold cans of limeade, her favorite drink, and I brought me.

  “Not a great white,” Nola said. “A bull shark.”

  “Which doesn’t exist,” Birdie said. “And it doesn’t matter.”

  “The shark’s just the inspiration,” Nola said.

  Junior nodded. There was something in that nod that— for one tiny moment—made Junior look much older. “I like it already. Sing.”

  “Sing?” said Nola. “Like you’re some kind of dictator?”

  “I’m not a dictator,” Junior said. “I’m the producer. And I said please.”

  “That’s a lie,” Nola said.

  “Okay. I’m saying it now.” Junior was back to looking like his normal self, or even younger.

  Nola and Birdie exchanged a look, a sort of look they had that made me think they were talking to each other, even when they weren’t. Then Nola reached for her guitar, picked out those strange sounds that sent vibrations down my tail, and they leaned their heads together and sang “Mr. Nice Guy.”

  Junior sat back and clapped his hands. “Love, love, love it,” he said. “We’re ninety-nine percent there.”

  “Yeah?” said Birdie.

  “Well, maybe ninety or so. Math’s not my strong point.” He picked up the tambourine. “Lyrics—no problem. I couldn’t have done better myself. Tune? Pretty good. Just on that last ‘Mr. Nice Guy’ on the chorus, Nola? How about trying a quick chord change from the F up to F-sharp? Might give it a … I don’t know. Like this.”

  And Junior sang, “Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. Nice Guy,” and on that last one I got the tail jolt again.

  “Plus,” said Junior, picking up the tambourine, “I think the whole thing should be much faster.” He began shaking the tambourine—boom shick shicka, boom shick shicka, real quick, and Nola started strumming, also real quick, and then they sang, the girls doing all the singing except for when Junior joined them on the “Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. Nice Guy” part.

  “How’d that go?” Nola said.

  “Let’s find out,” said Junior, and he took a device from his cargo shorts pocket. Human have lots of devices, way too many, in my opinion. This was a little bigger than phone-size and much thicker, with a mesh covering.

  “You’re pretty sneaky, Junior,” Nola said.

  “I’m a producer.” Junior pressed a button on the device and “Mr. Nice Guy” started up. Sometimes when humans get really interested in something, they go very still, and this was one of those moments, a moment for listening real hard.

  “Hey!” said Nola.

  “Not too shabby,” said Junior.

  “Let’s try it again,” Birdie said. “I can do better.”

  They did it again, and again, and once more, and then finally Birdie said, “Okay. In the water, everybody.”

  Everybody was wearing swimsuits under their T-shirts and shorts, except for me, of course. No clothing of any kind for ol’ Bowser, unless you count my collar, a lovely leather collar that had smelled of cattle when Birdie first bought it, but now was all me.

  Not the point. The point was that with nothing to take off, I should have been first into the water—and I’m the type who likes to be first, no doubt about it—but swimming is different. When it comes to swimming, I let the humans go ahead: much easier to keep track of them that way. Don’t get me wrong. I give them time to have some fun, more than enough, from my point of view.

  “Hey!” said Junior as we splashed around in the bayou. “What’s Bowser up to?”

  Birdie swam closer. “Herding. He’s herding you back to shore.”

  “But I don’t want to go back to shore.”

  “He always herds the weakest swimmer first,” Nola said.

  “You think I’m the weakest?” Junior said.

  “By far. You’re so skinny you can barely stay afloat.”

  “Race you.”

  We raced to shore. Nola won, with me next, sort of on top of Birdie for some reason, and Junior last by plenty. He pulled himself up on the bank, huffing and puffing. Nola was hopping up and down and tapping the side of her head, the way humans often do after swimming, don’t ask me why.

>   “Well,” Junior told her, “that’s a surprise.”

  “What is?” said Nola.

  “You winning.”

  “Why is that?”

  Junior shrugged. “Because, like, swimming. You know what they say.”

  It got very quiet down there by the swimming hole. “No, Junior, I don’t,” Nola said. “What do ‘they’ say?”

  Junior tried to meet her gaze, but could not. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “Then why did you say it?” Birdie said. Hey! She sounded real angry. That hardly ever happened with Birdie. Had Junior done something bad? I sidled over in his direction, just in case he had a mind to … I didn’t know what. But suddenly starting to cry? I wasn’t ready for that, and neither were Birdie or Nola. They looked real surprised.

  “I don’t know,” Junior said, tears on his cheeks. “It’s … it’s the kind of thing my stepmom would say. Not me. Also, she can’t stand music. There’s no music in the house anymore, and my dad won’t …” He cried some more.

  Finally, Nola held up her hand. “Okay, okay,” she said.

  Junior wiped his face with his sleeve, turned back into his usual self quite speedily. “Friends?” he said.

  “Don’t push it,” Nola said.

  Junior looked like he was going to say something—possibly pushing it, whatever that meant—when from out in the bayou came an enormous splash. We all turned to look, but there was nothing to see except ripples. In fact, you couldn’t call them ripples. They were more like waves, gliding fast across the water and curling up the bank of the bayou, practically at our feet.

  “Must have been one big fish,” Birdie said.

  “Like what, Birdie?” said Nola.

  “Or a meteor,” Junior said.

  “Huh?”

  “A meteor—from outer space.”

  A meteor from outer space? I had no clue. Also I was distracted by a new smell in the air. It reminded me of Grammy’s turtle soup, which I’d sampled once when … when no one was around. Let’s leave it at that.

  Meanwhile, Nola was saying, “Why don’t you dive down out there and check it out?”

  “Me?” said Junior. “How about we eat instead?”

  He opened the cooler. I was first in line, maybe unnecessary to point out.

  “Checking it out?” Birdie said the next morning. “Not a bad idea—plus a chance to try some of that free diving Grammy was talking about.” Grammy had already left for work, and Birdie was washing the dishes in the kitchen at 19 Gentilly Lane. I was lying on the floor by my water bowl, zoning out. All in all, a promising start to the day. “Do you think washing dishes was the connection?” Birdie went on. “Water reminding me of water?”

  Birdie had lost me completely. Sometimes when you’re lost the best thing to do is have a cooling drink, so that was what I did, lapping up just about all the water in the bowl. Whoa! Water. And hadn’t Birdie just been mentioning water? Suddenly, everything was water! I started panting.

  “The reason you’re panting, Bowser, is because you’re not drinking enough water. You’re dehydrated, just like Grammy.”

  What was this? I was like Grammy in some way? And why was Birdie telling me to drink? Hadn’t I just been drinking? I stood over my bowl, mouth open, doing pretty much nothing. I didn’t even realize Birdie had left the kitchen until she came back, carrying her swimming goggles.

  “Let’s go.”

  That broke the spell. I gave myself maybe my all-time most energetic shake and beat her to the door.

  Not long after that, we were back at the swimming hole. It was a cloudy day, and on cloudy days the bayou is dark gray instead of blue. Birdie put on her goggles and waded in the water. “You stay, Bowser. I’ll be right back.”

  Birdie swam out toward the middle of the bayou. I jumped in and swam after her. By the time I caught up, she had stopped and was gazing down, her face in the water. She didn’t notice me. That was a bit bothersome. I was about to lay a friendly paw on her shoulder when she suddenly dove down just like a duck, headfirst, and disappeared below the surface.

  I peered down and watched her blurry shape going deeper and deeper. Was this a good idea? No! The next thing I knew I was swimming down after her. The water got colder the deeper I went, colder and murkier. I picked up the pace, which was right around when Birdie started coming up, not fast, maybe on account of the fact that she seemed to have something pretty big in her hands. Was she actually struggling, her cheeks puffed out, her legs kicking maybe a little wildly? I couldn’t have that, so I twisted around, got myself under her, and herded her up to the surface and then right back to the shore in my most no-nonsense way.

  We climbed out of the water, Birdie stumbling a bit. She dropped the heavy thing she’d brought up from the depths of the bayou. It lay in the grass. We gazed down at it, me and Birdie. A turtle shell, darkish green and spiky? Yes, and a very big one, although … although this was only part of it. The rest, maybe a whole half, was gone, leaving a rough, jagged edge, like some huge saw blade had gone at it in a rough and clumsy way.

  With her foot, Birdie flipped the shell over on its back. Something flopped out, but not all the way, since it was partly still attached. At first I made no sense of it, and then I did. It was the head of the turtle—a very big head, all bloody, and one eye gone.

  Birdie backed away. I barked and barked.

  GRAMMY! LOOK WHAT WE FOUND!”

  Grammy was under the tin roof behind the store, where we’ve got our workshop. Small-engine repair is one of our specialties, in case that hasn’t come up yet. Grammy had the cover off an outboard and was probing around inside with a screwdriver. She looked up. Uh-oh. Her face was grayish again.

  Birdie laid the turtle shell on Grammy’s workbench. The bloody head came loose. “Good grief, child.” Grammy picked up the head and tossed it over her shoulder, straight into the bayou. She wiped her hand on her apron and glanced at the shell.

  “Snapper—specifically the alligator snapping turtle, biggest one we’ve got.”

  “It’s part alligator?”

  “ ’Course not! What a notion!”

  “It’s just called alligator cause it’s big? Like the alligator gar?”

  “Guess so,” said Grammy. “Folks here have gator on the brain, if you haven’t noticed.”

  “But what happened to it?” Birdie said. “The way it got cut in two like that.”

  “Ran into a prop,” said Grammy. “Where’d you find it?”

  “Down at the bottom of the swimming hole.”

  Grammy’s gaze shifted to the goggles, perched on Birdie’s head.

  “Who was with you?”

  “Where?”

  “Don’t be smart. Who was with you at the swimming hole? Bottom’s thirty feet out there, measured it myself.”

  “Uh, Bowser,” Birdie said.

  “You were diving alone at the swimming hole? Going down thirty feet? Wrestling that godforsaken shell out of the muck?”

  “Not alone, Grammy. With Bowser.”

  “Didn’t I say don’t be smart? Dogs don’t count. Why on earth—” Grammy stopped, put her hand on her chest, then sat down heavily on the workbench stool.

  Birdie hurried over, put her hand on Grammy’s back. “Grammy?” And then came a lot of activity—Birdie running into the store, running back out with a bottle of water, Grammy drinking—but don’t rely on me for the details, because I was stuck on dogs don’t count. Dogs don’t count? What did that even mean? Poor Grammy. She wasn’t herself.

  But as Grammy downed the bottle of water, her usual self returned, sip by sip. I could actually smell the change happening, as though a fresh breeze was driving off a dust cloud. I went closer to her, and sat, my tail wagging back and forth across the cement floor in an encouraging way. I was waiting for her to say, “How ridiculous! Must have been out of my ever-lovin’ mind. Of course dogs count! Dogs count big-time! How about a treat?”

  None of that happened. Grammy did final
ly notice me. “What in heck do you want?”

  I tried to remember. Meanwhile, she gave me a quick scratch between the ears, right on the spot I just can’t reach. Grammy’s a surprisingly talented scratcher. We were good, Grammy and me.

  Lem came through the back door. What was this? He had another big wad of money in his hand?

  “Hey, boss,” he said. “Some problem?”

  Grammy rose. “Problem?”

  “From the way Birdie come runnin’ in and out, I thought—”

  “There’s no problem,” Grammy said. “What’s all that money?”

  “All yours,” said Lem. “Or property of the corporation, depending on how you do your books, like I said before. Happy to look over the books any time you like, by the way.”

  “Why would I want you to do that?”

  “I’m kind of an expert when it comes to doing the books,” Lem said. “Leastwise, I was taught by an expert.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “A former cell—uh, roommate—was what you might call a wheeler-dealer on Wall Street. I could tell you stories—there was one day when he owned every single pork chop west of the Mississippi.”

  Hold it right there. Which side of the Mississippi were we on, again? The Mississippi came up a lot in conversation, so I was pretty sure we were close. A river, wasn’t it? Like the bayou, except bigger? All at once, I came up with the most brilliant plan of my life. The first time I saw the Mississippi I’d sniff the air. If I caught a whiff of pork chops, I’d stay where I was. If not, I’d swim across. Wow! That was me? Life only got better.

  Meanwhile, Lem was balancing the wad of cash on the workbench. Grammy picked it up and counted it.

  “Whoa! What did you sell? Everything in the store?”

  “Heh, heh,” said Lem. “Not one single thing that’s in the store.”

  “Lem?” Grammy said. “Best not be telling me you’re up to no good.”

  “Me, boss? Those days—if they ever even happened for real, and I’m none too sure on account of … history. My own personal history having some blank spots, if you see my meaning.”